I will write about immigration soon. I know all about how Trump's ban can be interpreted as being racist. But, it can just as well be interpreted as being based on avoiding threats from states considered dangerous by Obama. (Stupidly, it avoids Saudi Arabia, but that is for another post). So, it is all in the interpretation, depending on if you are Democrat or Republican. Trump wants to grab too far this way, Dems want to grab too far that way. We are damned if we do and damned if we don't. There is no subtle middle ground. There are no more days of polite and dynamic associations. We are dumb, mute, forgetting how to dream. We are walking time-bomms fueled by our own eagerness under pressure.
So, this morning I hear, on NPR, in reference to Trump's ban, "It doesn't matter if I fire 4 people based on their religion, and don't fire the other four of the same religion. It still means that I am discriminating based on religion." And, yes, this is true. Except for one thing. It depends on the observer, who is DECIDING that the first four were fired based on religion. Right? It is an opinion. It is a biased opinion.
Admittedly, Trump's ban may appear to be religious discrimination, based on his rude political rhetoric during the campaign - AND if one has affinity for all the immigrants being turned away who are just good people, and not a threat. But this does not necessarilly make the ban religious discrimination in and of itself - AND when it only takes one or two ISIS terrorists getting through to bring us a terrorist event killing dozens of people.
But, I am not arguing whether of not the ban is right, or if those who oppose the ban are right. I am looking at this as an example of mutual mistaking - of a polarised faulting based on semantics, or the like. Rather: on improper interpretations of semantics. Words. Numbers.
Statistically, if four are fired, and four are not fired - and all 8 are of the same religion - then, it is a wash. Scientifically, there is nothing to say that religion was a factor in any way. Science can miss the bias if it exists, in this case - OR - science can suggest that there is no bias. But, in this case, only if the boss says, "I based my firing on religion," or if there are other indicators of such, can society judge that the boss is guilty. But even this is social justice and not SCIENCE. This example shows the limitations of both, yes?
(Even when some suspect admits to a crime, both justice and science must continue to run their terms, so that we do not just take the word of a crazy person, putting that innocent person to death, without a truly fair trial. Otherwise, we would not be following the moral law of believing a person to be innocent unless and until proved guilty. But, even after every attempt at a fair trial, with all the weight of justice and science - and even by our collective mind - we still make mistakes, don't we?)
As in subatomic physics, it depends upon the intervening observer to "collapse" this ambiguity into something logical, in-time, and politically polarisable. One observer can say that religion is not a factor, while a differing observer can say that religion is a factor. But, either of these observations is not necessarilly what is the reality of the matter. In fact, one person can claim one thing, which obviates one truth, while a differing person can claim the opposite, obviating the different truth. All words, folks. Words. This is how we create "reality/s" in our minds. (See the RadioLab show where people did not "see" the colour blue UNTIL they had a word for it).
Politics is the art of managing and divvying out power - but it is also the art of wielding words, and manufacturing truths, behind which masses march.
So, what I want to focus on here is the broad overlap of perceived truths. I am using the above example to help elucidate a problem that occurs which is often an abuse of semantics, or such, when societies become rather over-eager relative to their means. I am speaking of a mass inflation of egos, relative to the opportunities offered by the economy. This is what has been happening since the crash of 2007/8, especially to the working class, but also since the installation of Reaganomics.
I have, in the past, referred to this ego-inflation as a kind of whiplash, where the big heads go careening forward in an accident, even while the body is held back. I have also written of a phenomenon where, in a dysfunctionalising society, people's values and allegiances become more and more dissonant or distended.
I might have called this, "value ambiguation." I said that, when this happens, people tend to fall into groups, in order to make their values more "real" or logical or defined, verses opposing values of other groups. But, this is all an externalisation of internal, private dissonances or anxieties, and is, as Jesus preached, not real. The temporal world of Caesar is not where it is at. And, as far as economics go, this sort of fluff mainly feeds bubbles which are doomed to collapse. In the big picture, this is what happens when empires decline. Whiplash. Fantasy football. The Ethic of Rudeness.
(My concept, Value Ambiguation, can be graphed on a multi-factoral grid. It can be applied to more than social dynamics. It applies to valuation of goods in economics. It is concordant with game theory, as with the Nash Equilibrium. And so, it is also applicable to evolution theory).
(I have a relative who is successful in math and in Silicon Valley. I kinda hoped that maybe he would be the one to bring the math to all my theories. Instead, maybe he’s the damn fool who has been trying to hack me today, and etc.)
OK. Now we discuss the group, “Black Lives Matters.” This is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Black lives do indeed matter. That is why Affirmative Action was created. Affirmative Action has been tampered with a bit, lately. Black Americans don’t like this. But, the Supreme Court arguments were rather relevant to the discussion above. A matter of interpretation. Social ambiguity is why we elect judges to tell us what to do, lest we devolved into tribal warfare.
Blacks also do not like how the down-turned economy has hit them hard, especially after the boom days of hip-hop glitz, etc. They are experiencing psychic whiplash, like everybody else. This means that they are maintaining their same eager, pre-2007 expectations. Internally, this has manifested in a social and gang greed for drugs, resulting in a rudeness so bad, it often leads to blacks killing blacks – blood in the streets. Externally, the society’s own whiplash and rudeness, and the elite’s own reaction to black rudeness, has resulted in a clear propensity of police to violate the rights of many blacks. It is all a big mess.
But, it must also be said that police abuse is not restricted to blacks only. Long before this became a black issue, I was reporting to you about rising police abuse, which was being directed against the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the innocent, dogs, veterans, do-gooders, OCCUPY protestors – or, in general, the marginal. (The anti-elite). The marginal includes blacks, its most prominent group. Blacks are poor, somewhat counter-culture, and often other of these categories – as well as having black skin, which IS often something racially discriminated against. So, blacks will statistically get more of the abuse.
Nevertheless, the fact that police abuse has been made into a solely black issue is largely unfortunate to the people in the other categories I mentioned, including dogs. The problem of police abuse arises from “quota economics”, from video-game training, from Iraq-war militarization via equipments and PTSD soldiers, from a worsening economy, and from demands of the elites. There is sometimes an associated element of rising institutional racism. For the most part, police abuse is a problem unto itself, not an attack solely on blacks per se.
What we have here is ANOTHER example of the 4/4 ambiguity discussed above. A certain number of blacks are “fired” – and so are a certain number of poor, Hispanic, elderly, etc. Some may claim this is a problem of racism. Some may claim oppositely. Whatever it is, the argument leads to increased strife, groupism and violence in society. It also feeds racism and gets people like Donald Trump elected.
But all this is not what makes the example of, “Black Lives Matters,” so germane. What makes it germane to this discussion is the semantics. Black say that black lives matter. But the mass that got Trump elected, (who also cringed over the tranny bathroom issue), say that ALL lives matter, as if black have been saying that ONLY black lives matter. Blacks respond by claiming that whites are actively trying to deny their grievances, by insinuating that black lives do NOT matter – at least all that much.
Do you see that all of this is only squabbling over words? And yet it leads to intense emotions, racism, violence, and government policies. From the left and right, from black and white, from police and people: rudeness begets rudeness. If the economy continues to go south, as it shall after Trump’s bubble, blacks will not gain from their BLM crusade. If the economy were to get better, as all our whiplashed egos expect and want, then blacks would gain. But I’m talking about reality here.
The term, “Black Lives Matters,” does not in itself mean that white lives do not matter. But the charge is that the term is rude, in that it IMPLIES that only black lives matter, and that white lives matter less. Blacks react to this in consternation – and the rudeness of swamping Bernie Sanders and others at their podiums. It becomes a self-fulfilling “agenda”, proving to whites that BLM is in fact black-racist. In fact, one is called to ask why blacks did not choose the term, “All Lives Matter,” in the first place, and seek to take in more MARGINALS into their message, as Jesse Jackson attempted in his Rainbow Coalition.
There is no science to support this, but it can be claimed that BLM is in fact a racialist movement. Likewise, no science, but it can be claimed that ALM whites are also being racialist. Racialism leads to racism, of course. It is all groupism. Value ambiguation leading to groupism. But it is all focused on words. Words which can be stretched one way, or another. And, by words, we create the dominant “reality.” If we cannot do that, in a dysfunctionalising society, then we use WAR.
Presently, we are in a continuous loop of bickering over words. The left demands PC words be used; the right demands freedom of rudeness. What they both have in common, and what neither can SEE in themselves, is the ethic of rudeness. The value of getting in someone else’s face to prove a point – as a substitute for the violence that one really wishes to inflict. Spite and smite – it’s almost Biblical Times today.
Who is better at misusing words than Trump? Who, amongst men, can be called more rude? Do you not see how natural it is that we have, by our own whiplash politics of preclusion, elevated this buffoon into the presidency? The Trump Tower represents our own damned BABBLE! “He should not call them ‘illegal aliens’!” “They should never say, ‘radical Islam’!” “The nerve of her, quoting Coretta Scott King!” “ALL lives matter!” This is all NONSENSE. There is no science behind any of this! It is all just whiplashed talking heads, making no sense, signifying naught.
And, while we all herky-jerky move to hush up other people’s words, look at the massive industry of rudeness that enshrouds us now, by our own choice and greed: profane rap, movies of profane sex and violence, drugs, illicit sex trafficking, pedophilia, internet porn, etc., etc. It isn’t the freedom of this I disdain, really – it is the damnedable American hypocrisy that has been with us for centuries. It gets worse when the economy gets bad, and then we intern the Japanese of hang witches.
Look at the gleeful support of Obama, and by extension all his wars, against those seven nations – which Trump now wants to bar from sending emigrants here. Partisanship has lead to nothing making any sense anymore.
And this is all as the elites would have it. In a bad economy, they want to save their crawling skins against the encroaching mange of the masses. That is why they moved the media to allow black issues to occlude and terminate the OCCUPY movement. Over and over again, they use black issues – and white racism – to keep us babbling against each other – over words. Over words, we spill our bloods, for the audience of a handful of amoral psychos.
Why would we be doing this? Why would we be squabbling over words so petulantly? It is because we are all feeling threatened, in our own special ways. The economy is bad, and we are starting to act like those crazy people over in the Middle East. Funny thing that they are now invading us with their terrorism and all. Funny thing that the elites would rather have it all this way. Really. Who would even care to bother retorting that, “Yes, but ALL lives matter!” so crassly, except for the white working class, who feels overly threatened? And why would there be all this complaint if it were not for the fact that the status quo has gotten absurdly out of hand?!
It is both the whiplash, and the drag of the past, which is killing us, turning us into war-faring ants. What new shall emerge from this? This is the wonder of it all.
Just as, “fiduciary responsibility,” has become the LAW of CORPORAPISTS*, who are now SUPER-PEOPLE, so has become THE ETHIC OF RUDENESS as our own personal kind-of claim on divinity. For, after all, do we not defend our sacred ideals? I mean, our money?
OK. Keep in mind this main point. We stretch semantics one way or another, based on our political bent. Our political bent once was based on our own personal desires to get ahead, or our own altruism, but now it is more of a fantasy association with celebrities with whom we identify. We are now abandoned children left with these little semantic games, which we turn into mass movements via the internet.
If you look into a baboon’s eyes, he will soon become violent towards you, because, ape that he is, he sees your look as a challenge. This is sad and unfortunate. Yet, baboons, who are dwindling in numbers versus the higher-thinking humans and all their waste, have somehow managed to build some kind of society around this retarded nonsense.
Same with a crazy homeless person. Look him in the eyes and he may charge at you with a bottle of rancid piss.
Same in the Middle East, for some reason. Seems like the fight the fight between Neandertal and Sapiens still has not ended there yet.
Is this what we want to devolve into?
Take a little more than you give. Take a little more than that. Take as much as you can. Prove a point. You have freedom of speech. Never mind the shackles.
On the Barbary Coast, if you sent a USA ship by on the high sea, minding your own business, and someone happened to see you? Then it was all the wrath of Sheria Law! You were fair game! Why? Just because you were in line of sight.
Line of sight meant that the observer owned the horizon. There were no geographic lines of demarcation, agreeing as to who owns what. No. If someone can SEE the horizon, then someone can own everything all the way up to the horizon. It is an inflated interpretation of personal space. This was true of the marauders in Jefferson’s time, as it is true today.
This is what religions do to people: it allows them to stake claims where they have no business. It similarly allows them to stretch words in ways words should not be stretched.
In my opinion, there is something to be said for being cautious of errant interpretations of Islam, which may try to take advantages, small and severe. There is a reason why Fair Dinkum Australia wants to avoid some of its immigrants, even though it is one of the most immigrant-welcoming countries on Earth – as opposed to, say, most countries in the Middle East. I see a big difference between fair dinkum and fair game – (as I see a big difference between fair trade and free trade).
What I am saying is that there is a problem that we are devolving towards. Once, our empire tended towards taking what it saw, albeit tempered by the justice of liberalism. Assuredly, we have been the fairest of all past and future empires. But, as we decline, we are atomizing. Each individual is moving towards having some kind of borderline personality disorder. We now take what we can get. We make claims where we should not be. Because we are powerless, we do most of this by twisting and using words. We follow the rainbow wordbuilders who do this the best.
How about we be real? Because we cannot. No more manufacturing sector. No more jobs. No more wealth.
It’s very sad. We could have been defending the world for great virtues. We are lost.
Stupidly thinking ourselves novel when we make these gross, rude mistakes, when in fact we are devolving into baboon logics.
That is what our freedom has allowed.
All stand proud. All espouse. The Ethic of Rudeness.
Let us make a religion of it.
* My term. Innitiated here at madman101 for your own thinkable astonishments.