Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

By "propriety," I merely mean the instilling of expected social behavior via family values and early education. This has nothing to do with the privileging of exercising one's logical faculties (or lack thereof).

My comment on propriety had nothing to do with logic. You're going to have to explain that connection. I simply mean that students throwing their hands up in the air and acting indifferent might signal a shift in how children are taught to behave in a purely performative sense; this has nothing to do with privileging the material or not.

Again, the two go together. "OMG it r difficult, wtf is this shit. Stoopid asshole teachers". Not like I haven't seen this response in classes. Being challenged is denigrated.

If anything, the education of "yesteryear" places less emphasis on logic than the education of today, as the education of today has even attacked the institutions of logic, undermining them via their own purportedly axiomatic premises. The educated today have a far more comprehensive view of global politics and cultural dynamics than the educated of 1964.

I'm no radical empiricist, but I would love to see some evidence to the effect of the latter claim. Certainly some cynicism is present in relation to the purported virtuosity of the claims and aims of typical US foreign policy, but it has little to do with logical operations. Secondly, pure lack of logical education can certainly be construed or presented as an "attack on the institutions of logic", and I know you're "no friend of logic", but I hold to the importance of being able to make sense of requests like "write backwards forwards", as I have seen what becomes of those who cannot.
While "what becomes" is certainly historically and culturally determined, it doesn't get any prettier when we destroy civilization to remove "logical privilege". Illogicists don't preform any better in the wild unless they happen to be gifted at physical violence - which serves them just as well in modernity with the right career choices fyi.

 

[Einherjar86]

Again, the two go together. "OMG it r difficult, wtf is this shit. Stoopid asshole teachers". Not like I haven't seen this response in classes. Being challenged is denigrated.

I'm no radical empiricist, but I would love to see some evidence to the effect of the latter claim. Certainly some cynicism is present in relation to the purported virtuosity of the claims and aims of typical US foreign policy, but it has little to do with logical operations. Secondly, pure lack of logical education can certainly be construed or presented as an "attack on the institutions of logic", and I know you're "no friend of logic", but I hold to the importance of being able to make sense of requests like "write backwards forwards", as I have seen what becomes of those who cannot.
While "what becomes" is certainly historically and culturally determined, it doesn't get any prettier when we destroy civilization to remove "logical privilege". Illogicists don't preform any better in the wild unless they happen to be gifted at physical violence - which serves them just as well in modernity with the right career choices fyi.

I think you're making more out of this than is there, man. These students weren't going "omg wtf stoopid asshole teachers." This exam had no stakes for them.

Furthermore, there's no educational factor to it; it's a losing game. If the test is legitimately rigged to fail students, then educated people would be able to figure that out. Insisting that they should behave calmly when taking it falls in line with a typical "respect your elders" line of thought, which isn't logical at all; it's ideological.

Basically nothing you're saying can be substantively backed by appealing to this video. It simply fails as evidence on multiple levels.

 

[Dak]

I think you're making more out of this than is there, man. These students weren't going "omg wtf stoopid asshole teachers." This exam had no stakes for them.

The wtf stupid asshole response wasn't aimed at the teachers, but my point was that this response happens a lot in classes, stakes irregardless. Being challenged, in any sort of way, often gets this sort of response - whether one is a student or in some position of authority.

Furthermore, there's no educational factor to it; it's a losing game. If the test is legitimately rigged to fail students, then educated people would be able to figure that out. Insisting that they should behave calmly when taking it falls in line with a typical "respect your elders" line of thought, which isn't logical at all; it's ideological.

Maybe the test is actually impossible, but I have no reason to believe that based on this video. Everything can ultimately be handwaved as having an ideological basis. Not shitting where you eat is based on an ideology that it's preferable to not get diseases and die early. Why? Because moar ideology. However, in this case, it doesn't have anything to do with "respecting your elders" - in fact the trend demonstrated by these students will evidence later in life as exactly that (if they can make it into some sort of "elder" position): "Look at this punk kid challenging me, the elder!".

My issue here is with people finding challenges something ludicrous, and again, reveling in inabilities, difficulties, etc. It certainly originated as a SWPL sort of thing, but it's becoming a more diversified phenomena, as indicated in the video.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm just going to let this dog lie. I teach undergraduates, and I specifically do not see this kind of reaction (I do get "mind blown" comments quite often in my class, which I accept with pride).

 

[Dak]

I'm just going to let this dog lie. I teach undergraduates, and I specifically do not see this kind of reaction (I do get "mind blown" comments quite often in my class, which I accept with pride).

What level is your typical class makeup/and is it primarily lit(etc) majors?

I don't see these types of responses in my upper level/major heavy classes. But your Freshman/Sophmore/non-major stuff certainly. I appreciate the sort of responses I get when even just talking with other students/teachers in philosophy classes, but that is with that minority of students who do like to be challenged generally.

 

[Einherjar86]

I teach composition to incoming freshmen that are not literature majors. Most are engineering majors.

I have maybe two or three who appear bored/frustrated by the material. I have a middle majority who are attentive but often quiet, and a significant portion (6-8 kids) who are often vocal and engaged with the material.

 

[Dak]

Probably the best post from Land in a while:

http://www.xenosystems.net/capital-escapes/

The Left sees capital elude its clutches — and it sees something real when it does so. By far the most significant agent of Exit is capital itself (a fact which, once again, politically-excitable apes find hard to see straight).
.....

The escape of capital is thus an intrinsic component of split-future forecasts, in which squalid ruin and techno-intelligenic runaway accelerate in inversely-tangled tandem (Cyberpunk, Elysium). Try not to ask — if only for a moment — whether you like it. Ask first, with whatever intellectual integrity you can summon: What is the real process?

It is the contention of this blog that without a conception of economic autonomization (which means escape) modernity makes no sense. The basic vector of capital cannot be drawn in any other way. Furthermore, the distribution of ideological positions through their relation to this vector — as resistances to, or promotions of, the escape of capital — constructs the most historically-meaningful version of the Left-Right ‘political’ spectrum (since it then conforms to the social conflicts of greatest real consequence).

If capital is escaping, the emergence of the blockchain is an inevitable escalation of modernity, with consequences too profound for easy summary. If it isn’t, then macroeconomics might work.

 

[Einherjar86]

That is a good post.

It is the contention of this blog that without a conception of economic autonomization (which means escape) modernity makes no sense. The basic vector of capital cannot be drawn in any other way. Furthermore, the distribution of ideological positions through their relation to this vector — as resistances to, or promotions of, the escape of capital — constructs the most historically-meaningful version of the Left-Right ‘political’ spectrum (since it then conforms to the social conflicts of greatest real consequence).

I completely agree with this. Modernity is only discernible in light of unprecedented market expansion and infiltration (my own words for autonomoization, which is probably the best word). All cultures obviously think of themselves as modern, but this isn't the same thing as what we mean by "modernity," and Land is touching upon one of the essential components of modernity. Of course, he's not the first to point this out; Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, Jameson, lots of critics have identified this aspect of modernity.

Land's unique bent is the whole capital as escape approach; but escape from what exactly...? From what I can tell, escape from political ideology; but as Land has already vocalized, the market conditions the political response to it (i.e. the Left-Right spectrum). Material relations give rise to political relations. In other words, capital precedes modern political ideology, and then conditions political ideology to respond to it. Finally, capital provides the opportunity of escape from political ideology. Capital thus inaugurates that which it also escapes from; it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

To use a metaphor, it's the classic problem from The Matrix. The characters have the decision to exit the matrix; but this decision can only be presented from within the matrix. The thing that oppresses and restricts them is thus also the thing that empowers them.

 

[Dak]

I'm interested in your response to this blunt, NRx (not from Land) take on non-westernized foreign policy. It is specifically referring to jihading Islamists in context, but I think it can be applied more broadly in contingent fashion:

The same assholes who are continually lecturing at us to think outside of European frameworks are the same assholes who are completely incapable of thinking outside the narrow framework of modern analysis.

It’s all really goddamned simplistic. They’re coming to kill all the unbelievers. You either kill them, you convert, or they kill you. It’s like trying to make football something that’s not about scoring more touchdowns than the other guy. You either kill them until there are no more of them, or until they stop fighting.

 

[Einherjar86]

My response is that I find such arguments tedious.

If you reduce the situation to two individuals - one Muslim jihadist with a knife and the other a Western classical liberal - then it makes sense to defend oneself.

The mistake the above NRx argument makes is to interpret the liberal (for lack of a better word) argument on an individual level. Now, before you get all "But that is the only level that matters!" let me explain:

No liberal, or academic, is telling you to stand down or not defend yourself; it is more than likely that the current situation will continue to reduce to violence. But the rationale for thinking outside the European framework doesn't apply merely to the immediate situation; it derives from the hope that attempts at diplomatic discussions now will lead to diplomacy in the future and, eventually, perhaps even a means of negotiating and interacting that doesn't need to resort to absolutist positions.

It's completely asinine and truly ignorant to believe that attempts at discussion are illogical and worthless. I have no reason to entertain such arguments. Calling it "simplistic" is what perpetuates its apparent simplicity. Comparing it to a game implies that there are winners and losers. The whole thing is dumb as a box of rocks.

 

[Dak]

Well if that sort of position spins out/morphs into the "let's turn x place into a glass parking lot" then I would agree that it is tedious. But I think there is a much less tedious point that could be made.

There are winners and losers in various senses in war, at a bare minimum there are those who live and those who die. I think the point here is that when one tries to reason with someone who does not get their directives via reason (in the enlightment sense of the word), the reasoner is at quite the disadvantage.

 

[Einherjar86]

That logic lies at the heart of one of the oldest conservative jokes in the book:

"An angry Muslim comes screaming toward two people, a liberal and a conservative.

The liberal says: 'Well, what's the history here? What's the context? Was this Muslim wronged in the past? Did this Muslim's family die at the hands of American soliders? Etc... etc...'

The conservative says: 'BANG! BANG, BANG-BANG! BANG! BANG! click...'"

I despise it because it misconstrues the liberal argument. No one is saying "don't fight back"; that's the reactionary, paranoid, impatient conservative interpretation of the liberal argument (again, I'm using liberal/conservative for simplicity's sake, but it does tend to fall along these lines). Part of the liberal initiative lies in reshaping Western attitudes so that in the future the auto-defensive mindset might not be necessary. I'll never agree with arguments that attempt to silence perspective.

 

[Dak]

Well the posted quote is specifically arguing that the problem with liberal perspective seeking is that rather than really attempting to see things from the other side, it merely attempts to see things as a liberal perspective seeker "on the other side", yielding not only hypocrisy in attempts to be "understanding" but potentially increasing the danger in the form of infinite hesitation.

 

[Einherjar86]

If your argument winds down to the opportunistic tactics of most politicians, then I don't have anything to say. But this is an old and tired point that doesn't interest me, especially when it's assumed that politicians are the only ones who seek to reinforce their own perspective and suggest that others see it that way.

No Western liberal democrat, or academic, understands what it's like to be a Muslim jihadist. Arguments from these sources are not trying to impart wisdom of experience, but merely suggest that there is something to be gained from contextualizing and historicizing. I don't understand what it's like to be a Muslim jihadist, but I think there's something to be gained from trying to understand; that's the position being argued on the liberal side. Ultimately any agent in a debate must admit some degree of hypocrisy since, more often than not, those agents have an interest in swaying others to their point. Accusing a contender of hypocrisy in this way (i.e. having a vested interest in his or her point) is akin to accusing a food critic who gives a good review of being hungry. There's no such thing as an objective argument.

I am more sympathetic toward a political program that opts for diplomatic relations, as tenuous or fragile as they may be, rather than one that opts for the institutionalization of automatic defensive action (which quite easily turns into automatic offensive action).

 

[Dak]

I think the point is that there are those that you might could have diplomatic relations with, and those you cannot. Diplomacy requires a degree of common ground in regards to ends and values, and an end where one is alive (and preferably autonomous) and not worshiping Allah is completely opposed to the end sought by the jihadist. There is no common ground for diplomacy. That does assume though that the leadership is ideological rather than merely using it, or that even if they weren't sincere, they have no power to rein in the troops if it were suddenly beneficial to drop jihad.

I agree though that the problem with ceding that point quickly allows for the slippery slope route of never ending pre-emptive action.

I'm not talking about hypocrisy of having a vested interest (I don't think). I mean that the perspective seeker that won't take claims at face value, particularly when backed by action otherwise, isn't actually seeking perspective but projecting perspective. In this case that takes the form of handwaving jihadist ideology and taqiyya as something fixable or with-workable, while the latter really makes it difficult to even take a sudden turn at diplomacy seriously.

I think the biggest practical argument against "pre-emptivism" is that it serves only to feed jihad (or any other sort of extremism).

 

[Einherjar86]

I see what you mean. It doesn't really change my position on the original quote. The speaker could be perfectly thoughtful and intellectual, but the comment doesn't convey this.

 

[Einherjar86]

The more I think about it, the more I can't figure it out: what exactly is ownership? Who owns first, and by what act, or practice? Is ownership absolute; or is it conditional?

 

[Dak]

I don't understand what you are asking. Do you want a definition? A legal perspective? What do you mean when you say "absolute"?

"First ownership" questions are probably pointless, in the way that I would frame them. We simply cannot trace back far enough. In simple immediate terms, you own what you acquired via voluntary trade with someone else, what you discovered that was either unowned, unclaimed, or "incapably protected" (think Native American ranges. Discovery is pretty unlikely since the turn of the last century) or what you produced with other similarly acquired materials.

I could quote the old adage "possession is 9/10 of the law". Given that a super simple definition of "that which you have exclusive control over", possession seems pretty necessary. Once you lose possession, claims to a right to control something have much less weight, in practical terms.

 

[Einherjar86]

Namely, I'm interested in the logic of ownership. If there is no first ownership, then it would seem to me that subsequent transactions are based on an illusion - an illusion of ownership (and if we cannot identify or locate first ownership, then I'm fine with saying that there is no first ownership - it strikes me as paradoxical anyway). If someone doesn't actually own an item, then that person has no authority to sell that item, which problematizes any subsequent claims of ownership even if the buyer had no knowledge that the item was illegitimately owned.

The whole prospect of legitimately owning something strikes me as a fiction - there is no logic to ownership, or no absolute right, but only a particularly convincing narrative. By "fiction" I don't mean that ownership isn't real, but rather that it isn't an absolute relation between a person and a thing; it is a constructed relationship based on accepted values and practices. Ownership is a matter of illusion. If there is no origin to ownership, then the logic of ownership falls apart; it rests entirely upon an individual's ability to convince others that her ownership of an object exists.

Also, does ownership extend to animals? If the first thing that every individual owns is her body, then it strikes me that animals should have ownership over their body; but then this raises questions over the ethics of farming and other uses of animals, since they cannot offer their consent. What constitutes ethical treatment thus falls to humans to determine, which seems specifically unethical.

A rejoinder to this might be that a subject must be able to confirm itself as a potentially owning subject. Since animals cannot acknowledge this, they fail as subjects that can own things. But if ownership only exists via its confirmation, then this fixes it once again in a pattern of discourse, thus draining it of any absolute existence and making its existence decidedly fictional.

 

[Dak]

Namely, I'm interested in the logic of ownership. If there is no first ownership, then it would seem to me that subsequent transactions are based on an illusion - an illusion of ownership (and if we cannot identify or locate first ownership, then I'm fine with saying that there is no first ownership - it strikes me as paradoxical anyway). If someone doesn't actually own an item, then that person has no authority to sell that item, which problematizes any subsequent claims of ownership even if the buyer had no knowledge that the item was illegitimately owned.

The whole prospect of legitimately owning something strikes me as a fiction - there is no logic to ownership, or no absolute right, but only a particularly convincing narrative. By "fiction" I don't mean that ownership isn't real, but rather that it isn't an absolute relation between a person and a thing; it is a constructed relationship based on accepted values and practices. Ownership is a matter of illusion. If there is no origin to ownership, then the logic of ownership falls apart; it rests entirely upon an individual's ability to convince others that her ownership of an object exists.

Has someone suggested that ownership is "absolute?" I don't know where such an idea would come from. You cannot observe something and deduce its owner (certainly inscriptions are possible, but ownership doesn't necessarily follow from that).

If you wanted a perfection of traced paths of ownership this is impossible. Even if it were possible, the chain of "rightful ownership" has been broken by war and other thefts a number of times probably beyond count. We don't have a clear tracing of descendants either.

Of course, we could theoretically somehow trace all that, and then what? Do you owe me an ox your grandfather^76 stole from my great uncle^77? But then I owe you in return for the half acre of prime mountain grazing stolen by some other relative from some other relative? If all ownership becomes illegitimate then none of it becomes illegitimate, as we are all simply new first owners. Back we come to possession.

Also, does ownership extend to animals? If the first thing that every individual owns is her body, then it strikes me that animals should have ownership over their body; but then this raises questions over the ethics of farming and other uses of animals, since they cannot offer their consent. What constitutes ethical treatment thus falls to humans to determine, which seems specifically unethical.

A rejoinder to this might be that a subject must be able to confirm itself as a potentially owning subject. Since animals cannot acknowledge this, they fail as subjects that can own things. But if ownership only exists via its confirmation, then this fixes it once again in a pattern of discourse, thus draining it of any absolute existence and making its existence decidedly fictional.

Does ownership extend to plants? To dirt? rock? planets? Solar systems?