John, all, Good to hear from you! Hey. Whenever I read your email I thought of this bit I wrote for the Nine Dots Prize. Which I did not win, by the way. Damn academic liberals anyway. But so anyhow, if you read it you might see some similarities to Robert Pirsig's MOQ. The piece is called:
The Last Politician Excuse me. Is this seat taken? No? Good. Do you mind? I’m a bit tired, and all the other benches seem occupied. Sometimes I walk farther than I intend. You could say I forget my age. What a truly gorgeous day it is, eh? What’s that? The election didn’t turn out your way? I suppose you have quite a lot of company in that regard, my friend. But for me, I’m pretty much apolitical. Sure, I keep up with the news. And of course, I voted. Well, for who doesn’t matter so much as for what. Wouldn’t you agree? Yes, digital technologies are changing the political landscape but making politics impossible? I tend to disagree with that assessment. Well, it’s only my opinion, of course, but I would hazard to say that this interconnectivity we foster with one another via social media and wrought by the rise of digital technology is certainly cutting out the political middle people. Oh, you know, those charged with telling us who to vote for and why we should. Yes, the journalists are prime suspects. Oh, you disagree. I understand. It’s easy to see why. We’re inculcated with the notion of fair and impartial reporting. But I think if you closely examine this past election you’ll perhaps start seeing telltale cracks in that façade. Honestly, I didn’t notice it myself. At least not in the beginning. I have my preferred newspaper that I read each morning. Yes, online. No more hunting in the bushes for this old man. Now I don’t know about you, but I have certain columnists I favor. I don’t take what they say as gospel, but on the other hand, they seem well-informed and so yes I base many of my opinions on what they tell me. At least partially. I do play one against the other at times just to perhaps winnow my way in between prevailing sentiments. Maybe that’s why I consider myself apolitical. On the other hand, is there such a beast? Sure I have a smartphone. Ah. I’ve heard that argument, yes. We’re all too connected to the extent we’re disconnected. So that’s the cause of your discontent. I’d beg to differ. Oh, I see them too. Even here in the park. Everyone is so busy staring at their phones they’re oblivious to those people sitting right beside them. I notice that just about everywhere I go. I nearly got run down by an errant mother fixated on her screen as she navigated the crowded aisles at Trader Joe’s. Luck was with me that day, let me tell you. No, I haven’t seen that show. I never watch television. Why? I learned long ago what a great eater of time that occupation can be. Sure. Social media can be quite draining in the same way but you have to admit at least there’s a sort of interactiveness to it that isn’t so with television. Well, I write. That’s why I gave it up. I discovered much to my consternation that if I had a television, the first thing I would do would be to turn it on. I doubt you’ve ever read anything of mine but thank you for asking. Novels, mostly. Articles for online journals, though most of those get rejected. I like to think because a good deal of my thinking is outlier compared to your common scribbler, but it could well be that I’m simply not much good. Yes, there’s no accounting for tastes. Plus we all perceive reality through the lens of our personal histories. I mean to say we seek out that which we know rather than that which is outside the format. Even highly intelligent people, sure. A for instance? I have a little time yet. You? Yes, it’s good not being chained to that infernal clock. Too many people are. Have you ever seen a green sun? No? Nor me. At least until I read an article about how often times people close to the water sometimes make note of it. No, really. A green sun. So I happened to be visiting family on the Atlantic coast. I spent a week not doing anything in particular. Oh yes, I enjoyed myself immensely. Since I’d never been there, they were gracious enough to show me around. Sure, we took in the beach. Well, that afternoon I glanced up at the sky, and there it was. A big green sun hovering right overhead. Sort of like a go light, yes, but not exactly. Did anyone else see it? Truthfully, I felt so nonplused I didn’t bother asking. Would it make a difference if they had? Ah, the myth of objectivity. Repeatability. A scientifically falsifiable hypothesis. I understand completely. But still, I’d have to counter that even if they had seen a green sun like me, or hadn’t, whatever the case might have been, we’d still have to fall back upon personal history and ask if they’d ever heard about a green sun or not. Well, pardon me, but it seems to have quite a lot to do with your assertion. Yes, about digital technologies making politics impossible. How? We are ruled by objectivity. Personal history should have nothing to do with what it is we perceive. But you have to admit, it does. Oh, you still object. No, that’s completely understandable. I have failed to properly state my case. That stop sign on the corner. Good, you see it too. What does it mean? To stop? Of course, it does. No argument here. Common sense, you say? Well, let’s imagine between the two of us we rudely wrestle that sign out of the ground, convey it down to South America by convenient means, and hire an amenable soul to plant it in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest. What would those natives think that stop sign means? Why, yes, I too doubt they’d know a thing about it. Why is that? Exactly. Our culture informs us what stop signs mean just as it tells us that the sun is yellow, not green, as well as how the reality we perceive is entirely objective—how anything subjective is automatically suspect. In other words, our personal histories have little or nothing to do with how we see the world. You still don’t understand. Forgive me, please. I’m an old man prone to conjecture, and I can see I haven’t stated my case with enough lucidity. Entirely my fault, believe me. According to the myth of objectivity, when we consider things like digital technologies, we tend to think of them as something apart and separate from us as human beings. Would you agree? Good. Now perhaps we’re making a bit of progress despite this heavy headwind. How about politics? Ah. So politics is a part of the human equation. Sure. Politics is something we do. So what we have is a sort of war brewing between them and us. Why, digital technology is the enemy, right? No? You think you were mistaken? How so? Digital technology is part of the human equation too? Oh no. That’s quite all right. I in fact agree. But tell me, is there anything you can think of that isn’t part of the human equation? Oh, I know it’s a rather tricky question. Me? Well, I speculate there is nothing whatsoever outside the domain of human experience. So what does that do to objectivity? Why, I suppose if you consider it with care, my hypothesis shatters that myth. Oh, you thought of something? The fossil record? But aren’t the fossils we dig out of the ground like that stop sign? How so? Fossils exist as things in themselves? You do know that for the longest time, people believed fossils were the bones of dragons. Oh yes. Not millions of years old at all. In fact, there are people alive today who insist dinosaurs and humans were contemporaries living only a few thousand years ago. Well, the fact how their beliefs do not conform to ours has little to do with the matters we are explicating here. Why, the dominance of cultural mores. How new ideas come along and upset the applecart. Ah, you’re starting to understand. I knew you would. I’m inexplicably drawn to intelligent people, you know. Speaking of stop signs, was there any need of them before the advent of the automobile? Of course not. Horse-drawn buggies didn’t travel in a manner that warranted stop signs. Well, the same thing is happening today. A new technology is changing our culture in unpredictable ways. Let’s imagine we two are partners in the buggy business back around the turn of the 20th century. Things are going exceedingly well for us. We prosper, in other words. But then one day this newfangled contraption appears on the streets. Yes, an automobile. Oh, it means nothing. A fad, certainly. Just wait a few years, and you’ll see. Gasoline? Where on earth will they get gasoline? All a horse requires is grass. But then, we notice how some of our coveted buggy customers begin showing up behind the wheel of a Model T. Oh, just a few at first, to be sure. And losing that contract with the Army to supply buggies, well, sure, it hurts, but we’ll manage. What? You think we ought to forsake the buggy business and begin selling automobiles? Are you insane? Those things are making our buggy business impossible. Good. So you do see the similarities. Ideas can at times kill culturally entrenched organizations. In that sense, I agree with you how digital technologies really are making politics impossible just like the introduction of the automobile made the buggy business impossible. Oh, I’m equivocating? How so? Apples and oranges? Sure, I can appreciate that even though I believe I am using apt metaphors. The answer is evolution. No, not exactly Darwinian, but rather cultural. The same? Yes, that’s the common sense point of view, I agree. Let me ask you this: can you see an idea? No? How about a society? Really? A society is simply a group of people? Sure. That’s why it is commonly believed that a society evolves in Darwinian fashion just like animals evolve over the course of eons. What becomes of society when the people die who make it up? Others take their place? Of course. So what we’re talking about is more a set of rules handed down through the generations than strictly people. Yes, the people follow the rules but in effect, they do not make up society. The rules do. Otherwise, society would die with the people. Yes, I know it’s a bit unconventional. Now perhaps you can understand better why my articles are often rejected when I submit them to online publishers. Oh, just because they are working in the digital technology field doesn’t mean those publishers are cutting edge. To the contrary. They are for the most part an extension of the deep-rooted culture prevalent for a hundred years or more. Exactly. That’s why I claimed journalism is part of the political middle that is being usurped by the rise of digital technology. By using social media, politicians are discovering they can connect directly with the voters they require to be elected. Yes, some are more adept than others. Good point. Celebrities? I’d agree they have a leg up. But then again, politicians have always been celebrities. Well, yes, even before the dawn of digital technologies. Think John Kennedy and his televised debates with Richard Nixon. Franklin Roosevelt and his fireside chats via radio. Those men understood the power of celebrity in a visceral fashion and exploited the media available to them during their reign of power. Plus, they knew they needed journalism to further their ambitions. Now, though, with the introduction of digital technologies and the social media that goes along with it, that interaction is no longer as one-sided. The notion of journalism as political interlocutor is being subsumed by a more direct connection between the politician and the citizen and of course the journalists don’t like it. Oh yes, the same thing occurred in our little buggy business. Thank you. You are too kind. But let’s consider this aside for a moment: though they are sometimes thought of as such, journalists and journalism are not synonymous terms. The one refers to people while the other references the rules. Yes, just like what we discussed concerning people and society. For that matter, politicians and politics fall into that same type of divide. Well, think about it. Yes, I’m aware they call it politicking but that in no way obviates the distinction. Because politicking refers to the rules, not the person. A politician politics? Well, yes, but doesn’t that substantiate my point rather than yours? You’re right. Things do tend to get confusing on this level. But look at it this way: the politician comes and goes while politics remains much the same. Politicians are actors in a play that repeats ad infinitum. Now, new scenes being introduced by the rise of digital technologies are affecting not only politics but a host of ancillary professions. Relativism? No, I can’t say I am a proponent. Well, because the term relativism is difficult to define, for one. Also, most forms of relativism suffer from various weaknesses that render the philosophies behind them untenable. Examples? All is relative tends to negate relativism itself. But yes. I have touched upon cultural relativism to some degree. The stop sign analogy, sure. I can understand how that might lead you to believe I’m an advocate of relativism. However, I think if you investigate this avenue you’ll soon discover limits arising from the outside-in research tendency modern anthropology tends to adapt. Objective scientific studies, yes, exactly. Students of anthropology are taught to study peoples as independent objects as if interacting with foreign cultures will somehow subjectively skew the results. Yes, I agree. The only way to learn about another culture is to become immersed within it, not surreptitiously peeping into their windows. However, those researchers who do dip their toes into foreign cultures are often considered to have gone native and thereby lose any scientific standing they might once have held. Universal absolutes? Actually, yes, I do believe there are tendencies common in all societies. Perhaps we can touch upon that in a moment. Well, in that regard, instead of studying the individuals, it might behoove researchers to study societal networks. You are correct. To do that requires giving up the myth of objectivity. In fact, I think if you look into the digital revolution you’ll discover this is exactly what is occurring within society. And this more than anything disturbs the political status quo. Your politician is going out of style, becoming an anachronism. Okay, our politician. No, not any certain person I can name, but rather the actor. Oh, there will be some last fitful gasps, certainly. And remember, we are merely in the early stages of this revolution. No, I do not believe recent elections are indicative of these changes that are being wrought by digital technologies. Rather, I think they are reactions of a dying culture. The culture of the politician, of course, but no, not politics. Remember, we’ve differentiated between the two. So in effect, digital technologies are making politicians impossible. We’ve brushed up against that theory already. The commonality of certain tendencies in all cultures. In a word, art. Well, yes, painting portraits is a part of art. But the term itself issues from much deeper far more ancient recesses that include caring and excellence. Artful pursuit unites the sciences, religion, and animism. Yes, politics too. But not politicians, at least not as we currently understand that pandering sort of activity. And that is precisely why politicians are destined to extinction. They can’t compete in the interconnected world that we are building, that’s why. And so yes, it is easy to rail against digital technologies and make claims that politics are becoming impossible. But as I said, it isn’t politics so much as politicians that are becoming useless. You see the distinction better now, I trust. Good. Politics will evolve. That’s hard to say. Prognostication isn’t my strong suit. But I think not in the survival of the fittest fashion that Darwin postulated. No, that was regarding biological organisms, not societal networks. Rather, ideas will propel politics into unforeseen arenas. Yes, I too thought the automobile analogy was particularly apt to this situation we’re facing today. Politicians and car salespeople are kissing cousins. They both tend to make unsustainable claims while appearing to be that which they are not. There is a reason many people don’t trust them. Right. They have their own agendas which are in no way geared toward art. Oh, but you misunderstand me. They can still be good at what they do. But the fundamental bedrock of caring is lacking, the excellence. That’s what separates artists from racketeers. Harsh? Yes, perhaps I am. That’s why I began this discussion by saying it isn’t so much who one votes for, but for what. Well, I suppose I would posit artful engagement as a start. Oh, you flatter me. Thank you. I too enjoy sharing high-level ideas, and it is, I must say, unusual for me to encounter, at least in person, an individual as perceptive as you. I admit in the beginning I thought social media might bring more people of our ilk together though so far I am sadly mistaken. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ve met some wonderful folk online. However, there is also a general underlying meanness. You’ve noticed that too. So it isn’t just me. Yes, I come to this park nearly every day. A man my age needs his exercise, or so my doctor tells me. Well, let’s put it this way: you could be my granddaughter. But yes, perhaps we might have the occasion to speak again. On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 1:18 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Sometimes it just takes so much effort to break free from a general sense > of hopelessness, that you can’t even move, you can’t even speak. It’s all > in vane, there is nothing good that can be done. It's a sad time, it goes > by many names. "Stuckness" is an excellent term. Writer's Block it is > often called, depression, is a clinical term. The non-output of a person. > It stems from a condition of hopelessness in the face of overwhelming odds. > > This is suffering, and it happens over and over in human affairs, but it > can be in fact, a friend. We tend to forget that with our "cures". > People think of suffering as the enemy, but suffering tells us when > something is very, very wrong, and a it takes a genius to grasp the > suffering of an entire generation: Robert M. Pirsig was that kind of > genius and he grasped our social suffering better than any other modern > thinker. > > Now when I say "better", I don't mean comprehensively. I mean there were > purer logicians and more well-educated minds than his, grappling with these > things on a high-falutin' academic level that most of us couldn't really > relate to, but for RMP, it was a personal journey. A personal testimony, > that hooked up with the dreams and aspirations of more than one generation > of a certain cross-section of society. We'll call them, for lack of a > better term, "the carers". People who were given sound metaphysical > reasons for giving a shit. Which for some reason, all of the educational > system and dominant paradigm had failed to impart. > > Caring was a verboten subject - you cared about what WE the authorities > determine you should care about. Scientific truth being at the top of our > list, but if you want to care about some particular religion, that's your > business. Learn that on your own time. > > That is what one generation suffered under. The next (and maybe > subsequent?) suffered under a whole different set of problems, the "it's > all relative" problems which make decision-making impossible and leads to a > nihilistic hedonism that moves society backwards rather than forwards. > > Quality is real. More real than any substance. What an insight! Even if > it was derived, as one friend of mine insists, from Whitehead, it was real > and it was told in a way that I could understand, without paying for a > hugely expensive university education, but a paperback book for 2.97 or .25 > in a used book store. No wonder the academy hates him. And always will. > Here was artfully told, the underlying truth of our existence, without > having to jump through any > > His story was underived. He walked that lonesome valley for himself. He > wasn’t a dependent upon any particular school of thought, as a whole, he > was just a very smart man trying to deal with an insane paradigm. And when > he found out about caring, and how it’d been wiped from the earth by this > insane death-force, he fought it by caring. Caring about people, caring > about his art. > > Caring is a tricky business. > Caring and suffering are synonymous, > But you can’t avoid it by hiding or staying away. god knows, I’ve tried. > It’s an infection on the cosmos in the same way as life is an infection on > the cosmos. > > And yet… even with all this caring and art and beautiful thinking, it all > comes to nothing in the end. Caring is easily subverted. > > Everybody cares; the problem is ego - the driving force behind the modern > era, that narrow social self the social-climbing, academically-rising, > philosopher that thinks mere academic might makes right. Never mind logic > or quality of thought or insight. That is the world we live in as I and > Bob both have found out over and over and over. It's a persisting pattern > that Pirsig, while critiquing profoundly, did little to alter or > change.. Certain cliques just become stronger, the more you attack them. > It’s an impossible situation. At least in my experience. > > You cannot deny society it’s Trump card. The buffoons win. I get > that. I have for some time. Nuthin we can do about it really. Ok > > pause for a tear to splash my keyboard. > > But fuck that anyway. Robert M. Pirsig set MY thought free, and it will > never be captured by any stupid system or authority again. For that, I owe > him my life. > > For the rest of you all, have a nice ride, suckers as this roller coaster > goes into freefall- > > jc > > PS: Shout out to gav, my brother, wherever you are. Sorry dude, I tried > for a while, then I quit. > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html -- http://www.danglover.com Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
