Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

I can appreciate all that.

I also appreciate the concept of the free-market-as-process; there's something Deleuzian in the treatment of the free market as it concerns how things work, produce, manufacture, etc. as opposed to an abstract institution and its metaphysical/ontological components. Contextualizing the free market as behavior itself is a nice gesture.

However, I still think this gesture is always retroactive, meaning that capitalist gain or accumulation is experienced and the free market is invoked in order to justify that gain, and any violence or suffering that may have accompanied it. You say that the free market is essential for a peaceful civilization; and I think that's true in a purely idealistic sense. I don't think that peace is a constitutive aspect of capitalism, and this is where I'll agree to distinguish the free market from capitalism. I don't think there's any point in maintaining some pristine ideal of what capitalism should be and hold it against what we have today; what we have today is capitalism, and capitalism thrives on suffering and exclusion. This is simply built into the system. In order to rationalize this to ourselves, we claim that all was done in the name of the free market.

So, I have no qualm with the free market as it is argued, particularly this notion of the market-as-process, or market-as-behavior. But I think it is an idealized behavior, an idealized process; the free market cannot be considered in a vacuum (no institution or theory can), but must be contextualized as an ideological response to capitalist development.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Hey, I thought I'd poke my head in here again.

Have you guys been following the situation with ISIL in Iraq lately? Delightfully complicated issue. Obama was on the air tonight extolling his support-oriented strategy for the US, the newly reformed Iraqi government, and the coalition of Arab countries involved in the conflict. The reality seems quite a bit murkier than he portrays it, though, due to the recent collapse of the Iraqi military followed by an increasing Iranian presence in that military. That could be a big obstacle for the US if we're trying to rally the general population of ISIL-controlled Iraq against ISIL, as many of those people are afraid of Iran.

Then there's the question of what the odds are that the US operation as presently defined by Obama could escalate into a true US ground war, and whether the ever risk-averse Congress is rightly hesitant to vote on the issue, or if it's just run-of-the-mill election season stalling. There seems to be broad consensus that ISIL is bad news and needs to be taken out, but far less consensus on what the US's role should be. Meanwhile, are we in danger of ceding even more power to the executive branch by allowing Obama to claim authority to act in a situation with such a risk of mission creep?

To our chagrin, most of the world seems content with America's role as the world's police. Given that reality, are we still content with Congress's role as the pursekeeper of the military, and with a political definition of "war" that's just murky enough to allow for opportunistic actions like our present operation against ISIL?

 

[Dak]

I can appreciate all that.

I also appreciate the concept of the free-market-as-process; there's something Deleuzian in the treatment of the free market as it concerns how things work, produce, manufacture, etc. as opposed to an abstract institution and its metaphysical/ontological components. Contextualizing the free market as behavior itself is a nice gesture.

Maybe this similarity might have something to do with misguided efforts on the part of some particularly dim neocons etc to paint anarchocapitalists as "communists".

So, I have no qualm with the free market as it is argued, particularly this notion of the market-as-process, or market-as-behavior. But I think it is an idealized behavior, an idealized process; the free market cannot be considered in a vacuum (no institution or theory can), but must be contextualized as an ideological response to capitalist development.

Well I think that if we assume that the Wealth of Nations signifies something like the beginning of the capitalist era (or even something earlier), then obviously Free Market theory/ideology/etc. comes after, so from a historic perspective it is certainly a response to capitalism. However, I would say that rather than justifying the gains of capitalists, it justifies gain (and loss) in itself, when certain qualifications are met. If we distinguish between free market (or something approximating a free market) gain and historical grand capitalist gain in most cases, we see that the latter is not defended at all, because of process, rather than because of the "inequality of outcome". Because of the nature of mixed economies, one company can and usually does gain through both measures. One the one hand Amazon meets the wants and needs of the consumer - on the other hand they got their position due to a particular set of rules, and now advocate closing the proverbial door they walked in through. The Free Market response is to not only not close the door, but to bust down all the walls as well (Deleuzian).

Hey, I thought I'd poke my head in here again.

Have you guys been following the situation with ISIL in Iraq lately? Delightfully complicated issue. Obama was on the air tonight extolling his support-oriented strategy for the US, the newly reformed Iraqi government, and the coalition of Arab countries involved in the conflict. The reality seems quite a bit murkier than he portrays it, though, due to the recent collapse of the Iraqi military followed by an increasing Iranian presence in that military. That could be a big obstacle for the US if we're trying to rally the general population of ISIL-controlled Iraq against ISIL, as many of those people are afraid of Iran.

Then there's the question of what the odds are that the US operation as presently defined by Obama could escalate into a true US ground war, and whether the ever risk-averse Congress is rightly hesitant to vote on the issue, or if it's just run-of-the-mill election season stalling. There seems to be broad consensus that ISIL is bad news and needs to be taken out, but far less consensus on what the US's role should be. Meanwhile, are we in danger of ceding even more power to the executive branch by allowing Obama to claim authority to act in a situation with such a risk of mission creep?

To our chagrin, most of the world seems content with America's role as the world's police. Given that reality, are we still content with Congress's role as the pursekeeper of the military, and with a political definition of "war" that's just murky enough to allow for opportunistic actions like our present operation against ISIL?

Too many disparate questions here. I'll just give my position on the whole ball of bullshit: The situation is one of the following

1. ISIS is a new, independently organized group of Islamists taking advantage of US/Nato ineptitude by seizing the flow and reserves of weaponry and other goods sent to/left in the area, and moving into the power vacuum that the US/Nato created.

2. ISIS is another clandestine creation of the US/Nato for the purposes of further destablizing the Middle East, and also providing a fresh context to keep the MIC rolling and the domestic freedom clampdown going.

3. ISIS isn't really anything and this is just a wag-the-dog story.

In none of these scenarios do I see any reason for the US to be involved at all.

 

[Einherjar86]

Maybe this similarity might have something to do with misguided efforts on the part of some particularly dim neocons etc to paint anarchocapitalists as "communists".

I suppose, although I doubt neocons are familiar with Deleuzian philosophy, much less the "particularly dim" ones.

Well I think that if we assume that the Wealth of Nations signifies something like the beginning of the capitalist era (or even something earlier), then obviously Free Market theory/ideology/etc. comes after, so from a historic perspective it is certainly a response to capitalism. However, I would say that rather than justifying the gains of capitalists, it justifies gain (and loss) in itself, when certain qualifications are met. If we distinguish between free market (or something approximating a free market) gain and historical grand capitalist gain in most cases, we see that the latter is not defended at all, because of process, rather than because of the "inequality of outcome". Because of the nature of mixed economies, one company can and usually does gain through both measures. One the one hand Amazon meets the wants and needs of the consumer - on the other hand they got their position due to a particular set of rules, and now advocate closing the proverbial door they walked in through. The Free Market response is to not only not close the door, but to bust down all the walls as well (Deleuzian).

The free market is used to justify loss as well, that's very important; I was focusing too much on accumulation.

Hey, I thought I'd poke my head in here again.

Have you guys been following the situation with ISIL in Iraq lately? Delightfully complicated issue. Obama was on the air tonight extolling his support-oriented strategy for the US, the newly reformed Iraqi government, and the coalition of Arab countries involved in the conflict. The reality seems quite a bit murkier than he portrays it, though, due to the recent collapse of the Iraqi military followed by an increasing Iranian presence in that military. That could be a big obstacle for the US if we're trying to rally the general population of ISIL-controlled Iraq against ISIL, as many of those people are afraid of Iran.

Then there's the question of what the odds are that the US operation as presently defined by Obama could escalate into a true US ground war, and whether the ever risk-averse Congress is rightly hesitant to vote on the issue, or if it's just run-of-the-mill election season stalling. There seems to be broad consensus that ISIL is bad news and needs to be taken out, but far less consensus on what the US's role should be. Meanwhile, are we in danger of ceding even more power to the executive branch by allowing Obama to claim authority to act in a situation with such a risk of mission creep?

To our chagrin, most of the world seems content with America's role as the world's police. Given that reality, are we still content with Congress's role as the pursekeeper of the military, and with a political definition of "war" that's just murky enough to allow for opportunistic actions like our present operation against ISIL?

I don't really have much of a unique opinion, as far as I know. But I think this short video of Chomsky is enlightening:

Noam Chomsky: 'As long they get the backing of dictators, it doesn't matter to western governments what Arab populations think'

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2011/aug/31/noam-chomsky-terrorism-video

 

[Dak]

I suppose, although I doubt neocons are familiar with Deleuzian philosophy, much less the "particularly dim" ones.

The free market is used to justify loss as well, that's very important; I was focusing too much on accumulation.

Well they might not know Deleuze, but they can equivocate positions that dispense with the institutions they hold dear.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

2. ISIS is another clandestine creation of the US/Nato for the purposes of further destablizing the Middle East, and also providing a fresh context to keep the MIC rolling and the domestic freedom clampdown going.

Noam Chomsky: 'As long they get the backing of dictators, it doesn't matter to western governments what Arab populations think'

As scattered as my knowledge of international affairs is, I'd like to try and play the apologist for US hegemony. I think it's reasonable to believe that a long-term goal of western governments is to lead the developing world toward democracy, but the western world also requires a steady inflow of resources to maintain its dominant economic/technological position, and there may be a private consensus among western leaders that this situation justifies the present exploitation of some parts of the world.

There may have been a time way back in history, before the majority of today's political landscape took form, when a more equitable global economy might have been arranged; but as we all know, much of the developing/"third" world has been exploited by the west for many generations now, and we can't just wave a magic wand to erase all the resulting tension and instability out there. Perhaps the recent gains in US oil and gas production (and hence energy independence) will lead to less western meddling in the rest of the world? It's too early to tell, but something to keep an eye on in the coming years as a barometer of western governments' motives.

As for the MIC and its presumed role in "inventing" conflicts for various reasons (i.e. keeping military personnel in good form), there's certainly evidence of corruption within that system, but people generally give it a pass because they like having the US as the biggest bully in the playground to keep the unstable parts of the world (or rogue nations like Russia and North Korea) in check. Is the corruption really bad enough that we should risk declassifying large programs or databases in order to reform it? If the West is really in great danger of regressing into totalitarianism, or has effectively already done so, then we're living under a pretty lax dictatorship if ever I knew of one. More likely, our current breed of corporations, universities, Assanges, and Snowdens serves as an adequate technological check against the power of the political establishment.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't think the West is in danger of regressing to totalitarianism. I think totalitarianism is a distinctly early-20th-century phenomenon; if we want to categorize our current or future political system as some kind of authoritarian power, that's fine; but it won't look like totalitarianism, so it shouldn't be called such.

I also didn't intend that Chomsky video to mean that the U.S. shouldn't get involved at all; I just find the statistics interesting. Regarding Western involvement: there's no doubt it's primarily over resources, in my opinion. If there is the desire to spread democracy, I see this as less of an attempt to liberate those under (more obviously) authoritarian governments and more of an attempt to incorporate subjects into a global sociopolitical hegemonic power. Part of the colonial/imperialist rationalization has always been "they need our help." Now, in this case, it may be true that the region implodes more rapidly without U.S. intervention; but the question is whether we're actually helping, or just prolonging the inevitable.

At the very least, I do believe there are ethical imperatives operating within the situation; but I don't think the U.S. or other Western powers have these ethical concerns in mind.

 

[SentinelSlain]

I had an email correspondence with Chomsky about this, funnily enough.

 

[Einherjar86]

I had an email correspondence with Chomsky about this, funnily enough.

Really? Out of curiosity, why did you contact him; personal interest, research, interview...?

 

[Dak]

To make the statement that worldwide democracy is a long term goal for western democracies requires a significant addendum: As long as the democracy looks like, and subjugates itself to, western democracy. The west, and the United States specifically, has shown historically that it will swiftly act to quash any democratic emergence that threatens US "interests". Better a tyrannical butcher that will "play ball" than a democracy that won't.

 

[Einherjar86]

Better a tyrannical butcher that will "play ball" than a democracy that won't.

Which is exactly what Chomsky says in the video, albeit a bit more detailed version.

I should clarify that when I said "spread democracy" I didn't explicitly mean spread the organizational apparatus of democratic government, such that foreign countries adopt this organizational form. I meant, more precisely, to spread "democratic values." Now, I by no means hold this term up to a kind of definitive set of principles or behavioral traits; to the contrary, I would say that democratic values are inconsistent and ideologically operative - so much so, in fact, that democratic values can even be appealed to in order to justify the existence of dictatorial regimes in other countries (here we encounter the messy paradox of democracy being purportedly good for everyone, except when other democracies threaten the existence of our democracy).

So, a distinction needs to be made between democracy as an organizational process, implemented on the ground and practiced by a citizenry, and democratic values, which, more than anything else, are textual in nature. They constitute a cultural script that alters, and is altered by, the demands and desires of the sociopolitical body that appeals to it.

This is similar to how capitalism, in its current non-free market form, can operate coercively and violently, and yet those with their hands in the cookie jar can appeal to free market values in order to justify their actions. Institutional values (e.g. economic, family, religious, political, etc.) function in a very different manner than the institutions themselves.

 

[SentinelSlain]

Really? Out of curiosity, why did you contact him; personal interest, research, interview...?

personal interest / research


I have to say, I hope I'm as active and "with it" when I'm in my 80s.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

random ...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsdiYUnKyzk&list=PLy_i-_8bbPq0MHCOWCEURdU0VtLs9KM8L[/ame]

 

[SentinelSlain]

funnily enough Chomsky spoke about historical fascism having been an "official enemy" in his replies.

 

[Dak]

Ein, here's something I've been contemplating:

Is a metaphysical underpinning necessary for an ethical theory?

 

[Einherjar86]

I want to preface my response by saying that metaphysicians and ethicists would probably castrate me for my answer.

No, I don't think it's necessary. The only thing ethical theories necessitate is an oscillation or undecidability, which seems fundamentally contradictory to ethics in general. We cannot help but act metaphysically, i.e. as though some kind of axiomatic principle exists, even if we acknowledge that said principle may not exist in all times and locations. I don't believe that any such principle exists, and thus I cannot contend that metaphysics is necessary.

This leads me to a heterodox definition of ethics, which is ethics not as a determining principle but ethics as a process of ultimately undecidable action. Any ethical standard or judicial sentencing must appear hegemonic (by necessity of its existence as a standard, rule, law, etc.), but must simultaneously remain infinitely exposed to alteration (what some might identify as corruption). Ethics can only ever be temporarily instituted and must remain an interrogative process.

Of course, this will never stop governments and institutions from attempting to petrify ethics into some kind of system (religion, law, etc.); but history testifies to the fact that ethics depends upon historical circumstances. I have no idea how to systematize such a mode of ethics. If I were forced, I would say that the increasing openness and permeability of technological apparatuses and social media will structurally increase the concept of ethics-as-social process.

 

[Dak]

There is no correct response. There is feeling good, feeling bad, mixtures of both, and nothing. If one wishes to not feel negative things from words (as they generally do), it is much easier for them to develop their awareness of how words impact them and not let words hurt them than it is to censor whoever they may happen to overhear or speak to. The first solution is well within their power, and the second much less so.

Speaking from experience, an obstacle to getting people to realize this may be that it can seem insulting to feel like one has responsibility for feeling insulted, humiliated, triggered, etc. But on the bright side, understanding one's role in how words affect them makes it easier for them to disarm words than not getting over things and trying to get the world to avoid hurting them verbally.

Not that it's okay for the individual to be triggered. The nature of bad feelings is that they're not okay. If they know the person and/or interact with them regularly, getting the person to not say triggering things would be wiser to lessen the amount of triggering until the person gets over things, but society at large cannot possibly know that one person's triggers and censoring themselves to avoid possibly triggering someone they don't even know is more of a hassle than getting the individual to get over things.

This doesn't only go for words (not that I am trying to specifically equivocate words with guns here, rather pointing out that trying to change society at large around the problem of a few is a poor solution framework/methodology):

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/sunday-review/the-assault-weapon-myth.html?_r=1

More than 20 years of research funded by the Justice Department has found that programs to target high-risk people or places, rather than targeting certain kinds of guns, can reduce gun violence.

David M. Kennedy, the director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, argues that the issue of gun violence can seem enormous and intractable without first addressing poverty or drugs. A closer look at the social networks of neighborhoods most afflicted, he says, often shows that only a small number of men drive most of the violence. Identify them and change their behavior, and it’s possible to have an immediate impact.

 

[Dak]

I want to preface my response by saying that metaphysicians and ethicists would probably castrate me for my answer.

No, I don't think it's necessary. The only thing ethical theories necessitate is an oscillation or undecidability, which seems fundamentally contradictory to ethics in general. We cannot help but act metaphysically, i.e. as though some kind of axiomatic principle exists, even if we acknowledge that said principle may not exist in all times and locations. I don't believe that any such principle exists, and thus I cannot contend that metaphysics is necessary.

This leads me to a heterodox definition of ethics, which is ethics not as a determining principle but ethics as a process of ultimately undecidable action. Any ethical standard or judicial sentencing must appear hegemonic (by necessity of its existence as a standard, rule, law, etc.), but must simultaneously remain infinitely exposed to alteration (what some might identify as corruption). Ethics can only ever be temporarily instituted and must remain an interrogative process.

Of course, this will never stop governments and institutions from attempting to petrify ethics into some kind of system (religion, law, etc.); but history testifies to the fact that ethics depends upon historical circumstances. I have no idea how to systematize such a mode of ethics. If I were forced, I would say that the increasing openness and permeability of technological apparatuses and social media will structurally increase the concept of ethics-as-social process.

I find it unfortunate that the immediate turn from what is ethical to legal codification is ever present and potentially unavoidably so in this sort of dialogue.

 

[Vimana]

Ethics (at least what I'm familiar with) misses the point. The only inextricable quality of consciousness is its "thereness" which by its nature seeks to expand itself through knowledge and experience (which are synonymous with joy for anyone that has let go of enough things to feel the base state of consciousness). Consciousness also seeks to preserve itself. The ways it can preserve and expand have no known limit, so trying to capture them in conceptualizations and specific actions fails. There is association between suffering (dissonance of reality against desire) and joy and actions, but they vary. All in all, we don't need any system because our very nature that guides us to make systems to protect ourselves and encourage our joy is also desiring a state of joy.

Do you need an ethical system to be nice to a friend who's having a bad time? Do you need one to do something for yourself to feel good?

Attachment to an ethical system of action and concepts can create blinders because it creates a backwards conception of goodness. Desire for goodness makes laws, ethics, whatever, not the other way around. Not knowing this can cause people to believe that a law being broken = suffering, which carries the potential danger of people acting against their own interests and/or the interest of others with a conviction that what they're doing is "right."

Nothing is "right." Right is a feeling that depends on the person, the experience, and the person's attitude. It varies from situation to situation. It's "right" for someone to enjoy eating sugar. It is wrong if the person eating it has diabeties and does not desire the physical ramifications, but if they desire to suffer, it's "right" to them.

 

[Dak]

Ah, the relativist. About the only thing correct in that post was that "Desire for goodness makes...law.. ethics...not the other way around"