11/2019#
Existence: Voir
Observer: Savoir
Attributes: Change
Space/Time: Field
Cause/Effect: Pouvoir
If you think you are something #1
Or if you think you know shit #2
Wait till wifey runs off with someone #4
Before you truly understand causality #5
Then you’ll be eternally transformed #3
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1.Ontology/Truth is Feminine
2.Epistemology/Method of Wooing
3.Heraclitology/Always will Change
4.Cosmology/All three Dimensions
5.Streamology/Up and down
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— Darwin
— Falstaff
— Nietzsche
— Without counterfeiting
— Man cannot cope with reality
Mind μ
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Soul ψ—>Tension 𝛿—>Magnificent κ
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Body σ
— Reality
— Counterfeit
— Balance
— Health
— Growth
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Mind μ
\
Soul ψ—>Tension 𝛿—>Causa κ
/
Prima σ
It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy
is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.
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Looking into this book a little more closely you discover a merciless spirit who knows all the secret hiding places in which ideals can be found—where they find their dungeons and as it were their last refuge. With a torch in my hand, the light of which is not by any means a flickering one, I illuminate this underworld of ideals with beams that pierce the gloom. It is war, but a war without powder and smoke, without warlike attitudes, without pathos and contorted limbs—all these things would still be “idealism”. One error after the other is quietly laid on ice; the ideal is not refuted—it freezes. Here for instance “the genius” freezes; round the corner “the saint” freezes; under a thick icicle “the hero” freezes; and in the end “faith” itself freezes. So-called “conviction” and also “pity” are considerably cooled—and almost everywhere the “thing in itself” is freezing to death.
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App
Cash
Bourdieu
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Autobio 2019/11/03
— Nonlinear
— Discursive
— Metaphysics
— Science
— Innovation
— Albert Einstein
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— Harold Bloom
— Plagiarism
— Thomas Kuhn
— Pierre Bourdieu
— Sigmund Freud
— Nassim Talib
— Allan Massie
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— Deadlines
— Consistency
— Patrons
— Mediocrity
— Taste
— Funding
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— Fight
— Duel
— Usurp
— Overcome
— Become
— Polemicize
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— Hero
— Odyssey
— Flâneur
— Irresponsibile
— Sensual
— Dungeons
In brief, I am Michael Polanyi— and I approve this message!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi
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If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion
David Hume would put Shakespeare to the flames 🔥
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Today I’ve read Wikipedia’s entry for metaphysics with deliberation
It has left quite an impression on an already impressionable mind
Looks like it has concluded my discursive intellectual odyssey: 2005-2019
A.D.M.
Dallas, Texas
Sunday
November 3, 2019 at 8:29 AM
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McKinney Avenue — love it
Irvin, Texas
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Some initial thoughts
1. I didn’t see any email that you sent RMS telling them that you do intend to submit the application this cycle, but that it will come a bit later than their initial deadlines
2. The intro letter has several grammar errors and incomplete sentences. It is truly offensive to have even one error like this in a grant, let alone an intro letter, and is concerning for me because it seems that you were fully intending to submit this intro letter with your resubmission.
3. You got a 20, so I would make your paragraph of “the good things that were said” about twice as long. I am attaching the intro letter that I submitted with my K24 resubmission to give you some text about the score – I would definitely mention the current payline of 18 so that the reviewers know they have to give you 1’s. I would not use first-person like I did – I did that because a K24 is more of a “talking to your colleagues” application than a “begging more senior people for starter money” kind like a K08
4. They told you that your career development plan was slightly overambitious but they actually liked it. In response, you all but eviscerated it. I wouldn’t do that. I would cut ONE course max, and say that you cut the course least related to the proposed science. Talking about the overlap between training and research is fine and a good idea.
5. Implying that you’re looking at sex as a biological variable because it’s part of the new NIH policy is almost like you’re telling the reviewers that THEY’re comments about this were unimportant to you, and that the science is unimportant to you, but you’re just doing it because the NIH requires it. I would take that stuff out, and instead say indeed these are interesting questions and we’ve proposed the following science. Also, you need to propose something much more interesting than “differential magnitude of risk in men vs women” which seems banal – at least propose some interactions or something
6. You CANNOT blow off their request for a power calculation. Just do something. Doesn’t matter what. Just do something and present what you do with great pride.’
7. Go through your summary statement again and make sure that you have a response for EVERY negative bullet point. Every single one. In the intro.
Send me another version of this later today and we’ll work on the letter over the weekend.
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Il y a une femme dans toutes les affaires; aussitôt qu'on me fait un rapport, je dis: « Cherchez la femme !
Translated into English this reads:
There is a woman in every case; as soon as someone brings me a report, I say, 'Look for the woman!'
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Love μ
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Faith ψ —> Hope 𝛿 —> Spirituality κ
/
Courage σ
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Hue μ
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Drop ψ —> 17-19th C America 𝛿 —> Purity vs. Contamination κ
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Black σ
Network μ
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Mutuality ψ —> Tied 𝛿 —> Destiny κ
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Inescapable σ
“Like you take the opioid crisis and all of the compassion that’s doled out in the rhetoric? Where was that during the crack epidemic in the 1980s? I remember it well. I was in a city where that was going on. Where was all that compassion? Black people aren’t worthy of that. That’s a story that can be created for white people because they’re white, but we don’t get that sort of compassion.”
DAG of all DAGS
November 5, 2019 at 7:13 PM
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Cornel West vs. Ta-Nehisi Coates?
And I approve this message
The score is 5-0!
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It was the 1920s. A morally and sexually compromised president had come to power promising a regime fundamentally different to his predecessor’s. The new administration was packed with conmen, hucksters, and unqualified shills raiding the public treasury and selling public lands to Big Oil. There were also those in the cabinet with an agenda that would place inordinate, unbridled power in the hands of corporations while millions of poor Americans took the brunt of a Great Depression that hit before anyone knew what to call it.
Greed fever ran like an epidemic in the financial sector giving the illusion of prosperity and wealth when, just underneath, the economy had major fissures and faultlines that threatened to topple the American behemoth. Meanwhile, black people were being terrorised in Tulsa, the Ku Klux Klan was gaining political power in key states in the north, voting rights were under attack, and a new racist immigration law effectively shut the door on anyone not Anglo-Saxon.
The international scene was just as vexing. The rise of fascist regimes in Europe and Japan ran headlong into an American retreat from the League of Nations, and by the 1930s there was a growing internal fifth column, marketing itself as “America First”, that undermined any effective response to regimes that threatened US national security.
In the midst of the maelstrom, an intellectual brawl broke out among African Americans. Unbelievably, the real issue was not the political and economic horror that confronted the nation and black people, who were dealing with massive disparities in access to constitutional rights and wealth. Instead, one African American intellectual openly and mercilessly challenged another over what was essentially ephemera. Du Bois looked on at the row within Fisk University, Tennessee, and shook his head. This peacock display was merely the effervescence of faux bravery. “The real radical,” he noted, “is the man, who hits power in high places, white power, power backed by unlimited wealth; hits it and hits it openly and between the eyes.”
It’s 2017. A morally and sexually compromised man has assumed the presidency of the United States. His regime is attacking black and brown people with reckless abandon while, under the guise of “America first”, shielding Nazis and other white supremacists, and providing no defence against a government that threatens US national security. He and his minions have also unleashed wanton corporate greed, reduced public lands, attacked voting rights, and imposed or threatened immigration restrictions to warm the cockles of any eugenicist.
In the midst of this maelstrom …
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power cox, hratio(8) eventprob(.007)
power cox, hratio(8) eventprob(.001)
power cox, hratio(4) eventprob(.001)
power cox .4, eventprob(.007)
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My thoughts are informed by the two greatest — and most opposite — minds: St. Paul and Nietzsche.
St. Paul would have us abideth these three things faith, hope, and charity. But that the greatest is charity.
Nietzsche thinks that is just plain weakness. He proposes that the only way we may affirm life is by expending as much energy as possible in our Will-to-Power, in our bravery against anything or anyone they dares to cross our path.
And how might we show off our strength? First by a metamorphosis into a Camel 🐪, capable bearing all sorts of burdens. Then into a Lion 🦁 with such strength as might fight off any dragons 🐉 we encounter in the dungeons of our soul. And finally into a child 👶🏾 who has no memory of any past pain or fears and who only knows how to yea-say to everything in life.
That is how a free spirit 🕊 is born. Of course the other way is to surrender all to the Lion 🦁 of Judah and seek protection forever and also guidance from serpents 🐉 and by the Holy Spirit 🕊 . Because you admit to being weak.
In summary, one must decide whether they are weak or they are strong. That’s all!
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Out of Season
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Human —> Free —> Wagner
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Tragedy
Autobio 11/08/2019 at 7.24 AM
2017/07/07 at 07:54 AM: Dorian Gray, It’s been an ache, Connect dots (Epi concepts)
2019/07/09 at 05:46 PM: From 3-to-5 buckets, 15y-itch, Sapolsky, Bottomup, Topdown
2019/07/26 at 06:52 AM: Still muddling, not yet through — we are talking 40yo
2019/09/23 at 10:12 PM: Greek (σμψ𝛿κ) as key insight, rSM-GJC-EdF, Oedipus, Duels
2019/10/23 at 11:00 AM: Rabbit hold, circumstantiality, Nietzsche, Schizo, OCD, discursive
2019/10/09 at 02:36 PM: Live life like a fractal, bottom-up, no grand designs, no blue prints
2019/11/03 at 08:21 AM: Discursive, Harold Bloom, Deadlines, Michael Polanyi, Flâneur
2019/11/04 at 09:06 AM: Metaphysics has connected all the dots of my intellectual life
2019/11/08 at 01:34 AM: Youth, Find, Transcend, Spirit, Mentor, Nietzsche, Wagner
Will-to-Power/Cause #3 vs. Life/Effect #5
Good/Evil
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Beyond —> Resentment —> Provocateur
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Spirit
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Leitmotifs
1.Energy of youth
2.Seeks, finds its “mentor”
3.Transcends mentor by will to power
4.Becomes gravity-free, freedom
5.Ensnare(d,s) [by] “others” or..
Zarathustra/Lord Henry: Flâneurs
Good/Evil
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Beyond —> Resentment —> Provocateur
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Spirit
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Muzaale Wilde Nietzsche
MWN 🤺
NWA 🤺
Duel 🤺
Provocateur per excellence
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Wilde/Nietzsche
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Freud —> Dorry —> Provocateur
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Muzaale
Beyond Good & Evil: In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. So just be strong! Lord Worthon Henry
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My kith and kin
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Not by wrath ⚔️ , but by laughter 👶🏾 , do we slay 🐉. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity 🌍
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In conclusion, Mr. Pletsch writes that Nietzsche was “not born a genius,” he “became a genius” and he did so by learning “the role of the genius from a whole series of individuals from Goethe to Wagner.” It was by emulating them that he learned “to overcome the expectations of tradition and to refuse a normal life, to persevere on a path of nonconformity and apparently perverse innovation.” It was also through their example that he learned to embrace his own independence – and eventually emancipate himself from their influence
Sounds familiar?
Autobio 2019/11/10
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Ever notice there’s no resentment in babyface?
Only “influence” is objects of unrequited love (from a woman’s perspective)
This unites him with the most intimate unifier of man: the transaction
Resentment is also a mode of unrequited love
Maybe it’s an earlier stage of the Will to Power?
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“We”: Ontology or Epistemology?
There is no separating the laughter from the groans, the drum from the slave ships, the tearing away of clothes, the being borne away, from the cunning need to hide all that made you human. And this is why the gift of black music, of black art, is unlike any other in America, because it is not simply a matter of singular talent, or even of tradition, or lineage, but of something more grand and monstrous. When Jackson sang and danced, when West samples or rhymes, they are tapping into a power formed under all the killing, all the beatings, all the rape and plunder that made America. The gift can never wholly belong to a singular artist, free of expectation and scrutiny, because the gift is no more solely theirs than the suffering that produced it. Michael Jackson did not invent the moonwalk. When West raps, “And I basically know now, we get racially profiled / Cuffed up and hosed down, pimped up and ho’d down,” the we is instructive.
Mine? Babyface, rSM-GJc-EdF, Nietzsche
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What Kanye West seeks is what Michael Jackson sought—liberation from the dictates of that we
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West, in his own way, will likely pay also for his thin definition of freedom, as opposed to one that experiences history, traditions, and struggle not as a burden, but as an anchor in a chaotic world
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Fame only intoxicates when it’s founded on appearance (Whitney)
When it’s founded on substance it’s much more bearable (Einstein)
If it’s founded on transformation, then it’s inspirational (Oprah)
But if it owes much to the time, the place, it’s circumstantial (Souljaboy)
To conclude, fame has many origins and destinies (Jobs)
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What Kanye West seeks is what Michael Jackson sought—liberation from the dictates of that “we”
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Nietzsche and yours truly find him of great interest
For his asceticism?
Maybe
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We know 5th harmony
Baseball game Ariana
7 rings Ariana
Needy
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Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” lets you know, in its very first verse, that it’s copying. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s and bottles of bubbles / Girls with tattoos who like getting in trouble,” she sings in place of the “Raindrops on roses / and whiskers on kittens” made famous by Rodgers and Hammerstein, who are listed among the 10 songwriters for the pop star’s latest single.
But this is not an Austrian Alps show tune. It’s a rap and R&B song, inspired by—or taking from—black artists. For the chorus, a marching-formation beat kicks in and Grande whispers, in a clipped rhythm, “I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it.” In the bridge, she raps in a kind of ranging, liquid style reminiscent of Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj’s “Flawless (Remix),” with a reference to The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Gimme the Loot.” After the single was released last Friday, two rappers—Princess Nokia and Soulja Boy—posted videos accusing Grande of stealing their flows. 2 Chainz suggested the music video ripped off the pink trap house he set up as a promotional and public-health effort in Atlanta, and other people noted similarities with his song “Spend It.”
Whether Grande has a serious plagiarism scandal on her hands is unclear. Rap flows—particular verbal rhythms and rhyme patterns—can be viral and collaborative things, bubbling up as one emcee’s innovation then quickly becoming ubiquitous. To my ear, Grande’s delivery and lyrics do recall all the songs “7 Rings” has been compared to, but not so precisely that you can bet on a slam-dunk copyright-infringement case against her. Then again, we’re living in the era after the “Blurred Lines” judgment, which determined that the “feel” of a song can be actionable. A lawyer just has to convince a jury.
What Grande is definitely facing, though, is that familiar pop-star chapter: a cultural-appropriation backlash. In addition to her extraordinary voice, neurotic charisma, and glittery bath-bomb aesthetic, Grande’s success has increasingly relied on elements of rap and R&B culture: its slang (last year, issa was every third word Grande said in public), its beats (Pharrell injected her 2018 album, Sweetener, with thump recalling that of his band N.E.R.D), and its stars (all of the guest vocalists on 2016’s Dangerous Women, the album where she made a show of leaving behind child-star innocence, were black).
This history hasn’t led to the sort of controversy that, say, met Miley Cyrus when she made herself over as a gold-toothed twerker in 2013. But it has been remarked upon in ways positive and negative. Patti LaBelle lovingly called Grande a “little white black girl” while presenting an award to the star in December. But some commentators have grumbled that her “blaccent” and even her spray tan seemed part of an old story about white people profiting off of black aesthetics to project a sense of edge without feeling any of the associated struggle.
Appropriation remains one of the hardest-to-talk-about phenomena in pop culture, which is, fundamentally, a hodgepodge of widely circulated ideas that originated in specific subcultures. One line of thought puts it in economic terms: Are marginalized creators being materially harmed and erased? But on another level, there are questions of aesthetics and tastes. Does the pop star draw upon her influences in a way that feels original? Does her work disrespect or honor those influences? Is there a double standard in how her work is received?
Grande teetered the line on those questions without much incident till now. But “7 Rings” is raising hackles because it regresses to a more cartoonish, and imitative, use of black music than she’s done before (not to mention the video’s evocation of Japanese kawaii). She’s wearing the culture as a costume—or even as a joke—not unlike white frat guys putting on fake grills for a “ratchet” party.
The lyrical concept for “7 Rings” originated from Grande coping with her super-public breakup from the comedian Pete Davidson last year. After calling off their engagement, she went with six of her best friends to Tiffany, got drunk on champagne, and bought everyone in her posse her own engagement ring. It’s a tale of mega-wealthy indulgence that’s both charming and sickening, a combination that Grande tacitly acknowledges with this song. She’s bragging, not apologizing, about doing something wasteful—an empowering rebellion, supposedly. “Whoever said money can’t solve your problems must not have had enough money to solve ’em,” she sings.
Grande and her fans would say that this materialist flex is earned defiance for someone who has faced a series of profound public setbacks in recent years, and who’s been underestimated time and again for being a young woman. They would also say that men get to conduct themselves this way in public all the time. True enough. But the song exploits hip-hop signifiers so insistently that the gap between Grande’s experiences and the cultures she’s taking from are as glaring as the reflection off a De Beers product.
The video may or may not reference 2 Chainz’s pink trap house, but it does channel the notion of a pink trap house via spray paint, beat-up cars, and barking dogs (just look at the album art). The song’s defining lyric goes, “You like my hair? / Gee thanks, just bought it,” which also—combined with the rest of her chorus—recalls 2 Chainz’s refrain “It’s mine / I spend it.” But “Spend It” was a victory lap for someone who’s had to deal drugs since he was a teenager: “I’m riding ’round my side of town / Boxing gloves, I beat the trial.” On Princess Nokia’s “Mine,” the chorus, “It’s mine, I bought it,” referred to the hairpieces of black and brown women—which, Nokia complained in song, are regularly ridiculed.
Grande’s hair lyrics, by contrast, are about her famous ponytail and the extensions she buys to create it. That’s certainly a reference that’s authentic to her, but also one that draws a shaky connection to former drug dealers having escaped poverty and to women of color showing pride in the face of marginalization. Of course, drawing shaky connections is how all pop music works: Singers’ specific stories offer metaphors that are scalable for all sorts of lifestyles. You can be white and still feel a sense of empowerment by listening to trap. But most listeners at home don’t then project their fantastical appropriation of someone else’s struggle to the masses in a hit song about their mega wealth.
Grande has now had to acknowledge the backlash, if not fully reckon with it. On Instagram, she reposted the podcast host Aminatou Sow’s message “White women talking about their weaves is how we’re gonna solve racism” and then apologized for doing so, writing about the original post: I think her intention was to be like… yay a white person disassociating the negative stariotype [sic] that is paired with the word ‘weave’… however I’m so sorry my response was out of pocket or if it came across the wrong way. Thanks for opening the conversation and like… to everyone for talking to me about it. It’s never my intention to offend anybody.
It’s a weird apology. If it helped black women to have a famous white woman brag about her weave, then it would stand to reason that Miley Cyrus’s butt-shaking phase might have prevented Cardi B and City Girls from being slut-shamed for twerking—a story that unfolded in the past few days. What culture-jacking often does is simply take advantage of the racist way that different people receive different treatment for the same activities. “When black women wear weave it’s ghetto and trash and we’re bald,” tweeted one listener, “but now miss Ariana says that corny ass line everyone and their mom is hype [about] it.”
Many appropriation critiques incite their own backlash from people who talk about “online mobs” looking for the next target to “cancel.” But the truth is that even in the face of controversy, “7 Rings” is a streaming smash, and Grande’s most forceful critics say they’re not out to destroy a career. “Accountability doesn’t automatically mean cancel,” wrote the blogger Erin Dyana. “It’s literally informing said person of their wrongdoings and offenses, bringing it to their attention and other people’s attention as well, since we’re talking about celebrities.”
Indeed, depending on how Grande handles this situation, she should be fine. She’s not someone like Iggy Azalea, who built a career on racial drag. But the fact remains that a sound and an attitude that black artists used to articulate specific things about their lives in a racist society is being pushed further into the realm of catchall cliché. The average, non-black listener, after being exposed to “7 Rings,” may be less able to discern the particular meanings—and social circumstances—of the original documents. In a very real way, Grande has taken other people’s shine.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.
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Pretty boy swag — Souja Boy Tell’em
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Powerful way to put Kanye, Nietzsche, Smith, Etc. in one essay .
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Peter Thiel — We are in an education bubble: Tuition is up 4-fold between 2000 and 2017.
Nietzsche would question the value of education in the Socratic and Roman tradition.
I do to, being a 35-year product of the process and of world-class education institutions
Peter Thiel EDUCATES College Professor who asks: “What’s your problem with higher education?”
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Gracias señor
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Hub@Johns Hopkins
Art, Identity, Ethnicity
Epistemology μ
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Identity/Change ψ—> Space/Time/Agent 𝛿—> Meaning/Cause/Attribution κ
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Ontology σ
1.Sex, Family, Tribe, Race, Heritage
2.Health, Education, Income, Geography, Nationality
3.Mimesis, Anxiety, Rhetoric, Escape, Becoming
4.Genre, Era, Field, Philosophy, Dueler
5.Technology, Culture, Economy, Politics, Idealisms
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Universities began in monasteries. Most of those who enter the profession today do so in the knowledge that, like their monastic forebears, the job comes with a vow of poverty. The authorities gratefully concur. Like working dogs, the trick with academics is to “keep ‘em lean, keep ‘em keen”. Don’t overpay the professors, it just makes them fat and lazy (administrators’ salaries are, of course, something else).
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How can they have it both ways? If it is arbitrary that Shakespeare centers the Canon, then they need to show why the dominant social class selected him rather than, say, Ben Jonson, for that arbitrary role. Or if history and not the ruling circles exalted Shakespeare, what was it in Shakespeare that so captivated the mighty Demiurge, economic and social history? Clearly this line of inquiry begins to border on the fantastic; how much simpler to admit that there is a qualitative difference, a difference in kind, between Shakespeare and every other writer, even Chaucer, even Tolstoy, or whoever. Originality is the great scandal that resentment cannot accommodate, and Shakespeare remains the most original writer we will ever know (Western Canon 25).
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they confront insurmountable difficulty in Shakespeare’s most idiosyncratic strength: he is always ahead of you, conceptually and imagistically, whoever and whenever you are. He renders you anachronistic because he contains you; you cannot subsume him. You cannot illuminate him with a new doctrine, be it Marxism or Freudianism or Demanian linguistic skepticism. Instead, he will illuminate the doctrine, not be prefiguration but by postfiguration as it were: all of Freud that matters most is there in Shakespeare already, with a persuasive critique of Freud besides… . Coriolanus is a far more powerful reading of Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon than any Marxist reading of Coriolanus could hope to be (Western Canon 25).
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Shakespeare, writes Girard, “discovered” the “fundamental source of human conflict” so early “that his approach to it seems juvenile, even caricatural, at first” (Theater of Envy 3-4). As Shakespeare’s dramatic expertise grows, however, his understanding of the modalities of mimetic desire and its necessary concomitant, scapegoating, deepens, culminating in the work that has (justly, in Girard’s view), captivated the world: Hamlet. 16th century
“But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but to find community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they’ve slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, “Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!” 19th century
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Great writers like Shakespeare, argues Girard, go beyond merely intuiting the haunting resemblances between the modes of artistic mimesis they employ in their works and the existential forces that called them to become writers in the first place. What separates the writers that survive from those who do not, in Girard’s view, is that the former know that “mimetic circularity is not a question of ‘feeling,’ of ideology, of religious belief; it is the intractable structure of human conflict” (Theater of Envy 339). When he discovered the anxiety of influence some twenty years ago, Bloom’s faith in the literary text’s power to serve as a means of understanding and negotiating the existential conundrums raised by this mimetic circularity seemed rather closer to Girard’s than it appears today. Just a few years before Girard’s hopeful (but premature) prediction that the “great theoretical steamrollers of our time” would soon run out of fuel, Bloom presented, in A Map of Misreading, a stirring exposition of the relevance of his recently formulated idea to his own profession: I remember, as a young man setting out to be a university teacher, how afflicted
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Shakespeare didn’t bother with “the weak” who’s rather have “much weaker” satellites rather than duel with a worthy rival
-- Southwest magazine
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The Scapegoat Mechanism
In Girard’s psychology, internal mediation and metaphysical desire eventually lead to rivalry and violence. Imitation eventually erases the differences among human beings, and inasmuch as people become similar to each other, they desire the same things, which leads to rivalries and a Hobbesian war of all against all. These rivalries soon bear the potential to threaten the very existence of communities. Thus, Girard asks: how is it possible for communities to overcome their internal strife?
Whereas the philosophers of the 18th century would have agreed that communal violence comes to an end due to a social contract, Girard believes that, paradoxically, the problem of violence is frequently solved with a lesser dose of violence. When mimetic rivalries accumulate, tensions grow ever greater. But, that tension eventually reaches a paroxysm. When violence is at the point of threatening the existence of the community, very frequently a bizarre psychosocial mechanism arises: communal violence is all of the sudden projected upon a single individual. Thus, people that were formerly struggling, now unite efforts against someone chosen as a scapegoat. Former enemies now become friends, as they communally participate in the execution of violence against a specified enemy.
Girard calls this process ‘scapegoating’, an allusion to the ancient religious ritual where communal sins were metaphorically imposed upon a he-goat, and this beast was eventually abandoned in the desert, or sacrificed to the gods (in the Hebrew Bible, this is especially prescribed in Leviticus 16).The person that receives the communal violence is a ‘scapegoat’ in this sense: her death or expulsion is useful as a regeneration of communal peace and restoration of relationships.
However, Girard considers it crucial that this process be unconscious in order to work. The victim must never be recognized as an innocent scapegoat (indeed, Girard considers that, prior to the rise of Christianity, ‘innocent scapegoat’ was virtually an oxymoron; see section 4.b below); rather, the victim must be thought of as a monstrous creature that transgressed some prohibition and deserved to be punished. In such a manner, the community deceives itself into believing that the victim is the culprit of the communal crisis, and that the elimination of the victim will eventually restore peace.
A summary of my professional experience at Hopkins!
Jessica Ruck called donor outcomes “crowded”
Dorry thought molecular biology had inaccessible “fruit”
But found in outcomes research “low-hanging fruit”
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Thiel credits Girard with inspiring him to switch careers. Before he internalized Girard’s ideas, Thiel was on track to become a lawyer. He worked as an associate for Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City, where the hours were long and the competition was cutthroat. As Thiel recounts, all the lawyers competed for the same shared goals. They ranked themselves not by absolute progress towards a transcendent end goal, but by progress within their peer group.
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Competition distracts us from things that are more important, meaningful, or valuable. We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like. Trapped in a never-ending rat race, lawyers climbed the corporate ladder by winning favor with partners at the top. Others engaged in small acts of sabotage against their coworkers.
.
Minotaur μ
\
Yearning ψ —> Kill 𝛿 —> Free κ
/
Labyrinth σ
— Sparta ⚔️ Freedom vs. Trepidation
— Rugby 🏉 Expend vs. Save
— Budo 🦁 Duel vs. Coop
— Alive 💪🏾 Blood 🩸 vs. Words🖊📚
— Fit 🏃🏾 Courage vs. Destiny
.
. “Nietzsche is the champion of privilege, of power and of inequality.” He described the philosophy as a “fictitious hypothesis”, by which he meant that nothing came to Nietzsche as the result of actual experience. It was all put together by “a mere dead piece of brain machinery . . . Never was there a deafer, blinder, socially and politically inepter academician.”
— George Bernard Shaw
.
Shaw believed that women should have as many children as they wanted – but each one preferably by a different man so we could break through our social and tribal barriers
🤦
.
Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it. Something similar also happens in the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation, or even a vice or any physical or “moral” loss without an advantage somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser; the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger; the blind man may see deeper inwardly, and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or of a race
.
A free spirit is one who goes against the herd, and “onwards along the path of wisdom” in order to better society
St. Paul μ
\
Girard ψ —>Thiel 𝛿—> Mimesis κ
/
Nietzsche σ
The herd is at Phaneroo, Worship Harvest, Eddie Lukyamuzi, etc Ethos? Mimesis! Yet mimesis has a time and a place: Ecc 3:1-8
.
Dr. Ian Clarke New Vision Articles
*Fix the issues, don’t create an exempt elite.*
There was a tragic accident along the Bukasa Ring Road a few weeks ago when a car swerved to avoid a pothole and ploughed into a boda boda carrying a father and three children. The boda boda guy died, plus two of the children. Shortly after the accident, KCCA installed a speed bump, but the pothole that caused the accident is still there.
When I travel anywhere in Uganda there are speed bumps. It seems that we have a prescriptive remedy for road accidents: put in more speed bumps, but we do not add to this solution using common sense. In the case of the accident in Bukasa the immediate cause was the pothole, which remains there. It would have made more sense to fix the underlying cause of the accident, which is the pothole. Potholes are not expensive to repair, but we remain with many of them throughout the city, and they are a major cause of slowing the flow of traffic that contributes to traffic jams. But instead of fixing the cause we give police escorts to VIPs so that they can force their way through the traffic jam.
I was listening to the governor of Lagos State in Nigeria explaining why he no longer wants to be addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ and wishes to be addressed simply as ‘Mr Governor’. He said it is because he has been appointed as a servant of the people and is not part of a special elite. When the interviewer asked about his security convoy he said that his convoy obeyed the rules of the road, and if they were in a traffic jam they stayed in their lane like everyone else; they did not put on their sirens and go around it.
*In Uganda the day that we will know things have changed is when we are not being pushed off the road by a police pickup accompanying some minor government official.*
We have got into the habit of applying sticking plasters to fix the immediate problem, but we do not use a common sense approach to deal with the underlying structural issues. If the President makes a visit, it is standard practice that there will be an ‘ask’ for which he will promise a donation. But this is like giving a police escort to get through a traffic jam; it helps one person but the rest of us are left stuck in the jam. We should get rid of all the titles that make people think they are in a special category, make every politician suffer with the common man, and they will then be more motivated to design solutions that address the real issues.
In Uganda today, everyone struggles to add themselves to the list of elite to whom the rules don’t apply. Politicians exempt themselves from taxes and sitting in traffic on the basis that they have important national responsibilities. Civil servants are not available to meet ordinary people on the grounds that they have to attend to ‘important state duties’. Now these examples trickle down into the community, so the taxi drivers exempt themselves from the normal rules on the basis that if they stay in their lane they will be losing business. The boda bodas exempt themselves from following any traffic laws on the basis that the police can’t catch them anyway, but that they also have political backing because they are significant mobilisers at elections. Everyone has a reason why he deserves special treatment, until we have reached the point where the system no longer bothers with finding solutions to the issues that people face every day.
Unfortunately the ‘exceptionalism’ and justification for why there should be special titles, special privileges and special exemptions simply paves the way for outright self interest where people no longer need justification for thieving and corruption. Many people now have the mentality that it would be irresponsible not to take an opportunity when it presents itself, since it may not come round again. It is now their turn to ‘eat at the trough’, so they had better gorge themselves.
.
Why not both?
St. Paul’s &
Nietzchse’s?
.
Great, great empirical test for my “Zarathustra”
.
Nabokov
Annabel
Death
Mimesis
Lolita
.
We could move in many directions, which is itself a tribute to Nabokov’s range and strengths as a psychologist: the writer as reader of others and himself, as observer and introspector; as interpreter of the psychology he knew from fiction (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Proust, Joyce), nonfiction, and professional psychology (William James, Freud, Havelock Ellis); as psychological theorist; and as psychological “experimenter,” running thought experiments on the characters he creates and on the effects he produces in readers.
.
Know μ
\
Identity ψ —> Space 𝛿 —> Attribute κ
/
Thing σ
1.Boeing MAX-8; Phat Engine
2.Manufacturer says so; Regulators agree
3.Same as earlier Boeing 737s; But the MCAS was added
4.Nose higher (space) @ take-off (time) kicks in MCAS; Pilots (agent) uninformed
5.Test with in-house Pilots, Preceding A320 Neo, Mimic, Rush to Market, Compete, Violence, Scape-goat
.
I’m doin’ rhymes now, fuck the crimes
.
Mark
Simeon
Jeff
Patrick
Myself
Ivan
— Salient Network
— Loss of loved one
— Mirror neurons
— Activated, Recollections
— Empathy
— Deeper than others’
— Bobi Wine
— Career about Social Injustices
— Resonance with Masses
— Truth and not propaganda
— On list TIME’s 💯
— Literary “As it were”, Metaphor, etc
— Exact-Matching never works
— Superfluous details dropped
— What is salient is memorized
— Better match to circumstances
— Metaphor, memory, work like that
— Gist, compressed file, structured
Nabokov stresses the importance in the development of modern fiction of writers’ learning to trust readers’ powers of inference, because we prefer to imagine actively, to see in our mind’s eye much more than what the page spells out explicitly
.
.
Nobokov
Updike
Sapolsky
Yours Truly
.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
And how exactly does this apply to Sean “Diddy” Combs?
Dionysus has an Ariadne?
x
Austen's sentence is a masterpiece of indirection
.
Meter
— Homer
— Shakespeare
Prose
— Joyce
— Nabokov
.
Any attempt at interpretation (#1), as distinct from worship (#2), bears a certain incapable tinge of aggression (#4)
.
Resignation of the Will
Will-to-Power
Etc.
.
Want to read 70 books 2019/11/20
.
Weak μ
\
Manipulate ψ —> Nudge 𝛿 —> Rig κ
/
Strong σ
.
Jessica Allain — Ideal Chic
.
Free spirits — the dangerous privilege of living experimentally in adventure
Why so apart? So alone? Renouncing everything I once revered?
2.Apparent μ
\
5.May ψ—> 4.Horizon 𝛿 —> 3.Teleology κ
/
1.Free σ
.
Final Orders;
Following the respondent’s medical examination, an Order doth issue adjudging the respondent to be of unsound mind;
.
The respondent’s counsel submitted that this application is brought under the Mental Treatment Act where a person in issue in this case Mr. Kiwanuka or the applicant alleges to be his father, will be defined as an idiot and to the extent that under Section 4 of that same Act for this court to adjudge a person of unsound mind it has to be satisfied not only that he has any mental impairment but also that he is a fit and proper person to be placed under care and treatment.
According to the respondent’s counsel, what Jordan Ssebuliba wants is Mr. Kiwanuka to be declared an idiot who should be placed in Butabika by the import of that section. To the extent what the law provides is unconstitutional, it is in consistent with the Constitution, it is no longer good law in Uganda to that extent it is contrary to Article 24 and 44(a) of the Constitution.
.
Einstein is Parmenides
.
The reason art is important is that it is an exploration of causality
.
Up-to-task critique of new historicism
Of the anecdote and more
Stephen Greenblatt’s anecdotes are a
substitute for works of literature, just as the
new historicism is a substitute for subtle
literary interpretation. If the distinction
between works of imaginative literature
and other “documents” and “texts” is
expunged, then what is intricately structured,
dense, and profound will give way
to what is random, thin, and shallow, with
no real enhancement accruing to the latter.
.
Richard III, of course, has been a propaganda tool from the beginning in its expression of the Tudor obsession with vilifying the king from whom Henry VII, the first Tudor, seized the throne. No accusation was too bizarre for Shakespeare and his Tudor sources as long as it could promote the idea of Richard the Monster.
Of course! Then Stephen Greenblatt’s analogy of that fictional villain with America in the fall of 2016 betrays his disregard for [old] history
.
Joan Pop up event
.
What happened on May 20?
Then on May 21???
\(843 today!
\)3,000 on Max’s & Ritz
$5,000 overall
.
Speaks to virtually all my value systems
About 99% of my epistemology
Whats missing is phenotpye
.
The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu approaches power within the context of a comprehensive ‘theory of society’ which – like that of Foucault – we can’t possibly do justice to here, or easily express in the form of applied methods (Navarro 2006). And although his subject was mainly Algerian and French society, we have found Bourdieu’s approach useful in analysing power in development and social change processes (see the articles by Navarro, Moncrieffe, Eyben and Taylor and Boser in Eyben, Harris et. al. 2006; Navarro offers a particularly solid introduction to Bourdieu’s method).
While Foucault sees power as ‘ubiquitous’ and beyond agency or structure, Bourdieu sees power as culturally and symbolically created, and constantly re-legitimised through an interplay of agency and structure. The main way this happens is through what he calls ‘habitus’ or socialised norms or tendencies that guide behaviour and thinking. Habitus is ‘the way society becomes deposited in persons in the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel and act in determinant ways, which then guide them’ (Wacquant 2005: 316, cited in Navarro 2006: 16).
Habitus is created through a social, rather than individual process leading to patterns that are enduring and transferrable from one context to another, but that also shift in relation to specific contexts and over time. Habitus ‘is not fixed or permanent, and can be changed under unexpected situations or over a long historical period’ (Navarro 2006: 16):
Habitus is neither a result of free will, nor determined by structures, but created by a kind of interplay between the two over time: dispositions that are both shaped by past events and structures, and that shape current practices and structures and also, importantly, that condition our very perceptions of these (Bourdieu 1984: 170). In this sense habitus is created and reproduced unconsciously, ‘without any deliberate pursuit of coherence… without any conscious concentration’ (ibid: 170).
A second important concept introduced by Bourdieu is that of ‘capital’, which he extends beyond the notion of material assets to capital that may be social, cultural or symbolic (Bourdieu 1986: cited in Navarro 2006: 16). These forms of capital may be equally important, and can be accumulated and transferred from one arena to another (Navarro 2006: 17). Cultural capital – and the means by which it is created or transferred from other forms of capital – plays a central role in societal power relations, as this ‘provides the means for a non-economic form of domination and hierarchy, as classes distinguish themselves through taste’ (Gaventa 2003: 6). The shift from material to cultural and symbolic forms of capital is to a large extent what hides the causes of inequality.
These ideas are elaborated at length in Bourdieu’s classic study of French society, Distinction (1986), in which he shows how the ‘social order is progressively inscribed in people’s minds’ through ‘cultural products’ including systems of education, language, judgements, values, methods of classification and activities of everyday life (1986: 471). These all lead to an unconscious acceptance of social differences and hierarchies, to ‘a sense of one’s place’ and to behaviours of self-exclusion (ibid: 141).
A third concept that is important in Bourdieu’s theory is the idea of ‘fields’, which are the various social and institutional arenas in which people express and reproduce their dispositions, and where they compete for the distribution of different kinds of capital (Gaventa 2003: 6). A field is a network, structure or set of relationships which may be intellectual, religious, educational, cultural, etc. (Navarro 2006: 18). People often experience power differently depending which field they are in at a given moment (Gaventa 2003: 6), so context and environment are key influences on habitus:
‘Bourdieu (1980) accounts for the tensions and contradictions that arise when people encounter and are challenged by different contexts. His theory can be used to explain how people can resist power and domination in one [field] and express complicity in another’ (Moncrieffe 2006: 37)
Fields help explain the differential power, for example, that women experience in public or private, as Moncrieffe shows in her interview with a Ugandan woman MP who has public authority but is submissive to her husband when at home (2006: 37). This has been widely observed by feminist activists and researchers, and is another way of saying that women and men are socialised to behave differently in ‘public, private and intimate’ arenas of power (VeneKlasen and Miller 2002). See gender perspectives on power and a New Weave of Power chapter 3 Power and Empowerment.
A final important concept in Bourdieu’s understanding of power is that of ‘doxa’, which is the combination of both orthodox and heterodox norms and beliefs – the unstated, taken-for-granted assumptions or ‘common sense’ behind the distinctions we make. Doxa happens when we ‘forget the limits’ that have given rise to unequal divisions in society: it is ‘an adherence to relations of order which, because they structure inseparably both the real world and the thought world, are accepted as self-evident’ (Bourdieu 1984: 471).
Bourdieu also uses the term ‘misrecognition’, which is akin to Marxian ideas of ‘false consciousness’ (Gaventa 2003: 6), but working at a deeper level that transcends any intent at conscious manipulation by one group or another. Unlike the Marxian view, ‘misrecognition’ is more of a cultural than an ideological phenomenon, because it ‘embodies a set of active social processes that anchor taken-for-granted assumptions into the realm of social life and, crucially, they are born in the midst of culture. All forms of power require legitimacy and culture is the battleground where this conformity is disputed and eventually materialises amongst agents, thus creating social differences and unequal structures’ (Navarro 2006: 19).
While much of this may sound abstract, Bourdieu’s theories are firmly grounded in a wide body of sociological research, and across a range of social issues. Part of his appeal, in fact, is that his research is so prolific and empirically documented. Another appeal of Bourdieu for politically committed researchers is that he sees sociological method as part of the process of change. Careful analysis can help to reveal the power relations that have been rendered invisible by habitus and misrecognition (Navarro 2006: 19).
Bourdieu proposed a ‘reflexive sociology’– in which one recognises one’s biases, beliefs and assumptions in the act of sense-making – long before reflexivity became fashionable. Self-critical knowledge that discloses the ‘sources of power’ and reveals ‘the reasons that explain social asymmetries and hierarchies’ can itself become ‘a powerful tool to enhance social emancipation’ (Navarro 2006: 15-16).
The methods and terminology used by Bourdieu are distinct from those used in the powercube, and suggest much more detailed sociological analysis of power relations rooted in a comprehensive ‘theory of society’. Yet the implications for applied analysis and action resonate very strongly with the meanings of internalised, invisible power and ‘power within’, and with the implicit ‘theory of change’ in the powercube, This is the idea that understanding power and powerlessness, especially through processes of learning and analysis that expose invisible power, cat itself be an empowering process
.
Text μ
\
Subtext ψ —> Pretext 𝛿 — > Hypertext κ
/
Context σ
.
I’m depressed
— can’t think of anything exciting
— in life
.
Gracias señor
.
— Endocrine system is the most salient system in Homo sapiens
— Memories of low cortisol align with our “Ideals”
— Cosmos revolves around our asses
— P. Ormerod p.22 Systems
— Just the way it is
CEN μ
\
DMN ψ —> SN 𝛿 — > ES κ
/
P,ENS σ
— Nature comes in troves
— And we can’t handle
— Cognitive limits
— So we get stressed
— Coulda would shoulda nostalgia
.
Gucci Mane
Fave artist
Experience
Not Knowledge
Streets
Not Books
Authentic
Not Clichè
Real
Not Fake
Where’s Proof?
Just Listen!
Never Tires
Back to back!!!
.
Greek μ
\
Vatican ψ —> 1 𝛿 — > 256 κ
/
Hebrew σ
.
The First Thanksgiving by Jean Leon Gerome
1.Walk through iterate.11.23.29.pdf
2.One tribe in ἀγών with another
3.The winner chooses charity
4.Loser depends upon it
5.Faith and hope
6.Patriotism!
7.Resignation of Will
8.Alcoholism in Native Americans
9.Model for subsequent race interactions
10.Including the new deal
11.Nurturing white woman
12.Emasculated Indian warrior
13.White man looking on with sword in tow
14.Charity? But of course!
15.Only if you accept the fear of God :-)
Hebrew μ
\
Vatican ψ —> American 𝛿 — > Ugandan κ
/
Greek σ
New Historicism as a way to view this
.
A young free spirited girl is just trying to live her best life against all odds, while grown men are betting on who will go to bed with her, as fate would have it, she gets stuck & ends up crashing on a couch where unbeknownst to her... someone is trying to use her to satisfy “a bet” , he crashes on a couch next to her, and the next day, fire and hail storms arise.
This is how people commit suicide, it’s people like Xxx mindlessly spreading harmful untruths . It’s very unkind
.
Nice call from Naki :-)
.
🐲 μ
\
🦁 ψ —> 👶🏾 𝛿 — > 🕊 κ
/
🐪 σ
.
Davis
Girlfriend
Amanda