Curtis Gale Weeks

The First Theorem of Curtis and The Second Theorem of Curtis

Intro

I happen to have a little extra time tonight.  So I thought I would put down in writing some parts of a blog post I have been considering for the last few weeks.

I don’t have much time.  So these will be a rough sketch.

The rough sketch can be considered a rough sketch of me as well as a rough sketch of general theorems:  So much of what I do—or do not do—and think; how I proceed to interaction with others or decide to end or forestall interaction with others, and my manner of interaction with others; indeed, such a large part of my life in all its current conditions, can be traced to the following two theorems.

 

The First Theorem of Curtis:  The desire for knowledge is a desire for control.

 This idea may seem utterly obvious…eventually.  I had a hint of it in my late teens when I stumbled upon Ralph W. Emerson’s essays and found this line in The Method of Nature:

The one condition coupled with the gift of truth is its use.

However, at the time I read it differently than I now choose to read it—and in fact neither my initial reading nor my current reading were Emerson’s meaning, although I came close originally.

For Emerson, ever the romantic idealist, a truth which isn’t used isn’t the truth or might as well not be; moreover, he said as much in the sentence following the above:  “That man shall be learned who reduceth his learning to practice.”  Any other so-called learning was as useless as untruth or outright ignorance.

When I was young, I had a tendency to read the line a little off-kilter.  For me, the statement meant that a wrong action, or error, or any action motivated by bias would be a sign that the man who is acting had no possession of the full truth.  Emerson thought that nature, God, or some pantheistic agency spoke the truth always to men from all directions—the “gift of truth” was a gift given by all things to man—but that men who did not listen to this voice did not accept that gift and could not act upon it.  They would have no claim to truth, having turned the gift away.  I thought the statement meant that a person could determine a man’s claim to truth by his actions.  So I was off-kilter from Emerson’s meaning, or from the use he intended for the sentence, but not by much.

Now however, in my early forties,  I choose to read the sentence differently.  Emerson’s “condition” was a condition ascribed to Nature which Nature placed upon man; call it a part of the gift-giving contract:  You must put the truth to use, or you will not receive the gift.  (He saw this as a type of flow.  Truth reception automatically becomes action as it is put into use.  A failure to act would be a sign that the gift of truth was refused by the man.)  I would ascribe the condition to humankind which we place on Nature.  Our condition is, we will only accept the truth if it has some use.

Indeed, I choose this reading of the line in support of The First Theorem of Curtis.  We solicit Nature for her gifts because we want to put them to use.  More specifically, we solicit truth, or knowledge—we desire learning—because we desire to achieve some kind of control.

This becomes most apparent in the physical sciences.  We wish to learn how to build strong structures in order to control our access to the other side of a river (a bridge) or else to control our comfort (homes) or productivity (factories).  We wish to learn how certain diseases occur in order to have control over our health, our bodies, and so forth by finding cures or at the very least treatments—possibly, preventative measures.    Indeed, we wish to have control over our own well-being, and a part of achieving that control is learning what is, indeed, our being:  How does the body work?  Insofar as the physical sciences are concerned, we desire knowledge of the environment in order to have control over our environment. (This includes learning how to use the remote control.)

But our being is more than our bodies alone, at least as we experience our own being.  We also want to have control over our mental health, our emotional health, our pleasures, and so forth.  If these conditions are subject to the existence and influence of others, then we wish to have some control over our interactions with them—indeed, usually over them.

Consider:  The effects others produce in and upon our physical environment may produce in us a desire for knowledge of those effects and thus of those people (who are capable of producing such effects) in order to control our own physical environment.  There is always a “getting to know you” phase of any new acquaintance; but, why?  This phase may be brief—say, a business meeting between members of two different but interdependent industries—or it may be long as in the case of romantic courtship, but the reason is always the same.  We desire knowledge that we can apply in order to control outcomes, because we want to control our environment.

When we perform for others, we do so hoping to learn more about them from their reactions; next meeting, we can adjust our performance accordingly in order to produce the same reactions or to produce new reactions—for further learning as well as to achieve specific effects.  (A crude but succinct synopsis of performativity. Their reactions may well be performances used for the same reasons.)  Essential to this process of attempting to control our environment is our ability to learn the parameters of that environment, and often this includes active stimulation of that environment.  We must have some control in order to stimulate, or alter, that environment.

The fundamental nature of the desire for knowledge—that it is a desire for control—also becomes apparent rather quickly to most people even if they have never formulated a theorem similar to The First Theorem of Curtis.  In other words, there is a reason that gossip exists.  “Knowledge is power.”—have you heard that before?  Additionally, purveyors of knowledge have a ready market, providing that the knowledge they are attempting to sell gives at a minimum the illusion of increased control for the buyers.  One may peruse The Oxford Companion to Philosophy and justifiably ask, Why were these people trying to change the world in this way, or that way?—their theories are so different, often in conflict (and sometimes hostile to one another), yet each and every philosopher was not only convinced of his theory but usually spent decades advocating it.  One cannot discount the desire these philosophers had for control, themselves, which spurred them on toward ever greater learning; but a whole body of literature could be built on debates over what type of control each desired.  Learning in solitude is one thing; publishing that learning—or teaching it—is quite another.  If that tome is too weighty, just peruse any bookstore’s selection of self-help books or texts on religious texts.  Sometimes knowledge is desired not for controlling specifically what it addresses, but for use in increasing control over the actions of those who desire that knowledge.

The First Theorem of Curtis does not specify whether the knowledge learned must be true or factual; nor, that control must in some way actually be achieved via the acquisition of said knowledge; but only that the desire for knowledge is a desire for control.

 

The Second Theorem of Curtis: Influence is a kind of control, but it is not absolute control.

In light of the First Theorem, this second probably explains why there is doubt in the world.

 

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Look Away—If You Can

From Section 354 of The Gay Science, Kaufmann translation:

…it seems to me as if the subtlety and strength of consciousness always were proportionate to a man’s (or animal’s) capacity for communication, and as if this capacity in turn were proportionate to the need for communication.  But that last point is not to be understood as if the individual human being who happens to be a master in communicating and making understandable his needs must also be dependent on others in his needs.  But it does seem to me as if it were that way when we consider whole races and chains of generations:  Where need and distress have forced men for a long time to communicate and to understand each other quickly and subtly, the ultimate result is an excess of this strength and art of communication….

….Consciousness is really only a net of communications between human beings; it is only as such that it had to develop; a solitary human being who lived like a beast of prey would not have needed it.  That our actions, thoughts, feelings, and movements enter our own consciousness—at least a part of them—that is the result of a “must” that for a terribly long time lorded it over a man.  As the most endangered animal, he needed help and protection, he needed his peers, he had to learn to express his distress and to make himself understood; and for all of this he needed “consciousness” first of all, he needed to “know” himself what distressed him, he needed to “know” how  he felt, he needed to “know” what he thought.  For, to say it once more:  Man, like every living being, thinks continually without knowing it; the thinking that rises to consciousness is only the smallest part of all this—the most superficial and worst part—for only this conscious thinking takes the form of words, which is to say signs of communication…..

…Add to this that not only language serves as a bridge between human beings but also a mien, a pressure, a gesture.  The emergence of our sense impressions into our own consciousness, the ability to fix them and, as it were, exhibit them externally, increased proportionately with the need to communicate them to others by means of signs—

—this, I call Performativity.

What is most important to take away from the passage is the foundation Nietzsche gives for performativity although he did not use that term and only hinted at the idea in this passage.  Namely, to borrow from Pascal, “Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.”  Beyond the early human being’s ability to reason about the non-human environment and to exploit that environment intelligently, the early human required an ability to communicate his needs, desires, fears, and so forth, to his companions, in order to ensure his survival.  This required, first, an ability to hold one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions in the world within one’s mind—self-consciousness—and, second, the ability to communicate these things to other human beings and to know when other human beings were doing the same thing.  This might be said to be the basis of human society:  co-operation for survival, founded upon the ability to communicate through signs one’s own self-consciousness or, to put it a little more crudely, one’s own awareness of the environment.

Crucially, however, mere communication of the environment one has witnessed, for the benefit of others who have not witnessed it, was not enough.  Individual humans had to ensure their own personal survival and the satisfaction of their own personal desires.  Self-conscious understandings pertaining to needs and desires required expression.  “The ability to fix them and, as it were, exhibit them externally” became the norm, indeed the foundation, through which and upon which individual humans established society for their own personal benefit.

With the development of society came an enhancement of the environment.  Two ways of looking at this: (1) The actual non-human physical environment changed, with everything from huts to farms to aqueducts to the Internet arising from the fulfillment of needs and desires expressed sufficiently well among humans; and (2) Other humans became a part of the physical environment, potentially as dangerous as wild beasts and severe weather or as beneficial as clean flowing water and ripe apples hanging from the branch.  Both #1 and #2 required enhanced strategies of communication, for the basic fact that a society of humans expressing their personal needs and personal desires—with the goal of finding fulfillment of these through the co-operation of other humans—created conflict between those needs and desires, or at least between the fulfillments of them.  These changes to the environment, which altered one’s personal self-consciousness of how one is affected by the environment, had human origins; thus, these effects could be altered if humans could be influenced. (One supposes, having for some time delved into Nietzsche’s work, that he would say this is the origin of prayer:  The translation of performativity into an attempt to alter non-human events such as earthquakes, etc., the way humans instinctively use performativity amongst and upon themselves.    That is, real performativity came first; prayer, after.)

A distillation of various strategies of performativity, taken together, might run something like this, from Section 13 of The Gay Science:

On the doctrine of the feeling of power. — Benefiting and  hurting others are ways of exercising one’s power upon others; that is all one desires in such cases.  One hurts those whom one wants to feel one’s power, for pain is a much more efficient means to that end than pleasure; pain always raises the question about its origin while pleasure is inclined to stop with itself without looking back.  We benefit and show benevolence to those who are already dependent on us in some way (which means that they are used to thinking of us as causes);  we want to increase their power because in that way we increase ours, or we want to show them how advantageous it is to be in our power; that way they will become more satisfied with their condition and more hostile to and willing to fight against the enemies of our power.

One might see in this doctrine of the feeling of power the origins of every system of government that has yet existed.  Even now in America, one political party has for decades pointed out the nature of the other party’s benevolence:  The welfare state is a state that wants to extend its power through benevolence, and the Welfare Party attracts supporters, by being benevolent, who will fight against their opponents come next election.  What the Welfare Party fails to express, currently, is the fact that its opponents do the same by promising no government, no taxes, no meddlesome socialism:  “People of America, we give you benefit of no intrusion into your lives by the government!  See how benevolent we are!  Elect us into your government so that we can keep giving this to you; empower our governing powers so that we may free you from governance and thereby empower you!”  As for the governed, they express their benevolence through acceptance of taxation, or else through political donations, votes, and so forth, believing that they have extended their power thus.

But one makes a mistake in believing that the so-called Social Contracts being written by political parties and state governments are the only contracts being made; these performative strategies extend to the very lowest and smallest levels of society wherever humans come into contact.  Behind every performative act—i.e., every act that is performed, or visible to another for the other to see—behind every performative act is an admission of one’s perception of having a weakness as well as the need to gain from social interaction.   One is a “reed, the most feeble thing in nature,” but so are one’s companions.  Because we cannot see our companions’ self-consciousness, or experience that for ourselves, but only may see their deeds, we may often come to expect this benefit from them, that they may act in a way beneficial to us, if we can provide the right influence—whether their reaction is to cower in fear or to  help us create, or maintain, the world we desire.

The practices of ostracism and excommunication, for example, have been as devastating to the human being’s strategy of performativity as a bullet in the head or sword through the heart, in so far as they shut down any potential for benefiting from influence within and upon a society—but nowadays, another community awaits in a different church, on a different website, around the block or on the other side of the world.  As environments change, so too change the performative strategies; but it is important to note, here, that the roots of performativity are not broken.  Insofar as one may easily find benefit—life-sustaining and desire-fulfilling benefit—in and from another society of human beings, the target of performative action may easily change to that society and away from the unreceptive or intransigent society, but only insofar as that.  It so happens that the current epoch has succeeded in placing many layers between material resources and the human beings who supply and demand those things:   A medieval peasant had fewer options, because his bread and butter might not so easily be found apart from his present village society.  Yet even the societies we abandon continue to exist, and the individuals they comprise continue their performative strategies, and the effects of this—alterations to the environment—may have consequences for those of us who have abandoned them.  The many layers separating supplier and demander may cause confusion for performers who are demanders but have no direct relationship to the suppliers; but the need for performance remains paramount, and we sense that it does—as always.

When now we hear about Splintering in society and broken social contracts, or else about amorality and corruption at the base or pinnacle of society, we are hearing plaintive performances from those who fear that their current understandings of society are inadequate:  How else shall they perform, how now ensure their own success, if what was once understood becomes senseless, useless, false?  May we not return to the old ways?  May we not now create the new ways we always wanted before, on the basis of this new evidence?  —There I have stated the position of the two political parties of the world.  These parties are now attempting to benefit even within the splintering environment; or, from the idea of the splintering environment.  Regardless of the factuality of their claims, true or false, they will continue to try to influence a sufficient number of supporters into building the world they envision, a world which will ensure their personal success.  The resulting clamor will remain clamor and may create more confusion as individuals from other parties, or from no parties, or from multiple interconnected societies, feel the need to exert influence on the system—because after all, those clamor-machines, those faceless masses shouting to be heard, those others, are a part of the environment we must influence or change if we are to feel secure in our place.

Nietzsche provided a “new caution” in The Gay Science, Sec. 321:

New caution. — Let us stop thinking so much about punishing, reproaching, and improving others!  We rarely change an individual, and if we should succeed for once, something may also have been accomplished, unnoticed:  we may have been changed by him.  Let us rather see to it that our own influence on all that is yet to come balances and outweighs his influence.  Let us not contend in a direct fight—and that is what all reproaching, punishing, and attempts to improve others amount to.  Let us rather raise ourselves that much higher.  Let us color our own example ever more brilliantly.  Let our brilliance make them look dark.  No, let us not become darker ourselves on their account, like all those who punish others and feel dissatisfied.  Let us sooner step aside.   Let us look away.

Look Away—If You Can: The title to this blog post can be taken in this light, the light provided by Nietzsche.  Or in can be taken in another.

The former, Nietzsche’s, seems to suggest not an end to performativity or an escape but rather that one should attempt to be the better performer or that one should seek to become more performer than audience.  In vulgar parlance, Do your own thing.  Yet he also seems to suggest that though one looks away from the audience—lest they become the performer and you the changed or influenced audience—one must nonetheless remain aware that you are setting the example, you are the “brilliance” and thus a superior performer, or influence, in the world, and that an audience indeed exists.

The second possible interpretation of the title of this blog post:  “Look away, there’s nothing to see here….”  In other words, you may pretend no performativity is occurring, you are not subject to the influence of others, move along and let what will be, be. Ignore the performance.

But is either possible—for you?  After all, you have read this blog post to this point.  You did not look away.

The future will be negotiated, one way or another.

Performativity: Shakespeare and Nietzsche

Hamlet:
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature:
for any thing so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose
end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the
mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and
pressure.

Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 17–24

I have, previously, remarked upon the fact that I believe Shakespeare understood performativity better than anyone who has ever lived. But as I read Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, I am discovering that N. alone, of all of whom I am aware, probably understood performativity nearly as well if not better.  Indeed, as I read Nietzsche, I am beginning to formulate a realization:  So much that I have written over the last year or so, perhaps over the last decade, appears to have been written first by Nietzsche, although I never knew it.

If you want an entry into the subject of performativity, you could do far, far worse than by reading The Gay Science.  I would suppose that Nietzsche’s general lack of awareness of the word, “performativity,” might mean that a prior brief, basic understanding of the word might be useful before attempting The Gay Science; but that is the only caveat I would give. (Incidentally, this appears to be the hallmark of all who have gone before:  so many philosophers, stretching back at least to Plato/Socrates and not excluding Shakespeare, appear to have been fumbling toward an understanding of and explanation of performativity without knowing that was their goal.  I make a slight exception for Shakespeare in this characterization, since he appears to have spent his effort in displaying it rather than explaining it—although one might say that displaying it as he did might be the highest, best form of explanation possible for the concept of performativity.  Besides which, one might find ample cases of direct explanation of performativity within those displays, scattered here and there.)

I have just read for the first time section 354 of The Gay Science—which goes about as far toward presenting the basic foundation for a study of performativity as I have read.  I would present it here, but it is a rather long section in a book filled with brief sections.  Section 354 has as its opening the phrase, “On the ‘genius of the species.’—”   I am inspired to contemplate Shakespeare & Nietzsche, together,*  from this line in that section of The Gay Science:

The whole of life would be possible without, as it were, seeing itself in a mirror.

The entire exploration of “the genius of the species” concerns the origin of performativity (at least of the human performativity):  the social concerns, the original utility of performativity, the emergence of consciousness & language, the scope and reach of performativity even now.  Even without finding his assertion of the origin of consciousness and language to be 100% accurate (and I am not saying that it is not), the general thrust of the section is to the point and valuable.  (I would recall here once again that a failure to conceptualize performativity as such might lead to gaps, oversights, abridgements, and so forth…I am formulating a hypothesis:  That a great portion of what has gone before went before in order to lead us, as it appears, sooner or later, to a full understanding of the implications and realities of performativity.)

I am reading the Walter Kaufmann translation of The Gay Science, which I highly recommend.  If you want an out-of-context (respecting the whole book) acquaintance with section 354, for the sake of the context of this post, here’s a link to a different translation: 354. (Lack of paragraphs, proper emphasis, and even very poor punctuation, etc., make for a much worse translation.  I may type and upload Kaufmann’s at some point….)

 

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* I am aware of Nietzsche’s reading of Shakespeare, and use of Shakespearean tropes, from various critical works I’ve read.  So I am not presuming a new conflation of the two.

Pyrrhonian Pedagogy

The term may be absurd when applied as a term for describing a method for teaching others.  It seems wholly to refer to a method whereby one teaches oneself—if one can imagine an education regimen out of lockstep with commonplace ideas about knowledge, understanding, and learning.

From the outside, Pyrrhonian Pedagogy if applied as a description of a method for teaching others would resemble the proverbial marching of the lemmings over a cliff.  The funny image would not be seen in the tragedy of so many students falling to their bloody deaths but in the facts that, one, the teacher alone would be seen to stop at the top of the cliff and, two, were he asked about the students, the teacher would be wondering what they were doing, and why.  He had walked to the cliff in pursuit of his own pursuit, not to lead others there—in fact, to his recollection, he had never in his life accepted pupils—and he had hardly been aware of them until he stopped at the cliff top and saw them falling so relentless to the rocks below.

If one could resurrect the dead, any random pupil smashed on the rocks below would give as answer for their actions the following:  This is what we thought he meant.

Upon imagining the possibility of resurrection, and thereby imagining the answer given by the random student, the Pyrrhonian might shake his head, turn, and begin to retrace his steps in order see if he can discover why such a misunderstanding occurred.  He might begin to wonder if he had, after all, accidentally accepted pupils at some point in the past.  Unfortunately, no student will be left alive to follow him back to the start; he will find no student left standing somewhere on the path back, of whom he might ask the important questions; and in any case, no student will have actually provided that spectral answer to the imagined question.  (Had not he, the Pyrrhonian will ask himself, merely imagined that answer?)

Presently, the Pyrrhonian will follow a hyperlink to related material, forgetting for an unspecified duration all that had occurred at the top of the cliff.   If he is lucky, he will out-pace those in pursuit—he does not see them—who have in mind his incarceration and punishment for so many tragical conclusions.

Addenda to “The Worldviewer in the World”

Although my last post, “The Worldviewer in the World,” was quite long, I left much out of it that I could have included.  Typically these blog posts are explorations, and like the RPG gamer, I find so many side-quests that might potentially lead me off the track of the main quest; or, like Montaigne, I can become quite as interested in so many related considerations that I can begin to focus on them to the detriment of my main topic.  Indeed, for me the main topic seems to be all the above, since any relevant topics may seem, well, not irrelevant.

Here I will frame some broader considerations into the form of a response to Sean Meade.

Responding to Sean Meade

Sean Meade, who inspired that previous blog post by asking a simple question on Facebook, has responded with a stream-of-consciousness comment that Typepad would not allow for some reason by posting that comment at his blog, interact.  Generally agreeing on the issue of the existence of problems relating to subjectivity and naïve realism, he nonetheless raises a question regarding the “G” portions of my previous blog post:

Second, the attempt to avoid the recursive tautological dilemma of naïve realism invariably leads to a presumption of the existence of an extra-real, because outside the objective reality, first cause or prime mover; i.e., to avoid U=U and its tautological insufficiency vis-à-vis meaning and value, a meaningful G in some form is imagined to exist outside “the rest” of objective reality that will give meaning to the World. These in conjunction will lead to a philosophical idealism in practice, or to philosophical subjectivity misconstrued as objectivity, or else to philosophical relativism — i.e., ultimately to nihilism, since meaning and value, rather than existing inherently in objective reality, will be found in extra-real or imaginary realities, subjective meanings, imagined relationships, and so forth, and these may begin to appear arbitrary.   [WEEKS]

hmm. do i agree? i happen to believe in an extra-real, but is that necessarily my guarantee of any objective world? i believe there is an objective world (realism metaphysic) but am skeptical (epistemology) about our ability to know it (in the justified true belief sense). therefore, am in on the hook for your criticism here? they don't seem to apply to me, though maybe it is arbitrary (unprovable, philosophically) in the end. i'd be ok with that ;-)   [MEADE]

I have already responded to this via Facebook; but I will summarize and expand those comments here.

First, the references to “G” were intended to be within the context of a consideration of nihilism/teleology (which was ongoing before and after that select quote) rather than realism in general or objectivism.  So rather than a “guarantee of any objective world” — which I take to be, guarantee of the existence of an objective world — I meant for “G” to reference a guarantee of inherent meaning or value in the so-called objective world.  Besides “G” (in that characterization of a particular teleology), “I'” as an individual human observer and “U” as Universe/World combine to give a framework permitting particular teleological assessments of reality in general, or the meaningfulness of objective reality, rather than necessarily justifying or proving that the objective world exists.

Second, one great omission from my original blog post may create a lack of clarity for the above:  that, generally speaking, “G” can be any sort of extra-real explanation giving meaning to what otherwise may seem meaningless, chaotic, arbitrary.  So, although I used “G” because that is the first letter of “God,” and I referenced ideas relating to a First Cause or Prime Mover, “G” could stand for any universalist, perhaps even uniformist, conception of force or theory used in conjunction with “I” and “U” for creating meaning for an observer.  Pantheism, Manichaeism, various so-called superstitions, any philosophical Scheme or framework, etc., could be included under “G.”   This might include particular schools of philosophy and even particular (often, polemical) explanations given by those studying science, a la some grand unification theory or unifying explanation — and, typically these will be used dogmatically, if for no other reason than that “G” forms a necessary leg in a person’s Worldview.

Third, the section cited by Sean Meade, and in fact most of the blog post, was intended to remain within a consideration of naïve realism.  So, naïve realists will often default to a “triune unity” teleology — and, the particular triune unity teleology described in my blog post — but this is not to say that no other form of a triune approach exists or that all conceptualizations, understandings, uses, and so forth of “G” will be identical to the naïve realist’s, nor have the same constraints and be subject to the same foibles we would see in the naïve realist’s teleology.  True, this #3 may be an “out”, but also true, I had no specific focus in mind when writing on the subject of “G” beyond an exploration of the naïve realist’s teleology — although, again true, it might seem to others, as it seems to me, that naïve realism may be the most common form of interaction with the world, or interactive approach, in the history of humanity.

Fourth, it seems to me — and this might be apparent in that long blog post, or perhaps ought to be apparent — that, for naïve realists, ontology and teleology, epistemology, and so forth, are all one.  I.e., a naïve realist tends not to separate belief in an objective world, perceptions of that objective world, and so forth from the teleology which gives meaning to that objective world and to the perceptions naïve realists have of that world.  Here, I wonder if Sean Meade’s reading of the above passage might have similarly blurred the distinction between a “guarantee of [the existence of] any objective world” and a guarantee of meanings, and meaningfulness, beyond the mere physical qualities and attributes of that objective world.  Of course, here I am also questioning whether the two will ever be separate for anyone, on any sort of absolute basis, and whether we are helped or hurt by considering the possibility of clear demarcations between belief in the existence of an objective world and higher-order beliefs about that world

Fifth, a problem that might arise for any reader of my previous blog post:  Where I am writing from my own viewpoint, polemical or merely biased, adding my own opinions, or am addressing Nietzsche’s apparent method, arguments, and so forth, may not always be clear.  In general, I was working toward an exploration of and explanation of Nietzsche’s stance, and in many respects I am sympathetic with Nietzsche.  It may be possible to see in Nietzsche a very broad and general mode of attack when viewing his polemics, and to stretch our imaginations to consider the likelihood that Nietzsche’s broad criticisms of society-in-general, religion-in-general, and so forth are his responses to the prevalence, then current and historical, of naïve realism rather than the attempt to design a particular dogmatism or create a particular school of his own.  This in fact may trip up some commentators on Nietzsche, either naïve realists in all but name themselves or pedantic specialists in philosophy who seek clear definition of Nietzsche within the polemical “schools” of philosophy and find only generality.    For my own part, I am, broadly speaking, a Pyrrhonian skeptic:  I find value, such as it is and such as I find it for myself, in the search itself, without coming to firm conclusions about particulars or even about universalist schemes – although part of that process involves a fairly latent and strong suspicion that universalist schemes, as Nietzsche might say, are so far quite inadequate.  At this point, a diversion into an exegesis of my own particular relationships to “G” may involve more pixels, and words, than would be prudent for this blog post; so, let’s leave it at Nietzsche for now.

The Worldviewer in the World

Intro

The below is a response to Sean Mead, who asked via Facebook

how would anti-realism and anti-nihilism go together? there's very little ground left, maybe 'higher men' and that's about it...

The discussion in question resulted from consideration of two articles:

• “Jared Lee Loughner's Nietzsche: Why the philosopher is misunderstood by angry young men.”  - By Matt Feeney - Slate Magazine. http://www.slate.com/id/2281133/pagenum/all (Accessed 22 January 2011)
• "Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/ (Accessed 22 January 2011)

What follows is a quick write-up of a response I began as a comment on Facebook but which grew much too long for a comment.  It should be noted here:  Sean Mead’s question came as a response to an assertion I had made that Nietzsche was not a nihilist but indeed sought a way out of what he construed to be an emerging trend toward nihilism; thus, the appearance of “anti-realism” in Nietzsche’s writings would need to be correlated with “anti-nihilism.”  I am addressing this concern as well as information contained in those two sources with the assumption that all who read the following will have read those sources as well.

The only warning I would give, beyond the fact that this is a quick write-up, is that I’m not a student of Nietzsche, having read only Beyond Good and Evil sometime in my early twenties and nothing else but criticism and selected quotes since.  I am using the Stanford summary linked above quite heavily, reacting more to the ideas there and my own independently-formed ideas about various abstractions relating to the topic.   The following may also shed some light on some recent debates I’ve had re: Jared Loughner and culpability for his actions on January 8, 2011.

Anti-Realism and WOODA

Reading the article posted to the Stanford site, I'm under the impression that Nietzsche's "anti-realism" such as it is involves the problem of what I would call "The Worldviewer in the World."  This actually relates to much of my writing on the OODA, which I have taken to calling the WOODA, including "W" for World.

Most people tend to separate themselves (and others) from the World, so that they can imagine a) a purely objective and b) a purely subjective dynamic which are separate while also supposing the existence of c) a person viewed entirely separated from the World, able to make decisions with "free will" that is not subject to being a part of, or greatly determined by, the World.

In my earliest conceptualizations of the WOODA, —

 

which I draw as two interlinking OODA processes — one, the concrete OODA, and the other, the abstract OODA which is actually the Orient of the Concrete OODA — I stressed the idea that the "new information" feeding into the Abstract OODA comprises not only the sense data the individual receives from his 5 senses while living his life but also his genetic data.   (See: Original, expanded diagram.)  Genetic data, indeed all the physical "data" constituting an individual, is always new data affecting the abstract process, even if the genetic data feeding into those abstract processes rarely changes or changes with less frequency than received sense data.  Why is this genetic data always new data?  Because persons are dynamic, living organisms; a change to the body (such as disease or injury) will alter the abstract processing; and, we are nearing the point when actual genetic manipulation will one day affect those processes as well.

Additionally, I have always stressed the fact that I do not separate the individual from the World.  I.e., we are within the World viewing that World.  This is a dynamic process, a part of being alive within the World with a consciousness capable of being aware (on some level) of the dynamic process.  Generally, mostly for lack of a better conceptualization, I consider consciousness to be an emergent quality of the World, or of the physical, concrete processes of the World.  The dynamicism I reference is not meant to refer only to 1) us, as living creatures, but also to 2) the World as a whole and, importantly, to 3) us & the World interacting.  #1 & #3 could really be an alteration of #2, because we are of the World not merely in It and the World is dynamic; but I add #1 & #3 for emphasis because I believe most people do not appreciate the dynamicism of the World and tend to view sharp delineations between the human individual and “the rest of the World.” ¹

The "genetic data" I included in the WOODA diagram (which perhaps could use a different name besides “genetic data”) — appear to be related to what the article at Stanford refers to as Nietzsche's "type-facts" about individuals.  I am guessing that the relatively unchanging and quite "near," perhaps therefore quite “strong,” genetic data feeding into the abstract processing greatly predetermines the individual's abstract processing of other received data. All else may change, and change frequently, but this genetic data follows him around, continuously feeding into – and, in that sense, continuously prefiguring — his abstract processing.  Because the person's physical being is so common to him, constant, near, etc., and in fact precedes all other new data feeding into the abstract processing, the individual is unlikely to be able to account for it in his philosophy of himself and his philosophy of the World as a whole.  This genetic data can not be separated from the rest  of the data, or sense data, determining the individual’s processing, within his philosophy; thus, these "type-facts" bias individuals, leading them to develop their philosophies, or worldviews, along certain predetermined routes.

So the perception of Nietzsche's "anti-realism" appears, to me, to be related to his reaction against what may be a kind of Naïve Realism — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism — and, for a metaphorical consideration of Nietzsche's standpoint we might consider the idea from quantum mechanics that merely observing a phenomenon affects that phenomenon, but with an added dimension:   we ourselves are changed by observing the phenomenon.  This may seem counterintuitive for describing Nietzsche, since Nietzsche appears to have believed in largely unchanging "type-facts" for each individual, but as a metaphor it might suffice.  Counter to the claim of "a", "b", and "c" mentioned above, that there exist

1. a purely objective [dynamic]
2. a purely subjective dynamic [separate from the objective dynamic]
3. a person viewed entirely separated from the World, able to make decisions with a "free will" that is not subject to being a part of, or greatly determined by, the World.

— the sense-perceptions people have of the World, from which they make their philosophies and in response to which they act, do not arrive at the abstract processing whole and separate from other data (their type-facts) but are quickly organized according to their type-facts.  If the objective world that is not part of the individual could arrive at the individual that is not part of the objective world — if these were two entirely separate fields/existences/processes — then the sense perceptions might arrive entirely intact and neither so-called objective world nor individual would alter.  However, the Worldviewer is in the World, or of the World, and  he alters in response to observations. His concept of reality alters with the addition or influence of those sensory observations.  Let’s call it his "type-fact-complex", or his Mental Constructs, his Worldview.  The so-called objective world "alters" within his "reality" rather than remain entirely objective; and, besides which, the portion of the objective world comprising the individual (who is in and of the World) alters when he alters.

The above is not to be construed as an argument for subjectivism, however.  Nietzsche does not appear to deny the existence of an objective world nor, as the article at Stanford points out, that we are forever and only trapped within the subjective world of our own minds as some idealists or anti-realists would have it —

To that end [of creating ourselves] we must become the best learners and discoverers of everything that is lawful and necessary in the world: we must become physicists in order to be creators in this sense [wir müssen Physiker sein, um, in jenem Sinne, Schöpfer sein zu können] — while hitherto all valuations and ideals have been based on ignorance of physics … . Therefore: long live physics! (GS 335)

— but rather seems to insist on the inseparability of the objective and subjective worlds/processes while prescribing a kind of skeptical acknowledgment that we will never be capable of distinguishing anything that is purely “subjective” from anything purely “objective” in our conception of reality — for ourselves as individuals and, importantly, on some universalist basis for all individuals.  If there were a word for describing a state of being that is neither subjective nor objective, a state which we might call whatever emerges from the two — so long as we entirely reject concepts of subjectivity and objectivity as distinct approaches to reality once we have found that word — Nietzsche might approve.  The Worldviewer being in and of the World, he is an objective fact of the World as are all his interactions with It and all Its interactions with him; thus, what might normally be called a subjectivist conceptualization of reality in opposition to an objective reality may merely be a limited objectivity, limited in scope but not in kind, which bears objective correspondence with all that is not-him.

Interlude:  On the Higher Man’s Self-Discovery

The Stanford piece quotes this from Nietzsche:

I never even suspected what was growing in me — and one day all my capacities, suddenly ripe, leaped forth in their ultimate perfection.

I have, in the previous section, skimmed over or blurred the “genetic data” input into our abstract processing and the resultant Mental Constructs (Worldview) that an individual possesses (and we must say, is largely possessed by.)  If we take an individual’s material being, or the concrete portion of the individual, and suppose that this greatly informs, via what I have called “genetic data”, all his Worldview…we must still keep in mind how other data in the form of sensory perceptions have, over a lifetime, also informed that Worldview.  Using the term given to Nietzsche’s conceptualization, the “type-facts” of any given individual, we might say that these type-facts organize all other learning and data according to those type-facts.  The type-facts might be a kind of super-structure to the Worldview, with other, sensory data incorporated according to them, or as evaluated by them.  Nietzsche’s understanding of the higher man’s self-discovery, then, may describe this process:  whether he will or no, all data are organized according to the super-structure of the type-facts, over a lifetime, but the higher man’s self-discovery is a discovery later in life of the existence of that super-structure.  He becomes consciously aware of the super-structure after which all his facts are classified. ²

So, whether we in our modern era consider Nietzsche’s type-facts to be the WOODA’s “genetic data” (material being, in parts and whole) or instead consider them to be the “Mental Constructs” or Worldview within the Abstract OODA which has been largely determined by the ever-constant “genetic data” but also by sensory data received over a lifetime….is a question.  I am inclined to view the material person, his physical processes which lead to cognition, as a large factor in the individual’s type-facts; but also, I consider the Mental Constructs w/ their reliance on experiences accrued over a lifetime, including sensory data, to be a great reinforcer of those type-facts.  The super-structure and the content reinforce each other; but, the content never exists beyond the bounds of that framework and is thus subservient to the super-structure – except when it is not; see: neuroplasticity. ³

Anti-Nihilism & Anti-Realism

The surest and the safest approach toward answering the question of how, or whether, anti-nihilism and anti-realism may complement one another would be to define anti-realism in terms of a rejection of the universalism of human realities while recognizing that the evaluation (note that term!) of meanings and values is something that each person may do.

It may be important here to note the difference between what is being addressed when we use the terms “realism” and “nihilism.”  The first refers to an understanding about putatively “objective” entities, i.e., objects which exist independent of our thinking about them. The second refers mostly to whether those existing items have any inherent meaning or value.

Depending on one’s concept of realism, realism might suggest that objects are perceived as they are perceived due to their inherent qualities or realities. The furthest extension of this notion would be naïve realism, or the belief that we perceive objects exactly as they are without any sort of filtering mechanism or, indeed, any sort of bias in the interpretive mechanism receiving those perceptions.  Parallel with this notion of the existence of real objects unaffected by or unchanged by putatively “subjective” ideas about them – they have a being, or a reality, completely independent of our ideas about them — naïve realism involves the notion that whenever we observe, we are in fact observing exact reality, or the real unfiltered and, though occasionally limited in focus, entire.  Anti-realism, then, need not be a rejection of all notions of an objective reality nor a rejection of the existence of an objective reality altogether but may be a rejection of philosophical “realism”.

Depending on one’s view of nihilism, the opposite of nihilism may be teleology, insofar as teleology presupposes that objects exist for a predetermined purpose leading to some ultimate fulfillment or end-point. Objects have inherent value regardless of putatively “subjective” ideas about those objects, and those values in conglomeration or collusion determine future events for systems comprising those objects.  From a teleological standpoint, objects have meaning because they exist for a purpose, a reason, which is all their own, and however accurately or inaccurately we observe them and interpret their meanings or values, our observation does not alter the inherent meaning or values of objects.   Nihilism, then, would be the counterview that objects have no inherent meaning, no inherent purpose, no inherent value.  Here, I will insert a caveat:  there appears to be no perfect opposite to nihilism; or, the opposite of nihilism may be determined by however one views nihilism since, for example, one can make a claim about all putatively objective reality or one can limit the nihilistic approach to particularly human institutions and human relations without attempting a grand metaphysical rejection of meaning and value. 

I offer the above definitions as a baseline for what is to follow.

Anti-/Realism

If anti-realism for this specific consideration is the rejection of a realist philosophy like naïve realism, then a consideration of the implications of naïve realism would be in order.  I would link the consideration to section “1.2 Critique of the Descriptive Component of MPS” in the Stanford piece hyperlinked above, although I will take a different approach.

Naïve realism presupposes that objects really are as they appear to us and that our evaluation of them as objects through sense-perception is both perfect and complete; furthermore, such a philosophical standpoint carries with it the belief that all individuals, regardless of any notions of individuality or subjectivity, will view those objects in exactly the same way, barring sensory impairments or mental/physiological impairments.  (I.e., by “view” I mean here, sensory perception.  I do not mean, subjective “viewing” or imagination and so forth.)  From this idea of universal apprehension, objective reality may become a baseline for all other judgments, included moral judgments, prescriptive and proscriptive laws (whether formal or informal), and the like.

In fact, naïve realism follows the schema already mentioned twice above in a, b, & c:  a) there is an objective world entirely unchanged and unaffected by subjectivity, b) there may be a subjective world, but it is separate from the objective world, in that its existence does not affect or alter the objective world, and c) all individuals are entirely separate from the rest of the world, view the objective world at a distance but view it accurately, and are able to operate via “free will” on the basis of their sensory perceptions and thus are able to shape themselves and their surroundings entirely as they decide they will.

What is important here to note is the fact that naïve realism supposes a, b, & c for all objects in the universe, not merely humans, although the terminology we would use to describe non-human objects might need a tweak.  The existence of all objects, including humans, is entirely objective and not a matter of subjectivity, and each object is entirely separate from all the rest of the world, can be viewed individually. Instead of “free will”, we might say that non-human objects continue to be what they are as a matter of being what they are, or “according to themselves.”  The Stanford article on Nietzsche explores his thoughts on causa sui, and the concept can be applied to inanimate objects, non-human animate objects, and even humans.  Free will may enable humans to operate exactly as they wish, creating themselves, but non-humans “create” themselves by always being themselves as a consequence of their objective realities:  “according to themselves.”

The anti-realist who opposes the philosophical naïve realism need merely oppose the universalism implied by naïve realism.  Nietzsche took one route, at least, in proposing what the Stanford article calls his “type-facts” of individuals according to which all perceptions and understandings are arranged.  This is an attack on the perfect, complete, and universally identical apprehension of sensory data, an attack that has as its basis the presumption of a real, objective bias in the interpretive — or, interactive — mechanisms of different individuals.  I insert the term interactive here in order to highlight what may be a peculiarly Nietzschean approach, already outlined above, which does not depend upon the notion of a philosophical subjectivity but rather on objective correspondences between what I have been calling the World and distinct Worldviewers.

One might as easily have attacked naïve realism in another way by attacking the perceptual comprehensiveness of our sensory faculties; here, I’ll introduce a diagram I’ve recently used in another related blog post:

 

 

When using this diagram in the past, I have also added the caveat:  It is not drawn to scale.

An important basis of naïve realism is the assumption that individual objects in the universe can be apprehended in isolation from all other objects and fully understood in isolation. Importantly, naïve realism rejects out of hand any relational qualities of objects or the notion that objects may be what they are in part due to their natural surroundings. Context is unimportant for the naïve realist, at least for understanding the individual objects within that context, since the objects determine themselves by being what they are.  It is also possible to say of the naïve realist that dynamicism does not exist except as sporadic and sudden changes to the environment.  A whole apple may become an apple split into two halves if someone slices it down the middle, the naïve realist will concede; but not that the apple, as such, is determined to be what it is by a billion or more influences within and outside the putative apple at any given moment during its putative existence.  The apple determines itself, only, and by merely being itself.

The naïve realist may concede the existence of context, but for the naïve realist, context has value only insofar as context — so many other objects also existing — may be used to reveal the inherent properties and qualities of an apple being itself.

An anti-realist argument against naïve realism might attack the universalism of naïve realism by pointing out, first, the diagram above (titled “Transparency 101”), and, second, the apparent fact that different people occupy different observational niches and, in any case, only view an extremely small portion of the universe at any given time or even over a lifetime:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

— yes, but even given the naïve realist’s admission of various levels of ignorance for every person alive, or perceptual blind spots as real objective realities (to put it bluntly), the programs and schemata prescribed, proscribed, and otherwise dreamt of by naïve realists cannot be easily defended.  If blind spots are admitted to exist, or biases in the mechanism interpreting the sensory data are admitted to exist, then the naïve realist’s moralistic, normative, legalistic schemata can hold very little water, from the perspective of this particular anti-realism.  Whose limited perceptions are to be the barometer, the super-structure, of a universalist plan of action?

Anti-/Nihilism

On the Broader, Metaphysical Concerns

Meaning requires context.  Regarding nihilism, naïve realism’s special problem is its tautological nature, which might be crudely stated as follows:

x=X because it is in the nature of x to be X.

If we use our previous example of the apple, a, we might assign the value to it, A: a=A.  That is, from a naïve realist’s point of view (were he to consider his own point of view; see below), the purpose of his perceptions is to deliver to his mind the objective reality of the object he observes, and this alone, without filtering or limitation.  Naïve realism’s rejection of context as a modifying feature of an object’s objective existence, the fact (so supposed) that the observer is capable of viewing reality directly and that the reality he observes in objective entities is comprised entirely and completely of their inherent properties and qualities, leads naturally to a rejection of any inherent meaning or value for that object beyond the object’s physical being.  So:  using a capital variable to distinguish the meaning/value from the objective entity, as I have above, is redundant; a=a will suffice.

While it might be true that we could expand the crude representation to also include Not-x=Not-x — insofar as any thing that is Not-x remains Not-x as a consequence of x=x rather than x=y — and thereby attempt the creation of a context for x (there is x with everything else that is not x, in the universe), this would not express anything particularly meaningful about x because, from the point of view of naïve realism this could be said of any other thing as well.  Whether we say x=x and y=y or Not-x=Not-x and Not-y=Not-y, or all of these together, we are not finding any inherent meaning in either x or y except exclusive self-identity; all we can say of x is that x is x. ⁴

A cruder and perhaps clichéd method of understanding the lack of meaning in such an imagined context is to say of the collected objects in the universe, O, that, “If all O are self-identical, then no O is self-identical.”  This is not to say that no object is self-identical, but only that self-identity loses its meaningfulness — context is fairly exorcised in such a universalism -- and thus, if we are using the tautological x=x for finding meaning in the universe and for all objects within the universe, and using self-identity alone, then self-identity is next to useless.  One might reconsider this problem via use of the word value rather than meaning and say that every object has a particular value — is not value-less — and that said value is the value of being itself and having the properties and characteristics it has.  Fair enough, but value without context is relatively meaningless, because it is vague:  similar to values such as tallness or littleness, if there is no comparison the values may seem arbitrary rather than inherent for any human in a position to evaluate — find out the value — of an object.  One must ask whether a vague value is a value; in terms of naïve realism, one must ask how such vagueness corresponds with the naïve realist’s claims that his perceptual abilities are sufficient for identifying objective entities.

One might object to the above characterization of naïve realism’s special problem vis-à-vis nihilism by admitting a different kind of contextual framework within naïve realism; namely, that the co-existence of distinct objects may cause alterations in those objects since it is in the nature of those objects to act upon one another and be reacted upon by one another.  The context is, they co-exist; furthermore, because they are self-identical while being distinct from all other objects, distinct interactions may occur whenever they come into “contact” with other objects in various yet particular configurations:  i.e., a theory of systems.

Via a theory of systems, objects may be said to have value in relation to other objects within the system and in relation to the system itself considered as a whole.  Such an admission might be made, but it would not escape the tautological dilemma.  For every configuration of self-identical objects, or every event E characterized by the interactions of a given set of objects, E=E.  Why in the first place these particular objects should have the properties they have — why x should be x in the first place rather than y — and why they should have come into contact in the first place, are not answered by E=E.  A strong determinist argument might suppose a U, a universe configured as our universe is configured, with all the properties and physical laws our universe possesses, and recursively say that the answer to “Why  E=E?” is “Because, U=U.”  Beyond the problem of finding inherent value for objects via recursive argument — contradicting the naïve realist’s position that objects possess value inherently on the basis of their own properties or being and are able to be perceived as such via such — a new problem exists for the naïve realist making such claims:  philosophical relativism.

On the Human Concerns

The seemingly absurdist metaphysical approach of conflating naïve realism with nihilism has a purpose, however absurd or pedantic it may seem on the surface.  Nihilism often takes the form (in the human practicing or practiced upon by nihilism, take it as you will) of “Life is meaningless” or “Government is meaningless” or simply that all human institutions and human interactions are meaningless or without inherent value.  Beyond the metaphysical concerns of a strong nihilism, or even in the absence of such a nihilism, this weaker form of nihilism may have greater effect on a greater number of individuals.  This is the form of nihilism most often implied by the word, in common usage.

For a consideration of this weaker form of nihilism, we might begin with the metaphysical consideration and say that, for any given “higher-order” reality of human society, for instance a given institution, we might use the variable E to represent a confluence or co-existence of distinct individuals within a small physical boundary relative to U.  Why this distinct group should have come together in the first place, to make the distinct and particular institutions that have been made, and work so tirelessly to preserve those institutions, is not answered by E=E.  Additionally, an explanation of the values suggested by E via recourse to broader, non-human objective realities would either devolve to recursive argumentation or become relativistic.

There was a time when God stood in for the ultimate Why for the majority of individual humans living within a particular society; but Nietzsche, as messenger not as cause of God’s death, has informed us of the present lack of Why:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

—Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann

We might suppose that the birth of that, er, Gay Science, or the search for intrinsic realities, intrinsic natures of objects — the happy admission of the fact that for every x, x=x, and for every E, E=E — has killed God, mostly as a result of its joyful admission that no God is needed for this search.  The objects themselves and the events themselves will provide all that is needed.

Even giving credit where credit is due, by allowing the naïve realist’s conception of meaningful observation of the interactions of distinct objects — even so far as allowing the fact that it is in the nature of fire to melt ice and that for every event E of fire + ice, the ice will melt — we may not escape the criticism of naïve realism’s limited scope and applicability when contemplating the higher order context of human interactions.  Who shall choose fire; who, ice; who, to combine them, who, to keep them separate; and, why? 

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

—Robert Frost

First, the great bugbear in the room may be the fact that “meaning,” like sound in a forest of falling trees, requires a human brain in order to occur.  Quite separate from questions concerning the objective reality of objects and the naïve realist’s dictum that those objective realities are not contingent upon an observer, nihilism or its opposite, teleology, as descriptions of stances involving the absence or existence of meaning and/or inherent value beyond mere attributes, will always be contingent upon the existence of an observer.  Every observer has a limited existence, a limited observational niche.

Second, the naïve realist resolves on meaning with perfect faith not only in every individual’s sensory perceptions, provided that the individual is not impaired physically or mentally, but also presupposes that whatever is observed is sufficient in itself for understanding its objective reality and ascribing meaning to that observation.   He would prescribe courses of action on the basis of his observations, not only for himself but also for others who, it is presumed, have access to the same objective realities.  However, for finding meaning in a complex social institution or society, naïve realism is insufficient.  The question already asked, “Whose limited perceptions are to be the barometer, the super-structure, of a universalist plan of action?” may be asked of the naïve realist prescribing action on the basis of the meaning he has sussed from a limited observation of a subsection of any given society. ⁵  

In short, naïve realism’s very insistence that the objective reality of any given object is not dependent whatsoever on the observation made of that object by the human observer drives a wedge between objective reality and individual human understanding, not by telling humans that they may not make accurate observations of objective reality but by telling humans a) that objective reality is indifferent to human observations and b) that in any case, human observation is indifferent to objective reality:  observe what you wish, or observe everything, or observe nothing, those darned objects will continue to do whatever it is in their nature to do, quite apart from you.  The naïve realist may prescribe actions (or proscribe actions) on the basis of observations of objective reality, but explicitly or implicitly, naïve realism entirely breaks the WOODA process in driving a wedge between observer and observed through universalist schemata. Humans are thrown out of the Loop altogether, if not in reality then at least within the conceptual framework of naïve realism:  if non-human objective reality is to be the basis of social organization, no humans are needed.

This is not, however, how naïve realists see the matter.

The lack of sensory scope, the lack of omniscience, and the confluence of much objective reality (one feels that Nietzsche would say all reality is real)  that is not observed or not observed well, has rarely tripped up the naïve realist who happily ascribes meaning to what he observes.  Hitherto I have considered the naïve realist in abstract; but in commonplace, no pure realism exists in the philosophy of any given naïve realist. The basic tenet, that all objective reality has a nature inherent to it which determines it, may lie behind every naïve realist’s interpretation of his observations; but his attempt to avoid the tautological dilemma of pure naïve realism and thus, avoid a resultant nihilism, in conjunction with his utterly limited observational scope, leads him to find meaning beyond that supplied by his five physical senses.

Try as he might, the naïve realist never avoids the pitfalls of naïve realism.  First, his insistence on an objective world that is separate from the observer — a Worldviewer outside the World — invariably reduces introspective observation, which in turn leads to a failure to account for personal bias (a la Nietzsche’s “type-facts”) or, in other words, a failure to be objective about himself and thus also about his observations of his surroundings.  Second, the attempt to avoid the recursive tautological dilemma of naïve realism invariably leads to a presumption of the existence of an extra-real, because outside the objective reality, first cause or prime mover; i.e., to avoid U=U and its tautological insufficiency vis-à-vis meaning and value, a meaningful G in some form is imagined to exist outside “the rest” of objective reality that will give meaning to the World.  These in conjunction will lead to a philosophical idealism in practice, or to philosophical subjectivity misconstrued as objectivity, or else to philosophical relativism — i.e., ultimately to nihilism, since meaning and value, rather than existing inherently in objective reality, will be found in extra-real or imaginary realities, subjective meanings, imagined relationships, and so forth, and these may begin to appear arbitrary.  Should the naïve realist come to the same conclusions about himself, he may identify himself as a nihilist; even if he does not self-identify as such, he may become a nihilist.  To the degree that he begins to identify these tendencies in other naïve realists, he may call them nihilists or, if not, may nonetheless begin asking the questions, “Whose limited perceptions are to be the barometer, the super-structure, of a universalist plan of action?  According to whose ‘free will’?” — and slip into nihilism of the weaker sort, judging social institutions, or human life, to be inherently value-less (since arbitrarily valued.)

In Conclusion: On Nietzsche's Anti-realist Anti-nihilism

Bootstrapping the above considerations back into a deeper consideration of Nietzsche’s approach, we might say that one begins to see a trend toward the development, in the naïve realist, of a “triune unity” approach toward meaning.  I as individual observer entirely separate from U as universe/World, both of which are entirely separate from G as god.  Peculiarly, each of these units is often assumed to operate freely, or with entire free will, by the naïve realist.  That I as an individual and G as some god may be entirely free to act as he wills seems obvious and commonplace; that the Universe, or U as objective reality outside I and God, operates freely beyond my observation of it and according to its own nature, may be implied in a realist understanding, whether naïve realism or some other form of philosophical realism.  Nietzsche’s critique, if it is to be characterized as anti-realism, seems founded upon a skepticism of the universalist tendencies of naïve realism, insofar as so many gaps in real understanding — and understanding of the real — lead the naïve realist to the creation of arbitrary laws, arbitrary moral codes, and the like, in order to fill in the gaps between these freely operating agents; and these filled gaps, or arbitrary connections, in turn, in and of themselves promote nihilism. 

So for instance, although I offer up a peculiar consequence of “Gay Science,” above, the real reason God has died, in Nietzsche’s estimation, is not that a purely empirical science has taken God’s place but rather lies in the fact that the religions themselves, particularly Christianity, have become so arbitrary in their attempt to be universally valid and universally applied, they have circumscribed the previously living God, or defined him out of existence.  Whereas God was once a powerful though unobserved aspect of the universe, contemplated in trepidation — the name given to a vaguely sensed though tremendously relevant limitation in humans who are all too human with all too human gaps in understanding, the name for a void in our apprehension of the universe — now that God has been replaced by a clearly defined and false god the understanding of which will supply all our cognitive needs/wants/lacking, God is dead.  Rather than suggesting that there is no “real” in reality, or no objective reality, Nietzsche’s anti-realism, or critique of realism, is his attempt to replace these false fillings, these arbitrary explanations, with the actual gaps.  His anti-nihilism is the attempt to forestall nihilism by suggesting meaningful gaps — as being gaps understood to exist — and he seems to suggest that his so-called “higher men” are those who recognize those gaps to the degree that they withdraw from universalism and universalist programs, focusing instead on the nexus of I-U, or on the objective reality of the intersection of themselves (as objective beings) and the rest of the World.

 

 

 

[Note: made a slight edit to penultimate paragraph’s final sentence to clarify its meaning; added “filled” and “or arbitrary connections.”] 

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¹  It has come to my attention, while editing this blog post, that the philosophical idea of dynamism will relate. However, I will instead use the term "dynamicism" throughout because I intend less specificity for the term.  For example, dynamism may postulate monads, forces, etc., as the principle vehicles for dynamism, but here I am merely referring to dynamics and a dynamic system without making claims about what, specifically, permits or creates the dynamic systems.

²  Note that here, and actually in many other areas throughout this quick write-up, I've largely forced myself to exclude consideration of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who actually had a great influence on Nietzsche or at least was greatly admired by Nietzsche.  On this particular score, Emerson's essay on Circles seems an appropriate segue:

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified.

³ Here again, with neuroplasticity, is an argument for, or at least a consideration of, dynamicism.

⁴  Here and following, I use ad hoc and (as might be noted) idiosyncratic notation.  Given the subject matter of this blog post, perhaps such an approach might be judged meet.

⁵  Assuming here no omniscient naïve realists are in the mix, although even given the existence of an omniscient naïve realist who possesses a perfect mind capable of interpreting all observations exactly and perfectly, how are the non-omniscient, or limited naïve realists, going to accept the omniscient naïve realist’s communication of observed meaning while remaining true to the precepts of naïve realism themselves?  This is more than a flippant question, within the context of our present epoch, given, first, the existence of so many putative experts and, second, the rather material – and we might as well say, with caveats, the objective -- inability of all others to verify the pronouncements made by those experts, due to limited time and means.  A great many realists know exactly what to do, even without omniscience.

Performativity, in a Vague Nutshell

Today on Facebook, Eddie Beaver posted the following YouTube clip while remarking on the fact that AT&T – amazingly – got so much right when predicting the future from 1993:

 

 

I commented as follows:

There is a theory that Moore's Law moved from being merely predictive to .... well, to performative. I.e., companies convinced of the reliability of Moore's Law set out to stay "on the curve" if not quite ahead of it, so a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy dynamic occurred. Rather than use that concept, I'd just leave it as a matter of performativity, in the same way some economists have theorized that economic models may become performative rather than merely predictive insofar as practitioners follow the models when they choose to act. A really good article on Moore's Law:

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/07/was_moores_law.php

I have kept that link in my browser’s bookmark toolbar for nearly a year.  A Google search on performativity and economics would reveal the related links not supplied above.

I have almost made the very raison d'être of this blog, the subject of performativity.  This was not my original intention for this blog (indeed, I had no specific original intention beyond the maintenance of a forum for unloading-via-uploading any current brainstorms), although as time passes, I begin to understand more and more why performativity has become such a focus.

The subject relates rather strongly to the WOODA diagram as I have conceived/defined it:

Performativity, as a concept, has and will continue to be applied in various ways, usually with a limited focus.  One can merely peruse my earlier post on Performativity and 4GW to find one grappling with the subject as I explore various but particular socio-political applications of the concept; these were intended to move beyond the simple bounds Judith Butler and others have inhabited when they use the concept of performativity and, for instance, heteronormativity (but not entirely); and, following the link on the Google search above, one might find a particular application of the concept to economics.   My linking above to the article on Moore’s Law while referencing the idea of performativity could be considered another application of the concept.¹  The original use of the concept of performativity, before these others came into consideration, was rather limited to a study of particular semantics, or to explain words and sentences which are actions as well as descriptions:  the speaker performs an action when he speaks, so for example, “I take this woman to be my wife.”

The short of it is this:  that performativity as a concept generally takes a limited shape depending upon the use any given theorist has for the concept, but nonetheless, applications for the concept of performativity may abound.

At root – or, in a vague nutshell -- performativity addresses a particular locus of interaction between separately conceived entities.  Using the terminology of grade school science, we might say that performativity addresses not so much the locus of a cause-effect interaction as it addresses the locus of an action-reaction interaction.  —The distinction here is of extreme importance.  “Cause-Effect” is a conceptualization not only of entire linearity but also of dominance and subordination or superiority and subordination in interactions between distinct entities, whereas “Action-Reaction” may be a conceptualization of co-ordinance and real-time interaction of distinct entities acting upon and being acted upon by one another simultaneously.

For the purpose of distinguishing between “Cause-Effect” and “Action-Reaction” as conceptual frameworks for understanding performativity, we might re-conceptualize our understanding of the WOODA (pictured above) to included an understanding that the second O, Concrete Orient, represents the-thing-itself distinguished as a separate entity within the larger framework of The World.  For conscious beings, that Orient may appear to be a rather complex physiological state of being which includes consciousness, but if we expand our understanding of WOODA, we might consider any state of being which determines the individuation of an entity considered in itself.  We can consider the WOODA process as representing the interaction of that individual entity with the rest of The World on the basis of the properties which determine the involved entities.  A rock will orient, let’s say, depending upon 1) its own properties and 2) the state of the entities co-incidental to it:  the Earth, the other soil and rocks and beings (perhaps even including humans!), the rain or wind, etc., which are co-ordinate with the rock.  These other entities are co-ordinate with the rock because they are acted upon by the rock while acting upon the rock, even if the resulting orientations of those other entities are not as easily discerned by a third-party (or 1000000th party) observing them.  (This “other” party is not quite so other, since the act of observation means that this party is also co-incidental, co-ordinate, etc.; i.e., there is still performativity occurring and no entirely separate observer.  Indeed “entirely separate observer” considered absolutely is an impossibility, an absurdity.) ² 

A reconsideration of events in The World founded upon the idea of performance, and through it, performativity, informs almost everything (if not everything) I write.  For instance, looking at an old post on a different blog titled, “Principles of 5GW:  Evolved EBO,” I utilized a consideration of a Social OODA Loop – a Social WOODA Loop – to suggest this frame for understanding performance within the WOODA:

 

 

In short, common Orientations may lead to generally common Activities which, in combination, lead to particular changes within the larger framework of the World – but, as I’ve previously noted when using this image, the individuals so acting continue to Observe the World and act accordingly.  In other words, tying this consideration into the lead-in to this blog post, economists or industries following a particular model, whether an economic model or Moore’s Law, may act in such a way that the World is changed according to that model; and, future observers of that World may see these effects as justifications for that model—indeed, to other observers, that model may appear to be predictive rather than performative.

An “Action-Reaction” conceptual framework when viewed partially and with a limited scope may appear to suggest cause-effect relations, but inferring strict causality while losing that “Action-Reaction” conceptual framework will often mislead.  Thus, when I originally considered Effects-Based-Operations (EBO) in warfare, I considered the limitations of the old EBO conceptualization which had as its basis a somewhat Objectivist-capital-O point of view:  the idea that any given action would lead, through Observe-Orient-Decide to a predictable reaction by an enemy, and that this action-reaction considered purely as a cause-effect process failed because it did not fully account for an enemy’s particular and peculiar Orientation.  In other words, an enemy would React according to an Action on the basis of an Orientation that had largely been determined – but not entirely — long before the Action occurs.  An “evolved EBO” (so to speak, and as I’ve referenced it in the past) would take into full consideration an enemy’s long-standing Orientation while recognizing 1) the inability to determine that Orientation entirely, and 2) the independence of that enemy from a strict cause-effect predetermination (as pre-determined by the Actor targeting that enemy).

 

Postscript

The above began as a quick response to ideas inspired by a Facebook conversation and, since the response is growing and may continue to grow, is here being cut short and perhaps in mid-stream.  I would reiterate what I said above:  “A reconsideration of events in The World founded upon the idea of performance, and through it, performativity, informs almost everything (if not everything) I write.”  There will undoubtedly be much more to say on this topic.  Take any abridgements in the above blog post as you will; I’ll surely address some of those gaps as time goes by.  (My tendency is to want to tie an idea, such as this consideration of performativity, to all its consequences; but that often leads me into a state of non-writing if I do not find some way to arbitrarily cut the consideration short.)

Also, consider this blog post as an interlude and a prelude to another post I’ve been, er, “commissioned” to write on Nietzsche and anti-realism/anti-nihilism.  All this ties in together — or will, if I ever get around to tying it together in a format observable by others.  Note:  That blog post, already mostly written, has already been titled, “The Worldviewer in the World.”  So, given what I’ve written above, perhaps this will clue the observant into what the forthcoming blog post might hold…

 

 

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¹ The article on The Technium remains linked in my browser’s bookmark toolbar because it is an excellent article on Moore’s Law; the author considers the performative aspects of the Law without using the concept of performativity per se, although using the idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  There are distinctions to be made however between the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy and the concept of performativity.

²  In fact (if I may call it fact), what is described in this paragraph will be more obvious whenever a human is involved, first; and second, if no human is involved during the supposed interactions, then verifying the truth of these statements will become problematic.  Two rocks sitting 100 yards from one another, with no human around:  Do they interact whatsoever?  We might say, yes, there is gravitational interaction, at least. However, there arise the questions of whether any two or more objects always Act-React in relation to one another; or if some objects are completely “ignorant” – let’s say, “immune”  or non-reactive -- in the presence of one another; not to mention, whether the interactions may sometimes be uni-directional, sometimes indirect, sometimes qualitatively different for the objects involved in interaction.   So drawing our conception of performativity into some framework able to accommodate all possible events and/or theoretically non-eventful objective realities may push the concept beyond its usefulness – but this does not mean that “Action-Reaction” as a conceptual framework for understanding performativity is not useful.  I.e., if performativity does occur, then it will be best understood in terms of Action-Reaction:  This can be said without saying that performativity always occurs whenever objects are co-incidental.  Here also I might note that the absurdity of the concept of an “entirely separate observer” will, in the future, be tied by me to Nietzsche’s evaluation of the concept of “free will.”

A Rough Estimation

[This had been circulating in my mind for some time before I posted it to Facebook a few minutes ago.  Adding it here, as a place-holder.]

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A rough estimation of the active extreme on the two sides in American politics:

One side greatly approves of horizontal powers while fearing vertical powers (but doesn't adequately acknowledge the dangers of horizontal powers, foolishly).

The other side greatly approves of vertical powers while fearing horizontal powers (but doesn't adequately acknowledge the dangers of vertical powers, foolishly.)

 

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The consequences of the above might illuminate quite a bit about American politics.

Jared Lee Loughner: Despairing Nihilist?

 

[Arizona Daily Star:  Transcript of Sept 23 Video Made by Jared Lee Loughner]

 

Near the end of  this video made in September of 2010, Loughner, the shooter in Tucson, AZ, makes the following comment:

If the student is unable to locate the external universe, then the student is unable to locate the internal universe.

Where is all my subjects? I could say something sound right now, but I don’t feel like it.

For me, the final sentence quoted above may be the key to understanding both, Loughner’s general state of mind and his actions on January 8, 2011.

Of course, I am cautious to remain skeptical about his exact motivations for the shooting.  For instance, I imagine new details may emerge that will show why Loughner fixated particularly on Congresswoman Giffords for so long and ultimately chose a public event organized by Giffords’ office to act upon his motivations.  New details could emerge that will shed light not only on his fixation on the Congresswoman but also on why this was the day, January 8, 2011, particularly, that he would choose to act.  What, particularly, within the previous weeks or months led Loughner to commit the heinous acts of January 8, 2011?

 

Dreaming Free Speech

I have no way of knowing whether Loughner was on drugs when he made the video embedded above.  Most commentary under the various YouTube postings of the video suggest that most viewers bothering to comment think Loughner was either schizophrenic or on drugs, or both, when he made it.  Why?  Because Loughner’s commentary sounds disjointed, illogical, rambling, and, well, crazy.  However, tandem with these interpretations of his performance above is the assumption that those who make videos for an audience intend to make a point or express directly their viewpoints or philosophies with the intention of communicating clearly and logically what they believe.  So, when Loughner begins,

"OK, here’s what we’re doing. We’re examining the torture of students.

We’re looking at students who have been tortured. Their low income pay in two wars.

The war that we are in right now is currently illegal under the constitution. What makes it illegal is the currency. The date is also wrong. It’s impossible for it to be that date.

It’s mind control.

and continues in like manner, his audience assumes that Loughner is “being logical” for Loughner.  In other words, Loughner must believe that what he is saying makes perfect sense, has no gaps, but proceeds from Point A to Point B to Point C directly – and, moreover, that Loughner believes he is communicating all these points directly to his audience.

I could say something sound right now, but I don’t feel like it.

This, occurring near the end of the video, suggests that Loughner knew he was not being “sound.”  Furthermore, his obsessions with grammar and mind control suggest that his approach in this video may have been an absurdist approach:  Language does not have inherent meaning but is merely what we make of it.  Such a philosophical standing may produce a corresponding negligence when the philosopher chooses to “communicate.”

I put “communicate” in scare quotes, because I find Loughner’s stance toward issues of communication to be one largely informed by nihilistic terror.  Communication may require one to conform to the standards of communication so that both parties, the performer and the audience member, can share in understanding or meaning – but who created those standards?  Loughner’s obsession with grammar as it relates to what he called mind control suggests, for me, that he believed that the standard-bearers, so long as they are not the same people who created the standards in the first place, are merely individuals who are being controlled by the standard-creators.  Thus, to dip into a particular nihilistic logic, he who would not be controlled must therefore create his own language – the “coin of the realm” conforming to his, the nihilist’s realm  – or at the very least must not submit to the expected standards of communication (creating negligence, willful negligence, if not a private language outright.)

The videos Loughner posted on his own YouTube account further display this approach to communication.  Again, most commenters see the syllogisms in these videos and come to the conclusion that Loughner is deranged, insane, and/or on drugs, because they expect his communications to follow particular standards; in this case, the standards they expect are the classical standards of logic and syllogism.

All humans are in need of sleep.

Jared Loughner is a human.

Hence, Jared Loughner is in need of sleep.

-- so far, so good perhaps.  Here is the next frame:

Sleepwalking.

If I define sleepwalking then sleepwalking is the act or state of walking, eating, or performing other motor acts while asleep, of which one is unaware upon awakening.

I define sleepwalking.

Thus, sleepwalking is the act or state of walking, eating, or performing other motor acts while asleep, of which one is unaware upon awakening.

I’m a sleepwalker – who turns off the alarm clock.

Until the last line, this may not appear illogical or untrue.  On the other hand, lines 2-4 may superficially appear to be a tautology or a circular proof, leading the viewer to wonder at the redundancy or perverse circularity of Loughner’s logic.  The word-ordering in the second line may seem odd.  The second line’s, “If I define sleepwalking, then..,” may seem like an internal and incomplete syllogism if taken by itself, with one premise missing; perhaps it could be read as, “If I were to define sleepwalking, then…” or merely as “I may define sleepwalking as…”  Loughner’s point here seems to be a focus upon the power of being able to define sleepwalking however one wants to define it.  The third line states that he chooses to define sleepwalking.  The second and third line together therefore lead logically to the fourth line.  However, the final, fifth line subverts the logic of the previous lines and appears to display Loughner’s main point that “sleepwalking” (and one supposes, any word) may be defined however one wants to define it.  Rather than a former sleepwalker who forgets his sleepwalking actions, he is a sleepwalker who is able to know that he is sleepwalking, one who consciously turns off the alarm clock in order not to wake, and thus is able to prevent forgetting that he has been a sleepwalker.  Truth is in the mind – and, intention – of the person in control of defining that truth; that is, Loughner may remain in control of the reality that exists around him and indeed of himself and his own relation to that reality.

Compare this approach to reality to the idea of “rejection of logical truth” as described in the Wikipedia article on logic, which utilizes another philosopher of nihilism, Friedrich Nietzsche:

Friedrich Nietzsche provides a strong example of the rejection of the usual basis of logic: his radical rejection of idealisation led him to reject truth as a "mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short ... metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins".  His rejection of truth did not lead him to reject the idea of either inference or logic completely, but rather suggested that "logic [came] into existence in man's head [out] of illogic, whose realm originally must have been immense. Innumerable beings who made inferences in a way different from ours perished".  Thus there is the idea that logical inference has a use as a tool for human survival, but that its existence does not support the existence of truth, nor does it have a reality beyond the instrumental: "Logic, too, also rests on assumptions that do not correspond to anything in the real world".

The next frame in the video introduces another obsession of Loughner’s, that of being able to be a lucid dreamer, or of being able to shape his reality however he likes:  of being in control rather than being controlled by exterior standards.

I find Nietzche’s use of coins as a metaphor for truth (or indeed, as a metaphor for metaphors, metonyms, etc., which stand as truth) to be interesting, given Loughner’s obsession with currency and coins:

If I’m thinking of creating a new coin that’s in my control as treasurer then I’m thinking my new coin is starting a new currency system.

I’m thinking of creating a new coin that’s in my control as treasurer.

Hence, I’m thinking my new coin is starting a new currency system.

In that video posted on his YouTube account, he urges his audience to create their own coins.  While it is true that Loughner made a logical association with the Constitution of the U.S. when referencing official currency, particularly Article 1, Section 10’s description of state powers, "No State shall...make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts,” and while I would note his concern for his own actual financial well being when he mentions the possibility that he will be homeless as a result of being expelled by Pima Community College (as expressed in the video embedded above) – I wonder to what extent his references to currency are largely epistemological rather than pragmatic.  The U.S. Constitution’s reference to currency, issues of fraud alluded to within the video embedded above, and so forth, which relate to the real currency system, may be mere examples Loughner uses, or metaphors, for his larger concern.  Currency, coins, gold and silver, merely have the value we assign to them; the Mint or Treasury that create them and control them are analogous to the creators and standard-bearers of language and grammar.

When Loughner refers to “free speech” in the video embedded above, in all likelihood he believes that his use of logically-free speech – his use of his own logic and his own willfully negligent communication --  caused him to be expelled.^*  Pima Community College has certain standards relating to the communication used by students in the classroom environment; Loughner chose to follow his own standards in order to be free of exterior control; and thus, he was expelled “for his free speech.”  It is likely that this understanding led him to decide upon the fraudulent nature of Pima Community Colllege, an institution that accepts payment while purporting to elevate and support the principals of free speech – but not for him.

Additionally, when Loughner refers to other students and teachers as being “illiterate”, and when, in another video he posted to his YouTube account, he says,

This video is my introduction to you! My favorite activity is conscience dreaming; the greatest inspiration for my political business information.  Some of you don’t dream – sadly.

He is likely referencing the fact that they, he believes, are unable to choose their own logic.  Their speech, their currency, are predetermined by others who maintain control over their reality.

When he laughs in the video I’ve embedded above, it is likely that his own recognition of the supposed “incoherence” of his speech – his willful negligence in his communication, his choice not to be “sound” or to fill in all the gaps in his logic for his audience --  combined with his understanding that his non-dreaming audience are prevented by standards not of their own choosing from understanding what he is saying, is a joke to him.  Anyone viewing the video will come to it with preconceptions and will be mind-fucked.  How funny.

 

Sharing the Dream

I do not wish to minimize the tragedy of January 8, 2011, and I believe we should wait for more information to emerge that might help to explain why Loughner did what he did exactly as he chose to do it.  However, a transcript from a video featuring another well-known nihilist might shed some light on Loughner’s actions on January 8, 2011:

Hm? You know...

You know what I noticed?

Nobody panics when things go "according to plan."

Even if the plan is horrifying.

If tomorrow I tell the press that, like, a gangbanger will get shot...

...or a truckload of soldiers will be blowing up...

...nobody panics. Because it's all part of the plan.

But when I say that one little old mayor will die...

...well, then, everyone loses their minds.

Introduce a little anarchy...

...upset the established order...

...and everything becomes chaos.

I'm an agent of chaos.

Oh, and you know the thing about chaos?

It's fair.

The use of this example may appear to be sensationalistic.  I also believe it is not exact.  Another example could be made:  Shakespeare’s Iago.  In Othello, Iago gains much satisfaction each time he realizes that he has been correct about Othello.  Each manipulation of Othello serves to reinforce Iago’s belief in his own superior ability to judge the reality of Venice, the reality of Othello, and indeed the reality of the other characters in the play.  The other characters accept a “plan” (to use The Joker’s terminology) but Iago operates from his own “plan,” and this is the principal reason for their failure to prevent his manipulations as well as for Iago’s great delight with every success.  Because he recognizes each character’s largely unconscious adherence to “the plan” that the character follows – you could say, the value-system -- he is able to subvert their expectations and manipulate them down paths of his own choosing.  Indeed, meaning itself is variable, amorphous, and subject to the will of whoever is able to consciously manipulate it, or define it.

I doubt that either The Joker or Iago will be exact parallels with Jared Lee Loughner.   To what degree Loughner expected his heinous action to affect the larger society (as with The Joker) or was merely attempting a subjectively satisfying revenge by showing a single individual, Congresswoman Giffords,  that her concept of “The Plan” was hers and hers alone, not his, and thus utterly inadequate to reality (similar to Iago’s attack on Othello), perhaps only Loughner can say.

Loughner’s actions on January 8, 2011, did not resemble the fictional Joker’s efforts, in that Loughner’s was one occasion quite likely to lead to his death or arrest – an all-or-nothing action – and it also did not follow Iago’s strategy of subtle manipulation over an extended period of time.  As metaphors, The Joker and Iago do not hold up as exact representations of Loughner.  However, given that Congresswoman Giffords is a representative of our government, and given Loughner’s reported dissatisfaction with her answer to the question, “What is government if words have no meaning?”, and given his belief that the government tries to control individuals through manipulation of grammar and currency, we might wonder whether the attack on January 8, 2011, was merely a show of his philosophy.  He could plan, as Congresswoman Giffords – and, perhaps he meant, all representatives in the government – could plan.  The senselessness of his actions on that horrible day could show believers in the government that their actions are just as senseless:  their plans are inadequate, unhinged from reality.

    
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^*  Update: Actually, the video embedded above may have been the cause of Loughner's suspension from Pima Community College. However, it would appear that Loughner anticipated being suspended, given his references to becoming homeless as a result of Pima Community College actions and his references to having lost free speech there.

The Inefficiency of One Hand Clapping

The title above, ↑, is a phrase I've used before when considering the 5GW principle of hands in the field.

The phrase bears a relationship to both, Gated Community Syndrome and the reality (or, potential, if you like) of super-empowered individuals (SEIs).

The latest round of U.S. self-flagellation, i.e. the reaction to the events that occurred in Tucson, AZ, has reminded me of these dimensions of  our present reality.  Monday morning, the airwaves were awash with well-meaning journalist-commentators and politicians using 4GW methods in an attempt to preempt and prevent similar future conditions:  our democracy was under assault; we need to recognize that there is no Us v. Them but only one Us; we must never resort to violence, nor even to the seeming call to violence which metaphors involving violent imagery and ideas introduce into our politics.  Tandem with these calls, said commentators did not fail to draw the picture of the type of person likely to utilize violence:  he will be deranged, insane, mentally-diseased.  And so, there is indeed an Us v.Them, and the audience are being enjoined to recognize their Us-ness while forsaking any possiblity of becoming a member of Them.  This united effort is intended to pressure anyone else, that is those who are ambiguously an "UsThem?", to avoid the type of violent activity  that the shooter in Tucson chose, and to avoid doing so by joining Us.

This preaching easily wins over the choir.  Many people glued to their televisions probably shouted "Amen, Brother!", whether aloud or merely in their hearts.

That the public figures so quickly put their faith into the efficiency of such 4GW methods displays their membership in a Gated Community afflicted with Gated Community Syndrome.  In truth, those individuals within our society, or intermixed within our society, or outside our society -- what is the Gated Community? -- who would choose violence are not likely to be swayed.  In fact, such individuals are likely to become even more perturbed as the Gated Community preaches ever more loudly their Us-ness.  Why?  Because with every increase in the volume of "Us-ness!" there is an increase in the volume of "Them-ness!", and those especially prone to be aware of these calls to action or inaction who sense or believe they are not a member of that Other-Us adopt the self-designation of Their-Them.

One can not so easily dismiss the reality of such 4GW misfires by calling those misfires moronic, because our not-too-distant past was configured to produce effective 4GW methods of crowd-control.  The creation of a Majority via 4GW methods for the purpose of stabilizing a society actually worked.  The Gated Community has its benefits, but the benefits themselves are becoming unstable.  The existence of super-empowerment has upset the easy mathematical addition and subtraction effected by 4GW:   Your supermajority may be at the mercy of one individual or a handful of individuals.

The 4GW voice of the supermajority, which here I call the One Hand Clapping, permits a powerful Second Hand -- perhaps, with a Third Hand, a Fourth Hand...-- and these other voices may not be swayed by the sound of that One Hand Clapping.  If these others, who formerly and historically were known as Them, are not co-opted, and if their activities are not co-opted, then their cumulative voices, expressed merely vocally or via other performative action (including violent action) will utterly silence the One Hand Clapping.