Thank You, as always, Steve. I can't top You and M Chardenet. But, seriously...
"And last but certainly not least, it matters because reality matters."
The fact that this even needs to be *said* shows how literally insane our societies are. And I mean the real meaning of literally. Back when words had generally recognized meanings, instead…
Thank You, as always, Steve. I can't top You and M Chardenet. But, seriously...
"And last but certainly not least, it matters because reality matters."
The fact that this even needs to be *said* shows how literally insane our societies are. And I mean the real meaning of literally. Back when words had generally recognized meanings, instead-a inverted (and perverted) ones.
"We’re living in strange, frightening times. Fixing them will need all of us to work together. So if we can’t even agree on what a car is, we’re in deep trouble."
Yeah, DEEP trouble. Like M Fox says. But how to push back?
"Yeah, DEEP trouble. Like M Fox says. But how to push back?"
As Orwell said, "in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." But the truth is also the ultimate weapon against lies. It always wins in the end. We just need enough people to stand up and tell it.
You're right again, Sir. It's hard for me to get motivated, because I don't have an audience that will listen. So glad You do, Steve. Or they listen, at least somewhat.
I get the superficial similarity, where wishing becomes believing it's true.
But I think they have significant differences in causation and dynamics which are important to ground our opposition in.
"Trump won" is at heart a simple denial of a specific well-evidenced truth, a long term problem with human systems. It's troubling because it's a larger example than we have had to deal with in the US in my lifetime, but in nature it's not new. Even if Trump won and was authoritarian, that's hardly a new problem in human history.
The underpinnings of Critical Social Justice ideology are more deeply in conflict with the fundamental basis of a successful society, like rational thought itself. Postmodernism reframes objective truth as just another narrative spun by the powerful. Merit is less important than "representation". Feelings are more important than facts. Using logic is white supremacy. Doctors often make mistakes in assigning boyhood to somebody. Free speech is discardable, since it's seen as a tool of the privileged to keep their power; thus it's praiseworthy to win power by suppressing any dissent. Building societies atop concepts of universal principles, mutual benefit relations, and reciprocity is of no value; whichever side has the moral high ground has no need to care anything about neutrality or what the other side needs, they are OWED obedience period!! There can be no compromise, and there is no need to listen to the other side (and possibly be corrupted into wrongthink thereby).
If this ideology gains the power it seeks, I don't see how a high tech society which is highly leveraged in order to support billions of people, yet fragile and stretched, can survive. ESPECIALLY at a time when all of those systems seem to be in danger of crashing at once, and we need extremely functional political processes in order to survive. In my view, this presents an existential challenge to modern society, it's not just about generational differences in musical tastes or the relative value of home life versus work life.
And this ideology seems to me to be extremely dependent on controlling the horizontal and vertical (old X-1 reference, sorry). It simultaneously strongly believes that it is unquestionably morally superior about everything that matters, and is deathly afraid of needing to justify itself through open discussion. So in order to propagate and expand, it HAS to control the channel, has to control what ideas people are exposed to. It must control the internet via public/private "misinformation" suppression. It cannot afford to NOT cancel dissident voices to the best of it's ability - and to seek more power to do so.
The mixture of themes and memes it's based upon point towards seizing control - only in the name of justice of course. Sort of a diffuse version of the Vanguard Party controlling the state as the politically conscious proxy for the nominal dictatorship of the proletariat - just until all of the masses have been re-educated to understand the truth and fall in line, of course.
So I see them as very different phenomena in many important ways, even if some of the symptom may overlap (more than one disease can cause a fever).
A lever on what is true and what is false is the ultimate form of control, the sine qua non of totalitarianism. Both Trump and postmodernist thinking point that way, but the postmodernist paradigm is vastly more comprehensive.
Thank You, as always, Steve. I can't top You and M Chardenet. But, seriously...
"And last but certainly not least, it matters because reality matters."
The fact that this even needs to be *said* shows how literally insane our societies are. And I mean the real meaning of literally. Back when words had generally recognized meanings, instead-a inverted (and perverted) ones.
"We’re living in strange, frightening times. Fixing them will need all of us to work together. So if we can’t even agree on what a car is, we’re in deep trouble."
Yeah, DEEP trouble. Like M Fox says. But how to push back?
"Yeah, DEEP trouble. Like M Fox says. But how to push back?"
As Orwell said, "in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." But the truth is also the ultimate weapon against lies. It always wins in the end. We just need enough people to stand up and tell it.
You're right again, Sir. It's hard for me to get motivated, because I don't have an audience that will listen. So glad You do, Steve. Or they listen, at least somewhat.
MAGA and woke seem closely related: communicable psychoses. “Trans woman” and “Trump won” are cut from the same cloth.
I get the superficial similarity, where wishing becomes believing it's true.
But I think they have significant differences in causation and dynamics which are important to ground our opposition in.
"Trump won" is at heart a simple denial of a specific well-evidenced truth, a long term problem with human systems. It's troubling because it's a larger example than we have had to deal with in the US in my lifetime, but in nature it's not new. Even if Trump won and was authoritarian, that's hardly a new problem in human history.
The underpinnings of Critical Social Justice ideology are more deeply in conflict with the fundamental basis of a successful society, like rational thought itself. Postmodernism reframes objective truth as just another narrative spun by the powerful. Merit is less important than "representation". Feelings are more important than facts. Using logic is white supremacy. Doctors often make mistakes in assigning boyhood to somebody. Free speech is discardable, since it's seen as a tool of the privileged to keep their power; thus it's praiseworthy to win power by suppressing any dissent. Building societies atop concepts of universal principles, mutual benefit relations, and reciprocity is of no value; whichever side has the moral high ground has no need to care anything about neutrality or what the other side needs, they are OWED obedience period!! There can be no compromise, and there is no need to listen to the other side (and possibly be corrupted into wrongthink thereby).
If this ideology gains the power it seeks, I don't see how a high tech society which is highly leveraged in order to support billions of people, yet fragile and stretched, can survive. ESPECIALLY at a time when all of those systems seem to be in danger of crashing at once, and we need extremely functional political processes in order to survive. In my view, this presents an existential challenge to modern society, it's not just about generational differences in musical tastes or the relative value of home life versus work life.
And this ideology seems to me to be extremely dependent on controlling the horizontal and vertical (old X-1 reference, sorry). It simultaneously strongly believes that it is unquestionably morally superior about everything that matters, and is deathly afraid of needing to justify itself through open discussion. So in order to propagate and expand, it HAS to control the channel, has to control what ideas people are exposed to. It must control the internet via public/private "misinformation" suppression. It cannot afford to NOT cancel dissident voices to the best of it's ability - and to seek more power to do so.
The mixture of themes and memes it's based upon point towards seizing control - only in the name of justice of course. Sort of a diffuse version of the Vanguard Party controlling the state as the politically conscious proxy for the nominal dictatorship of the proletariat - just until all of the masses have been re-educated to understand the truth and fall in line, of course.
So I see them as very different phenomena in many important ways, even if some of the symptom may overlap (more than one disease can cause a fever).
A lever on what is true and what is false is the ultimate form of control, the sine qua non of totalitarianism. Both Trump and postmodernist thinking point that way, but the postmodernist paradigm is vastly more comprehensive.
"Postmodernism reframes objective truth as just another narrative spun by the powerful."
That's gratifyingly succinct.
I've been saying this for awhile. Two sides of the same toxic, corroded coin.
Both demand enormous changes affecting everyone for no coherent reasons.
Both demand absolute agreement and conformity on every tiny detail.
Neither would have passed a psychiatric exam twenty yers ago.
Both justify growing violent tendencies with myths.
Yah: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psychosis
psychosis
noun
psy·cho·sis sī-ˈkō-səs
pluralpsychoses sī-ˈkō-ˌsēz
Synonyms of psychosis
: a serious mental illness (such as schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality often with hallucinations or delusions
More to the point, truth matters.
Truth? I hear we're "Post-truth" now. And thus, the results we see today, right?