I’ve been talking about complementarity, equality and freedom.
The implication being that unless people treat each other fairly – as in consider the others as being equal, and equal with themselves – none will be actually free. Free to fully complement each-other. Free to ‘boldly go where no one has yet been’. Together.
What’s keeping us from doing it?
To figure that out, we need first to understand how we got here.
‘I’ve been talking about…’
To talk about something means the talker is aware about the existence of that something. They may not fully understand what’s going on but they have already noticed that something’s afoot.
Furthermore, for a human to attempt to communicate about something means that that human considers there’s at least a small chance that others will understand the message. That others understand the language used and that those others already have a modicum of interest in that matter.
In other words, any attempt to communicate means that those involved are not only aware that something’s afoot but also have reached a certain degree of consciousness. That they are not only aware of something being there but also aware that they, together, can/should/must do something about it.
They key word here being “together”.
Why bother talking about it when/if you’re able to deal with it on your own?
Which brings us to ‘war’!
How many do we need to be in order to ‘deal’ with this ‘thing’?
How many of us will be able to ‘feed’ themselves after this ‘thing’ will be dealt with?
How much will each of us have contributed to the whole process?
How will the spoils be distributed among ourselves?
How will we deal with the ‘loose cannons’ among ourselves?
How will we know who will do what?
Who will lead? Who will be responsible for the whole thing?
This is the moment when I’ll remind you that this is a blog about the consequences of our limited consciousness. A blog where I gather my attempts to understand the limits of our ability to make decisions – as individuals, and the manner in which different societies have come up with different methods to mitigate the consequences of those limits.
Happy reading, every one.
War
What makes us think that the Thinker is thinking while the Woman is just sitting?!?
Is there any meaning in this?
Newton had only described gravity, he didn’t invent anything. Noticed it – like many others before him, thought about it – more (better?) than all those before him, and came up with a deeper meaning for the whole ‘falling thing’.
Nobody cared to contradict him. Because everything, once exposed, was so obvious!
I’ll make a break here and wonder… what does the Flat Earth Society think about gravity?
Had your laugh?
OK, let’s move on.
Darwin had also noticed things. Thought about them. Really hard. And put together a theory.
Which continues to be considered a theory because not everybody is yet convinced…
OK, things are a little harder to swallow. Specially the part with us being relatives, no matter how distanced, with Judy…
Furthermore, the evolution thing is not as obvious as the gravity thing… most of us would have to take Darwin’s word for it… something we don’t do that easily, specially if/when we dislike – for what ever reason, the outcome.
Then why do we ‘swallow’ – line, hook and sinker, however implicitly, the names affixed on those two prehistoric figurines?!?
Because they are obvious?
Just as obvious as gravity?
The guy must be thinking and it’s obvious that the woman is just sitting?!?
Or is it that we believe what we want to believe?
We attribute meaning according to our own standards. Then stick to our opinion. Almost no matter what…
How about He nursing a hangover and She guarding him against predators?
7 years after the accord had been signed, and never implemented, Putin had ordered his army to invade, again, Ukraine.
Using Lukashenko’s Belarus as a springboard.
As of now, all five people who had signed the accord had failed. In more ways than one.
None of their stated goals have been achieved.
The three democratically elected leaders had failed in the sense that they had not been able to prevent the escalation of the conflict.
The two dictators have not, as of yet, been able to fulfill their ‘promises’.
For almost a year now, Ukraine had been able to defend itself against the Russian aggression. In the first days of the ‘special operation’, Ukraine had managed to do this alone! Only after the initial surprise had given birth to hope, the ‘west’ had started to send in meaningful assistance.
Which strongly suggests that a people which is in control of its own fate – as in ‘democratically decides its own future’ – has a greater ability to fight than a people sent to the battle field at the whims of a dictator.
One by one, the democratically elected signatories of the Minsk agreement had been replaced. One way or another, all of them peaceful. Not necessarily as a consequence of this particular failure but, nevertheless, they are no longer able to make any other hugely significant mistake.
The two dictators continue to dictate. To make mistakes and to defend their previous mistakes. To cause misery.
Looking at the whole thing from a distance, the situation is simple.
Frank Herbert
Unfortunately, things are even worse. Not only that power is magnetic to the corruptible but also most ‘ordinary’ people tend to have a hard time acknowledging mistake.
Once committed, even by the most incorruptible person, a mistake gets a life of its own. And works hard at convincing the perpetrator to ‘hide’ it. Hence to commit even worse mistakes.
Now, why is power magnetic for the corruptible?
Because power makes it possible for the ‘agent’ to ‘hide’ a lot of mistakes!
The way I see it, people have a knack for learning on the run.
The shape of the learning curve and the duration of the process depends on the particulars of each situation but all people eventually get there. Those who survive to that point, of course…
What’s to be learned from all this?
The obvious, my dear Watson!
All those five powerful agents in the picture above have failed.
Yet the French and the Germans fare a lot better than the Russians and the Belorussians while the Ukrainians fight better than the Russians.
What’s the main difference between those two ‘sides’?
Those who fare better change their leaders more easily and more often?
Before their mistakes pile up? And become ‘too big to fail’?
If you can’t beat them, join them!
‘Join them in what?!?’
This being where all hell breaks loose.
‘Join them’ as in:
‘What you were doing was worthless. That being the reason for which you were not able to beat them. Hence you must turn coats and join them. In what they were doing’?
Or ‘join them’ as in:
‘Regardless of who’s right or wrong, they are more powerful than you. In order to preserve yourself, you must cave in. And join them. In what they were doing and in how they were doing it!’?
There’s a third manner of putting it.
‘This is the democratic thing to do. If there are more of them than you, you must join them. There is wisdom in numbers, you know!’
I’m afraid all three ‘as in-s’ are wrong!
If you live in a democracy, you had already joined them.
The very essence of a democratic arrangement is that you may keep your convictions even if the majority has made up its mind to proceed in another direction. You sometimes must follow – because you have already joined them, but you always may bring along your ‘luggage’. Provided that your luggage doesn’t endanger the community, of course.
What if the community considers your luggage to be dangerous and you disagree?
Then maybe the bond between you and the rest of the community isn’t that strong after all… In this case, you may have to weigh the pros and cons… Also, you must seriously consider the possibility that the relation between you and the community may not be based on ‘true love’ … it more likely belongs to the ‘friends with benefits’ category…
Do you tend to side with the powerful?
Are you comfortable with delegating your ‘feel good’ to an outside agent?
Are you aware that no matter what those outside agents promise, what they have in mind is their own interests? Not yours, theirs!
Are you aware that ‘they’ are not your ‘servants’? That unless you live in a democracy, there’s no way to keep them accountable?
‘Stockholm syndrome’ means anything for you? How about ‘postponing the inevitable’? ‘Sweeping under the rug’?
Are you that afraid to change your mind? Under your own steam?
Why ask for other incentives but those provided by mere reason? What else do you need besides arguments in order to make up your mind??
And where did this notion of ‘beating’ came from?
What are we fighting for?!?
One last thing.
‘Why me?’ is a very good question.
Because there’s no one else!
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
John Donne
1572-1631
You are entitled to your own opinion.
But you are not entitled to your own facts!
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
“a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal : craze”
Destination first. If you know where you’re going, getting there will be a lot simpler.
According to Daniel Moynihan – “you are not entitled to your own facts”, facts are obvious.
So obvious that doubting their existence, their factuality, would push us beyond the realm of the reasonable.
Appropriating facts – transforming them into ‘private property’, banishes the perpetrator from the community….
Hm…
Let me put it differently.
Moynihan had said something.
What was it? A fact? Or an opinion?
Currently, we – well, most of us – believe that freedom of opinion is the cornerstone of our Weltanschauung.
When it comes to facts… We’re OK with the definition – we do use the word/concept, quite extensively – but we seem to have some problems when dealing with the actual reality. Remember the still famous ‘alternative facts’?
Let me add something personal to all this.
My opinion about ‘facts’.
The current definition is somewhat incomplete.
We take something for granted. To the tune of no longer mentioning it.
We assume all of us see the elephant in the room and no longer talk about it.
For something to become a ‘fact’ we have to notice it.
First.
And then we have to agree among ourselves about its meaning!
Things used to fall down since ….
We’ve been discussing the matter since… we’ve learned how to speak!
But gravity had become a fact only after Newton had noticed the famous apple, wrote about it and we agreed. Gravity had become a fact, and continues to be one, only because his contemporaries had agreed with Newton on this matter. And we continue to believe Newton was right!
In this sense, alternative facts have been with us since day one. Well, something like that…
God had told something to Adam and Eve, the serpent had said something else… and the rest is history! For some…
Newton had said something to us. And most of us had chosen to believe him. Or ignore his words…
Darwin had said something to us. Many of us have chosen to believe him. To accept his arguments about the matter. While some others have chosen to dispute Darwin’s findings. To actively negate Darwin’s explanations about how we’ve got here.
Gravity is a fact while Evolution is still a theory.
Statistically speaking, of course.
In this sense, Moynihan was wrong.
For his words to ‘hold water’, we must to agree on how to separate facts from opinions.
Until we agree among ourselves about how to determine ‘factualness’, we’ll keep having to deal with ‘alternative facts’.
I actually cannot wrap this up before ‘unveiling’ my litmus test for factualness.
Consequences.
Does it have consequences?
Yes? It’s a fact!
No? Then it’s not – not yet, at least – a ‘fact’. It did happen – otherwise we wouldn’t be speaking about it. It even does have consequences – we do speak about it, but that occurrence doesn’t yet have meaningful consequences. It is not a ‘factual’ fact.
On the other hand, Newton was also ‘discredited’ by Einstein…
Not to mention how discredited had been Aristotle, the scientist, by those who came after him!
Yet nobody speaks badly about either Aristotle or Newton.
Because they are considered ‘stepping stones’…
Who wrote the Bible?
Who considers God to be both omnipotent and wholly good?
Who had become human by learning ‘to tell good from evil’?
Does evil even exist outside our minds? Is anything actually evil unless considered so by one of us?
And no, I’m not hair-splitting when speaking about the huge difference between bad and evil!
An earthquake, for example, is bad for those affected. Yet no evil is involved here but for those who ‘question God’s actions’.
An individual who tortures animals for fun is also bad. Arguably less so than a major earthquake… but for everybody in their right mind that person is undoubtedly evil!
According to the Bible written by some of our ancestors, by “knowing good and evil” we have become “one of us“. “Like one of us“… Not (yet?!?) able to “live forever” and for certain ignorant of most things.
‘What?!? “Ignorant of most things” yet still “knowing good and evil”?!?’
Yep!
A more relaxed reader of the Bible may notice that what’s written there recounts, symbolically, the becoming of Man. The foremost apes notice the difference between night and day. And name both. The difference between ocean and dry land. And name them both. Notice the stars above and the living things, plants and animals, with whom they share the place. And name them all.
“Apes”, not ape, because nobody can learn to speak by oneself. Nor become self aware. As in ‘able to observe oneself while observing other things’. (Maturana, 2005)
That same relaxed reader may also notice that the very ‘fallen nature’ of Man stems from the ‘inconsistency’ noticed above.
We’re basically ignorant yet still able to call out evil!
Oops…
Humberto Maturana, “The origin and conservation of self consciousness…”, 2005, https://cepa.info/702
James Garvey, “Ethics is invented, not encountered…”, 2017, https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/ethics-is-invented-not-encountered-why-the-philosophy-of-jl-mackie-remains-essential-reading
The Bolshevik Revolution had nothing to do with cooperation. Nor with civilization.
It was nothing but the famished underdog eating the bloated plutocrat.
The ensuing indigestion lasted for almost a century and resulted in a huge number of people suffering from ideological food-poisoning. Too many of the poisoned ending up dead…
Yet here we are. Again!
Trying to sort out a re-heated dish.
Which had already been proved to be unpalatable!
No wonder ‘gaslighting’ had been determined to be ‘word of the year’…
As for Kropotkin… he was a true revolutionary!
He was gaslighting his audience before the term had even been coined…
‘Jungle’ – or ‘bush’, is where evolution takes place.
Some of us might see it as a venue for cut-throat competition but it’s nothing but the opposite of it.
The fact that some of us misperceive the jungle doesn’t change the evidence.
In nature, death doesn’t happen at the whim of someone.
A lion kills only when hungry. And chooses to hunt the already weak. Leaving the rest of the herd in a better situation.
The kind of cooperation designed by Marx and put in practice by Kropotkin – the communist ‘civilization’, is the epitome of stagnation. When humans are no longer free to fine-tune competition with cooperation – and are forced to cooperate as they are told to from above, things end up in chaos.
All revolutions – 1789, 1917, 1989, have proven – time and time again, that things cannot be sustainably maintained as the rulers consider to be appropriate. That no matter how skillful the ‘designers’ consider themselves to be, society is a too complex thing for a small gang of however powerful people to be able to ‘keep afloat’.
This being the point where Marx, along with all other ideologues, had gotten it completely wrong.
According to Marx, it’s enough for a bunch of people to pretend they have a ‘theoretically clearer understanding of the line of march’!
In fact, this is the sole argument made by Marx when explaining why the communists were entitled to lead the proletariat.
‘Because they knew better!’
Well, we know, now, what it means to be led by people who pretend to be above all others!
By people who pretend to be better than the rest…
nicichiarasa 