It begins as a collection of wishes and, at the end, all that’s left is a pile of memories.
Archives for category: alternative ways of acquring knowledge
Life.
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“Propaganda machines give too much power to symbols;
they tell you the confederate flag is offensive!”
The fact that propaganda machines give too much power to symbols doesn’t mitigate the fact that some people find that flying the confederate flag is intended as an offense.
On the contrary, actually!
I’m convinced Putin still believes he might get away with it.
With whatever he wishes to accomplish…
Why?
Because he is convinced that the only thing which might prevent him from achieving his goal is ‘the West’.
You see, he is adamant that without the ‘western influence’ he would have imposed his will upon Ukraine a very long time ago. After all, he’d already done that in Russia, didn’t he?
And the West seems to be loosing its focus….
A lot of ‘distraction’. Trump is indicted on 37 counts, mainly for mishandling highly sensitive information, while Boris Johnson quits his MP chair claiming he is the victim. ‘I did mislead the Commons but I didn’t do it on purpose’.
According to Putin’s book, there’s no difference between him and these two guys. All three of them have nothing in their mind but their own interest. In this respect, Putin is absolutely right.
What he fails to realize is that Trump being indicted and Johnson being investigated by the Commons are signs of strength. The US and Britain, respectively, seem to have came back to their senses. And started cleaning up their act.
He, Putin, also fails to realize that the Western help might come in handy. For the Ukrainians.
But what keeps them fighting is their will. Their quest for freedom!
The very same thing had happened during WWII.
The West did carry huge amounts of weaponry to the former USSR. Which weapons had helped the Red Army resist – and then defeat – Hitler’s attempt to enlarge the German Lebensraum. But without the ordinary Russians putting up with the war… all western help would have been lost!
Same thing is happening under our own eyes. The arms beefing up Ukraine’s army might come in handy but it’s the Ukrainian determination to lead their own, independent, life which will eventually douse Putin’s ambition.
One final thing.
Nazi Germany had ultimately failed because it was an ‘imperium’. A socio-political arrangement where all decisions were made in a highly centralized manner. Where mistakes accumulated and eventually made it impossible for the arrangement to survive. Because unsolved past mistakes make it impossible for a system to evolve. To solve present day challenges.
Any resemblance to what’s going on in present day Russia is nothing but yet another proof that failing to understand history forces you to repeat the lesson.
For something to become a resource, it has to be identified first. As such…
Coming back to Kissinger, we need first to accept that he is the product of the world before him and one of the factors who continues to shape the current one.
We can learn from him – and coldly assess the present situation in order to avoid past mistakes going forward – or … we can let him win! And follow in his footsteps: Divide et impera, manipulate people into doing things against their own nature, despise everybody who thinks differently than what we consider to be right …
“To set a wolf to guard sheep“
Latin proverb.
A first glance, it doesn’t make much sense to put an oilman in charge of a COP conference.
Nothing more than setting a wolf to guard sheep, right?
On the other hand, shepherd dogs are nothing but ‘converted’ wolves.
Wolves who had somehow figured out that it’s more sustainable to live with the humans than in the wild.
Former wolves who had somehow figured out that’s far more sustainable – for them, to protect the sheep than to prey on them.
OK, the agent driving the process had been human. But the facts remain. Dogs have evolved from wolves.
What are we waiting for?
If the descendants of the wolves had been able to ‘cross over’, why so many reasonable people continue to believe that the ‘Global Warming’ is a hoax?
After all, we’re the ones supposed to be reasonable…
And the way I see it, it’s unreasonable to believe that burning fossil fuel accumulated during millions of years can be ‘sustainable’. Forget about ‘peak oil’ and ‘peak gas’ and remember how hot the Earth was when the first drop of fossil fuel had been set aside by Mother Nature.
‘Self awareness’ is how we call our ability to observe ourselves while observing others.
Humberto Maturana
First and foremost, existence is a concept.
Something our forefathers had coined. A mental construct built by talking about it.
Nothing existed before we saw it AND talked about it!
Think about the stars nobody knew about until we used Hubble to peek into the history of the Universe.
Think about the stars which ‘sit’ there and no man will ever see. Or otherwise perceive.
Think!
Do they, the stars, actually exist?
In the sense that has their being been ‘measured’ into existence by a self aware observer?
Has that observation been communicated by the observer to anybody else? Who had confirmed that that observation was anything more than a mere illusion?
You see, both actually – my rantings on your monitor – and figuratively, I don’t need to be told about the existence of the steps I have to climb up and down when I leave my bed each morning. On the other hand, I know that the Amazon exists because I’ve been told about it. Further more, I see for my self the steps in my house but I have a name for them – and I can write about them – because our forefathers had learned to speak. About the world they were discovering around themselves.
My point? We speak things into existence, not into being.
‘How about the things we talk about before we’ve ‘seen’ them? Neptune, the planet, had been ‘calculated’ before ‘seen’ and all mass manufactured things are first discussed and only then launched into production.
Which was the exact moment when each of them had started to exist?’
Good question!
I’m afraid I have no valid answer. This is a matter which will remain open for further debate!
After all, how else to justify our existence?
How else to find our own meaning? Other than by talking about it?
All people, men and women alike, are born, nursed and initially educated by their mothers.
By their mothers, inexorably women!
Some of the feminists, mostly women, act as if they want to exact revenge over their former ‘masters’.
Over men. Whom they perceive as oppressors.
Most of the feminists, from both genders, believe that women should be equal to men. That they are not yet so and that this is the most important problem which has to be solved in order for mankind (?!?) to go forward.
Being raised under communist rule – where women had been put to work, hence granted a lot of ‘equal rights’ – by a very ‘progressive’ pair of women – mom and grandmother – I grew up having the impression that men and women considered themselves partners. That being how my father and mother treated each-other.
I used scare-marks around progressive because neither my mother nor my maternal grand-mother considered themselves as such. Only behaved in that manner. Which I grew up considering to be normal.
Illusions, like always, end up being shredded.
Very soon I learned that not all people had been born equal.
And that I had been dealt ‘the better hand’…
So I didn’t waste any more time/energy to consider the matter!
For 40 or so years…
This is not the good moment to delve into details.
Enough for me to say that my quest – to understand as many as possible of the consequences ‘inflicted’ by the limited nature of our consciousness – led me to feminism. To ‘feminism’ seen as a social phenomenon.
Already convinced – since early childhood, conviction beefed up by the relation built in concert with my wife, that men and women are equal partners in the adventure called life, I was confronted by a huge dilemma:
Why on Earth so many women raise their children – both future men and future women – in the conviction that men are entitled to be served and women are meant to indulge their wishes?!?
Is it an attitude imposed by the overbearing men?
Hence easy to unlearn?
Or is it an evolutionary thing?
Hence harder to leave behind…
I continue to be under the impression that my most important break-trough to-date is that each individual conscience is primordially concerned with its own survival. Not as much with its ‘physical’ survival as with the conservation of the good impression it has about itself. With maintaining its self-esteem!
For instance, this is the reason for so many of us having such a hard time when trying to ditch a bad habit! Because we have to admit first, before ourselves, that we’ve been wrong for so long! That we’ve been acting foolishly since adopting that habit.
Coming back to the main subject, who would like to be?
The proud mother of a highly successful man or the mother of a below average Joe?
Small wonder then that in the current cultural environment we continue to raise highly assertive men. And, sometimes, women.
On the other hand, if you’ve been a submissive woman all your life, how do you feel in the presence of assertive women? Uncomfortably? Even more so if the assertive woman happens to be your daughter?
So, could it be possible that we are stuck in the present situation because we’ve conditioned ourselves to over-value the glitzy part of what we call ‘success’?
And because we’ve not yet learned to forgive ourselves for past mistakes?
Ernst Mayr, an evolutionist, put it this way:
‘Evolution is no way about the survival of the fittest.
“Fittest” to what ?!? since evolution is about being able to cope with change…
In reality, evolution is about the demise of the unfit!’
Same here.
We can fight ourselves into the ground, chasing ‘success’.
Or we can thrive together.
As equal partners, complementing each = other.
“Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos.”
The true version of the Chinese ‘curse’
too many times translated in English as
“May you live in interesting times”
Not so long ago, a presidential candidate told his audience “People… my people are so smart!….And loyal! you know, I could shoot someone on the 5th Avenue and not loose votes!”
As things happened, he was right. His people did vote for him.
He, a guy who had previously bragged about ‘grabbing women by the pu$$y’.
Four years later, the People changed their mind. And voted to send him back to Mar-a-lago…
He told ‘his’ people the vote had been rigged.
The ‘smart ones’ believed Trump to the tune of eventually chasing Vice-president Pence all over the Capitol in an attempt to convince him to ditch the result of the vote. Against all evidence, as certified by all pertinent authorities.
Currently, there is an increasing number of people floating the idea that ‘democracy’ isn’t for everybody.
The notion isn’t exactly new – see the ‘debate’ pitting ‘republic’ against ‘democracy’ – but lately its promoters have become even more brazen. They posit that since people are not equally endowed – intellectually, mostly – they should be tested before being allowed to vote.
Nothing new under the sun? The whole thing is nothing more than a rehash of the notion put forward by Robert Heinlein in Starship Troopers?
Not exactly!
Heinlein proposed that full citizenship – including the right to vote – should be extended exclusively to those willing to put their life on the line. ‘If you want to decide the future, you need to commit yourself to defending the present. With your life, if necessary’.
Quite a difference from ‘I’m not OK with how you may vote so I’m going to look for ways to disenfranchise you, under various pretenses.’
The way I see this, we’re confronted by two things.
An increasing lack of trust amongst us. And an burgeoning amount of intellectual dishonesty.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.“
As per the United States Constitution, Arms are supposed to be kept and borne with the main goal of protecting the free State. Which State was supposed to be governed by a government “of the people, by the people, for the people“.
Nowadays, under the pretext that ‘the government is more often the problem than the solution’, the defenders of the Second Amendment “as it was written” maintain that Arms are necessary so that the people may defend itself against an overbearing government.
Otherwise put, whenever I don’t like the outcome of an election, I need to be able to start a(n) (un)civil war. An attitude born out of a complete distrust in our fellow citizens’ ability to vote ‘right’.
And a simpler version.
I don’t trust all my fellow citizens’ ability to vote reasonably but I trust all my fellow citizens enough to let them walk around armed to their teeth. Unconditionally, in some states.
Coming back to Marcus Aurelius’ pronouncement, who is the one smart enough to determine whether those 10 000 actually have no idea about the subject at hand?
Not to mention the fact that Marcus Aurelius never actually said it…. Wrote it, more precisely.
And why do I choose to believe this guy Sadler instead of trusting the bloke who had created the meme? Because Sadler makes sense. And because Sadler had put his name forward – remember Heinlein? – instead of cloaking himself in the shadows of the internet.
People act as if the world is as each of them sees it.
The briefest glance into our evolutionary past is enough to see that the more ‘sophisticated’ an animal is, the more it depends on its visual ability. On its ability to see things in a manner which is consistent with its ‘way of life’.
Herbivore mammals, for example, have a very wide vision field while the carnivores feeding on them have a narrower field but a binocular vision. Which makes perfect sense. The ‘defenseless’ herbivores need to see everything around them – so they might be able to flee, while the predators need binocular vision in order to hunt efficiently.
Our evolutionary ancestors, who lived in trees, needed binocular vision in order to travel in their 3D world. They also needed better hand-eye coordination for picking the fruit they were eating. Hence their, and ours, very tight connection between our eyes and our brains. And the big portion of our brain allocated to processing visual information.
At some point in our evolution – we were still animals at that point, we have learned to use sound in order to warn/grab the attention of our ‘correspondents’. Why? Because sound can go around obstacles while in order to notice visual cues the potential recipient needs to… you got it, I’m sure!
Fast forward to when our direct ancestors, already homo sapiens, have started to actually speak. To consciously use sound to convey meaning. Not only to warn but to transmit actual information. Information which could be acted upon. Acted upon as different from reacted to…
And now I wonder. How much time had passed between learning to speak and uttering the first lie?
Lie as in intentionally misrepresenting reality, as opposed to unintentionally failing to convey the entire reality…
Hard to even imagine an answer to that question.
But since I’ve already mentioned the subject, let me make two observations.
It’s a lot easier to lie using language than in any other way.
And it’s a lot easier to be fooled by what you see – and sometimes hear, than by information gathered through the rest of the senses. Unless, of course, that information was a ‘message’ sent/meant to/for us. A perfume versus a naturally occurring smell, for instance. Or an artificial sweetener/flavoring…
I’ll wrap this thing up pointing your attention to the fact that since learning to read we, individual human beings, have shared more information using the ‘visual channel’ than ever before.
Which has produced momentous consequences.
Verba volant, scripta manent!
A written culture is more resilient than a spoken one.
A written lie reaches more people, potentially, than a told one.
For two reasons.
A ‘verbal’ lie needs to be retold in order to survive. It has not only to impress strongly enough the target as to transform it into a relay but also to be reinterpreted convincingly enough by the former victim as to reignite the process.
Meanwhile, a written lie just lies in waiting. Waiting to be read… Not to mention what happened after we had invented the printing press…
The second reason is less obvious. I’ve already mentioned the fact that a spoken lie depends on the teller. On the ability of the ‘interpreter’ to convey it in a convincing enough manner. The problem being here that if the target has the slightest doubt, the lie flops. The liar has lost an opportunity. On the other hand, a written lie can be honed at will before hand. Under no pressure.
Now that I have finished the theoretical part of my post, let’s interpret the following message.
“Dishonesty and intellectual chaos…”
According to some of those with whom we share the planet, it’s OK for a human individual to choose their name but not their gender. Choosing your own name – as in changing the name you have been given at birth, is acceptable while changing/widening the gender you had been assigned to – by others, before you had any opportunity to contribute to the process – is considered to be dishonest and liable to cause intellectual chaos.
On the other hand, we – all of us – should be fully aware of the fact that those who – since always – have ‘found joy’ in ‘exposing’ themselves will use every opportunity available to them.
The way I see it, the situation is ‘chaotic’ enough.
No need for any of us, from any ‘camp’ and belonging to any ‘persuasion’, to further weaponize an already volatile situation.
Do you remember what happened when our not so distant ancestors had ‘determined’ that witches were meant be burned?
“And Jesus said unto them,
Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you,
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed,
ye shall say unto this mountain,
Remove hence to yonder place;
and it shall remove;
and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
Matthew, 17:20
Apparently, the quote above doesn’t make much sense.
No matter how much faith one has, telling a mountain to ‘remove to yonder place’ will yield nothing more than a wasted breath.
On the other hand… 2000 years is a lot. Erosion has moved many a mountains in this time… After all, Jesus didn’t say anything about how fast will the mountain remove itself after it had been told to…
OK, jokes aside, nowadays it’s a lot easier for us to remove a (smallish) mountain than it was in those times. We currently use cranes and lorries instead of mere words … but we still wouldn’t start before convincing ourselves that it’s possible.
That our goal is within our grasp. At least notionally.
The truth of the matter being that we live now in a better world.
According to our benchmarks.
We live longer and have it a lot easier!
But is our world really better?
According to other benchmarks…
Biodiversity loss, spoiled environment, continued human exploitation…
Let me put it differently.
What was the thing which had set apart the abrahamic faith from all other religions?
The notion that all people had been made in the image of the creator god.
As a consequence of how they’ve been made, they – the people – are not only equal – cast in the same mould, but also harboring a divine spark. The image they share being that of a god, not an ordinary one…
What difference does this make?
Democracy, capitalism, free market… all things we consider to be capital to our well being are based on the notion that all people are equal and have to be treated as such.
Otherwise why bother with what the other has to say about anything?
I’ll repeat the question.
Is our world really better?
Forget about biodiversity, pollution and quality of life.
Do we continue to consider our brethren to be equal to us?
Do we really hear them out when they speak to us?
How are we to achieve our goal – whatever that might be, if we don’t coordinate our faith?
If we don’t hear out what the others have to say about anything?
My previous post was about reification.
About the fact that each of us acts according to their faith. According to their belief that the world is as each of us sees it.
|How are we going to coordinate our efforts towards a common goal – a better place for all of us to live in, if we don’t hear what each of us has to say about where we’re going?
nicichiarasa 