The Way To The Left Marches Ever Inward (1 Viewer)

[rockaction]

Babylon, nicely. Impossibly suggesting revolution inward, ever-creeping, letting you think that there's a weird communal resolution even if we remain ever fragmented, willy-nilly picking our identities and expecting others to keep up. That'll hold well.

When the last rebellions against the external have been fought, one must turn to identity for the sake of rebellion? How long do we put up with other people's declarations about their identities on a daily or biological basis?

I say that it's not bigotry to reject it, but something a bit more fundamental.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldWSMhu4CA4

 

[chauncey]

Rockaction, I don't always agree with or even understand some of your posts here but I have to give you credit for being one of the handful of original thinkers in this neighborhood. I have no idea what your OP was about, but it led me to this video, so there is that.

It is too late to be bickering on the internet, why don't you and NetautX come on over and we'll sip some bourbon and pass a doob around. Maybe discuss some fantasy football or women in yoga pants.

 

[rockaction]

Rockaction, I don't always agree with or even understand some of your posts here but I have to give you credit for being one of the handful of original thinkers in this neighborhood. I have no idea what your OP was about, but it led me to this video, so there is that.

It is too late to be bickering on the internet, why don't you and NetautX come on over and we'll sip some bourbon and pass a doob around. Maybe discuss some fantasy football or women in yoga pants.

Sounds good. I agree, and out of respect to everyone, it was all deleted even before this because I'm deferring and my beef was stupid. I am charged up tonight and know it.

 

[General Tso]

Love the post rock. Disagree with it, but love it nonetheless.

 

[rockaction]

The Way To The Bathroom Marches Ever Inward, Supported By The Left: This is is what I was talking about with respect to identity politics becoming personal and about being able to freely choose your identity on a daily basis. It causes problems. When my identity changes daily, or I refuse to identify as anything, I subtly destroy any communal understanding or context of what and who I am. It's radical individualism, or maybe the laissez-faire argument of the left, if you will. It becomes Babylonian in nature because humans need context; they need schemas and stereotypes to survive. They also need, as Joe Morgan would say, some sort of consistency when it comes to relationships, friends, love, etc. 

Watch this guy ask college students why he isn't a 6'5" Asian woman and hear their responses. Of course, it's a small sample size, but I can't imagine any of these kids voting from somebody from the right, and it isn't because the right is stupid. The right is so far away from radical individualism on a personal level that the left has sold pleasure and identity as a political weapon. It now comes home to roost in the public and communal square. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/434158/watch-college-kids-cant-explain-why-short-white-man-isnt-tall-asian-woman

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I have to give you credit for being one of the handful of original thinkers in this neighborhood.

 

[mr roboto]

This is is what I was talking about with respect to identity politics become personal and being able to freely choose your identity on a daily basis. It causes problems. When my identity changes daily, or I refuse to identify as anything, I subtly destroy any communal understanding or context of what and who I am. It's radical individualism, or maybe the laissez-faire argument of the left, if you will. It becomes Babylonian in nature because humans need context; they need schemas and stereotypes to survive. They also need, as Joe Morgan would say, some sort of consistency when it comes to relationships, friends, love, etc. 

Watch this guy ask college students why he isn't a 6'5" Asian woman and hear their responses. Of course, it's a small sample size, but I can't imagine any of these kids voting from somebody from the right, and it isn't because the right is stupid. The right is so far away from radical individualism on a personal left that the left has sold pleasure and identity as a political weapon.  

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/434158/watch-college-kids-cant-explain-why-short-white-man-isnt-tall-asian-woman

It's going to be sooooooo easy to raise my kids to be so much more able than other kids. Keep dumbing us down - creme rises to the top. 

 

[rockaction]

It's going to be sooooooo easy to raise my kids to be so much more able than other kids. Keep dumbing us down - creme rises to the top. 

I don't think these kids are dumb. They've been sold a bill of goods that promises that freely choosing one's identity instead of traditional notions of some sort of classification will be consistent with a form of leftist communalism and will be no problem. But radical individuality is hard to reconcile with communal impulses. Ask the left about unbridled capitalism. They hate a successful economic theory that survives because of its ruthless freedom from human control, the invisible hand. But there is no such thing as unbridled capitalism and there shouldn't be. Nor should there be something as unbridled as personal identity, freely chosen. It destroys the social order. 

The only way radical individualism survives is some sort of communal moral relativism or nihilism; and the relativism is what these kids have adopted on a personal level. 

eta* And I'm on my second cup of coffee

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The right is so far away from radical individualism on a personal level that the left has sold pleasure and identity as a political weapon. It now comes home to roost in the public and communal square. 

I don't know about all that.

But I will say this.

If nothing has any definition or meaning, then anything can be said without opposition and anything can be done without resistance.

I think the underlying precept is that which indicates that nothing has any meaning does not itself have any meaning, and has no real world application. That oddly is the hope. The opposite is to horrible to fathom.

 

[rockaction]

I don't know about all that.

But I will say this.

If nothing has any definition or meaning, then anything can be said without opposition and anything can be done without resistance.

I think the underlying precept is that which indicates that nothing has any meaning does not itself have any meaning, and has no real world application. That oddly is the hope. The opposite is to horrible to fathom.

Exactly. If we adopt this notion of identity and do not argue against it, relativism or nihilism is our only hope for a communal society because of precisely your hope for the ultimate rejection of it on its own definitional grounds. That's awesome Saints. That's exactly what my thought was, only you were a little more technical and precising. 

eta* And thanks to you and Chauncey for the props. That's cool.  

 

[rockaction]

It's like I keep hearing kids say "gender is a social construct," as if they were rebelling against something. It's funny to me. Of course it is a social construct. Gender is about freely choosing identity or being assigned a "gender role" by society. But that statement is tautological. It really means nothing other than its assumptive conclusions of another thought. Of course gender is a social construct. 

That was the point of gender in the first place; it was supposed to get rid of the social shackles that sex and biological determinism played in politics and society. 

Instead of sex and therefore biological determinism implications; we got gender. And now we're really confused. The government got rid of "gender" on its forms a bunch of years ago (and only one executive agency had it, so it wasn't an epidemic) because somebody foresaw all of this and knew what the heck the difference between "gender" and "sex" was, and how we got here. 

 

[mr roboto]

I don't think these kids are dumb. They've been sold a bill of goods that promises that freely choosing one's identity instead of traditional notions of some sort of classification will be consistent with a form of leftist communalism and will be no problem. But radical individuality is hard to reconcile with communal impulses. Ask the left about unbridled capitalism. They hate a successful economic theory that survives because of its ruthless freedom from human control, the invisible hand. But there is no such thing as unbridled capitalism and there shouldn't be. Nor should there be something as unbridled as personal identity, freely chosen. It destroys the social order. 

The only way radical individualism survives is some sort of communal moral relativism or nihilism; and the relativism is what these kids have adopted on a personal level. 

eta* And I'm on my second cup of coffee

Yeah I get the underpinnings and that these individual people are likely not dumb. But the collective result of this hyper-individualization is a 'dumbing down' of sorts i.e. you have to intentionally suppress what is clearly in front of your eyes and bow to a narrative that you've committed to. The ones who have the courage to say 'Nah, that's not actually true.' will in due time be the only ones worth following I'm afraid. 

 

[rockaction]

Yeah I get the underpinnings and that these individual people are likely not dumb. But the collective result of this hyper-individualization is a 'dumbing down' of sorts i.e. you have to intentionally suppress what is clearly in front of your eyes and bow to a narrative that you've committed to. The ones who have the courage to say 'Nah, that's not actually true.' will in due time be the only ones worth following I'm afraid. 

I agree. Even if one's radical narrative about identity is true, and people should be able to freely declare who they are or what they aren't, the dynamism involved in this is much like the capitalist disruption of order that we've accepted to a degree, but rejected the radical version of. I keep using the analogy, but the disruption and destruction of the old order is what both identity politics and capitalism portend. 

Like Schumpeter predicted about the disruption of capitalism and Saints got at in an earlier post, identity and relativism might lead to its own demise, if not for refinement of the more radical positions that these kids and others are taking.

So, yeah, saying "Nah, that's not actually true," might give one a leg up.  But who will step forward to say something like that, say, in an academic environment, where the setting is hostile to somebody like that? Often times, those students or dissenters get the #### end of the deal.  

 

[mr roboto]

Also, sort of but not really tangentially, the removal of any and all external authority or narrative (religion, capitalism, socialism, class etc) leaves only a weird sort of inward search for grounding. 'Be yourself' as if the 'self' is natural, or unmolested by larger narrative, or that it's even particularly good or bad or worthy or anything. Your 'self' is so much formed by, and either confirming to or rebelling against, the dominant waters in which you've swam for X years. 

Then the pragmatic arises and #### no one has time for the theoretical. That's why a constrained hedonism is how most people truck along. 

 

[mr roboto]

I agree. Even if one's radical narrative about identity is true, and people should be able to freely declare who they are or what they aren't, the dynamism involved in this is much like the capitalist disruption of order that we've accepted to a degree, but rejected the radical version of. I keep using the analogy, but the disruption and destruction of the old order is what both identity politics and capitalism portend. 

Like Schumpeter predicted about the disruption of capitalism and Saints got at in an earlier post, identity and relativism might lead to its own demise, if not for refinement of the more radical positions that these kids and others are taking.

So, yeah, saying "Nah, that's not actually true," might give one a leg up.  But who will step forward to say something like that, say, in an academic environment, where the setting is hostile to somebody like that? Often times, those students or dissenters get the #### end of the deal.  

Well the academic echo chamber is breathing it's last few labored breaths in all but a select few parochial corners of the ivory tower. Higher education will be very very different, and remarkably more capitalistic than what you and I were used to. Plus again, from hiring managers to potential mates, no one really cares. For now. 

 

[rockaction]

Also, sort of but not really tangentially, the removal of any and all external authority or narrative (religion, capitalism, socialism, class etc) leaves only a weird sort of inward search for grounding. 'Be yourself' as if the 'self' is natural, or unmolested by larger narrative, or that it's even particularly good or bad or worthy or anything. Your 'self' is so much formed by, and either confirming to or rebelling against, the dominant waters in which you've swam for X years. 

Then the pragmatic arises and #### no one has time for the theoretical. That's why a constrained hedonism is how most people truck along. 

That doesn't seem tangential, it seems to get to the heart of it. I saw Arthur Miller recently lauded for saying that the most interesting journey was inward, to the self. That may be true, and I'm not a Miller scholar (I read the Crucible once) but it would seem that journey is only interesting in light of what you would call "the larger narrative." I'm not sure about self, soul and concepts such as that, but I agree we can't be helped but be shaped by larger forces and dialectic. Right now the larger narrative and dialectic seems to be moving toward a radical version of self-definition, a rebelling against social forces that were libertine to begin with. 

It's odd. That is why I tangentially talked about the kids rebelling against gender identity or gender constructs; they're liberating philosophies and classifications to begin with, but those that quibble with the concept of gender often don't understand that. 

 

[rockaction]

Well the academic echo chamber is breathing it's last few labored breaths in all but a select few parochial corners of the ivory tower. Higher education will be very very different, and remarkably more capitalistic than what you and I were used to. Plus again, from hiring managers to potential mates, no one really cares. For now. 

This I disagree with. Academia is as strong as ever. Will MOOCs and other things change higher ed? Absolutely. But something that disruptive will take half a century. I love the use of parochial, by the way. Nothing about the self and identity they're pushing be further from Christian concepts, but I get your usage. Funny play on words. 

Regarding potential mates: In my opinion, family life requires stability for people to enter into such a compromise like marriage inevitably is. If identity is fluid, ever-changing and easily defined, there is nothing to prevent a mate from up and leaving one day because their identity has changed. 

I've seen this coming. It's awfully tough for -- especially men, who are less sexually and gender fluid (big postulation there, and I welcome disagreement) -- to sacrifice their own freedom to enter into relationships with women with "pasts" that involve identity fluidity, physically manifested or not. Now, if my postulation is true, then we accept the truth and accept that there is going to be a lot of female-female sexual experimentation; the question is, for me, how to temper this for the social order. We temper male violence, but we absolutely have not tried to temper female sexuality recently. 

And I will get hollered at for this, but really, peaceful civilization has always depended on both of the italicized postulations, IMO.

 

[McGarnicle]

Dude, most of your posts need subtitles and these are no exception. I do respect your deep thinking on the issues though.

I gotta say, taking a break from politics has been good for the soul. Okay, the rest of the world has lost their ever-loving ####### minds and our next president is guaranteed to be a turd pile, but my life is pretty awesome and focusing on all this nonsensical political bull#### is just perplexing and ultimately depressing. Everyone else can make stupid choices in these matters and we'll get by like we always have. 

 

[rockaction]

Dude, most of your posts need subtitles and these are no exception. I do respect your deep thinking on the issues though.

I gotta say, taking a break from politics has been good for the soul. Okay, the rest of the world has lost their ever-loving ####### minds and our next president is guaranteed to be a turd pile, but my life is pretty awesome and focusing on all this nonsensical political bull#### is just perplexing and ultimately depressing. Everyone else can make stupid choices in these matters and we'll get by like we always have. 

True, and thanks. 

Also, I'm not trying to be a Chicken Little here. I think we'll be okay. The question is, what will we look like after this disruption happens? I don't think it will be for the good, and I think this individualism, much like any other total individualism, will leave people that tend toward communalism and common understandings unhappy and wondering whether their sacrifices are worth it. 

The individuals will always be fine; they love their islands. 

 

[McGarnicle]

True, and thanks. 

Also, I'm not trying to be a Chicken Little here. I think we'll be okay. The question is, what will we look like after this disruption happens? I don't think it will be for the good, and I think this individualism, much like any other total individualism, will leave people that tend toward communalism and common understandings unhappy and wondering whether their sacrifices are worth it. 

The individuals will always be fine; they love their islands. 

No clue. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. If humans lived 1000 years I'd be ####ting bricks. I've made it roughly halfway to the finish line and I'm milking it for all the fun experiences I can before #### goes downhill for good or I take a meteorite to the temple.

I have tremendous empathy for everyone out there feeling angry, disenfranchised, etc., but then at some point the meter is full, there's no more head space for all the stupidity and the fearmongering and the hatred and I just look forward to all the fun trips we have planned, and pool parties here at Casa de McGarnicle. Tonight I'm enjoying some Sierra Nevadas and Better Call Saul starts in 13 minutes. :cheers:

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

No clue. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. If humans lived 1000 years I'd be ####ting bricks. I've made it roughly halfway to the finish line and I'm milking it for all the fun experiences I can before #### goes downhill for good or I take a meteorite to the temple.

I have tremendous empathy for everyone out there feeling angry, disenfranchised, etc., but then at some point the meter is full, there's no more head space for all the stupidity and the fearmongering and the hatred and I just look forward to all the fun trips we have planned, and pool parties here at Casa de McGarnicle. Tonight I'm enjoying some Sierra Nevadas and Better Call Saul starts in 13 minutes. :cheers:

to that.

 

[rockaction]

True. And I guess I don't worry so much politically as much as personally. 

The problem is that people are internalizing the notion that the personal is political, much like we're seeing the notion that the political is personal come to fruition. It's long been a bugaboo of mine, namely because so many people I know are political and intellectuals. I guess if I weren't surrounded by it, I'd have a better time. 

Plus, I've noticed that even our entertainment has gotten increasingly political, but that's for another day.  

 

[McGarnicle]

True. And I guess I don't worry so much politically as much as personally. 

The problem is that people are internalizing the notion that the personal is political, much like we're seeing the notion that the political is personal come to fruition. It's long been a bugaboo of mine, namely because so many people I know are political and intellectuals. I guess if I weren't surrounded by it, I'd have a better time. 

Plus, I've noticed that even our entertainment has gotten increasingly political, but that's for another day.  

It goes hand in hand with the personal sense of entitlement and specialness that the last few generations have enjoyed. We probably need a good WWIII or great depression to blast some character and selflessness into the populace. Yet, prosperity is what the "greatest generation" fought for. We're constantly ping-ponging between the worst polar opposites of ourselves. Usually it holds true with presidents too -- 8 years of one party has everyone sickened so they vote the other way. We'll never figure this out in our lifetimes. Humans are too short-sighted and stupid.

 

[McGarnicle]

But this Better Call Saul finale is ####### riveting, no schtick.