It is all about “wokeness”. So, what is wokeness? It is a philosophy that there is a marginalized community, and that community has been taken advantage of, enslaved, marginalized, oppressed and subjugated, generally for a profit or power motive. The claim is that systemic racism is real, and is the explanation for all of the ills (differences in outcomes, achievement gap) the marginalized community encounters. This marginalized community is expanding, first it included females, then blacks, then Hispanics and other minorities (Asians, pacific islanders), then gays, then all of the LGBT community, and finally the transgender community. It is somewhere in that expansion process that republicans believe the left crossed the line, but the whole concept that one population (white males) is responsible for the ills of all other populations is actually abhorrent. It absolves the marginalized from responsibility or agency.
The left uses an incredibly powerful weapons, the accusation of racism itself, for any questioning of the woke philosophy. It essentially eliminates any discussion, much less debate. The fact that no other explanation for the outcome difference is true other than systemic racism is part of the problem. It is a closed mindset, and worse is that anyone who doubts it is not just wrong, but evil. They weaponize guilt. They ignore their own hypocrisy, claiming to be open and accepting. Cancel culture is also abhorrent, and has been weaponized to attack dissenting views. The right rejects the entire concept of those attacks being legitimate, and they are actually mostly right.
The truth is that wokeness and cancel culture are themselves a tool to acquire and use power, political, academic, financial, and social. The left has found a powerful weapon and are using it for political gain, with a thin veneer of helping those marginalized. When the right points out that the marginalized have not actually been helped, they deflect blame.
Does the left (post-modernists) organize their perceptions as a consequence of the will to power (Nietzsche: My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (its will to power) and to thrust back all that resists its extension) vs. Marxist (controlling the means of production through the exploitation of the other classes)? This can be contrasted to the other Viennese schools of psychotherapy: Sigmund Freud’s pleasure principle (will to pleasure) and Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy (will to meaning). There is also the “will to live”: which results in a desire in all living creatures to avoid death and to procreate. For Schopenhauer, this will is the most fundamental aspect of reality – more fundamental even than being. Each of these schools advocates and teaches a very different essential driving force in human beings. For Nietzsche, the will to power is the impulse guiding all forms of human reasoning and behavior. Obviously, (the left) they think that is what is going on. Are they actually fighting it, or are they promoting it? Defines power as the ability to compel someone to do something against their own best interest. Coercion. Literary criticism. On the other hand, Marx argues that in Western society organized religion is an instrument of the capitalist elite to keep the masses in economic subservience. While the market economy provides goods, products and services it fails to provide any sense of transcendental purpose. The implication is that the masses are so alienated by the conditions of capitalism in which they live that they turn to religion in order to fulfill their spiritual needs. The left have turned to the religion of systemic racism as their belief system.
Beliefs of science (according to Peterson): truth will set you free. What are the conditions under which science is possible? What are the preconditions necessary? That the pursuit of truth is in itself an ethical good. That you can derive truth from the observations of empirical reality. We need religion, but also have the need for a non-Christian system of values by which mankind can live meaningfully and embrace the drama of existence.
Peterson says you only have to think when you have a problem. That is an argument for practicing thinking skills while the stakes are low.
So, in a world where one side is manipulative and devious, where they use false flag, where they deliberately mis-interpret events and paint them in a negative or false light, is it possible that only one side is doing it? If they say they care about babies yet their every action says they do not care at all, if they say they care about life and yet actively promote murder, if they say they have a live and let live philosophy yet their every action is one of control, manipulation, and brainwashing (indoctrinating our children in our schools, for example), how can you fight them, make them realize that what they do is wrong, evil? What do you do to fight back? If our institutions are actually corrupt (particularly education and the media), how can we continue to live our own lives, think and believe things that go against the popular opinion? What if “privileged people” didn’t really exist? What if instruction about gender and sexuality was actually indoctrination?
The fundamental conflict is that I believe I have worked for, and deserve, the position I have, whatever lifestyle and comforts of life I have. I am not sure I believe you have. My lived experience is that I don’t see what you may have done, gone through. I have gone through great difficulty, great struggle myself, I know what I overcame. I became who I am despite those problems, why can’t you? It is not about you, specifically as an individual, it is about you collectively, who I see want things you have not earned. Who demand respect without giving it, who blame their problems on others, do not see their own culpability and do not work to correct their faults.
OK, so if I do not believe that I exist to amass wealth and power, it does not mean that others do not. If I believe religion is a comfort, it does not mean that others will not manipulate it for their own power and material well being. Christian meekness enables the capitalist system to continue its exploitation of the working classes. So the right, historically associated with being religious, becomes aggressive and assertive as a form of rebellion. Christianity does glorify the characteristics of the weak, while vilify the characteristics of the strong. This provides the lower classes with a means by which to vilify the virtues of the aristocracy and achieve moral superiority.
Marx believed that the ruling classes developed religion as a tool of the capitalist elite, to prevent proletariat revolution. Nietzsche argues that Christianity provided the lower classes with a means by which to vilify the virtues of the aristocracy and achieve moral superiority. Nietzsche boldly proclaims, “The doctrine of equality!… But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice.” Nietzsche fiercely attacks Immanuel Kant’s argument for universal moral truth, on the grounds that it reinforces a form of Christian morality. Rather than being the result of objective inquiry, all philosophical ideas are manifestations of the will to power of those who create them. In this sense, it could be argued that Nietzsche was the father of postmodernism, since he denounced the existence of absolute truth and asserted that philosophers can never remain objective in their reasoning. Nietzsche asserts that Christianity, not merely as a religion but also as the predominant moral system of the Western world, inverts nature, and is “hostile to life”. As “the religion of pity”, it elevates the weak over the strong, exalting that which is “ill-constituted and weak” at the expense of that which is full of life and vitality.
It is pretty obvious that, regardless of whatever political philosophy we adhere to, we have failed to liberate the lower classes from economic oppression. The left leverages that fact to increase their own political power, and still not resolve the issue.
So, while I believe that the will to power may be a valid interpretation of the underlying motivation of living, I do not believe it justifies the means of doing so. You cannot justify violence and exploitation just because they are fundamental parts of human nature, that is why we have laws against them. We need to be able to limit our base instincts, or to provide consequences when we fail to limit them. While religion may be a form of exploitation, something is needed to keep our base instincts in check. We need to live in a society, society requires organization, structure, space for all of us to live. This includes some freedom, but not all freedom (not to harm others). This includes the pursuit of happiness, but not if that happiness involves cruelty to others. Laws and religion are necessary even if they can be manipulated. There has to be a way to allow self-determination without leading to anarchy. We have to be willing to accept that no one can get everything they want, which means being able to accept the concept that there is a greater good, something that exists outside ourselves.
I am not sure I want to believe the media is corrupt. I know they need eyeballs to survive, and eyeballs come from emotion, from controversy. There is a certain necessity to present things from a viewpoint that generates interest, and that means appealing to some of humans base emotions. While I would certainly like writing and the news to elevate morality, higher order thinking, debate requires effort that most people do not want to even attempt. It is like work, and most people read for entertainment. Obviously, the right is the best at giving their viewers exactly what they want, that is why they are so popular, but it is also why they are dishonest. Those viewers do not want real news, and FOX exploits that to the best of their ability. Left wing media may want to be more honest, but they face a powerful foe who has no morals or ethics.
Peterson: the future of society depends on its ability to adapt to changes, and the ability to adapt comes from discussion between people. Habitable order out of chaos. This in turn relies on the concept that humans have intrinsic value, and that their thoughts and ideas deserve to be listened to. The concept of the divine sovereign individual. If you orient yourself ethically then you have the force of god on your side, and having god on your side is the only way we can deal with the difficulty and uncertainty of life. How about the pursuit of truth. Put the wrong thing at the top and the structure will come tumbling down. Intellectual arrogance.
The website is uncommon knowledge, hoover institute.
I see the loss of freedom of speech, it is a real thing, particularly at our universities. This means we have eliminated all possibility of solving problems. This is a form of corruption at its heart, our institutions that stand for freedom now are champions of oppression, restricting dialog. They think they already know the answers, and the answer is that white supremacy and male dominance is our culture, and those things are considered evil. The analogy is that the woke gatekeepers are like the guards at Auschwitz. People have to act as ethically as they are powerful. Action is about what you do (meaning me, you, all of us, any of us). What we do matters, what is it that we are doing? When we have ethics, our ambition is not corrupt.
The same argument that the woke, anti-males use – that you have power, I don’t, you are using that power wrongly – is the same argument the incels have. In the domain they are interested in (sex), women have all the power. So they rebel against that, the same way feminists do, against the power they think white males have. They rebel. The answers are the same: well, you have more agency than you believe. What you do is part of the problem. If females do not have economic power, it is because of the way they act, do, the jobs they take, the life choices they make. What do feminists think is the problem with incels? Why are the incels wrong, why is their thinking wrong? If incels do not have the power they seek, it is because of what they do, what they think, if they though (or acted) differently things would go better. How does that same thought process not work for what feminists believe?
Transcript from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRTU6IEepPM There is research that shows that females look for status markers in potential mates and partners, and in areas of high inequality there are fewer ways for males to achieve or demonstrate those markers. Males then turn to illegal means (drugs, theft) to demonstrate status (having cash is the status marker). Is one way to break the cycle to get females to value more positive traits, even though those traits may be in short supply in their environment? How do you get females to change the way they evaluate potential future partners? How much influence does the research show that females have over male behavior? One more: technological change that allows the most talented to leverage their talent to a larger audience is the key to understanding the winner take all inequality effect. Hyper-dominance of a tiny minority. Connection network has a positive feedback effect. More connections lead to more connections. Everybody needs work that is meaningful.
Finding: 10 % of the population cannot really function in an environment that requires cognitive function, which is our current state, particularly in America. There is no useful work for them. If you cannot enhance anyone’s cognitive ability, can you enhance other abilities, like perseverance, resilience.
Interesting fact: people change their minds, change their philosophies, their political standpoint. Regardless of the fact that they change (or can change) they believe just as strongly in those beliefs (that those beliefs are justified) at either point in time. Which position was wrong? They believed just as strongly in opposite things but at different times. Just as convinced they were right for either position. Ideology is not the right tool to analyze complex situations. There are too many aspects, some conflict.
Nate Anderson: It felt like my own attention was difficult to control anymore. it was Twitter. It was webpages. It was fragmented. It was links. hopefully come to a place where you take that technology and put it into the service of the life you want.
JP again: There is a hole in our culture where we should be talking about maturity, truth, and responsibility. Develop a vision about what your life would be like if it were worth living. It is not about rights, it is about responsibility. Be a monster, then learn how to control it. I think that is one of the great issues of our time, and a failure of our schools (and society in general): people are monsters, and they have not learned how to control it. Students don’t learn self control, self discipline. So that lack comes out in very destructive ways, individually and collectively. One bullet, so easy to fire, so difficult to heal. You come to university to ally yourself with great art. You learn to make yourself better, and how you make yourself better is to learn from great men. One way to measure the greatness of men is to see how their art lasts (remains, continues to be important). Only art does this, power, dominance, malevolence does not. Unites the melody of nature and the discipline of culture (Wagner).
So, about the article I read about the study of genetics: this is a form of prior restraint. It is basically saying you must not study something because of what it might mean. Malfeasance.
