Losing the War

As more and more people fall victim to mass gun violence, the debate between whether there should be more or less gun laws heats up. For a large majority of people, they fall on either side of this debate. The problem is, to be on either side of this debate suggests an unwillingness to think about the problem’s origins. Whether the public has a right to bear arms has nothing to do with what is allowing for the U.S.’s staggering gun violence problem – Collectively speaking, the U.S. has a deep, severe mental problem that is based upon its very foundation.*

[* That is to say, The U.S. as a country was born out of violence and established a two-century old patriarchal, racist society not much better than the U.S.’s country of origin.]

But this deep, severe mental problem is merely indicative of a larger problem; what it means to be human. In the last year there has been an alarming rise of practically fascist, regressive leftism in America paralleled by the number of people who think Donald Trump should be the President of the U.S. On both these sides there is a very particular way in which these people’s brains operate, which is to say however good their intentions may be, they are not capable of critically thinking not because they lack the tools – self-reflection requires no tools – but because they are determined to believe what they want to believe.

If the number of people on the planet is any indication, this lack of self-analysis and moreover, reasoning ability, has preserved and perpetuated the species. This same ability is what puts people at odds, though, and has long made the world an unfriendly place to live. It appears as though we may have to settle for this state of affairs in order to preserve and perpetuate the species, which really is the point of life after all. Our genes don’t care how we treat each other; they just want to get themselves into the next generation. If this is the case, it is more likely that people are going to be less rational than rational despite how many generations come and go. In other words, it will always be the case that people will make dumb decisions, do dumb things and believe in dumb ideas. Despite absolutely zero evidence, particle physicists cling to string theory. Despite the overwhelming evidence that smoking is harmful to the body, people still smoke. Despite the health problems that come with being obese, people still overeat. Despite being as far from science as one can get, people still heed warnings from their horoscope. Despite the fact that wealthy socialites contribute nothing to society, people still worship them. For a human, being dumb is inescapable.

It is tempting, seeing how humans are capable of as much hope as they are capable of stupidity, to assume people can be rational especially when lives are at stake. For example, cooler heads prevailed in October, 1962 during the Cold War when Russia attempted to base missiles in Cuba aimed at the U.S. Ultimately, Russia withdrew their weapons from the U.S.’s backyard and a nuclear war was averted. This is because everyone involved came to see that for either side, the whole debacle was a lose-lose situation. At the same time, Russia acted irrationally and thought, “What the heck, the U.S. won’t mind if we put some missiles in their backyard. After all, they have missiles in Italy aimed at us.” Sadly, hope is often a result of humans acting or doing something stupid. We ‘hope’ as a hedge against a cruel world in which we would otherwise feel completely defeated. In this example, we hoped to avoid nuclear war and we did, but first, someone did something which required hope as a hedge against their action. That is to say, if we build a nuclear weapon, we have to hope that we never have to use it which indicates building the nuclear bomb in the first place is irrational. (Using nuclear fission to produce energy, yes. Using it to kill people, um…)

Acting or thinking rationally is a foreign practice for most people. There are many reasons for this, the foremost being that thinking requires the brain to use a lot of energy and it goes against people’s general desire to be placated as soon as possible (despite evidence that prolonging the reception of an award or desire appears to allow for more enjoyment of the award or desire). One cannot even rationalize with a teenager who will post damning pictures of themselves on social media despite how far their posts may travel around the world to say nothing of their local police force because a teenager, like people in general, needs to placate their ego immediately. As I alluded to earlier, it is not a part of human nature to be rational and this is why it is so rare. With human population closing in on 7.3 billion people as of 2015, it appears there is no particular reason for the human race to be any more rational than it is if being irrational perpetuates the species. Notice if you will that the people with the most offspring are usually the least educated and often the most ideologically radicalized.

There is no rationalizing with an irrational person when there is nothing in it for the irrational person. An irrational person will choose to believe in a heavenly afterlife over being atheistic because even if they see an atheistic lifestyle as potentially making their earthbound life more important, they know that one day their earthbound life will end. In other words, the atheistic principle as it may apply doesn’t offer the ultimate in hope. If there is no potentially bigger reward for changing sides in a debate, it is very unlikely that people on opposite sides of a debate will come around to a new way of thinking. Once a person is indoctrinated into thinking a particular way, it is very difficult to change their mind. It is often not worth the energy one spends trying to do that unless one’s survival is literally at stake. That is to say, it is irrational to continually engage irrational people when there is only a small chance of changing their minds ‘for the better.’ It does happen, on occasion, that people do think deeply about their ideas and beliefs, but it will always be the case that such people will be vastly outnumbered and ultimately always be at the mercy of the irrational.

This is in part why, here at the end of 2015, I am coming home from the war. Fighting stupidity, however noble, will forever be a losing battle. Over the course of years of debate and attempted discussions, I’ve had very few rational, much less civil, interactions with people on a myriad of issues. It’s not worth trying to get people become uncomfortable with their ideas or beliefs; I only become a villain so I suppose it is better to let sleeping dogs lie unless I am confronted myself. I will allow people their beliefs if there is no cost to me, but of course one should not expect to get off easy when trying to engage me with their irrational ideas or beliefs. I otherwise don’t have the time to waste and I don’t want to end up like Socrates (as if I were important enough to be so lucky).

I have plans for 2016 that include contributing to answering the question of time, exploring Genetic Philosophy (developed by yours truly) and solving problems within the Philosophy of Language (as far as any philosophy is concerned), committing more time to my tourism blog and spending more time writing fiction (something people seem to lap up as they apparently identify strongly with lives that are not real) and reading for enjoyment. I have enjoyed writing and posting my thoughts here as any good philosopher must mentally masturbate, but I suppose I have reached the point in my life when I want to do other things.

This blog will be maintained in 2016 by occasional ruminations and relevant re-posts, but other than that, there will be no commentaries on religion, atheism, politics or any other current events. I know, I know, what will you do with yourselves? You can always follow Kim Kardashian on Twitter. 

Nothing More Than Feelings

Observing the behavior of my students as they interact with other faculty, it occurred to me that Millennials are now running with the torch of hypocrisy with absolutely no hindsight. While the hypocrisy of human beings is nothing new, it seems odd that it doesn’t occur to our social justice warriors, Millennials, that in seeking restitution for hurt feelings (whether anyone meant to hurt their feelings) they take no heed of whose feelings they hurt in the process.

For example, as Millennials go to war over trivialities such as Halloween costumes, college

presidents have to give in to whatever demands their students make in an effort to save their own job. One could scarcely imagine the stress Peter Salovey, the President of Yale University, recently underwent after a campus-wide email detailing how students should deal with Halloween costumes that they deemed offensive. Worse, that situation escalated and in early November 2015, an incident at Yale saw “…students surround[ed] Nicholas Christakis—husband of Erika [Christakis], a professor of sociology and medicine, and master of Silliman. One African-American woman, seemingly speaking for the crowd, told him that his wife’s email [about Halloween costumes] and his failure to apologize for it made her feel “unsafe.” When Christakis earnestly explained that he would need to consider the matter before apologizing, the woman shouted at him, “Be quiet!”; “Why the f--- did you accept the position!”; “If that’s what you think, you should step down!”; and “You should not sleep at night! You are disgusting!” She then turned and walked away” (as reported by Peter Berkowitz). While Millennials are not going to stand for having their feelings hurt, they think nothing of how they make anyone other than a Millennial feel.

One would suppose this failure to apply their ideology equally stems from a lack of shared values. Nonetheless, if the desire to spare the feelings of Millennials only applies amongst themselves, this is an indication of a culturally relativist practice, which surely Millennials do not mind since they go out of their way to respect – almost – all cultures.

The problem is, Millennials don’t respect the cultures they have the ability to usurp or wrest power from. Millennials respect, say, the practices of the Islamic State, since they believe all culture is relative and as such who is to say IS’s murderous tendencies are wrong. Millennials, however, don’t actually have to ever deal with IS directly. If they did, they would quickly find out IS has no respect for the belief of Millennials and getting upset about an email about Halloween costumes would soon be the least of a Millennial’s worries. And that’s just the thing; if all cultures should be respected because their practices are relativistic, there is absolutely no reason for anyone who is not a Millennial to respect the beliefs or practices of Millennials because to not respect the beliefs of Millennials is neither right nor wrong. As many liberals before them, Millennials fail to see this error in their philosophy. As many people before them, Millennials are blinded by ideology.

And so they go to war against the people they can control. Using the fact that colleges are for-profit, Millennials battle against college professors and administrators who don’t want to simply give them a degree without a student actually working for it or with whom they have a difference of opinion. Lost on Millennials is the fact that if colleges were not for-profit, a college administration would never give into their demands. Millennials get their way not because their demands are reasonable or philosophically justifiable, but because college administrators are capitalists. (Also lost on Millennials is that capitalism begets inequality and they fail to realize this because in actuality a Millennial’s smart phone is more important to them than social justice.)

But all of this is a symptom of a more pressing question, one I keep asking for which no Millennial can answer: Why is it more important to spare a person’s feelings* than to have a reasoned, civil debate in which we may have to settle for “agreeing to disagree”? If a person falsely believes that 1 + 1 = 3, why is it worth not correcting them, because it might hurt their feelings? If an attempt is made to build a person’s self-esteem by giving them an award for simply showing up, doesn’t this make it more likely that when that person’s feelings do get hurt, for whatever reason even by accident, that person is going to be ill prepared to deal with it? Why do feelings matter more than the analysis of a situation?

[* By person we should take to mean anyone that agrees with Millennial ideology or that may disagree with Millennial ideology but lives outside of the U.S.]

In my opinion, that is, the opinion of a seasoned thinker experienced in life, I rarely if ever have my feelings hurt because someone said such-and-such about me. I’ve been called plenty of names and shouted out and vehemently disagreed with but all these things amount to are words. Words by themselves have no power. All power lies with the person hearing the word. In order to be insulted or offended by words, one has to internalize them and make the decision for those words to hurt them. If one sees a Halloween costume that offends them, the offended party has to decide that they are offended. Granted, what is deemed an offensive costume may be a symptom of some systematic oppression, but this merely means there is a chance to have a debate with someone and possibly have the offender understand why a costume is offensive. I might add to this that if a certain group currently possesses more power than another group, I do not believe one should be offended by past transgressions such as in the case of a Jew seeing a Nazi Halloween costume. (I am open to debate on this point, though.)

Feelings are irrelevant in the face of more pressing concerns. IS, economic inequality and climate change do not care about the feelings of their victims. Nor is everyone special; it is quite clear the opposite is true as we see it again and again every day and there would be no CEOs or celebrities if everyone actually were important. I certainly understand the desire to ignore inconvenient truths, but this doesn’t make feelings more important than anything else out of necessity. While I would agree that it is basically cruel to hurt someone’s feelings intentionally, there should not be consequences for unintentional harm, as Millennials would have it. While we can never know someone’s true intention, neither can we know whether someone is truly having their feelings hurt or trying to manipulate others to their advantage. Millennials should beware the trappings of power; power corrupts and that corruption will wind up hurting someone’s feelings. Don’t be a hypocrite by refusing to examine your own beliefs, Millennials. If you want to be the stewards of the future, try to avoid operating from false premises like all of your predecessors. 

Gun Ownership Questionnaire

Should you be allowed to own a gun? This short questionnaire will answer this pressing question.

1)    Do you believe in a deity?

2)    We know about Mohammed, but would Jesus have owned a gun?

3)    Are you a man?

4)    Do you think women should be subservient to men?

5)    Do you have an ex-girlfriend?

6)    If you’re a woman, has your husband ever cheated on you?

7)    Do you think abortion is murder?

8)    Do you think requiring classes before owning a gun is a ridiculous idea?

9)    Do you think society would be safer if everyone had a gun?

10) Do you think society would be safer if no one had a gun?

11)  Do you get road rage?

12)  Are you a mean drunk?

13)  Are you now or have you ever taken medication to control your moods?

14)  Do you take any illegal drugs besides marijuana (if marijuana is still illegal in your backwards state)?

15)  Do you drink Budweiser or Coors?

16)  Do you live in any southern or ‘red’ state?

17)  Is high school your highest level of education?

18)  Do you think the authors of the 2^nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had the vision to anticipate assault weapons?

19)  Does you think the “well-regulated militia” referred to in the 2^nd Amendment mean individuals who aren’t part of a militia should own a gun?

20)  Does the “well-regulated militia” referred to in the 2^nd Amendment mean you should be able to own a gun without training?

21)  Do you think President Obama is a Muslim?

22)  Do you pronounce ‘government’ ‘gun’mint’?

23)  Do you think the gub’mint is poisoning us with chemtrails?

24)  Do you think the gub’mint trying to mind control the U.S. population by adding fluoride to tap water?

25)  Do you own a gun for ‘protection’ and not because you just like guns?

If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, congratulations! you should probably not own a gun because you have mental health issues. And that’s what this is really about; owning or not owning guns isn’t ‘Merica’s problem, it’s the fact that ‘Merica has some deep psychological problems. The mentally ill should not own guns. End of story.

Mind Field

It was during a Superbowl party that some friends and I were looking at my modest library and began discussing the human mind, of all things. Well, someone put forth the suggestion that the mind is a non-physical entity of the body and brain in much the same way that kickers are the non-physical entities of football teams. Hmmm, someone’s been smoking Rene Descartes again.

My reply was swifter than Bruce Lee’s fists. I replied that it was silly to suppose any duality between the mind and body since consciousness is an activity of the brain. This is indisputable (though we don’t know why brain activity leads to consciousness). In layman’s terms our minds, acting largely as an organization devise, arise to integrate and provide an interpretation of the world around us as perceived by our senses. Having operated on the brains of patients who are awake, scientists have located sites that stimulate the sense of smell, reflexes, emotions, hallucinations, and out-of-body experiences (OBE’s). You see, it’s a new thing educated people are doing; they’re called scientific journals and people should read them more often. But I suppose I care more about these kinds of things, so I’ll take it upon myself to bring the rest of the team up to speed.

Theists more so than agnostics seem to be fans of Dualism (the belief in a spiritual realm that supersedes physical reality) while there is no good evidence for such a state of affairs than say, Quadralism or Hexalism. I would also like to add that if we’re going to argue over realms of existence superseding each other, how do we determine which realm is ‘superior’ or answerable to another? Theists take for granted the notion that their unseen and immeasurable realm of spirituality, where God coincidently resides, is the immutable master over all. As usual, such a supposition is undertaken with absolutely no more evidence than a pair of crossed fingers.

Let’s do something crazy and ask an important question: Do ideas survive on their own when no one is around? The answer is “No, are you out of your mind?” (Well, not unless you’re a Platonist or fan of the Irish philosopher George Berkley…in which case you are out of your mind since you can’t provide the slightest evidence.)

But how do ideas even begin to happen? What goes into making a concept meaningful between two people? First, you think of an idea which is a physical event in your brain that is the culmination of experiences related to the real world we live in; ideas do not appear out of thin air. To transmit this idea to another person, you need a physical transport system such as text or language. (Sorry, but ESP hasn’t come close to verification. Even if valid it would have to be shown to be a non-physical event using non-physical means to transport thoughts which is not outside the realm of possibility if you’re at all familiar with the “spooky action at a distance” in physics.). Then, my senses receive your data, which is also a physical event. My brain interprets the data through a biological process, organizes the information and compares it against what I already know about the world. At some point I conclude with or without reason whether you are insane or not. There is never a point where the exchange of information between people is anything other than a physical process. Ideas do not exist without a brain around to think of or transmit them.

Now we might ask if the mind can exist without the brain. If you’re thinking “yes” then I’d like to know where the mind goes when someone is in a coma. Why don’t people revived from comas tell us about the wonderful places their mind has been while the body was laid up? If the mind can exist without the brain, why do personality and intelligence disorders sometimes arise from trauma and injury to the head? Why, if duality exists, do most people experience memory loss in old age? This tells us the brain and ‘mind’ must be intimately related somehow. The theistic objection here is that if the physical transport system of the mind is damaged, misinterpretations by the brain of what the mind wants will naturally occur.

      

Such a defense raises some questions. For example, which “you” would survive death into the afterlife? People display different personality traits throughout their entire life; the young “you” is surely most different than the old “you.” Would personality changes come with experience in the afterlife as they do in our earthly lives? If ideas come from some netherworld, would we be privy to all the knowledge in the universe come the afterlife? Now please feel free to ask your own questions on the matter that you haven’t used your brain to think of.         

In the laboratory where scientists have studied monks meditating and achieving nirvana, snapshots of the brain during this time record unusual brain chemistry. However, consciousness cannot be shown to “go” anywhere during this time. The transcendence of physical reality does not occur. The last time I checked, monks still needed to eat. I guess that’s because transcendence is not a practical state to be in if you intend to provide your brain with enough energy to meditate and achieve transcendence. Honestly, I wouldn’t see the point of the brain continuing to register any activity if the transcendence of physical reality has occurred. Does it not defeat the point? Perhaps we haven’t developed the means by which to measure “where consciousness goes” in these instances of meditation, but the theist cannot dismiss out of hand the possibility that it’s all just in the head.

Another theistic defense postulates that the human brain only uses a small percentage of its capacity. Sometimes, theists and other spiritualists argue that we only use 10-12% of our brain; a popular common misconception. Therefore, they postulate, perhaps the areas of the brain that seem inactive are actually busy being connecting the mind to a higher or unseen reality, being that again, we haven’t devised a means of detection. Or, that at least these areas of the brain we haven’t been able to access yet because, “We’re not ready for it.” Yes, someone actually said that to me. Again there is no good reason to suppose any of this. You can’t tell me it can’t possibly be that these areas of the brain are dormant because they are no longer necessary. We are obviously getting by without using the whole brain if it actually were the case we only use a small portion of it and if there were any advantage to using the whole brain, we would seem likely to already be doing it. We need only to consider possibilities to cast suspect on a world of duality.

The human mind is a tool, albeit the most important tool in our arsenal. Even though it may allow us deep experiences and fantastic ideas, it cannot do so without the physical component of the brain. No brain, no deep experiences or fantastic ideas. Now, does this tool have a purpose? Yes. The ability to problem solve and think abstractly provides us with adaptability. This increases individual survival as well as the collective survival of the species. That is the human mind’s greatest asset. It is also the mind’s greatest liability.

Problem is, our interpretations of the world are highly subjective to our sensory experiences. Moreover, what happens to our interpretations of the world when some of our senses aren’t working? I am continuously awed by theists who should know better but fail to consider these questions because it would challenge their faith. Is it reasonable, I ask, not to consider what if our senses are working, but due to nurturing and conditioning we draw false conclusions of reality? Does the mind make any more sense of the world than is necessary for a person to live?

Maybe author Scott Adams understands: “There is more information in one thimble of reality than can be understood by a galaxy of human brains. It is beyond the human brain to understand the world and it’s environment, so the brain compensates by creating simplified illusions that act as a replacement for understanding…the delusions are fuelled by arrogance, the arrogance that humans are the center of the world, that we alone are endowed with the magical properties of souls and morality and free will and love.”

That’s almost hard to argue with. However, some things can be known with some degree of certainty through reasoning or evidence. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it still make noise? Yes it does. Leave a microphone and recorder in the woods if you don’t believe me. Even if there are no means with which to record it, the rustling of the air (noise) has still occurred. Even if one dies, there is still a world for living people to participate in, unless the world is a figment of my imagination (or of God’s imagination, as George Berkley might say).

If the world is not my imagination, then an objective reality exists whether or not I can know it. But as I have pointed out, at least some truths can be objectively known. If the world is my imagination (and my brain is in a jar somewhere), I still need to deal with the world how I imagine it, a world where apparently immutable laws of physics apply. If I’m only dreaming that some true reality exists, then God’s existence can be equally true or untrue depending upon what I felt like believing when I woke up in the morning. If we don’t perceive more of reality than is necessary to live, then there’s a good chance that believing in God isn’t particularly practical. It would depend upon the individual. Believing in God would become more of a whim since it has little practical value in helping you, say, outrun a lion.

On the other hand, if God does exist outside of our minds and it’s one of those few things we could know, again, we might wonder why God wouldn’t make us all goddamn sure of it. What is God afraid we would do with immutable knowledge of His existence? Why exist unless this is all some kind of test? It would benefit us tremendously to know what’s really going on, oh great and all-loving God, unless you have a practical reason for sending people to hell or some other equally gruesome fate. Again, we’re never privy to God’s reasoning. Are God’s plans beyond our ability to understand? This is a common theistic defense that explains nothing.

It’s not that our thoughts are without some physical existence. God does exist, at least as a concept which arises from the physical process of thinking. But God, nor any “soul”, exists when there isn’t anyone around to imagine such nonsense. Even if a soul did exist, there isn’t anyway for us to know how far divisions go. If the body is a subject of the soul, is the soul subject to a super soul? This would seem ridiculous, but I’m only following the theist’s line of thinking that arbitrarily chooses to end the divisions with duality.

If God cannot be proven to be true or false, it would do the world a good bit of justice to dispense with the idea of gods. By freeing ourselves of less delusional delusions, we free up more time to learn things that can be known as well as identify and deal with actual threats to our existence, like intolerance and martyrdom. The collapse of theism replaced by actual thinking would increase the chances of survival for all of us. After all, religion has proven unable to control itself, what with Inquisitions, Crusades, and wars of and on terrorism. Maybe that’s because people who say they believe in God really do not; or maybe their god is a primitive, bloodthirsty prick. Believe in God if you want, but for the love of Christ keep it to yourself.

In the end, it’s worth remembering that dinosaurs were around eighty times as long as humans have been around. Yet we view their brains as vastly inferior to ours. Trees have been around even longer than dinosaurs and they don’t even have brains! So what makes anyone think they know what they’re talking about (besides me and my superiorly advanced brain)? What makes anyone think our ability to think is so special? Will our brains help us as a species to survive as long as dinosaurs or trees? Only time will tell. Delusions will not. 

Who Are You? Who, Who? Who, Who?

Whereas the narrative of American liberals once tried to convince us that one’s identity, particularly in regards to race, is not very important, that narrative has since been abandoned as minority populations increase in numbers and presence. Currently, the liberal narrative sees Caucasians as agents of the Devil, as if white liberals should be going out of their way to admit the faults of their ancestors in hopes that some admission of institutionalized wrong-doing will allow them to avoid being lynched themselves when Caucasians finally become a minority in the United States. Moreover, social media in America is currently abuzz with sexual politics calling for freedom for the female nipple and to repeal slut shaming. Social media among Millennials is humming with the need to acknowledge cultural appropriation and a demand that Columbus Day be repealed. And everyone, regardless of whether their candidates are actually for changing the status quo, Democrats and Republicans both blindly vote along party lines. In short, America is awash in identity politics. But a sense of identity cuts across all cultures and in part, an identity is in fact how anyone would know that they do belong to a culture.

Why is identity so important? Why does anyone struggle to “find themselves”? It has long been assumed that a personal identity is a close to an inherent right as one can get, but is it possible that the need for an identity isn’t as important as it is made out to be? Is group identity more important? Is it possible we have been sold on a social construct that doesn’t exist in reality, but instead serves as a wedge between individual people and groups?

Let’s try to answer the first two questions: The answer as to why identity is so important varies from source to source. As we grow from infancy, we begin to form an identity, setting ourselves apart from the world around us. The formulation of an identity is born out of the human tendency to compartmentalize information in hopes of understanding the world. It allows us to set ourselves apart from other objects in the world and allows us to compare ourselves against those objects. An identity also helps us to know our likes and dislikes and detects who is going to be like us, physically and culturally speaking, so that we may form groups in the interest of self-preservation and procreation – whereas the inclusion in a group potentially gives one access to safety in numbers and resources. To have such an identity enables self-esteem and feelings of superiority over another person or group; in this way we use identity for social comparisons and may be used as a yardstick for success (which is itself a social construct). Crucially, an identity will largely dictate how we behave towards others and the world around us.

Being aware that having an identity will strongly influence how we behave may make us aware to the shortcomings of possessing an identity (or at least diminish its importance to ourselves). For instance, Governments rely on identities to know who to keep accountable for crimes or who to oppress. Capitalism relies on people having a sense of identity so that companies know who to market their products and services to. Individuals often employ the No True Scotsman logical fallacy in order to cast group members an individual doesn’t like in an unfavorable light. (For example, a Republican Christian stating that a true Christian would never register as or vote for a Democrat.) As mentioned before and I will mention again because it’s important, identities serve as a wedge between people which leaders are all too willing to capitalize on when they want to declare war on another country or worse, attempt the genocide of another group of people.

With the current liberal narrative in the U.S. contemplating identities as a way of knowing when we are wronged – assuming you are non-white – other Western narratives are attempting to dispense with identity nearly altogether, presumably to make up for the long, long history of crimes by white people, even against themselves. One example is taking place in Sweden where a boy or girl is now being referred to as a ‘hen,’ a gender neutral term meant to help children grow up free from the impact of being identified with a particular gender. While there is an obvious downside for one gender in patriarchal cultures (which most Western nations practice), is there any downside to abandoning identities such as the Swedes are attempting? It is inviting to contemplate a Slippery Slope argument here as one wonders what will follow from the abandonment of gender identities as it is clear there are differences between males and females. Will one’s family identity fall next? Will their national identity and their European identity follow suit until all they’re left with is to identify themselves as human beings? Might even that succumb to the notion that human beings are not a distinct entity from the animal kingdom or the universe itself? At what point will the Swedes decide it is okay to have an identity or will they decide identities are largely a bad thing? This seems to be the direction many progressively Left countries are headed.*

[* There is currently an effort to rebrand progressive liberals as ‘regressive leftists’ by moderate liberals who recognize that going to extremes usually ends in the oppression of someone. Again, identities help us identify threats or dangerous ideas.]

Here we may ask our third question; are identities actually as important as they’ve been made out to be? While we have an idea as to why we form identities, perhaps the Swedes have recognized that there seems to be a lot of harm that comes from having them. Should we abandon our identities within a family, a nation, or even as human beings? We might hypothesize that if human beings stopped regarding themselves as entities distinct from the world around themselves, the world wouldn’t be quite the ecological disaster it is. If we recognized that our interactions with other people had far reaching implications for better or worse, it is possible we might behave in a manner that would have ‘better’ implications. Unfortunately, most identities do not include such vision among their qualities or practices. Case in point, the #blacklivesmatter movement which seeks to end ‘white privilege’ may allow for the eventual equal treatment of blacks, but there is no indication that once equality is achieved black people are going to abandon their collective identity. So, there will always be a division, a division that will always allow for potential negative effects (usually negative effects).

It appears we may have been sold a bill of false goods as far as identities are concerned. The desire or need for identities make little sense from an evolutionary standpoint. This is to say that while identities may help forge bonds which allow for safety in numbers and access to resources such as food and shelter, identities actually work against human beings when it comes to the most important resource of all, mates. We’ve known for some time that restricting a gene pool to lesser and lesser variety results in mutation (this is presumably why it is not safe to mate with a close family relative, even a first cousin). In this way, having an identity works against the human race by limiting the people we might otherwise mate with; gene variety is the key to surviving a disease that might otherwise wipe out the entire species. It is another presumption that this may be why some of us are tantalized by foreigners as these ‘outsiders’ would provide offspring with a ‘superior’ set of genes. (As Richard Dawkins said, our genes use us, not the other way around.) It appears as though having an identity may have individual short term advantages, but for the human race as a whole, identities seem to be detrimental. Imagine the disconnect when one’s identity is threatened or attacked and this causes people extreme stress or depression, for what if they learn they are not who they thought they were? Is even this remote possibility worth the price of investing in an identity?

Before writing this blog entry, I counted all the things that were characteristic of my identity. Without even trying, I racked up more than 40 characteristics. What does this mean? I may be a teacher on one hand but I am a musician on the other. Or, I am all these things at once? Again, identities allow for the compartmentalization of information so that it is understandable, or in this case, identifiable. But we all know – if we allow for a few moments of reflection – that the truth is far more complicated than a person either being black or white, so why do so many people reduce identities to such common denominators? Because it is easy and most human minds do not like investing the energy to think about it. (This is not a slight but simply the way the human brain works; use as little energy as possible to understand what is going on. Unfortunately, the result is little understanding of an entire situation.)

I would argue that the need to ‘find oneself’ or wrap oneself up entirely within an unshakable identity is the hallmark of a weak mind and follower. Few leaders are elected on the strength of their group inclusion alone (if they are, it's simply because there are more people in a particular voting block). President Obama would not have been elected if he only appealed to blacks or only appealed to Democrats. Great leaders have other qualities besides their basic identity that allows them to lead and it is these qualities that should be remarked upon as the make for the entirety of an identity, something that is going to vary greatly from person to person. Lacking a diversity of characteristics means one is a caricature. So we should either give the totality of identities their due or give little weight to such concepts, for now we know that superficial identities are not the whole picture. In the words of Dr. Seuss, “Today you are you. That is truer than true. There is no one alive who is you-er than you.” I judge people on their individual merits, not on the color of their skin.*

[* To which some minorities will remark that such a comment is a distinctly ‘white’ thing to say.]

Millennials: Spoiled Brats Meme Edition

I think I feel a micro-aggression coming on. 

South Park takes on Safe Spaces

Safe from...reality?

FYI: It's the new high school diploma.

He dealt with macro-aggressions.

I'm all for free college; strings attached.

Tell me again why feelings should supersede thinking?

And Finally...

Alan Dershowitz & Peggy Noonan Epically Destroy the Regressive Left ON FOX NEWS! GOLD!

The Curious Case of Microaggressions

The universe hates me, indicated by its microaggression towards me that caused me to stumble upon this gem a few days ago…

Click to Enlarge

Microaggressions, a term coined by psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce in 1970, are described by UCLA as the “…everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.” This description was originally intended to describe the subtle behavior of white people towards minorities in the U.S. – notice that the word applies nowhere else in the world – the word has been taken up by the Millennial generation to mean any slight that makes a person feel remotely ill at ease.

The cartoon illustrates the problem with these perceived slights vividly. We know what the artist was trying to say, but if we think about the instances illustrated for us, do they really stand out as ‘aggressions’? 1 – In the second panel, there could be any number of reasons for cabs passing you by. It could be they have someone to pick up or already have a passenger you’re not aware of. Or the driver is going off duty. Or they driver is the same race and gender and decide not to pick you up because they know their own kind doesn’t tip well. There could be a billion reasons why you don’t get picked up. I’m a white male; I’ve been passed up by cabs before. It’s not a microaggression. 2 – In the third panel, a young white woman looks cautiously towards our protagonist, because minorities are never seen taking the subway. Could be that our protagonist is playing some crappy music that offends the delicate ear of the little white devil. 3 – The protagonist expects a lowly educated white male to pronounce her name correctly because she has taken the time to master every language. Moreover, maybe he was asking her where she was from because he’d like her number and Brooklyn is a disqualifier for him. It was a disqualifier for the Giants and Dodgers, after all. 4 – The losing weight comment in the fifth panel is something everyone suffers from all kinds of people. Well, almost everyone. My mother remarks that I eat like a bird. Should I get offended? No, I am comfortable with my svelte weight and don’t need to answer to anyone for it. I may be lean but it’s not like my life’s in danger, Mom. So, she’s the one who needs to get over it, not me. 5 – In the sixth panel, yeah, that guy’s a dick. If there was a need to be old-fashioned, why was our protagonist given the project in the first place? But this isn’t necessarily an ‘aggression;’ it’s stupidity on part of her manager. 6 – The seventh panel doesn’t even happen. Why would the caller expect a designer to be answering the phone anyway? 7 – The burger comment is probably coming from some vegan dipshit and has nothing to do with the person suspecting our protagonist is a vegetarian because of her ethnicity. This would be a case of ‘aggression’ but there’s a quick come back for that: Hum favorably while biting into the burger. 8 – In panels nine and ten, yes, these guys are being assholes and our protagonist is right to be upset. But such a situation can happen to anyone. Panel eleven implies one has to be accepted by their peers. This bit is ridiculous. 9 – Why would anyone assume someone wanted something sugar-free? This seems like it would be a case of someone just not doing their job right, not an intentional or even unintentional attack. 10 – In panel fourteen, the cashier may be unintentionally profiling but as I always say, stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. 11 – In panel fifteen, the police are looking for a suspect; could be anyone so they’re going to ask everyone who they are. If the suspect is an ethnic woman, of course they’re going to say something to her.

Look, I know what it is to have a bad day, when it seems like the entire universe and everyone in it is out to get you. Llelena certainly should be irritated by her work situation, in which case I would start working on my resume. But just about everything else, Llelena has to give permission from within herself to be offended. Words are only words and one has to internalize them in order for them to impact us negatively. So, when people remark that sensitive people should grow thicker skin, they’re right. If a person hasn’t realized by now the world is full of idiots and assholes – and idiots and assholes are not exclusive to any group of people – they should expect the hurt that is coming your way. But it doesn’t have to hurt. They only one letting themselves get hurt is themselves. If you think you don’t deserve to be hurt, then don’t be. Getting hurt implies you do in fact deserve it. In the final panel, Llelena recognized she doesn’t deserve it and is going to kick ass tomorrow, too. That’s why she’s the protagonist.

Microaggressions are often not what Millennials think they are. If we scratch the surface of their psychology, we’re sure to find a lot of self-loathing. They protect themselves from it by imagining everyone else is the enemy. Like people of every generation before them, the real enemy lies within. 

The Problem With The Problem of Cultural Appropriation

The Rachel Dolezal problem just won’t go away, mostly because Millennials won’t let it go away. Dolezal, the former NAACP leader discovered to be biologically white while she groomed herself to appear black – both figuratively and literally – said in an interview two days ago “I was biologically born white,” saying in effect that despite this fact she still doesn’t identify herself as a white person. This has Millennials – those kids always looking for something to be offended by – up in arms (again).

By now, we are already familiar with the glaring inconsistencies of the Millennial thought process as it is perfectly okay for Bruce Jenner to feel like he is actually a she and grooming himself to appear this way despite being biologically born a man. Now, perhaps this was okay for Jenner because he/she was a celebrity (celebrities get away with anything as long as an apology is issued when outrage is of a sufficient degree) or that the guardians of social justice feel like Dolezal disguised the fact she was ever white, but what you never find these supposed guardians doing is asking tough questions about their beliefs. For instance, what exactly constitutes a black person? According to African-America writer/director Justin Simien, “Being black in America involves a process of moving through and adopting from many different cultures. To define what's authentically black is virtually impossible, as there are as many ways to be black as there are black people.” Presumably, this would go for nearly every other ethnicity as well. But if one could define a black person within the confines of one singular culture, is a black person then restricted to only behaving as a black person?

If being a black person comes with a built in identity aside from their appearance, then so must every other ethnicity. So, if it is wrong to borrow from the black culture because that culture doesn’t belong to any other ethnicity, it is wrong for any ethnicity to borrow culture from any other ethnicity and the power dynamic that is often used as an accusatory device against, say, white people, has nothing to do with it. Accusers of cultural appropriation have long argued that minorities such as black people have adapted white culture as a matter of survival, but this is no longer a necessity in modern day America. So, this particular argument of theirs is no longer valid as to why black currently engage in any appropriation of any other culture.

Another question that comes to mind about whether it is appropriate to borrow from another culture is whether the culture being borrowed from is the originator of a given practice. In many instances this is simply impossible to know. Even if we were concede that black people invented rap music, they did it by borrowing English and recording technology from white people. As Simien noted earlier, black culture is not “authentic” but rather an amalgamation. (This goes for every culture, as well. There is no completely unique culture since human beings all generally behave the same; this manifests itself in our social practices. This is, for example, why some kind of spiritualism exists in all cultures.)

As a logical extension to the previous question, we might ask if a given practice was indeed invented by one ethnicity, does that ethnicity claim an exclusive right to use such that practice? Let’s take hair-braiding, for instance. According to various sources, this practice originated in Africa anywhere from 5,000-30,000 years ago, spread far and wide, and has undergone many changes depending on the culture that adapted it. One version of hair-braiding, known in black culture as ‘corn-rows’ traces its history back thousands of years and appears to have been a sign of social significance and wealth at some point. So, African Americans cannot claim a ‘right’ to the exclusive use of corn-rows (much to Kylie Jenner’s relief, I’m sure). Or maybe they can claim a right because one is allowed to borrow practices from the people in power, though in this instance I fail to see what adapting corn-rows would have to do with survival.

Furthermore, can one claim a right to the achievements of one’s ancestor? Doing so amounts to thinking ‘we’ won the Superbowl when in fact you, the spectator, had nothing to do with it. It’s basically riding the coattails of someone else. (Naturally, people who view themselves as victims often employ this kind of historical thinking to accuse those who are not a part of their group so that their own underachievements look benign in their own eyes. To be clear, I am NOT accusing any group in particular of this.) At any rate, at this point in evolution, no one is a pure-breed anymore, not that such a thing ever existed for human beings. So, we cannot accept historical usage of a practice as meaning that practice solely belonging to any single group.

Bizarrely, Millennials don’t seem to mind most of the things white people have culturally appropriated from black people as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with appearance.* If Dolezal had only acted black instead of trying to look black, sure, she may not have gotten a leadership job for the NAACP but she would simply have been mocked by black and white alike and forgotten. The fact that she tried to look black without acknowledging her ‘whiteness’ appeared as a mockery of black people. I get that. But the same people vilifying her are the same people on one hand want to think of everyone as special regardless of looks or even achievement, but on the other hand want to demonize whites for simply being white, something no white person ever born had a choice in being. Dolezal took her identity in her own hands – something usually applauded – but because she is really white, this is villainous. And thus, the racism of Millennials is exposed.

[*Nor do Millenials care if the Chinese, currently the most powerful group of people in the world, all things considered, borrow cultural practices from the U.S. As a matter of social justice, shouldn’t the guardians of social justice berate the Chinese for wearing blue jeans? Americans invented blue jeans so it belongs to us! Right?]

As I often tell conspiracy theorists, if you don’t like it, leave. But they never do that because despite how horrible it is to live in the U.S. these days, no matter how horrible white people unintentionally contribute to white supremacy (? You hear this line often in these kinds of discussion), living in the U.S. it’s still remarkably better than most other places, places where people cannot even begin to have this kind of discussion.

It is certainly one thing to appropriate a look or practice to intentionally mock a culture. Dolezal didn’t do that; if anything she could be considered to be mocking white people, if white people cared about these things. Black people certainly should feel a little angry that they are under- or misrepresented in the workplace and the media and are generally made to feel they need to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards. Of this there is no doubt. But the only person that can make you feel like your (natural) identity is being stolen from you is you. Even if white people all started growing afros tomorrow, an afro on a black person wouldn’t make that person any less black. I know minorities feel otherwise, which makes it hard to understand why they don’t invent some other new look or practice and patent it for use by their own group. Remember that it is okay to borrow cultural practices from the group in power, so why not try using the power group’s practices against them. Oh, wait, what? You can’t patent a look or cultural practice? Gee, I wonder why that is…

The Etymology of 'Idiot'

If there is one sure fire way to spot an idiot, it would have to be the way some people – usually conspiracy theorists (ironically also referred to as ‘truthers’) – think they have figured out what some words actually mean or how words are sometimes used against them. 

For example, I recall one particularly idiotic truther tried entertaining his disturbingly large audience of 200 people with the revelation that the word ‘youngster’ is really referring to youngsters as being ‘young stars’ as human beings are in fact beings of light. Nevermind that the etymology (the study of the origin of words and their historical usage) of the word ‘young’ stems from the Old English word ‘geong’ and Middle English word ‘yong’ which both refer to someone as being from the early part of life or as possessing the looks of someone who looks as though they belong to the early part of life. The suffix ‘-ster’ is also derived from Old and Middle English (and Proto-Germanic) and at when added to a word refers to that thing as belonging to a specified group or as doing something specific. Unsurprisingly, the word for a youngster is ‘enfant’ in French and ‘junge’ or ‘kind’ in German, words that have ZERO to do with this truther’s claims about young people being the children of stars. Certainly one can just make up out of thin air their own etymologies, but that doesn’t mean their imaginings are true. [The same person completely ignored some key definitions of ‘defense’ and intentionally narrowed the meaning of the word to make a rather poor argument in their favor regarding imperialism.]

Then there’s this ridiculous conspiracy theorist meme, depicted on the left. In actuality, the word ‘govern-’ as it relates here is derived from the Old French word ‘governor’ which is itself derived from the Latin ‘gubernare,’ itself derived from the Greek word ‘kybernan’ meaning to pilot or captain a ship. Meanwhile, ‘-ment’ was imported from the French and Latin ‘-mentum’ and means the result of an action. As one clever commenter wrote on English.stockexchange.com “If ‘-ment’ always referred to the mind, then a replacement would be a brain transplant, punishment would be a headache, and an attachment would be a neural implant.”

More recently, another truther tried to explain in her Youtube video that when police ask you if you understand what they are saying, answering ‘yes’ means you are giving them permission to stand over you. Nevermind that the word comes from the Old English usage of ‘understandan’ which simply means to perceive the meaning of words or ideas spoken to you. That’s it. If what this conspiracy theorist is saying is true, then you simply have to tell police you don’t understand them when they ask you if you understand and it’s like a get-out-of-jail-free card!

Conspiracy theorists / truthers (‘-ists’ and ‘-ers’ is used in a very similar fashion to ‘-ster’, btw) claim to want to make you think, but when you do and actually do research the things the talk about and come to a ‘real’ conclusion, they’ll have none of it. They’ll throw every ad hominin attack or straw man fallacy in the book at you. Conspiracy theorists are alarmingly delusional and should be hospitalized before they hurt someone or themselves. Or, we can invite them to leave and start their own country. I know, I know, they’re too lazy for all that. A few idiots ruin it for the rest of us.

[‘Idiot,’ by the way, comes from the Old French and Latin word ‘idiota’ meaning ‘ignorant person.’ Unsurprisingly, the usage of idiot’ has risen exponentially with the advent of the internet.]