Thinking about the dialectic - if the synthesis is inevitable, then it is inextricably bound up in the thesis, thus the thesis makes the synthesis possible.
So the "fact" that, e.g. "all movies are good movies," makes possible the "fact" that Titanic was a bad movie. If it was not "true" that all films were good films, then it would not be "true" that Titanic is a bad film (see intro on Zizek).
Approaching it from another angle. Loose bellbottom pants became popular in the 1970s. In the 1980s, the reaction to this pants style was to wear tighter fitting jeans. We enter the early 1990s with Nirvana wearing tight fitting jeans. Nirvana was a 1980s style reaction to the 1970s and the 1980s. But because they came of the 1980s, they were still bound to the tight-fitting, 80s style reaction to the 1970s (had they worn loose fitting pants, they would be too complicit in the fashion style of the 1970s, which was part of what they were reacting against). Loose fitting jeans again emerged in the mid 1990s as a 1990s style reaction to the 1980s, distant enough from the 1970s so as to safely take some of their fashion sense. This style was embodied both by skater punks reacting to the pop hits of the 80s and by hip hop/gangsta rap groups, the pinnacles of popularity in the mid 90s. However, bound up closely to this jnco rebellion was the seeds of the skinny jeans reaction we see today. This was an ironic 1980s style reaction to the 1980s. Even in 1997 I saw 80s style tight jeans, 80s style faded shirts, etc. when it was supposed to be unpopular to emulate the 1980s. This is interesting, because when the 90s reaction to the 80s went full-blown, it became popular, so for those who reacted against the popular, the only option is to emulate it. And it indeed did remain unpopular until sometime in like 2003-4, when people like Ashton Kutcher brought it into the mainstream - they again made it popular to emulate the 1980s. So, since I'm so isolated from today's students I don't know, but I am suspecting a grassroots loose-jean reaction building, which should be coming out sometime in the mid 20-teens. This doesn't have to go by a strict decade schedule, as some waves may be for some reason bigger or more durable than others, but I suspect the pendulum will swing back to the other side. It will then of course be carrying with it an incipient tight-pants rebellion of some sort.
The point is, the succeeding rebellion (synthesis) is tied so closely to the antithesis and of course develops out of the seeds of the thesis. 1990s folks would not have taken up the jnco reaction had it not been for the bellbottoms of the 70s and the tight-fitting reaction of the 1980s.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Seeking a new ethics
My understanding of Zizek's critique of modern liberalism: setting up a framework for mere tolerance of the neighbor - defined as one with characteristics you find repugnant but are forced to endure by circumstance - as required by the modern liberalist framework [which endeavors to exclude violence and extremism as a solution], creates the situation of continuing to deny them basic rights (pushing them away, maintaining their stature of other). He is arguing that the Subject itself develops a toxicity, from which everyday people (i.e., you) have a right to resist in whatever fashion you can.
On the one hand, you have a feigned openness - here he compares saying "how are you," suddenly asking someone to declare their sexual orientation, and topless beaches. This is an openness that does not ask someone to reveal themselves in a personal way so as to move towards an understanding, but in fact represents a pushing away of the other. You aren't interested in getting to know them, but to mask your fear of them, you cover it with this openness which walks around the fringes of their being, and you then withdraw, satisfied that you've given them the opportunity to show their humanness and thus done your part in recognizing it.
Similarly, there is empathizing with their situation whilst retaining one's right to not be harassed. Here they retain their characteristic repugnant otherness. Urging of "tolerance", when coupled with the right not to be bothered, may be even worse because you feel like you're doing something, when the situation doesn't significantly change or it gets worse. Thus you are even less likely to lift a finger because you can say, I already did something (I recycle, I donate money to charity, I support this anti-war group). This leads to a minimal effort of recognition that can a) lead to tiny improvements, usually temporary, with no systemic change, or b) absent a real resistance, leave a vacuum for rightists to deny even basic human treatment. Then even if the vacuum doesn't emerge, allowing rightist violence groups to arise (as they are doing in Serbia and even traditionally moderate places like France, and to a lesser degree manifested in American Tea Parties), then still your priceless right not to be harassed leads to an acquiescence in the face of statist violence. So you don't mind if Mexicans come here, but you aren't going to tolerate their selling weed or mooching of welfare money, so you would prefer if the military was deployed on the border, and small town police drive around rounding them up for deportation. In other words, the danger is drawing this line that is not to be crossed: not threats to your personal livelihood or safety, but being annoyed with them (a reasonable racism). And the recourse is not dialogue or some sort of social intervention, but asking the state to intervene militarily. That is partly why liberalist tolerance (political correctness) isn't rejected by the state: it provides an opportunity to deploy the military and therefore strengthen control. It just must not go too far, as it almost did w/ the civil rights movement. Here is where propaganda systems step in to decaffeinate the movement. But at the same time, you're seeing a creeping police state, a creeping authoritarianism.
Next, there is a "psychologizing" of the other, an excessive but still shallow humanization of the other, wherein their despicable actions are excused on the basis that, they are a human just like me. One must be careful here, as this one can easily be manipulated to strip people of their humanness. Today a 17 year old kid was sentenced to, I dunno 20-40 years in jail because he encouraged a 12 year old to go rob an old woman as a gang initiation, and the woman, as a result of falling and suffering a heart attack, died 5 weeks later. Where should our "understanding" of his life and situation (and age) stop? Certainly we should hold him accountable, but is discarding of his "biography" to prevent empathy a good thing? The question is, when should we let our psychological empathizing lead us to overlook? On a similar note, the film Downfall was criticized on the basis that it "humanized" Hitler - actually Hitler was not a monster, or a demon, he was a human being. And we should be especially aware of humanity lurking behind the brutal. I was wondering yesterday where all these obscene creatures who comment on Yahoo articles are: they're in your backyard. And they're the same people who were waving flags at Nuremberg.
But when do we overlook, and when do we condemn? The danger in humanizing too quickly, we are apt to overlook their intentions, their programme, and see them as a person like us, just trying to get on. So must the question begin with an examination of the intentions of the other?
Where I'm stuck is, my recovery from alcohol abuse has made me acutely aware of the failings of the human organism lurking right around the corner. And I'm not sure where to draw the line between psychological empathizing and condemnation on an ethical basis.So we don't want a framework that creates this feigned openness or conditional acceptance which makes way for acquiescence to violence or authoritarianism. We don't want a tepid psychological identification that makes us too afraid to critique and revolt against others because they are just people like us, and again also helps the maniacs in power explain away their sick behavior by saying they're people like us. Of course we don't want a capitalist contractarianism in which ethical obligations are reduced to commodified agreements.
WHERE ARE WE GOING? Does the ethics lie in communism, psychedelic ethics, or taoism? Your challenge should be to elucidate these ethics and perhaps synthesize them.
On the one hand, you have a feigned openness - here he compares saying "how are you," suddenly asking someone to declare their sexual orientation, and topless beaches. This is an openness that does not ask someone to reveal themselves in a personal way so as to move towards an understanding, but in fact represents a pushing away of the other. You aren't interested in getting to know them, but to mask your fear of them, you cover it with this openness which walks around the fringes of their being, and you then withdraw, satisfied that you've given them the opportunity to show their humanness and thus done your part in recognizing it.
Similarly, there is empathizing with their situation whilst retaining one's right to not be harassed. Here they retain their characteristic repugnant otherness. Urging of "tolerance", when coupled with the right not to be bothered, may be even worse because you feel like you're doing something, when the situation doesn't significantly change or it gets worse. Thus you are even less likely to lift a finger because you can say, I already did something (I recycle, I donate money to charity, I support this anti-war group). This leads to a minimal effort of recognition that can a) lead to tiny improvements, usually temporary, with no systemic change, or b) absent a real resistance, leave a vacuum for rightists to deny even basic human treatment. Then even if the vacuum doesn't emerge, allowing rightist violence groups to arise (as they are doing in Serbia and even traditionally moderate places like France, and to a lesser degree manifested in American Tea Parties), then still your priceless right not to be harassed leads to an acquiescence in the face of statist violence. So you don't mind if Mexicans come here, but you aren't going to tolerate their selling weed or mooching of welfare money, so you would prefer if the military was deployed on the border, and small town police drive around rounding them up for deportation. In other words, the danger is drawing this line that is not to be crossed: not threats to your personal livelihood or safety, but being annoyed with them (a reasonable racism). And the recourse is not dialogue or some sort of social intervention, but asking the state to intervene militarily. That is partly why liberalist tolerance (political correctness) isn't rejected by the state: it provides an opportunity to deploy the military and therefore strengthen control. It just must not go too far, as it almost did w/ the civil rights movement. Here is where propaganda systems step in to decaffeinate the movement. But at the same time, you're seeing a creeping police state, a creeping authoritarianism.
Next, there is a "psychologizing" of the other, an excessive but still shallow humanization of the other, wherein their despicable actions are excused on the basis that, they are a human just like me. One must be careful here, as this one can easily be manipulated to strip people of their humanness. Today a 17 year old kid was sentenced to, I dunno 20-40 years in jail because he encouraged a 12 year old to go rob an old woman as a gang initiation, and the woman, as a result of falling and suffering a heart attack, died 5 weeks later. Where should our "understanding" of his life and situation (and age) stop? Certainly we should hold him accountable, but is discarding of his "biography" to prevent empathy a good thing? The question is, when should we let our psychological empathizing lead us to overlook? On a similar note, the film Downfall was criticized on the basis that it "humanized" Hitler - actually Hitler was not a monster, or a demon, he was a human being. And we should be especially aware of humanity lurking behind the brutal. I was wondering yesterday where all these obscene creatures who comment on Yahoo articles are: they're in your backyard. And they're the same people who were waving flags at Nuremberg.
But when do we overlook, and when do we condemn? The danger in humanizing too quickly, we are apt to overlook their intentions, their programme, and see them as a person like us, just trying to get on. So must the question begin with an examination of the intentions of the other?
Where I'm stuck is, my recovery from alcohol abuse has made me acutely aware of the failings of the human organism lurking right around the corner. And I'm not sure where to draw the line between psychological empathizing and condemnation on an ethical basis.So we don't want a framework that creates this feigned openness or conditional acceptance which makes way for acquiescence to violence or authoritarianism. We don't want a tepid psychological identification that makes us too afraid to critique and revolt against others because they are just people like us, and again also helps the maniacs in power explain away their sick behavior by saying they're people like us. Of course we don't want a capitalist contractarianism in which ethical obligations are reduced to commodified agreements.
WHERE ARE WE GOING? Does the ethics lie in communism, psychedelic ethics, or taoism? Your challenge should be to elucidate these ethics and perhaps synthesize them.
Monday, November 8, 2010
The Western God idea still stifling
In our haste to escape the oppressive disapprobation of the Western man-god and all he was associated with, we've left behind some useful ways of looking at the world:
a. Any aspects of the world as being "designed"
We do not want to admit any agency whatsoever to the development of existence, as the highest agency we can conceptualize right now is human agency, so that if there is some agency in the development of being, we put a human face on it. That human face is for us God, and that God has been assigned by the Western cultural imagination personality traits wholly distasteful to contemporary Western life.
So though some aspects of existence seem to be inconceivably set up to work towards an equilibrium, or lower entropy states, we want to see those phenomena as doing it themselves, because that is the only rational alternative to super-agentic intervention. The example I have in mind is ecosystems.
Speech is another example. Indeed it's sort of technology, shaped to be sure by human beings and existing as a sort of artifact. To McKenna speaking is "articulating syntax" or "organizing gestural intent." "The word burst forth, full-blown, based on a platform of gestural syntax that had been maybe millions of years in its formation." So "language" in the sense of speech was developed by people, but the technology of articulation seems to have "burst forth, full-blown," suddenly, with small degrees of human intent.
I'm not suggesting we necessarily see all phenomena through the lens of divine intent, i.e. "this is here because the divine wanted us to do X with it," but as part of a existential scheme that indeed has some sort of development or movement in mind that it is realizing through our consciousness and by the phenomenon of being.
b. Non-Relative Morality
That God figure was unfortunately not only the creator of everything, but was its moral moderator: the engineer, supervisor, and disciplinarian. The annoyance with God's control over the minutia as well as the critical points of our ethical selves led smoothly, after the discarding of the God idea, into ethical relativism. Now we are too afraid to reestablish a moral order because we don't want to be associated with the taxing God. I'm not suggesting the reinstitution of absolutist morality of course, where individualism is muted in favor of the dominating ethical culture, but we shouldn't be afraid to condemn unhelpful and unhealthy modes of being.
a. Any aspects of the world as being "designed"
We do not want to admit any agency whatsoever to the development of existence, as the highest agency we can conceptualize right now is human agency, so that if there is some agency in the development of being, we put a human face on it. That human face is for us God, and that God has been assigned by the Western cultural imagination personality traits wholly distasteful to contemporary Western life.
So though some aspects of existence seem to be inconceivably set up to work towards an equilibrium, or lower entropy states, we want to see those phenomena as doing it themselves, because that is the only rational alternative to super-agentic intervention. The example I have in mind is ecosystems.
Speech is another example. Indeed it's sort of technology, shaped to be sure by human beings and existing as a sort of artifact. To McKenna speaking is "articulating syntax" or "organizing gestural intent." "The word burst forth, full-blown, based on a platform of gestural syntax that had been maybe millions of years in its formation." So "language" in the sense of speech was developed by people, but the technology of articulation seems to have "burst forth, full-blown," suddenly, with small degrees of human intent.
I'm not suggesting we necessarily see all phenomena through the lens of divine intent, i.e. "this is here because the divine wanted us to do X with it," but as part of a existential scheme that indeed has some sort of development or movement in mind that it is realizing through our consciousness and by the phenomenon of being.
b. Non-Relative Morality
That God figure was unfortunately not only the creator of everything, but was its moral moderator: the engineer, supervisor, and disciplinarian. The annoyance with God's control over the minutia as well as the critical points of our ethical selves led smoothly, after the discarding of the God idea, into ethical relativism. Now we are too afraid to reestablish a moral order because we don't want to be associated with the taxing God. I'm not suggesting the reinstitution of absolutist morality of course, where individualism is muted in favor of the dominating ethical culture, but we shouldn't be afraid to condemn unhelpful and unhealthy modes of being.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Zizek: Living in the End Times
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw8LPn4irao
"images are the true reality today...if we discard the images, nothing remains; just some pure abstraction."
Responding to allegations that the current economic collapse is owing to failure to let capitalism flourish - i.e. state intervention awarded those who should have failed, saved them, and enabled them to compete with those who were "smart" or "able" enough to last without state intervention. This action was, according to the speaker, like socialism.
"images are the true reality today...if we discard the images, nothing remains; just some pure abstraction."
Responding to allegations that the current economic collapse is owing to failure to let capitalism flourish - i.e. state intervention awarded those who should have failed, saved them, and enabled them to compete with those who were "smart" or "able" enough to last without state intervention. This action was, according to the speaker, like socialism.
Zizek: This is precisely how communists behind the Iron Curtain responded to failures of communism. The communism was not "pure enough". This is the fundamentalist answer. Blame not the system but rather how we were not faithful enough to the fundamentals of the system.Pressure to make massive amounts of money overrides ethical practice. A small bank cannot resist the urge to make bad loans.
Zizek: It's not a crisis of our ethical values, but the global capitalist system urges violation of basic ethical rules.Perhaps it's not a personal corruption (Madoff) but he is being pushed by the system!Making money replicates the same reward process as taking a drug.
Zizek: Let's not appraoch capitalism as a psychological problem - we aren't trying to rid addiction to money, but see how this attitude is generated by "an objective social system" part of which are such attitudes.On nature:
Let's compare canned laughter, where laughter is part of the soundtrack. In the experience of watching a television sitcom, you don't even have to laugh - the television laughs for you. But after the experience, even if you (personally) have not laughed, you feel "relieved, as if I have laughed." It's a psychological discharged, objectivized.
Staying in these coordinates, the most we can do is charity. But it's part of the logic of the system - it depoliticizes the problems. Through charity, capitalism can redeem itself; be itself the medicine to the evil it causes. It becomes the panacea over, e.g. new social systems. That's disgusting, but a crucial ideological phenomenon.
Zizek: Humanity is no longer one among the living species, but is literally becoming a geological factor.Afghanistan: Americans have no interest for the country. But now not only the Taliban but others are wondering wtf these Western troops are doing here, busting into homes and roughing people up? This is the Russians again! You need to tell the Afghans what you're doing and when you're leaving, not "we're looking for al-qaeda." Al-qaeda is not in Afghanistan anymore.
We should accept that nature doesn't exist; i.e. the image of nature as a balanced, harmonized circulation destroyed through excessive human agency. Nature is in itself a series of mega-catastrophes.
1. We should accept our full alienation from nature. Science & technology, though causing problems, are the only solution (better than going "back to nature"). We are already within technology. We should remain open and patiently work. How?
2. With much stronger social discipline. Maybe a consequence of ecological crisis will be that the American way of life (free spending, individualist liberty) is wrong and we will have to invent a new mode of living together as humans, with more solidarity, togetherness and social discipline.
Zizek: Yes, Afghanistan is the symptom of what is wrong with US politics. But it is perceived as the ultimate fundamentalist country, but remember 40 years ago, the same country was probably the most tolerant and secular of all Muslim Near East states. Pro-West modernising, a strong communist party, but through getting caught in global politics (Cold War) that Afghanistan became fundamentalist. Today's fundamentalism is not a dark remainder of the past but generated as part of the global process,OK America went there to fight their enemy, but far from demonstrating their power, they've revealed their impotence. They took on a small defenseless country bc they can't attack Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, where al-qaeda really is, as they are their allies.Religion and human rights:
The real problem in Afghanistan is that with the corruption of the existing Afghani puppet regime, if US withdrew the Taliban will take over, which is a fiasco the US can't afford.
Zizek: All religions are basically opportunistic in the sense that God, or whoever wrote the texts, writes contradictions - "don't kill, but as Jesus said, if you don't have a sword, sell your clothes to buy a sword"Should we stay or leave Afghanistan?
The problem is not this fundamentalist terror grounded in Islam. It's a contemporary phenomenon so the stories about big democratic potenital in Islam are true but the same goes for practically every religion. But we shouldn't look for democratic potential in religion but elsewhere. e.g. in the people, authentic explosion as in Iran.
Zizek: The solution is not to quickly simply leave. You've turned it into a more fundamentalist country than it ever was, then leave? That's worse.So you're a communist? Let's take a look back at the weird servility of 20th century Communist Party by seeing a clip of Romanians obsessing over Ceausescu.
If nothing else, after all the US did there, ruining the whole place, it's too easy just to simply leave.
Today's left is offering this option just to get easy morality, clear conscience. This is actually a revelation of lack of ideas.
Zizek: Of course there is no realistic prospect for this to return. The story of 20th c. communism is over.Can democracies find a way to tackle the issues that need to be tackled for long-term prosperity for countries? If not, and democracies fail, you're discrediting democracy as a system. This is already happening with declining voter rolls, declining voter participation, declining support for mainstream political parties.
How to prevent this from returning? Remember that this is returning in contemporary China, which is actually a more efficient capitalism than capitalism itself. So we should worry about Western models actually adopting this.
Only the radical left can provide a good theory of what went wrong with communism. The 20th c. left in all versions (state socialism, social democracy, self-managmeent, local self organization) is over. The left will have to begin from the beginning.
Zizek:Liberal democracy as we know it (as an element of global capitalism) is in a crisis and will become more and more in a crisis.The "right wing" takes over the vocabulary of "left intellectuals" and seems to be "infinitely better" as using it against "the opponent," i.e. the left.
Fukuyamist terms: His point was that with the rise of the latter, a certain social and political form remained at the only realistic option. It is as if today's left is now dreaming of "global capitalism with a human face." Ask this: can we step out of capitalism? Can we imagine a society not organized by state mechanisms? instead of thinking about how to introduce new laws, make societies more tolerant, more health care, help minorities within the system.
Zizek: There's truth here. The central event in the political process is that till 3 decades ago, one of the key tactics of leftists: the mass mobilization of civil society (e.g. for struggle against racism, women's rights, etc.) is now more and more integrated into the right wing populist "rebellions." And this is worrisome part of process where the left limited itself to cultural topics (gay, women, ecology) leaving all this appeal, even class appeal to right wingers. The danger for democracy is that there's a new shift: the basic formula of politics was 2 big popular parties (aiming at entire body) - center left (liberal sociaql democratic) and center right (Christian conservative). SD is disappearing and the new dualism is centrist (depending on circumstance) technocratic liberal capitalist party and the right wing populist reaction to it. The reason this is dangerous is we obviously live in discontent with liberalism, but who will articulate this discontent? Unfortunately the only channel for more radical forms of discontent is the right wing populism.Berlusconi?
Zizek: He's an option for future: the neutral technocratic liberalist party. Maybe he'll combine that with the populist. Capitalism with Italian values: Berlusconi is not only representative of politics as empty spectacle/depoliticization of politics - political debate proper disappears and what's left is expert/spectacle/corrupt economic measures. It is a self-destruction of minimal dignity of state authority, and this is not a joke. It's as if the state is discovering that it can function in a totally cynical way (making ajoke of itself) but this shouldn't blind us of the other side: Italy has been in "emergency state" for a year and a half, rendering the government able to deploy military and use it. And people have accepted it. It's not old authoritarianism where all of a sudden you awake one morning and a voice tells you all the freedoms are suspended. Small individual freedoms are left to us! Perverse sex, consumerism, life as a spectacle BUT the new (Groucho Marx) authoritarian state lingers.The core problem is we are emerging as subjects deprived of our symbolic substance. We should redefine proletarian communism.
Zizek: We aren't looking to achieve an old state socialism. We are confronting problems which concern our commons (hence keeping the term communism): only some kind of popular mobilization outside state and outside the market can do the job. Who will voice the discontent at liberalism? We can't leave it to right wing populists. My message to liberals: Are you aware that the dynamic of your own system is generating this reaction? The only way to save what's worth saving in liberalism (freedoms,solidarity, etc.) will be saved only through revitalized, more radical left. The future will be fight to the utmost.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Terence quotes
"So the thing that I thought would be interesting to unpack a little this evening is what I call “the balkanization of epistemology” — or what [McKenna's son] calls simply the “curse of relativism.” This is the idea that you can’t tell what’s going on anyway, so no matter how squirrelly what you think, it’s no squirrellier or no less squirrelly than what anybody else thinks. All ideas are somehow on this even footing, including ideas that have taken hundreds of years and the talent of thousands of people to put together, and something somebody just channeled in from Francis Bacon, who’s living under Catalina Island in a state of suspended animation with a troupe of Atlantean engineers who are uploading human fetal tissue to who-knows-where.- this came from somewhere online, abrupt something
"This balkanization of epistemology: it’s sort of like, if you believed in economic theory, thinking that it would be a good idea if everybody printed their own money. And then to the degree that you had vigor for the use of your printing press, you could run off more and more copies of whatever meme you had invested in, and I suppose these things would compete. In your imagination they would compete — but anybody who’s studied economics for ten minutes can tell you there’s something called Gresham’s Law, which is that “bad money drives out good money.” And I think it’s even more true with ideology. Squirrelly ideas drive out ideas of depth and substance. There’s a kind of danger of being gently — without quite noticing what’s going on — ushered into a world of increasingly more cartoonlike ontological and epistemological fantasies about what’s going on, or what’s partially going on.
"The plants seem to be the things that shake us out of these cultural conventions. We have this very bad habit of - when we encounter a new experience, we describe it; and as we describe it, we erase its reality, and replace it with a map. And foreverafter, when we encounter that input, we access the map and overlay it over the thing and say, "Ah, I know what this is." And so by the time a child is 5 years old, they have completely entered into a symbolic construct which hides the real world from them, and fortunately these plant teachers seem to have the unique ability of showing you the relativity of language, which, for us, is the relativity of being. And then, you're freed because you have seen something incontrovertible - there's no going back, then. That is the first great gateway on the path: to realize the relativity of language and the malleability of the world....This came from a 10/2010 psychedelic salon (plants talk)
"Coming out into the desert is typical of people seeking visions. The first thing you have to do is leave the polis. Culture is this effort to hold back the mystery, and replace it with a mythology, which is then in the control of those who recite that mythology, whether they be shamans or priests."
Dumping relativism
I suppose I'm embarrassingly late on the intellectual and philosophical bandwagon, but I'm finally starting to see the ills of acquiescent liberal relativism. Of course this could easily be a preface to a xenophobic, nationalistic, racist rant, but it's not.
Relativism is quite alluring. I guess I'm talking cultural relativism, but that often translates into a moral relativism. But selecting a relativistic rather than a pluralistic approach is tempting to us American white middle classers who feel guilty about being American, white, and middle class. So we actually do reject many of those systems' values, but instead of moving towards a new value system, we just say "all values are equal."
(Contemporary radical leftism is partly guilty of imbuing us with this new value system; although most of the thinkers seem truly principled, the sympathy for our victims and eagerness to take their side comes sometimes close to overlooking their transgressions).
I think the contemporary liberal sympathy for Islam (e.g. putting footbaths in American airports) is less a true pluralistic or relativistic activism and more an overcompensation for our guilt for murdering thousands of their people. Thus we are faced with the choice of hating America and hating the East, or hating America and supporting the East. What a simplistic analysis, but I'll let it stand.
My renewed interest in dumping relativism has been a long time coming. I've been ethically passive for far too long, and I don't plan on becoming an activist anytime soon but relativism is not really a good solution. I agree with Arthur Schlesinger that belief in absolutes is a far greater threat and far more damaging than relativism, but a pluralistic perspective can tread a nice middle ground - making strong ethical assertions without refusing to hear the Other.
This thinking was provoked the last 2 days with a couple points I heard lately from Zizek and McKenna.
The McKenna point:
And Zizek:
Zizek too gives permission to reject the views of others. For him, as for McKenna I imagine, firmly adopting a countercultural ethics is an absolute necessity to avert catastrophe (though the vehicles for the adoption of new views are likely to differ).
The problem is that acquiescence leaves a vacuum which may be filled by bad ideas or pernicious foolishness or by racist right wing groups.
I guess the idea is, consider your freedom to reject the view of the Other, but of course only after fair dialogue and reasoned contemplation. You do not have to kowtow in the favor of sensitivity. You should try to be respectful and keep your integrity, but rejection of an idea is OK! What will be tough is to square wu-wei with passioned disagreement. I have a feeling that, in practice, intervention in the favor of the good will be easier than it seems. That is, it should flow as part of an interaction, and not a strained intervention.
Relativism is quite alluring. I guess I'm talking cultural relativism, but that often translates into a moral relativism. But selecting a relativistic rather than a pluralistic approach is tempting to us American white middle classers who feel guilty about being American, white, and middle class. So we actually do reject many of those systems' values, but instead of moving towards a new value system, we just say "all values are equal."
(Contemporary radical leftism is partly guilty of imbuing us with this new value system; although most of the thinkers seem truly principled, the sympathy for our victims and eagerness to take their side comes sometimes close to overlooking their transgressions).
I think the contemporary liberal sympathy for Islam (e.g. putting footbaths in American airports) is less a true pluralistic or relativistic activism and more an overcompensation for our guilt for murdering thousands of their people. Thus we are faced with the choice of hating America and hating the East, or hating America and supporting the East. What a simplistic analysis, but I'll let it stand.
My renewed interest in dumping relativism has been a long time coming. I've been ethically passive for far too long, and I don't plan on becoming an activist anytime soon but relativism is not really a good solution. I agree with Arthur Schlesinger that belief in absolutes is a far greater threat and far more damaging than relativism, but a pluralistic perspective can tread a nice middle ground - making strong ethical assertions without refusing to hear the Other.
This thinking was provoked the last 2 days with a couple points I heard lately from Zizek and McKenna.
The McKenna point:
"The failure to teach mathematics, in practical, social, and political terms, boils down to a failure to teach logic and discriminating understanding. The great evil, in my humble opinion, which haunts our enterprise...that has been allowed to flourish in the absence of mathematical understanding is relativism. And what is relativism? It's the idea that there is no distinction between shit and shinola. That all ideas are somehow operating on equal footing. So one person is a chaos theorist, another is a follower of the revelations of this or that new age guru, someone else is channeling information from the Pleides, and we have been taught that political correctness demands that we treat all these things with equal weight...
"The enemy that will really subvert the enterprise of building a world based on clarity, is the belief that we cannot point out pernicious forms of idiocy that flourish in our own community. And this problem is growing worse all the time...
"We have tolerated too many loose heads in our community [the psychedelic/shaman community I think]. We are not willing to take on the karma involved in argument and discourse that actually gores somebody's ox...
"We have perfected politeness. We have perfected the ability to listen to damn foolishness without betraying by so much as a flick of an eyebrow that we realize what we're in the presence of. Now I think it's time to refine our mathematical skills, learn to think straight, and not be afraid to denounce the pernicious forms of foolishness which are vitiating the energies of our community and making us appear marginal and absurd in the discourse about truly transforming society."
And Zizek:
(in his Guardian article):
"There is now one predominant centrist party that stands for global capitalism, usually with a liberal cultural agenda (for example, tolerance towards abortion, gay rights, religious and ethnic minorities). Opposing this party is an increasingly strong anti-immigrant populist party which, on its fringes, is accompanied by overtly racist neofascist groups...[T]he main parties now find it acceptable to stress that immigrants are guests who have to accommodate themselves to the cultural values that define the host society...Progressive liberals are, of course, horrified by such populist racism. However, a closer look reveals how their multicultural tolerance and respect of differences share with those who oppose immigration the need to keep others at a proper distance...After righteously rejecting direct populist racism as "unreasonable" and unacceptable for our democratic standards, they endorse "reasonably" racist protective measures...This vision of the detoxification of one's neighbour suggests a clear passage from direct barbarism to barbarism with a human face."
(and on Democracy Now):McKenna's remarks imply that one should take a principled stand, or at least educate oneself as a defense against the preponderance of inaccurate (wrong) thought memes. As a Platonist, McKenna would I think be just fine with assailing innaccurate or destructive beliefs in favor of the proclamation of what's good, true and beautiful.
"I think there is a failure in this standard, liberal, multicultural vision, which means every ethnic group, whatever, to itself, all we need is a neutral legal framework guaranteeing the coexistence of groups. Sorry if I shock someone, but I think we do need what Germans call Leitkultur, leading culture. Just it shouldn’t be nationally defined. We should fight for that. Yes, I agree with right-wingers. We need a set of values accepted by all. But what will these values be, my god? We neglected this a little bit. You know that it’s not just this abstract liberal model: you have your world, I have my world, we just need a neutral legal network—how we will politely ignore each other...[I]t’s absolutely crucial how this anti-immigrant explosion is linked to the withdrawal of leftist politics, especially in the matters of economy and so on. It is as if the left, being obsessed by the idea that we shouldn’t appear as reactionary in the economic sense, that is to say that "No, no, no, we are not the old trade union representatives of the working class, we are for postmodern digital capitalism" and so on. They don’t want to touch the working class or so-called lower ordinary people. And here right-wingers enter."
Zizek too gives permission to reject the views of others. For him, as for McKenna I imagine, firmly adopting a countercultural ethics is an absolute necessity to avert catastrophe (though the vehicles for the adoption of new views are likely to differ).
The problem is that acquiescence leaves a vacuum which may be filled by bad ideas or pernicious foolishness or by racist right wing groups.
I guess the idea is, consider your freedom to reject the view of the Other, but of course only after fair dialogue and reasoned contemplation. You do not have to kowtow in the favor of sensitivity. You should try to be respectful and keep your integrity, but rejection of an idea is OK! What will be tough is to square wu-wei with passioned disagreement. I have a feeling that, in practice, intervention in the favor of the good will be easier than it seems. That is, it should flow as part of an interaction, and not a strained intervention.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Some of my favorite fiction read lately
Looks like in large part individuals rebelling in some way against society huh?
- Lost Weekend
- John Barleycorn
- Frozen Woman
- Time Must Have a Stop
- Lost Weekend
- John Barleycorn
- Frozen Woman
- Time Must Have a Stop
Couple things
1. Why would an egalitarian society breed discontent? The problem in conservatism is entitlement and refusal to bend one's way of life for the good of the community. Therefore if a leader calls for sacrifice from a member in order to contribute to the community (taxes, e.g.) then that member will rebel on the basis that he disagrees with his individual freedoms being violated. A system that promotes individual freedom over the public/communal good will breed this race of individuals who is resolutely opposed to individual sacrifice over the public good; or, they have their own conception of public (I don't want my tax money funding abortions or going to any gay groups, but I will support my money going to the military or to anti-immigration groups) that is opposed to the leader's conception of public. So even the most egalitarian society will have to ask someone to make a sacrifice of some sort, and that sacrifice will go to benefit "others" and those others may be people he does not want to see benefit, especially at his expense. Thus we see the germs of discontent. And I'm mostly looking at this from a leftist point of view (considering the working class people recruited by the military in Z, or the recent anti-gay, anti-integration uprisings in Serbia) as it is the conservative-minded who conceptualize themselves more rigidly as cohesive groups unwilling to compromise. We need a good definition of communal good that excludes racists and terrorists, i.e. that does not recognize their rights! We can of course use Habermasian discourse, or participatory exercizes emphasizing common values and mutual responsibilities. I would say that the germs of discontent from people who want to oppose communitarian good are valid only if the way of life that is being denied to them is not "harmful" to others, a metric that I cannot define right now.
2. What about the information seeking habits of the mystically minded? This is a massive group, and I'm defining it broadly to include Christians seeking to hear the voice of God, psychedelic people seeking to take trips, Buddhists deep in meditation to erode the conception of self, new agers holding a seance to contact the dead, and so on. In our discussion yesterday, we talked about outlying information-seeking habits: pornography, piracy, hacking, drug users - as these are all counterculture, they are wrought with slightly more risk. Mysticism too is often counterculture - people seeking a mindstate that is at union with the divine or at least alternative consciousnesses. What does this "group" do to search for information? What sources do they seek?
2. What about the information seeking habits of the mystically minded? This is a massive group, and I'm defining it broadly to include Christians seeking to hear the voice of God, psychedelic people seeking to take trips, Buddhists deep in meditation to erode the conception of self, new agers holding a seance to contact the dead, and so on. In our discussion yesterday, we talked about outlying information-seeking habits: pornography, piracy, hacking, drug users - as these are all counterculture, they are wrought with slightly more risk. Mysticism too is often counterculture - people seeking a mindstate that is at union with the divine or at least alternative consciousnesses. What does this "group" do to search for information? What sources do they seek?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
What are we liberated to?
Ram Dass shares a story in which he has his wild, boundary dissolving trip and returns home to his parents as the snow is piling up on the ground outside. In a fit of elation, giving, and high spirits, he starts to shovel the walkway, picturing himself as a sort of keeper of the community. His parents wake up and look out the window at him not with pride, but as if he is some sort of bizarre animal: "What kind of idiot would be shoveling the snow in freezing temperatures in the middle of the night?" As he notices their cluelessness and puzzelement at an activity that is well without their expectations of "normal social behavior," he realizes that it is their voices that have been clammering and cluttered in his brain, that pushed him into his PhD program, that cause him to contiually shape his own action, that condition his actions. He vows to thenceforth be en garde, as he has found an unconditioned self beyond the voices of his parents.
And, indeed, we are simply flooded with a barrage of voices, even more so today. Perhaps that is one of the main problems of information overstimulation: it adds even more admonitions, advice, warnings, condemnations to the arsenal of voices that we allow to condition our behavior. Alan Watts finds that if we look at what the "ego" is and what it is telling us to do, we will simply find voices upon voices of society (i.e. others) talking to us. Indeed, "l'enfer est les autres."
This is not to say that under it all, there is a kernel of "true self" or a homonculus, as it were. Quite contrarily, we will find naught but a process of existence. There is such thing as an individual, an atman, but it is not a pure thing. It is an ongoing mixture of others and the phenomenological awareness of other. What of those who are genetically predisposed towards antisocial and even sociopathic behavior, but grow up in an environment that nurtures their more positive characteristics?
Anyway, the goal seems to be also not to wipe away these voices - polish them clean off the surface of the brain so as to be left with an unbiased man. Man will always be that mixture, just as the question of whether I'd be different if I lived in the Old West is as meaningless as the question of whether I'd be different if I lived in Lord of the Rings.
So the goal is to first be aware THAT the ego is naught but the voice of others (that voice can even be experiences or substances - I can say that the spirit of alcohol has embodied one of these voices in my own mind). The second step is to be acutely aware of what they are saying. The trick is to notice that it is merely a voice, and not onesself guiding one towards particular actions. That is, don't get it mixed up as the "true self" speaking to you. If there is no true self, there is especially no voice with which it speaks to you and guides you.
If there is no true self, then how can one act liberated from social conditioning?
What of analysis and analytical thought? It is easy to say that when one jumps out of the path of a moving bus, he does so without analysis, but what of the person who deliberates over whether to mow the lawn tonight or tomorrow and selects one of the two options. Are we supposed to constantly act spontaneously? Is that even possible?
What of intuition? These voices warn and admonish strongly, and are accompanied by nonanalytical feelings and emotions.
I guess the point is obviously not paralysis, nor is it unbridled spontaneousness. I think one has to act based on impulses that point towards the latter.
So, if you're implying that the more analysis there is, the more "other" will enter the picture to the detriment of impulse, and the worse the actions will be? Or the worse off the subject will be (more anxiety, self-doubt, etc.). If this is the case there is no basis for philosophical ethics, as one would work very hard to create for himself a set of moral values and ethical guidelines, but be required to resort to his intuition in difficult situations.
It's not necessarily analytical thought that is the enemy, but grasping at the wrong things. It is here I drop relativism, and become a social critic. Most of what society constructs for us will work against our realizing that life is merely a ride or an illusion, and has us taking it very seriously as a problem, as we are alien chess pieces facing each other with all of these rules that make the game so much harder. If we can find a mode of being that is not concerned with taking these social roles so seriously, and instead of moving with life effortlessly, with whatever it brings, we will bring more peace and understanding and joy to ourselves and to others, and the world will be a better place for it. This is why conservatism is inherently bad, because it takes as one of its principles the idea that there is such a thing as "the other" or "them" and the system should be devoted to protecting and promoting "us." Us is, after all, inherently better than them, regardless of the abhorrent behavior or unethical consequences of our actions.
{What if I grasp the principle of ahimsa?}
And, indeed, we are simply flooded with a barrage of voices, even more so today. Perhaps that is one of the main problems of information overstimulation: it adds even more admonitions, advice, warnings, condemnations to the arsenal of voices that we allow to condition our behavior. Alan Watts finds that if we look at what the "ego" is and what it is telling us to do, we will simply find voices upon voices of society (i.e. others) talking to us. Indeed, "l'enfer est les autres."
This is not to say that under it all, there is a kernel of "true self" or a homonculus, as it were. Quite contrarily, we will find naught but a process of existence. There is such thing as an individual, an atman, but it is not a pure thing. It is an ongoing mixture of others and the phenomenological awareness of other. What of those who are genetically predisposed towards antisocial and even sociopathic behavior, but grow up in an environment that nurtures their more positive characteristics?
Anyway, the goal seems to be also not to wipe away these voices - polish them clean off the surface of the brain so as to be left with an unbiased man. Man will always be that mixture, just as the question of whether I'd be different if I lived in the Old West is as meaningless as the question of whether I'd be different if I lived in Lord of the Rings.
So the goal is to first be aware THAT the ego is naught but the voice of others (that voice can even be experiences or substances - I can say that the spirit of alcohol has embodied one of these voices in my own mind). The second step is to be acutely aware of what they are saying. The trick is to notice that it is merely a voice, and not onesself guiding one towards particular actions. That is, don't get it mixed up as the "true self" speaking to you. If there is no true self, there is especially no voice with which it speaks to you and guides you.
If there is no true self, then how can one act liberated from social conditioning?
What of analysis and analytical thought? It is easy to say that when one jumps out of the path of a moving bus, he does so without analysis, but what of the person who deliberates over whether to mow the lawn tonight or tomorrow and selects one of the two options. Are we supposed to constantly act spontaneously? Is that even possible?
What of intuition? These voices warn and admonish strongly, and are accompanied by nonanalytical feelings and emotions.
I guess the point is obviously not paralysis, nor is it unbridled spontaneousness. I think one has to act based on impulses that point towards the latter.
So, if you're implying that the more analysis there is, the more "other" will enter the picture to the detriment of impulse, and the worse the actions will be? Or the worse off the subject will be (more anxiety, self-doubt, etc.). If this is the case there is no basis for philosophical ethics, as one would work very hard to create for himself a set of moral values and ethical guidelines, but be required to resort to his intuition in difficult situations.
It's not necessarily analytical thought that is the enemy, but grasping at the wrong things. It is here I drop relativism, and become a social critic. Most of what society constructs for us will work against our realizing that life is merely a ride or an illusion, and has us taking it very seriously as a problem, as we are alien chess pieces facing each other with all of these rules that make the game so much harder. If we can find a mode of being that is not concerned with taking these social roles so seriously, and instead of moving with life effortlessly, with whatever it brings, we will bring more peace and understanding and joy to ourselves and to others, and the world will be a better place for it. This is why conservatism is inherently bad, because it takes as one of its principles the idea that there is such a thing as "the other" or "them" and the system should be devoted to protecting and promoting "us." Us is, after all, inherently better than them, regardless of the abhorrent behavior or unethical consequences of our actions.
{What if I grasp the principle of ahimsa?}
RamDass/Terence McKenna
We once knew everything we needed to know - we're after lost, not new knowledge.
Thus the artifacts of that rather than this period are valued.
Most of 20th c. is unconsciously driven by fascination of the archaic
- Impressionism deconstrcuts the hard edge of realism and gives you feeling tone
- Freud and Jung described different aspects of unconscious, Freud repressed sexual imaginings, Jung folktale and mythology
- Dadaists and surrealists break up linear expectations of bourgeois mind
- Pollack, throw the image out
- Psychedelic communities fo 60s - rock and boundary dissolving
So by random walk, were finding way to tribalism, shamanism: A WORLD MADE OF MIND RATHER THAN STUFF.
There is a trancendental dimension beyond language. If you live in it and talk from there, the forms it manifests in are nothing more or less than that.
Thus the artifacts of that rather than this period are valued.
Most of 20th c. is unconsciously driven by fascination of the archaic
- Impressionism deconstrcuts the hard edge of realism and gives you feeling tone
- Freud and Jung described different aspects of unconscious, Freud repressed sexual imaginings, Jung folktale and mythology
- Dadaists and surrealists break up linear expectations of bourgeois mind
- Pollack, throw the image out
- Psychedelic communities fo 60s - rock and boundary dissolving
So by random walk, were finding way to tribalism, shamanism: A WORLD MADE OF MIND RATHER THAN STUFF.
There is a trancendental dimension beyond language. If you live in it and talk from there, the forms it manifests in are nothing more or less than that.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Hakim Bey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3HyRtdu1o0
Our third-place communities - no social life in America - neither family nor work - 19th c. 3rd places were legion - communes and intentional communities more elaborated than today's, but also fraternal and sororal (Freemasons, Elks, athaneums in every town) why? BECAUSE THERE WAS NO TELEVISION - that was THEIR ENTERTAINMENT. These were intentional acts; society is structured to reproduce itself. 1989: there is something "natural" about communities & whatever it was, its not important and can be replaced by technology anyway. Today's an exaggerated caricature of these ideas.
Positive aspects far outweigh negative. Over half of Americans are on antidepressants? Besides medicalization of sadness, people are genuinely depressed and they don't know why - all they have is "family of divorce" and their jobs, their wage slave situation.
A dialectic of resistance is only possible through intentional community. We need to disengage from the techno-pathocracy - "dropping out", cf. Anabaptists (Amish live in community bc they refuse certain aspects of technology to preserve physical aspects of community - e.g. telephones draw people apart, cars make people live far from each other)
What can rational secular types find as a substitute for the level of religious fanaticism that allows you to forgo the advantages of civilization and progress to have something you find to be more valuable but much more difficult?
...
Primitive societies were organized against hierarchy dangers (Society against the state : essays in political anthropology. and Archaeology of violence)
We can have technology (teche) if it's appropriate.
There are systems that are not as destructive as (Babylonian) agriculture.
Luddites: machinery hurtful to the commonality (the commons) is the machinery they wanted to smash; not all (they had hand looms - they werent smashing those, but the mechanical ones that took their jobs away and destroyed their society) - A green Luddite anarchist horticulturist - intelligent domestication we are not lords of creation but collaborators with nature. Real communities that are not starving to death that have somewhat solved the problem of wealth, by failing to join modern society and embrace modern technology - they're too poor to buy trucks or TVs and still use carts and horse drawn plows and have therefore preserved their community - they are still together (but of course aren't pure or innocent - this is a more nuanced reading of the past. you have permission not to be oppressed by neocons who say all these ideas are hippie bullshit (humans have always struggled, are not good, must be controlled) - youth should pull out of cyber-daze and begin to resist again.
Charles Fourier - criticism of agriculture, agriculture as helpful to rulers, we should revert to horticulture and agricultural goods should be treats (grains every once nad awhile) - emphasis on fruit and orchard based horticulture. It's not the domestication of plants that is the problem (but from social freedoms POV its a step down from picking) but its the hierarchy that is necessary to do it on a large scale and to reproduce a society based on virtual slavery of most of its inhabitants. If you have that kind of economy, you can't escape the horrors of civilization.
Our third-place communities - no social life in America - neither family nor work - 19th c. 3rd places were legion - communes and intentional communities more elaborated than today's, but also fraternal and sororal (Freemasons, Elks, athaneums in every town) why? BECAUSE THERE WAS NO TELEVISION - that was THEIR ENTERTAINMENT. These were intentional acts; society is structured to reproduce itself. 1989: there is something "natural" about communities & whatever it was, its not important and can be replaced by technology anyway. Today's an exaggerated caricature of these ideas.
Positive aspects far outweigh negative. Over half of Americans are on antidepressants? Besides medicalization of sadness, people are genuinely depressed and they don't know why - all they have is "family of divorce" and their jobs, their wage slave situation.
A dialectic of resistance is only possible through intentional community. We need to disengage from the techno-pathocracy - "dropping out", cf. Anabaptists (Amish live in community bc they refuse certain aspects of technology to preserve physical aspects of community - e.g. telephones draw people apart, cars make people live far from each other)
What can rational secular types find as a substitute for the level of religious fanaticism that allows you to forgo the advantages of civilization and progress to have something you find to be more valuable but much more difficult?
...
Primitive societies were organized against hierarchy dangers (Society against the state : essays in political anthropology. and Archaeology of violence)
We can have technology (teche) if it's appropriate.
There are systems that are not as destructive as (Babylonian) agriculture.
Luddites: machinery hurtful to the commonality (the commons) is the machinery they wanted to smash; not all (they had hand looms - they werent smashing those, but the mechanical ones that took their jobs away and destroyed their society) - A green Luddite anarchist horticulturist - intelligent domestication we are not lords of creation but collaborators with nature. Real communities that are not starving to death that have somewhat solved the problem of wealth, by failing to join modern society and embrace modern technology - they're too poor to buy trucks or TVs and still use carts and horse drawn plows and have therefore preserved their community - they are still together (but of course aren't pure or innocent - this is a more nuanced reading of the past. you have permission not to be oppressed by neocons who say all these ideas are hippie bullshit (humans have always struggled, are not good, must be controlled) - youth should pull out of cyber-daze and begin to resist again.
Charles Fourier - criticism of agriculture, agriculture as helpful to rulers, we should revert to horticulture and agricultural goods should be treats (grains every once nad awhile) - emphasis on fruit and orchard based horticulture. It's not the domestication of plants that is the problem (but from social freedoms POV its a step down from picking) but its the hierarchy that is necessary to do it on a large scale and to reproduce a society based on virtual slavery of most of its inhabitants. If you have that kind of economy, you can't escape the horrors of civilization.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
What's it all about
I think the idea is fairly simple: we prefer a painted picture to a blank sheet of paper. When in the mood for music, we prefer a musical composition to silence. And so on. So that the divine has limited itself and severely diluted itself into the components of this universe because "something" is more interesting than "nothing." The limitation is critical so that the divine can explore its self without being bored - without always knowing what's around the next bend.
What are the implications for regular life? Regular life is full of suffering and instability. Why not create a perfectly stable situation? Actually an omniscient God would easily impose stability on an unstable system. But that would ruin the game. It would be like taking back your last move in chess after you see that it puts you in a rather dangerous check. So that we are fighting a continual battle against instability as a condition to staying lost (i.e. not realizing that we are the divine). We have limitations precisely because of this (and possibly, because if our thoughts could instantly produce results, we would inadvertedly (or purposely) introduce horrific instability: quick, try not to think of a nuclear holocaust. Try not to think of your leg being chopped off. You see?). The fight against entropy is a precondition to the continuance of the game, and it is our challenge to figure out how to produce and maintain stability in the midst of all the diversity, social and natural, which make the painting colorful and the musical composition beautifully interesting.
How do we find what elements favor stability? It's quite simple: food, clothing, shelter, physical and mental health, peace, love, family, safety, and creativity. These, across the board, are what people desire. Relativism exits only in the manifestations - for instance, most societies have some sort of private property or private possessions system, and when a thief violates those standards, the responses may be: chopping off a limb, imprisonment, probation, or intake into a shelter system. The point is to identify the standard, not attach oneself to how the community or culture deals with violations to the standard. So that if we can find these elements of stability that are universally desired, we introduce structures that maximize that stability.
We must always be wary of the tension between stability/order and freedoms. The impulse towards freedom is a result of the colorful painting. If all people were the same, if we all conformed to the same ways of behaving, a great deal of the rich interestingness of existence would be lost. Further, nonconformity can often show us how to increase stability. So the hippie movement was a reaction to the suburbanization, commodification, and mass consumptionist lifestyle from the 1950s. But in granting hippies freedom to organize the way they wanted, they showed many people that greater stability may be found in working together cooperatively rather than competitively, as is the value in the capitalist system. Thus an element of instability (the hippie reaction) may someday prove to have been a turning point towards a more stable, cooperative society. Therefore, we should not always support those actions that ostensibly maximize stability (the police state, for instance) because acts of instability often will have latent stabilizing tendencies.
Let's finally look at how and why people introduce instability into their own lives. If the human impulse is towards stability, why then do we see, on an average episode of Jerry Springer, people hurting themselves and their loved ones? Why is there widespread alcohol abuse, a drug that overwhelmingly tends to produce high instability and unpredictability. This too is a manifestation of the creativity principle. People living what they perceive to be boring and meaningless lives, devoid of creative outlets, or devoid of whatever it is they need to explore life as an interesting creative thing of which they are a part, will introduce instability into their lives in an attempt to find that element and so to create stability.
Alternatively, the bored alcoholic writer with a good marriage, a home that he owns, money in the bank, good health, etc. - he has stability, so what else does he need? So, real stability depends on a Zenlike satisfaction with life precisely as it is, lacking that, he might introduce the destabilizing element in an attempt to stabilize, just as revolutionists destroy the old order so as to create a newer and more stable one.
A last point regarding free will: Do we live in a Christian paradigm, in which God has enabled us to explore the world hoping we will turn to him, and those who do not are lost? In other words, does God want us to live stable and happy lives? Or is all prescribed? Somewhere in between, I think. The first question is meaningless in a world in which we are all purposive manifestations of the divine mind. who are here to explore the world. Actually, God does not want us to live completely stable lives because that would put an end to the game. However, it cannot be completely prescribed, because that would imply an intrusive Brahman that is directing everything, therefore an awareness. This is only possible if it is an awareness we know absolutely nothing about, which seems sort of pointless. If the Brahman wanted that, it wouldn't have split itself into the ten thousand things.
What are the implications for regular life? Regular life is full of suffering and instability. Why not create a perfectly stable situation? Actually an omniscient God would easily impose stability on an unstable system. But that would ruin the game. It would be like taking back your last move in chess after you see that it puts you in a rather dangerous check. So that we are fighting a continual battle against instability as a condition to staying lost (i.e. not realizing that we are the divine). We have limitations precisely because of this (and possibly, because if our thoughts could instantly produce results, we would inadvertedly (or purposely) introduce horrific instability: quick, try not to think of a nuclear holocaust. Try not to think of your leg being chopped off. You see?). The fight against entropy is a precondition to the continuance of the game, and it is our challenge to figure out how to produce and maintain stability in the midst of all the diversity, social and natural, which make the painting colorful and the musical composition beautifully interesting.
How do we find what elements favor stability? It's quite simple: food, clothing, shelter, physical and mental health, peace, love, family, safety, and creativity. These, across the board, are what people desire. Relativism exits only in the manifestations - for instance, most societies have some sort of private property or private possessions system, and when a thief violates those standards, the responses may be: chopping off a limb, imprisonment, probation, or intake into a shelter system. The point is to identify the standard, not attach oneself to how the community or culture deals with violations to the standard. So that if we can find these elements of stability that are universally desired, we introduce structures that maximize that stability.
We must always be wary of the tension between stability/order and freedoms. The impulse towards freedom is a result of the colorful painting. If all people were the same, if we all conformed to the same ways of behaving, a great deal of the rich interestingness of existence would be lost. Further, nonconformity can often show us how to increase stability. So the hippie movement was a reaction to the suburbanization, commodification, and mass consumptionist lifestyle from the 1950s. But in granting hippies freedom to organize the way they wanted, they showed many people that greater stability may be found in working together cooperatively rather than competitively, as is the value in the capitalist system. Thus an element of instability (the hippie reaction) may someday prove to have been a turning point towards a more stable, cooperative society. Therefore, we should not always support those actions that ostensibly maximize stability (the police state, for instance) because acts of instability often will have latent stabilizing tendencies.
Let's finally look at how and why people introduce instability into their own lives. If the human impulse is towards stability, why then do we see, on an average episode of Jerry Springer, people hurting themselves and their loved ones? Why is there widespread alcohol abuse, a drug that overwhelmingly tends to produce high instability and unpredictability. This too is a manifestation of the creativity principle. People living what they perceive to be boring and meaningless lives, devoid of creative outlets, or devoid of whatever it is they need to explore life as an interesting creative thing of which they are a part, will introduce instability into their lives in an attempt to find that element and so to create stability.
Alternatively, the bored alcoholic writer with a good marriage, a home that he owns, money in the bank, good health, etc. - he has stability, so what else does he need? So, real stability depends on a Zenlike satisfaction with life precisely as it is, lacking that, he might introduce the destabilizing element in an attempt to stabilize, just as revolutionists destroy the old order so as to create a newer and more stable one.
A last point regarding free will: Do we live in a Christian paradigm, in which God has enabled us to explore the world hoping we will turn to him, and those who do not are lost? In other words, does God want us to live stable and happy lives? Or is all prescribed? Somewhere in between, I think. The first question is meaningless in a world in which we are all purposive manifestations of the divine mind. who are here to explore the world. Actually, God does not want us to live completely stable lives because that would put an end to the game. However, it cannot be completely prescribed, because that would imply an intrusive Brahman that is directing everything, therefore an awareness. This is only possible if it is an awareness we know absolutely nothing about, which seems sort of pointless. If the Brahman wanted that, it wouldn't have split itself into the ten thousand things.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Information education
Perhaps the field should actually split into three:
1. Library science education: this should be supremely focused on the issues of libraries and the skills and training, precisely as it was in the mid 20th century. The information paradigm is useful, but not dominant. This is more of a trade school model with higher level thinking and reading about the nature of knowledge and information in society, and how libraries fit into that society. Digitization is naturally broached, but towards the technical realm (training in digital preservation, digital metadata, issues in electronic serials, hypertext and the user, nature of reading and using digital texts, etc.)
2. Information science: Let's keep this a science, or perhaps give it over to computer science - make it a segment of computer science. Writing algorithms, information retrieval, usability, information architecture: the quantitative aspects of information science. These largely do not have to focus on sociological and humanistic impulses, as engineering does not, but on the mechanistic and technical aspects.
3. Information studies: related closely to library science, but broadening the field considerably. This will be a philosophical and sociological journey; that is, theoretical, without having to be tied to libraries. This would be as if law school split: one division trained specifically to practice law (basically as it does today) and one division focused completely on pontification on the nature of law in society, philosophy of law. Information studies would look at ontology, epistemology, theories of taxonomy. It would also look at the philosophy of information society: technological determinism, information access as liberating, the history of information society (from early futurology in the 60s and 70s to the development of information technologies and finally to contemporary futurology).
It is my opinion that cramming these into one degree, as it currently does, it unjust to all of them - the information field has become overgrown, and it's time to untangle the roots and put each tree far enough so that they can develop unhindered. They are all still related, and will reference each other continually, but they call for such different skillsets upon graduation, and are focused on such different issues that they really should be different degrees.
1. Library science education: this should be supremely focused on the issues of libraries and the skills and training, precisely as it was in the mid 20th century. The information paradigm is useful, but not dominant. This is more of a trade school model with higher level thinking and reading about the nature of knowledge and information in society, and how libraries fit into that society. Digitization is naturally broached, but towards the technical realm (training in digital preservation, digital metadata, issues in electronic serials, hypertext and the user, nature of reading and using digital texts, etc.)
2. Information science: Let's keep this a science, or perhaps give it over to computer science - make it a segment of computer science. Writing algorithms, information retrieval, usability, information architecture: the quantitative aspects of information science. These largely do not have to focus on sociological and humanistic impulses, as engineering does not, but on the mechanistic and technical aspects.
3. Information studies: related closely to library science, but broadening the field considerably. This will be a philosophical and sociological journey; that is, theoretical, without having to be tied to libraries. This would be as if law school split: one division trained specifically to practice law (basically as it does today) and one division focused completely on pontification on the nature of law in society, philosophy of law. Information studies would look at ontology, epistemology, theories of taxonomy. It would also look at the philosophy of information society: technological determinism, information access as liberating, the history of information society (from early futurology in the 60s and 70s to the development of information technologies and finally to contemporary futurology).
It is my opinion that cramming these into one degree, as it currently does, it unjust to all of them - the information field has become overgrown, and it's time to untangle the roots and put each tree far enough so that they can develop unhindered. They are all still related, and will reference each other continually, but they call for such different skillsets upon graduation, and are focused on such different issues that they really should be different degrees.
Friday, August 13, 2010
The state & public good
Inspired by Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library (D'Angelo), p. 34-44.
Market players initially were supposed to follow the rules of the common good - the state was a collection of individuals who were charged with determining the public good. Because the public didn't know what was good for them, public education was instituted so as to align their wishes with the state's policies, as the state's policies were by default good for the public.
Markets could only be fair if market players played fair. Thus Victorian morality was supposed to be injected into market competition - restraint not only would help keep markets fair, but capitalists who weren't consumerist would reinvest their money into capital, which is good for economic growth and prosperity and which is then good for the public. To Mill, free markets will leave the individual to pursue his own wants and needs, and these are he presumes their better natures, i.e. moral character over physical pleasures. Implicit in Mill's model is the requirement to restrict the liberty of those who are preoccupied with the lesser goods (children, barbarians, and the working class (the poor)) until they can be fixed: they must adopt Victorian morality, including individual self-reliance, and they must use the institutions of the classical liberal state (education, banks, and eventually public libraries)
In reality, market players cared not a whit for the public good, but for the private good. The state in attempting to prevent the market from failing to provide for (intangible) public goods, tried first to educate the public so they would do it, and when that failed it became an instrument of the economic interests it sought to curb. Thus liberalism lost its moral corrective force, lost its drive to serve the public good, and redefined the market itself as the servant of the public good. "The relation between the public and private realm of the state is reversed and obliterated, as the public realm of the state is made to serve the private economic interests of the market" (40).
Markets were supposed to be a large number of individuals competing on level ground, which means little profits for individuals (they're spread around), which of course means that model must be rejected in favor of the illusion of free markets with big firms making huge profits.
****Of course the capitalists of today don't want a genuine Christian morality to reign, as that would be in contradiction to their obscene profits, and would rile the public to revile the corporation's disregard for public welfare. Thus the modern disregard of religion and religious sentiment seems to have been largely engineered by a state and private sector that don't want to be regulated by a public morality!
So state/corporate propagandists of today preach a watered down, nonrevolutionary Christianity. They also revile all aspects of the state that provide for public goods: welfare, health care, education, libraries. They only want a state where it will crush competition so that they can keep reaping profits. The market is not (or can not) serve a moral purpose.***
ENTERTAINMENT
Coney Island was an early example of pure spectacle entertainment that contemporaries feared was unleashing man's id (inner animal) unrestricted by reason or spirit. What happened was not an out of control animalistic mob that has been created by lunatic entertainment, but instead an entertainment that reinforces dominant capitalistic values: pandering to desires to make money rather than induce states of madness, liberate the id, invert social order, or threaten authority. It actually reinforces discipline and authority and conformity - people are always consumers. [If they threaten to actually become rebellious, the rebellion is sold back to them without the substance (***From grunge to emo, From revolutionary to hippie, etc.)]
So genuine liberals (progressives) sought still to squeeze some public good out of entertainment, and did so by opening parks, gyms, community centers and libraries to instill common purpose, democratic faith - people are still the product of their environment and this extends beyond education to society as a whole. Thus they object to an institution (Coney Island) that does naught but profit the owners and pleasure the patrons - solely entertaiment without education or edification.
What it was was the early stages of a shift from industrial asceticism/morality/productive work/savings to post-industrial impulse buying and mass consumption.
p.48
If capitalist markets do not provide information to consumers for the purpose of educating them then they cannot be called populist.
Market players initially were supposed to follow the rules of the common good - the state was a collection of individuals who were charged with determining the public good. Because the public didn't know what was good for them, public education was instituted so as to align their wishes with the state's policies, as the state's policies were by default good for the public.
Markets could only be fair if market players played fair. Thus Victorian morality was supposed to be injected into market competition - restraint not only would help keep markets fair, but capitalists who weren't consumerist would reinvest their money into capital, which is good for economic growth and prosperity and which is then good for the public. To Mill, free markets will leave the individual to pursue his own wants and needs, and these are he presumes their better natures, i.e. moral character over physical pleasures. Implicit in Mill's model is the requirement to restrict the liberty of those who are preoccupied with the lesser goods (children, barbarians, and the working class (the poor)) until they can be fixed: they must adopt Victorian morality, including individual self-reliance, and they must use the institutions of the classical liberal state (education, banks, and eventually public libraries)
In reality, market players cared not a whit for the public good, but for the private good. The state in attempting to prevent the market from failing to provide for (intangible) public goods, tried first to educate the public so they would do it, and when that failed it became an instrument of the economic interests it sought to curb. Thus liberalism lost its moral corrective force, lost its drive to serve the public good, and redefined the market itself as the servant of the public good. "The relation between the public and private realm of the state is reversed and obliterated, as the public realm of the state is made to serve the private economic interests of the market" (40).
Markets were supposed to be a large number of individuals competing on level ground, which means little profits for individuals (they're spread around), which of course means that model must be rejected in favor of the illusion of free markets with big firms making huge profits.
****Of course the capitalists of today don't want a genuine Christian morality to reign, as that would be in contradiction to their obscene profits, and would rile the public to revile the corporation's disregard for public welfare. Thus the modern disregard of religion and religious sentiment seems to have been largely engineered by a state and private sector that don't want to be regulated by a public morality!
So state/corporate propagandists of today preach a watered down, nonrevolutionary Christianity. They also revile all aspects of the state that provide for public goods: welfare, health care, education, libraries. They only want a state where it will crush competition so that they can keep reaping profits. The market is not (or can not) serve a moral purpose.***
ENTERTAINMENT
Coney Island was an early example of pure spectacle entertainment that contemporaries feared was unleashing man's id (inner animal) unrestricted by reason or spirit. What happened was not an out of control animalistic mob that has been created by lunatic entertainment, but instead an entertainment that reinforces dominant capitalistic values: pandering to desires to make money rather than induce states of madness, liberate the id, invert social order, or threaten authority. It actually reinforces discipline and authority and conformity - people are always consumers. [If they threaten to actually become rebellious, the rebellion is sold back to them without the substance (***From grunge to emo, From revolutionary to hippie, etc.)]
So genuine liberals (progressives) sought still to squeeze some public good out of entertainment, and did so by opening parks, gyms, community centers and libraries to instill common purpose, democratic faith - people are still the product of their environment and this extends beyond education to society as a whole. Thus they object to an institution (Coney Island) that does naught but profit the owners and pleasure the patrons - solely entertaiment without education or edification.
What it was was the early stages of a shift from industrial asceticism/morality/productive work/savings to post-industrial impulse buying and mass consumption.
p.48
If capitalist markets do not provide information to consumers for the purpose of educating them then they cannot be called populist.
Market populism is especially problematic when the product being sold in the market is information. In the classic liberal capitalist model of the marketplace, consumers bring their beliefs and desires with them prior to their market transaction. B ut what if the consumers' beliefs and desires are shaped by or originate in their market transactions? In that case buyers and sellers are no longer independent actors and we can no longer speak of a 'voluntary exchange' between them. Instead, the consumer becomes an instrument of the marketplace. Thus, although it is true that consumers desire the products they consume, in the act of consuming those products their desires may change in ways they did not choose. This is especially true when the product being consumed is information because information has the power to change consumers' beliefs and desires. Mreover, since information, like any other commodity, is produced for profit in a capitalist economy, consumers beliefs and desires will be transformed not for the purpose of iproving them but for the purpose of maximizing profits.
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