If a placebo works, why destroy its active ingredient by pointing out it’s a “placebo”?

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These days nobody wants to talk about philosophy without justifying it with neuroscience.

I am an advocate of looking for all possible correlations in the field of experience, but some minds seem compelled to beg the brain for legitimacy, and to win the brain’s endorsement of every quality mind appears to possess — as if a thorough neuroscientific grounding somehow protects a mind from delusion. This strikes me as delusional.

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Physics is the pill moderns administer and take to compel agreement.

And yes, nerds, it is blue.

Metcalf’s Law also applies to concepts.

This is my third time posting this idea. It might be the best work thought I’ve ever had, which is depressing, and if I never better it I will have lived my life in vain. Here it is:

Bullshit – Meaningful, inspiring ideas that seem to promise something, but that something can never be fulfilled through any practical action.

Chickenshit – Practical activity that seems like it ought to serve some meaningful purpose, but in reality is pointless busyness.

Bullshit is meaning without practice. Chickenshit is practice without meaning.

If you can bring together meaning and practice, so your meaning is a positive something that can be realized and your practical actions are a means to a meaningful end… then you are The Shit.

Apologies in advance: This is not a nice post. Chances are you are a chickenshit middle manager (and this might be true if even if you are an “executive”) or you are a bullshit idealist spouting off “visionary” nonsense in whatever realm you’ve identified as “anything goes”, where you can just make shit up. Most likely you are both chickenshit and bullshit, oscillating between the two all day long, depending on context. Think about it: generally, you call a meeting to navel-gaze a spew of bullshit which evaporates in mid-air before it even splatters on the conference room table OR  you convene to hammer out chickenshit minutiae. The notion that meaning must be actualized through concrete practice to amount to anything at all (as opposed to corporate messaging blather) and that practice must be motivated by meaning if it is to be willingly embraced and internalized (as opposed to enforced) — that is unthinkable to your average business flathead, whose sea-level/C-level intellect is busy, busy, busy and fragmented along eight different twittery thoughts at every individually fragmented minute of the day.

We’ve got 140 character attention spans. We invent 140 character-long bullshit slogans; we issue 140 character-long chickenshit tactical decrees. And we want to praise ourselves for our back-of-a-napkin brevity, and for being so action-oriented. Ready, fire, aim.  We are intellectually and operationally spastic, and proud of it.

So, yesterday, which I’m realizing now was a shittily eventful day, a colleague made the mistake of talking to me about how America needs to get back to those things we all agree on. Since it was yesterday, this became an excuse for a tirade.

I began with something like: “Heaven help us if we agree any more than we already have. Because wherever a Republican and Democrat agree on something, it is certain to be wrong in the most horrific possible way.” For instance, international style architecture — utopian uniformity to the leftist, cheap-as-hell to the rightist — What’s not to love? And mandatory two-income households — equality for men and women for the leftists, doubling the supply of laborers and consumers for the rightist — Paradise! Consuming every waking hour of our children’s lives with scheduled regimented educational activity, and filling the remained with easy parentless entertainment, which consists either of synthetic borderline-disorder (Facebook) or synthetic autism (video games) . Now we’ve got free childcare on one hand to compensate for our 24/7 careers, and the feeling that we’re turning education up to 11. More hours = more dollars and more standardized test points = more happiness.

Let’s agree to disagree, please.

And then I went on to point out that what we agree on is only that “Freedom”, “Happiness”, “Prosperity” are words that designate good things, but the concrete reality we imagine when we say these words could not diverge more.

Apart from these huge, hot-air sugar balloons, the only agreement we have is the necessity of innumerable brainless procedures. And we try hard not to discuss the purpose of them, because we all want to harness them to our own deeply divergent ends… etc.

Somehow I managed to rant on this topic without noticing that I was, once again, talking about Bullshit and Chickenshit.

America agrees on Bullshit and Chickenshit, but the substantial shit has become entirely undiscussable, just as it is in 99% of businesses, and 100% of public schools.

One of the big differences between a political order based on reason and a political order based on coercion: in a reasonable order disagreements are resolved in ways that make people regard one another more highly, and in a coercive order the disagreements are resolved with increased mutual antipathy, contempt on one side and resentment on the other.

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What is strange is that unreason can come from below as well as above. Some people cannot be appealed to, and can only be influenced by means that also make them hate you.

The choice is: a) allow them to do whatever they were going to do (however harmful it is to you), or b) get your way and become hated.

I’m guessing this truth is the daily reality of many/most managers. Of course there are power-loving managers who embrace this truth eagerly, because it justifies their natural inclinations. (“Nobody wants to do what they should. That’s why we call it ‘work’.”) But no doubt there are other managers who become resigned to this view, and become reluctant creators of a world of masters and unwilling slaves. I’ve had clients who see the world this way, and they radiate misery.

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Yesterday I had to coerce someone into doing something they were unwilling to do. I tried to feel triumphant, but I could only feel filthy. Regardless of the outcome, unreason is degrading.

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By the way, in conditions where conversation is impossible, reason is impossible, and coercion is inevitable. Tyrannical souls always create hectic, isolating, fragmentary conditions around them, so the only options is someone taking charge and making “executive” decisions.

Tyrants love manic activity, opaque, complicated bureaucracies, emergencies of all kinds — whatever forces perpetual premature action. “ready, fire, aim”, or problem, answer, question…

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Yesterday (in a separate event) someone mentioned a name I hadn’t heard in a decade, and I realized, even a decade later, I still intensely dislike that person for something she said: “We do not have time to philosophize: just do it.”

When we’re at sea-level and we look around our horizon is tight and constantly interrupted by things in the way. In a sense, the “actual” horizon is one of arbitrary obscurement by myriad objects; the “real” horizon is just an inconsequential idea.

When we climb high enough we reach a point where no object breaks the horizon and we can see the horizon itself. We can survey what is framed within the circularity of the horizon and see their spatial relationships objectively, that is, from a distance, from the outside.

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The view from inside and the view from a distance (can) reciprocally inter-inform.

Imagine a person looking at the view of a labyrinth from above as a maze, attempting to translate the path he is tracing with his fingertip back into the view from from within. Does he also recall the anxiety of being trapped inside the labyrinth? Does he recognize the anxiety to be part of the essential difference between the above-ness of a maze and the within-ness of a labyrinth?

Now imagine a person panicking inside a labyrinth, doing his best to remember a maze view he was shown. He is trying to locate and orient himself on his mental map so he can chart a path out. But also he is trying to overcome his anxiety by distancing himself from his situation.

Now imagine a man trapped in a labyrinth describing his situation to an expert on mazes. The former has no concept of a maze, and the latter has no concept of a labyrinth. Each thinks he understands what the other means by “situation”, and neither comprehends the nature of the discrepancy.

The common words map to a common structure recognizable to each, but the experience does not map. There are no words for the uncommonality gap that separates them and creates discrepancy.

They say what they can to each other, but only what they cannot say can resolve the problem. Nobody talks about nothing, because there’s nothing to say and nothing to say it with.

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People use the metaphor “depth” in two telling ways. Usually they mean either “really incomprehensible” (“he’s a deep thinker”) or “really thorough” (“his report went into great depth”). Both interpretations of the term reveal a shallow point-of-view on depth.

Depth also can become associated with how far into a perspective a mind can go, leaving behind “higher” and more superficial points of view. This is a lot closer to the meaning of depth than the first two examples, because 1) at least the vertical axis of depth has been found, and 2) the fundamental weakness (and inevitable degeneration) of alienated height has been correctly diagnosed. Alienated height (height dissociated from depth) is mere superficiality (super- “above” + -ficial “face” — a looking at faces as mindless appearance), and universal disrespect (dis- “not” + re- “back” + spect “look” — not being aware that others look back at you differently) for otherness. But, as right as it is, it is still not right enough (for the purposes of today).

Depth is not a point on an axis. Depth is better conceived as a span of vertical axis, from the very deepest points-of-view (which border on the animal) to the very highest point-of-view with the broadest perspective and most comprehensive horizon from which the deepest points can still be given justice.

As I said earlier the view from inside and the view from a distance (can) reciprocally inter-inform. Depth is a matter of how much inside-perspective can be meaningfully interrelated with the help of distant-perspective, and how much inside-perspective is present when surveying from a distant-perspective. And I think the highest and lowest points in a span of depth sputter out into nothingness. The highest point is a grasping for mostly-empty potentially-unifying forms and the lowest points border on mute impulse.

Depth put into practice arrests 1) crimes of passion, 2) crimes of dispassion and 3) the unholy marriage of passion and dispassion: the side-by-side cooperation of the two, where the dutiful man “just does his job”, but the job description is written by visionary psychopaths.

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The next time you look at an unbroken horizon and meditate on what lies beyond it, also take a moment to meditate on the ring of semi-somethingness between the world you look at and the world-beyond behind your eyes. Or alternately, spend some time watching your mind fill the blind spots of your eyes with nothingness, which is neither light nor dark.

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At the very top of even the highest skyscrapers you will find sea-level executives.

I don’t think “horizon” is the right word.

Data – Latin, literally ‘something given,’ neuter past participle of dare ‘give.’

Conceive/concept – Latin concipere, from com– ‘together’ + capere ‘take.’

Comprehend – Latin comprehendere, from com– ‘together’ + prehendere ‘grasp.’

Inform/information – Latin informare ‘shape, fashion, describe,’ from in– ‘into’ + forma ‘a form.’

Fact – Latin factum, neuter past participle of facere ‘do.’

Integrate – Latin integrat– ‘made whole,’ from the verb integrare, from integer ‘whole’.

Incorporate – Latin incorporare, from in– ‘into’ + Latin corporare ‘form into a body’.

Knowledge – Old English cnawan (earlier gecnawan) [recognize, identify,] of Germanic origin; from an Indo-European root shared by Latin (g)noscere, Greek gignoskein.

Despite what your elementary school teachers told you, it is not unreasonable to believe you have a purpose different from that which you have been assigned, or even can be assigned. What is unreasonable is to expect anyone else to believe you. It is unreasonable to expect others to be reasonable.

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Last week I saw a great quote attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt: “You should never underestimate the man who overestimates himself.” Whether he said it or not, it certainly makes sense coming from someone able to say “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Naive — ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from French naïve, feminine of naïf, from Latin nativus ‘native, natural.’

Innocent — ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French, or from Latin innocent– ‘not harming,’ from in– ‘not’ + nocere ‘to hurt.’

Original — ORIGIN early 16th cent.: from French origine, from Latin origo, origin-, from oriri ‘to rise.’

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The most naive and hurtful belief: to equate naivete and innocence.

Nothing is harder to learn than innocence: innocence is unnatural. Innocence is height. You could say its unnaturalness is supernaturalness.

Should we stop wanting innocence, then, if innocence is not a preexisting fact but an accomplishment or aspiration? Does something have to be an is before we accept it as an ought?

Height is unnatural; depth is cruel. Innocence is an ideal indispensable to the process of human being, to rise from the depths, and by the depths, and never losing contact with the depths as we ascend to humanity over what humanity has been, which is inhuman.

Perhaps if we learn the truth about innocence and naivete we can stop doing violence to ourselves and to our children. We can overcome the shame of who we are and have been by cultivating faith in who we can become.

A teacher says to a student: “You are not the center of the universe.”

The perspective of the statement can be seen as a question inherent in the statement, to which the statement is the answer. In this example, the question is “Who or what is the center of the universe?” and the answer is “Not you.”

The standpoint of the statement are the assumptions upon which and from which the question is asked. In this example the assumption is “There is a center of the universe.”

From this standpoint, and along this perspective are phenomena seen and understood in a particular worldview. In this example, the worldview of the teacher is such that when she sees the student behave egocentrically, she sees him presumptuously claiming the privileged point around which the universe revolves.

The worldview is the source of opinion. In our example, the teacher is of the opinion that the student needs to abandon his own perspective, which apparently places him in the middle of the world as he has known it. It should be noted, too, that the teacher, being in a position of authority, is authorized to enforce her opinion as the truth.

The horizon of the statement comprises all the assumptions that have been made in the asking and answering of the question that allow the statement to be made and to have sense. In this example one excluded possibility is “The center of the universe is multiple.”

Beyond the horizon of the statement are all the possible alternatives to the assumptions that permit a different angle of questioning within the same problem. And that difference can be subtle — a mere matter of emphasis.

The teacher says to the student: “You are not the only center of the universe.” Now the statement is more expansive in its possibility.

In the great majority of people, the vanity instinct is overwhelmingly powerful.

Vanity has more strength and more endurance than even the strongest primordial instincts.

When a primordial instinct somehow manages to break out and defy vanity by accepting public condemnation, we marvel at its overpowering intensity.

But vanity, the relentlessly competent guard who thwarts ten thousand jailbreaks for every one that succeeds, gets no recognition. It is part of the institution of reality. It doesn’t even occur to us to admire it.

It might be vanity that has made human beings cultural. And if being cultural is the essential humanity of human beings — and I think it is — that suggests vanity might be the most human instinct. Some would argue that on that basis, vanity is not a vice, but a virtue.

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We’ve got this really weird situation on our hands, now, thanks to the romantic exaltation of instincts and naturalness. We are vain about having or lacking certain “natural” instincts, which puts us in the position of having to dissimulate what which on principle is not dissimulated.

We want to be natural, but we want to be natural in some particular way that is not natural for us.

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Let’s look at an example. Suspend your disbelief, and try this thought on for two minutes, long enough to trace out some consequence. What if this is true?:

In most women, if the the maternal instinct exists at all, it is dwarfed by the vanity instinct.

The maternal instinct sees everything in terms of “what will benefit my child?”

The vanity instinct, though, sees everything in terms of “what kind of person do I seem to be, and will that win me approval?”

Until the mid-1960s when women asked “what must I see to be to win approval?” the answer was “the kind of woman in whom the maternal instinct is the strongest.”

The message was not: “women should strive to care about their children”, but “normal women care about their children.” Because of this, the maternal instinct appeared to be part of the standard-issue human nature, despite the fact that few women had much more than an occasional urge to procreate and a compulsion to dote on cute things, and many had a strong instinctive impulse to be anywhere but suffocating in ammonia fumes or having her soul sucked dry by attention-demanding toddlers. By the 70s women had begun immunizing each other against feeling guilt over their natures, and began to decide for themselves how much or how little energy to dedicate to parenting their children.

Human nature is artificiality.

To reject the artificiality of culture is a rarefied artificiality. Don’t attempts at naturalness always look forced, ludicrous, embarassing — and artificial? Such artificiality refuses to learn — that’s the point of it — so it lacks teachers and competence.

A well-practiced artificiality is more natural. The individually perfected parts flow together organically as a unity, like a dance or a piano piece or a philosophy. Until that point, you get steps or phrases or theories.

Or you get improvised flailing, or John Cage, or spastic paraphrasings of osmotically-absorbed notions mistaken for originality. Romanticism is the groping of shut-eyes aspiring to invent a vision other than the one they still see by in their darkened imaginations.

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A member of the biological species homo sapiens, behaving “naturally”, that is, purely by the raw instincts that constitute it biologically is not yet a human being, but an animal. When a member of this species is born into a cultural tradition, and its instincts grow together within this traditional mold — that is, socialized — trained to behave in a particular way, taught to perceive in a particular way, initiated into feeling a particular way — what forms is a human being. And each generation of human beings maintains and modifies the molds for the next generation. This mold is called “education”. What a human being is changes in an invariable way.

This process of transfiguring homo sapiens animals into human beings can be quite violent. Some have powerful instincts that cannot be molded in any existing mold. Some have too little instinctive material that result is an unformed lump, or in the best cases, a hollow human-shaped form, but inwardly lacks spiritual substance. Or they have too much material, which oozes out of the edges, and must be trimmed off through all sorts of “disciplinary action”. In our hyper-gentle time which celebrates “feminine virtues” — sensitivity, consideration, cooperativeness, quietness, sitting still in small cube-shaped spaces — education has become girl-shaped, and for all practical purposes has become a universal iron maiden, within which all extraneous protuberances are mashed in, trimmed off or sanded down in the name of “classroom management”.

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It is only when humanity evolves beyond its old cultural molds that we begin to pine for nature. But what we really want is a more accommodating artificiality. But the old molds have to be broken, melted down and reformed, and for this the violence and heat of romanticism is useful.

If all you’ve got is the hammer of objectively, everything is either an object to hammer on, or something to knock unconscious.

A good marriage is made of two coordinated kinds of love: 1) the intersubjective immediacy of “in love”, which is the passive element (it happens to you), and 2) the objective abstraction of “the relationship”, which is the active element (it is something the couple preserves, improves, sometimes nurses back to health, sometimes rescues from imminent disaster — and occasionally brings back from the dead).

“In love” is a representative manifestation of grace, and “the relationship” is a representative manifestation of faith. Marriage is a sacrament by virtue of its representative manifestation of religious phenomena. A sacrament clarifies and substantiates religion in “real life” by manifesting representatively, or if you prefer by being symbol.

In a good marriage, grace nourishes the couple’s faith, and faith serves the return of grace. In times of grace, the grace is invested in strengthening the marriage; and in times of faith, the couple adheres to practices that preserve the conditions for the return of grace.

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There are also some marriages that have only one or the other kind of love.

Marriages of passion survive as long as grace persists, but when grace goes — and it always eventually goes — the couple has “fallen out of love”, which, of course, as every good modern knows, can only mean immediate divorce.

Marriages of duty survive unconditionally — with or without grace, and more or less independently of grace. Such couples denigrate being “in love” as child’s play, as a means to an end of establishing a dutiful marriage. When grace goes, the couple lets it fall away like stages of a rocket. All that uplifting heat and fire of youthful love did its job of launching them into the cold heights of maturity where adults do what they should because that is what they should do. Such marriages last and last, and their endurance (plus their procreative productivity) is their proof of success.

There are different balances of grace and faith in different marriages. Knowledge of marriage and skill in marriage does not guarantee the survival of a marriage, any more than living prudently guarantees the long life of an individual. It just helps in avoiding pointless mistakes, whether the mistake is enduring too much or enduring too little.

Continue reading Sacrament →

Which is ruder, to interrupt someone mid-thought, or to expect to be allowed to complete a thought?

I think it is relative. How much does the thought require in terms of time and effort? It would be interesting to do a study on this.