"Note, none of this requires that practitioners understand from whence their animating ideas come."
It is in fact essential that they not notice. Were they to do so, they would see that they are re-enacting deep patterns (Nietzsche's eternal recurrence in a way). Error has no rights originates as defense of Catholic dogma in the confessional state. And even today the proponents of that mean it in the same way - heresy can not be tolerated. Good lord, if these poor minds were to confront such, they would shatter. Much better to cultivate ignorance, as they do when they ascend to power and become the oppressive force exercising authority. Though this might also explain the tendency of the revolution to eat its own - it is the driving logic of the revolution.
It also makes it nearly impossible to reason with them. They just know the slogans and feeling of power. Bringing up Marcuse, they've never heard of the guy. So engaging with them, reasoning is not a tactic. I'm not sure what is except trying to beat them at their own game, but that's not how I want to live either.
They really aren't operating on reason, so of course you can't reason with them. Can you reason with any other religious zealot? Can you reason with a true blue, dialectical materialism Marxist?
Someone bent on power will only give up on power when they've gotten bent, good and hard.
From your rabbit hole link on Mobile hybridity : "The culturally shifting and blending landscape occupied by users often fractures their intimate relationships with physical distance or cultural differences." Yeah, I read that and thought "gee, that sounds like something that I should understand, or almost think that I do, but ... really I don't."
Unfortunately, with my lapse of religious experience and exposure, I was also not sure I understood your prior sentence: "Error has no rights originates as defense of Catholic dogma in the confessional state." And was going to ask for further clarification. But perhaps my reread of the next phrase "heresy can not be tolerated" now makes it understandable. Do I now have that right?
Yes. Where church and state were unified, typically via a Catholic monarch and aristocracy, heresy was both a clerical and civil violation - no real distinction. Likewise sharia enforcing states. Alternatively you had the Bolshevik approach that opposing socialism evolved from simply counter-revolutionary violence (punishable by death) to a marker of mental illness (which the therapeutic state could have a crack at you before sending you off to the gulag).
The woke do not allow for disagreement - that means you are in error and the microsecond they can employ the state monopoly on violence to enforce that, they will. If they're charitable, they'll let the therapeutic state have a crack at you first.
“For most of us, adult human female is a perfectly adequate definition of woman.”
The obvious (but forgotten) problem here is that our preferred media is no longer built “for most of us”.
To non-readers of this Substack, “adult human female” is a tautological, rhetorical trap. A form of catnip.
Today, only politicans bother asking (or answering) these questions. That Brown avoided the trap is a welcomed and unexpected distinction. After all, she could easily have said it was “anyone who simply identified as being a woman”. I suspect she knew that was NOT the right answer, Biologist or not.
"Activists use your language, but not your dictionary: “diversity” has in large part been destroyed as useful English vocabulary thanks to this phenomenon." So really not using your language, either!
Perhaps a move to create pseudo jargon to bolster their "expertise" as there is not really enough "there" there to justify creating truly domain specific jargon for qualification, specificity, explication, etc.
"Dominion capital operates not merely to boost its possessors’ authority, but to deny authority to others, so as to create a relationship of domination. The pattern is to deny epistemic authority: you are naive/ignorant/stupid and then to deny moral authority—you are evil/maleficent/bigoted/complicit in oppression. If this doesn’t work, there’s a move to deny psychological authority—you are deluded/paranoid/a conspiracy theorist. It’s very much an attack on the concept and authority of citizenship." After reading this, I felt "this is almost a definition of a crime against humanity!."
Further down you have several great paragraphs that I won't bother citing. But as you explicate this trash and nonsense so well, how do you retain your sanity? :-)
"Hegel is, of course, the great exemplar of profundity through obscurity. As is Heidegger. "
Is that a recommendation to not bother ever trying to read or understand them? [As a guy with limited time for self education and too many areas of possible interest, that is a real question, not sarc.]
From Wikipedia: "He [ Heidegger] is often considered to be among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century. Heidegger's works concerned subjects such as technology, Kant, metaphysics, and humanism." Perhaps I really was better off taking statics, kinetics, heat transfer, hydraulics, electricity, and even geology, in college (along with the usual complement of math(s), chemistry, and physics they give to engineering students)? But I suspect my two semesters of economics prior to 1971 (and Nixon's gold standard denial) was a waste of time.
What has come to be known as Wokeness is a latest manifestation of a domination discourse Yes... the latest in a long line of Utopian vanities that start off as fairytales with wolves to be vanquished but don't end up with the desired fairytale ending. (Communism most famously in modern times.) But it seems to me that Wokeness needs also to be seen as something essentially new; not just a latest elite power grab or a new form of control....although it does have those characteristics for sure. But its unique salience - it seems to me anyway - is that it is an androgynous asexual utopia and I'm not aware of any historical predessessors for that aspect.
• Your thoughts and beliefs are nothing but excuses for dismissing the beliefs of others and subjugating them. We therefore dismiss your beliefs and demand the right to subjugate you.
• Societies are nothing more than endless struggles between oppressors and oppressed. It’s time for a new set of oppressors: Us.
"Any policy position based on labelling those who disagree as wicked/stupid/dysfunctional is, or will become, dysfunctional.... [D]e-legitimising... disagreement kills feedback, undermining accountability and reality-correction."
A belief system ungrounded in reality and impervious to feedback must become *increasingly* dysfunctional. Because its output is its only input, error will pile upon error until the system implodes upon itself.
I have now read the original paper, which I will have to think on a bit more before responding. I would note that 5-6% is a fairly small group in the US population. Moreover, it is a group with very little institutional clout. Nor do we know in which direction their numbers are going. For instance, does the increasing racialisation of identity by “wokery”, and the attacks on “whiteness”, encourage alt-right counter reaction? I would also note that just because Antifa members do not rate highly in authoritarianism does not mean they are not totalitarian in their politics.
Some of what is going on in the paper touches on issues I raise in this post.
"Note, none of this requires that practitioners understand from whence their animating ideas come."
It is in fact essential that they not notice. Were they to do so, they would see that they are re-enacting deep patterns (Nietzsche's eternal recurrence in a way). Error has no rights originates as defense of Catholic dogma in the confessional state. And even today the proponents of that mean it in the same way - heresy can not be tolerated. Good lord, if these poor minds were to confront such, they would shatter. Much better to cultivate ignorance, as they do when they ascend to power and become the oppressive force exercising authority. Though this might also explain the tendency of the revolution to eat its own - it is the driving logic of the revolution.
As to the abuse of language (not DEI specific but of the same academic heritage), I wrote a small piece on that: https://rathercurmudgeonly.substack.com/p/down-a-rabbit-hole
It also makes it nearly impossible to reason with them. They just know the slogans and feeling of power. Bringing up Marcuse, they've never heard of the guy. So engaging with them, reasoning is not a tactic. I'm not sure what is except trying to beat them at their own game, but that's not how I want to live either.
They really aren't operating on reason, so of course you can't reason with them. Can you reason with any other religious zealot? Can you reason with a true blue, dialectical materialism Marxist?
Someone bent on power will only give up on power when they've gotten bent, good and hard.
I'd say they are reasoning, just from dubious, faith-based premises.
Yes and no. There is a lot of refusing to engage on the grounds that is legitimating oppression.
I'd call that one of their flawed premises.
From your rabbit hole link on Mobile hybridity : "The culturally shifting and blending landscape occupied by users often fractures their intimate relationships with physical distance or cultural differences." Yeah, I read that and thought "gee, that sounds like something that I should understand, or almost think that I do, but ... really I don't."
Unfortunately, with my lapse of religious experience and exposure, I was also not sure I understood your prior sentence: "Error has no rights originates as defense of Catholic dogma in the confessional state." And was going to ask for further clarification. But perhaps my reread of the next phrase "heresy can not be tolerated" now makes it understandable. Do I now have that right?
Yes. Where church and state were unified, typically via a Catholic monarch and aristocracy, heresy was both a clerical and civil violation - no real distinction. Likewise sharia enforcing states. Alternatively you had the Bolshevik approach that opposing socialism evolved from simply counter-revolutionary violence (punishable by death) to a marker of mental illness (which the therapeutic state could have a crack at you before sending you off to the gulag).
The woke do not allow for disagreement - that means you are in error and the microsecond they can employ the state monopoly on violence to enforce that, they will. If they're charitable, they'll let the therapeutic state have a crack at you first.
“For most of us, adult human female is a perfectly adequate definition of woman.”
The obvious (but forgotten) problem here is that our preferred media is no longer built “for most of us”.
To non-readers of this Substack, “adult human female” is a tautological, rhetorical trap. A form of catnip.
Today, only politicans bother asking (or answering) these questions. That Brown avoided the trap is a welcomed and unexpected distinction. After all, she could easily have said it was “anyone who simply identified as being a woman”. I suspect she knew that was NOT the right answer, Biologist or not.
"Activists use your language, but not your dictionary: “diversity” has in large part been destroyed as useful English vocabulary thanks to this phenomenon." So really not using your language, either!
Perhaps a move to create pseudo jargon to bolster their "expertise" as there is not really enough "there" there to justify creating truly domain specific jargon for qualification, specificity, explication, etc.
"Dominion capital operates not merely to boost its possessors’ authority, but to deny authority to others, so as to create a relationship of domination. The pattern is to deny epistemic authority: you are naive/ignorant/stupid and then to deny moral authority—you are evil/maleficent/bigoted/complicit in oppression. If this doesn’t work, there’s a move to deny psychological authority—you are deluded/paranoid/a conspiracy theorist. It’s very much an attack on the concept and authority of citizenship." After reading this, I felt "this is almost a definition of a crime against humanity!."
Further down you have several great paragraphs that I won't bother citing. But as you explicate this trash and nonsense so well, how do you retain your sanity? :-)
Friends and fiction. Fun novels, enjoyable Chinese dramas.
"Hegel is, of course, the great exemplar of profundity through obscurity. As is Heidegger. "
Is that a recommendation to not bother ever trying to read or understand them? [As a guy with limited time for self education and too many areas of possible interest, that is a real question, not sarc.]
From Wikipedia: "He [ Heidegger] is often considered to be among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century. Heidegger's works concerned subjects such as technology, Kant, metaphysics, and humanism." Perhaps I really was better off taking statics, kinetics, heat transfer, hydraulics, electricity, and even geology, in college (along with the usual complement of math(s), chemistry, and physics they give to engineering students)? But I suspect my two semesters of economics prior to 1971 (and Nixon's gold standard denial) was a waste of time.
Don’t bother with either. Life’s too short.
What has come to be known as Wokeness is a latest manifestation of a domination discourse Yes... the latest in a long line of Utopian vanities that start off as fairytales with wolves to be vanquished but don't end up with the desired fairytale ending. (Communism most famously in modern times.) But it seems to me that Wokeness needs also to be seen as something essentially new; not just a latest elite power grab or a new form of control....although it does have those characteristics for sure. But its unique salience - it seems to me anyway - is that it is an androgynous asexual utopia and I'm not aware of any historical predessessors for that aspect.
Camille Paglia points out that periods of decadence produce a lot of androgyny. Perhaps not so much utopian though.
I'd be interested in that.... can you recall where she wrote about it?
In her magnum opus, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson.
Thank you.. I'll try and zero in on the androgyny part(s).
People who enjoyed riding the crocodile 🐊, certain they’d never be eaten are shocked to find themselves on the menu.
Woke "Thought":
• Your thoughts and beliefs are nothing but excuses for dismissing the beliefs of others and subjugating them. We therefore dismiss your beliefs and demand the right to subjugate you.
• Societies are nothing more than endless struggles between oppressors and oppressed. It’s time for a new set of oppressors: Us.
"Any policy position based on labelling those who disagree as wicked/stupid/dysfunctional is, or will become, dysfunctional.... [D]e-legitimising... disagreement kills feedback, undermining accountability and reality-correction."
A belief system ungrounded in reality and impervious to feedback must become *increasingly* dysfunctional. Because its output is its only input, error will pile upon error until the system implodes upon itself.
Could you respond to this https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/the-dark-minds-of-the-alt-right/537144/
I have now read the original paper, which I will have to think on a bit more before responding. I would note that 5-6% is a fairly small group in the US population. Moreover, it is a group with very little institutional clout. Nor do we know in which direction their numbers are going. For instance, does the increasing racialisation of identity by “wokery”, and the attacks on “whiteness”, encourage alt-right counter reaction? I would also note that just because Antifa members do not rate highly in authoritarianism does not mean they are not totalitarian in their politics.
Some of what is going on in the paper touches on issues I raise in this post.
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/there-is-significant-discrimination.