Category Archives: filosofija

O Cirkusu pandemijskog narativa ili: zašto ste svi u krivu

Franjo, o čemu ti?

 

Kao prvo, bitna napomena – ovaj esej nije o pandemijskim mjerama, nije o dobrom ili lošem kriznom pristupu, a ponajviše ne namjerava biti unutar uobičajenog diskursa kulturnog plemenskog rata kojem svjedočimo na društvenim mrežama diljem svijeta. Ovo je samo pokušaj analize i objašnjenja kako je do tako kaotične i toksične situacije došlo. Kako to da postoje toliko dijametralna poimanja dobrog i lošeg pristupa u situaciji gdje su činjenice lako dostupne svima? Ukratko, svjedoci smo kriznog stanja, kao prvo ideološkog (društvo – pojedinac), vezano, i etičkog (ljudski životi – ekonomija), pa i epistemološkog (kojem izvoru vjerujemo i zašto? Te da napravimo puni krug nazad ka ideološkom, odnosno političkom – koja je uloga eksperata?). Krizno stanje popraćeno je sa i prije opasno visokom razinom polarizacije političkog spektra, o kojoj je već tradicionalno pisati, ali i zamorno čitati, znam, ali ne mogu se oteti dojmu da većina i dalje ne shvaća važnost iste. Pa neka bude naglašeno. Nadalje, zbog razmjera ludosti koje jedno takvo anomično i za društvo razarajuće stanje dovodi u svojim ekstremnim pojavama, ovdje ću ubuduće cijeli taj krizni kulturni kompleks krstiti Cirkusom. Misija će ovdje biti – kako sve navedeno objasniti na jedan elegantan, objedinjujuć i jednostavan način, a pritom što bliže pogoditi istinu stanja stvari, koliko god nekom nužno subjektivnom takvo nešto bilo u mogućnosti. Sekundarno, pokušati ćemo pronaći način kako možemo barem težiti vratiti se u neku normalu, stanje koje liberalno i demokratsko društvo podrazumijeva, određenog slaganja barem oko temeljnih principa društvenog ugovora, ili stvarnosti kao takve. Ali nije jasno da će to biti od ikakve koristi. O tome ukratko; jer su tehnološki procesi koji su katalizirali ovo stanje u praksi nezaustavljivi, ali o tome ćemo malo kasnije. Niti će itko regulirati klikbejt model, niti ljudsko ponašanje, primjerice, čitanje isključivo naslova članaka (i viralno širenje samo slike a ne linkova istih, konačno stvorivši toksični fake news mem sui generis).

 

Osnovna teza

Sukob kojem svjedočimo samo je jedna – tehnologijom doduše snažno potencirana – suvremena manifestacija vječne tenzije između društva i pojedinca.

 U ovom slučaju i konkretnije, sukob je uzeo formu bitke javnog zdravstva (društveno dobro i kolektivizam) nasuprot osobnim slobodama i ekonomskoj koristi (pojedinac i liberalizam, tržište i kapitalizam). Možda moram naglasiti da osobno kao politički pragmatist i amaterski filosof ne preferiram niti jednu od tih ideologija, nego vjerujem u pravu mjeru (formuliranu i kao zlatna sredina, ili srednji put) kao nešto optimalno ili idealno (i istinito i lijepo, valja dodati). Ali tako ni društvo ni ljudska priroda ne funkcioniraju, niti naši tribalni nagoni dozvoljavaju, a sukob je zauzeo apsurdne razmjere koji prijete samom temelju civilizacije Zapada, da budem samosvjesno dramatičan (uz samo polovičnu hiperbolu, s obzirom na trenutačnu atmosferu u američkom javnom diskursu). Društvo koje se ne slaže oko temeljnih aksioma ne može opstati, ili se barem meni ne čini da postoji način na koji dugoročno može (ovo je donekle blaže u RH nego drugdje, ali poznato je da kasnimo. Tipično).

 

 

Dva plemena te njihov nastanak

Protivljenje nošenju maski, “brnjica”, odnosno uopće percepcija da su maske nekakav udarac na slobodu, prije deset godina bila bi ideja van svake pameti, naročito u društvu čije je probleme uopće teško nabrojati, na stranu da kvalitativno također nisu puno gori. Što ne znači da je odgovor najgoreg ekstrema sa suprotne strane, recimo, čuveno kinesko zavarivanje stanova zaraženih, imalo manje ludo; dapače, evidentno je nama u liberalnim društvima potpuno nezamislivo (ali tipično kineski represivno). Nadalje, koliko god istovremeno karantena Hubei provincije bila neprikosnoveno postignuće, koja je uz druge mjere doslovno istrijebila virus unutar granica Kine (baš kao prvi SARS godine 2003.), takvo nešto samorazumljivo je u konfucijanskim kulturama, ali naprosto nemoguće na Zapadu. Ali još blaže, više nije posve jasno koliko smisla ima inzistiranje na više ili manje oštrim mjerama. Koliko odgađaju ionako neizbježno? Koliki demokratski legitimitet imaju, i gdje? Kakva to čudna konzekvencijalistička etika stoji u pozadini morbidnog računa žrtvovanja ekonomije ili života, naročito u kompleksnom međugeneracijskom kontekstu? O protivljenju cijepljenju ne namjeravam ni pisati, niti se tu išta pametno može reći, osim da, politički, obje strane imaju, čini se, sasvim legitiman politički stav (samo u ovom slučaju, ali manje ili nikako legitiman za izuzetno opasno protivljenje ikakvim cjepivima). No, ono što je posrijedi je jedno apsurdističko pretjerivanje u oba narativa, a koje je dio diskursa echo chambera („ječnih komora“?), gdje svaka strana biva izložena samo najekstremnijim primjerima druge strane, a istovremeno mahom nekritički prihvaća doktrine svojeg plemena. Ali, ovo je u srži proces koji traje čitavo prošle desetljeće, s naglaskom na poznih nekoliko godina, koji je imao jedan od bitnih uzroka u globalnoj financijskoj krizi 2007-2008. te potpunom gubljenju povjerenja u vladajuću plutokratsku elitu, zatim dosegao prvi očiti vrh 2016. izborom notornog Donalda Trumpa, a sve popraćeno ubrzavajućim i moćnijim utjecajem misterioznih i sveprisutnih algoritama koji maksimaliziraju ekstreme u emocijama i stavovima (zbog specifičnog poslovnog modela u koji sad ne mogu ulaziti). Naziv post-truth bio je pun pogodak za tako nastalo razdoblje alternativnih činjenica, što je čuveni gaf koji je, poput mnogih gafova kroz povijest, savršeno opisao stanje zeitgeista. Tako da je u tom smislu teren za Cirkus bio već dugo i dobro pripremljen. Ustvari, bilo bi pravo čudo da Cirkus nije nastao. On je poput rata, znanosti ili filosofije, oduvijek postojao, te strpljivo čekao svojeg najboljeg agenta i praktikanta. Cirkusanta; čovjeka.

 

Dvije Kulture  Dvije Slobode

Kao prvo, kratka kritika liberalnog uma. Po meni, postoji zanimljiv fenomen desenzitacije na postojeće slobode. Čini se da što više pojedinci sloboda imaju, to jače postaju osjetljivi i na najmanji percipirani (ključna riječ) napad na slobodu. [možemo reći i hipersenzitacija na smanjenje slobode op. a.]. Maske, cijepljenje, potvrde i slično – ali koliko daleko ide ta iracionalna pojačana osjetljivost: kao pripremu za ovaj tekst intenzivno sam i dugo pričao sa oba plemena, i ne mogu naglasiti dovoljno, koliko je ključno da velik dio ljudi doslovno vjeruje u pripremu terena za uspostavu globalne tiranije. Istovremeno, mahom se radi o najslobodnijim društvima na svijetu, gdje takve ideje najviše uzimaju maha. Ovdje često volim, jer što više to proučavam to očitije postaje, usporediti temeljni doživljaj svijeta i društva pojedinaca s ove strane spektra sa pubertetlijskim stanjem razvoja u psihologiji. Ovdje, kao i ondje, sloboda ne podrazumijeva više odgovornosti, nego se gotovo menadžerski efikasno maksimalizira omjer što više slobode za što manje odgovornosti. Ovdje, kao i ondje, naglasak je na buntu, ključan oblik ponašanja je autentična samoekspresija, osobna jedinstvenost, i nepovjerenje autoritetu (što nije nužno loše, ali nije teško vidjeti da su logički ekstrem teorije zavjera, pseudoznanost i druge divne pojave). Ako bih još onaj gore niz od 2008. preko Trumpa do pandemije proširio na libertarijanski ekstremističke Branch Davidians te Oklahoma city bombings (90-tih), niz bi bio puno jasniji, ali nije toliko bitno istaknuti, niti bih morao baš tu stati. Ipak, bitno je da se radi o kontinuiranom diskursu paranoje koji vuče svoje memetičko porijeklo još od nastanka Sjedinjenih Američkih Država, ili od prosvjetiteljstva, i tako gotovo proizvoljno daleko.

 

S druge su strane kolektivistička društva Istočne Azije koje nisu naviknute na visoki stupanj slobode (da, ne samo Kina), a imaju vrlo razvijenu društvenu svijest koja ima duboko internaliziranu normu po kojoj više slobode dolazi samo pod uvjetom više odgovornosti; i prema sebi, i prema zajednici. Naravno, oni imaju i puno veće restrikcije (ne represivno kineske, nego prilično blage ali učinkovite) koje su lokalno shvaćene ne samo kao nešto što nije napad na slobodu, nego, paradoksalno (ili sasvim konzistentno onom gore poimanje slobode), kao nešto što slobodu, braneći društvo, u biti tek omogućava (čuveni mem o slobodi za ne umrijeti – od spriječivog uzroka). Dakle, Korejac ima slobodu ne zaraziti se, razboliti se, uopće ne brinuti o bolesti te normalno živjeti, ne brinuti da će mu roditelji umrijeti, iako je istinabog prvo mrvicu žrtvovao da bi to sada mogao. Ali i to je upitno, jer većina živi normalno (u pravilu se žrtvovao netko drugi, gdje god je lokalna karantena). Dok recimo Amerikanac iz „crvene” države ima slobodu umrijeti kako hoće, zaraziti koga hoće, ali i izlaziti van, piti, putovati – što god hoće, s dodatnim užitkom ideološkog signaliziranja svoje vrline. Kako je jedan američki televizijski voditelj rekao u kontekstu analogije života bez pandemijskih mjera, vlada nema što tu regulirati – možemo se baciti s litice ako hoćemo (ipak, nije sasvim jasno koliko bi taj fenomen bio zarazan, ili uopće načelno spriječiv). Niti je uopće jasno što je bolje od ta dva fundamentalno drugačija pogleda, ali svaka strana hvaliti će samo svoje, kako to nužno biva.

 Kratko bih obratio pozornost čitatelju da se ovdje dijelom radi i o dvije vremenske orijentacije kultura i ideologija („hedonizam trenutka” slobodara nasuprot „budućnosti usmjerenog” Azijata koji odgađa trenutačnu nasladu). No da nastavimo u tom duhu, razlika je tu zbog ideologije odnosno kulture, ali i zbog psiholoških karakteristika koji u biti ideologiju uvjetuju, osim upravo spomenutih. Libertarijanci tako, recimo, imaju izražene karakteristike više racionalnosti, niže empatije, ali i iznimno više onoga što se zove „reactance“, a definirano je kao „bijes koji osjećamo kada nam netko kaže da nešto ne smijemo, ili nas pokuša kontrolirati“. Druga pak strana ima izraženu empatiju, po svemu sudeći i otvorenost iskustvu Big five tipologije ličnosti, a ionako jaku i često osobno motiviranu empatiju lako projicira i na potpune neznance, kako to u političkim diskursima gotovo uvijek biva (nedavni primjer Afganistana – i ta ideja da je ikoga imalo briga). To da te karakteristike ustvari prethode našem “odabiru” ideologije je zanimljiva tema za neki drugi tekst, odnosno Drugi pogled, ili za knjigu, koje doduše zasigurno već postoje, ali uskoro ćemo se vratiti momentu koji sam eksplicitno dotakao, ali želim razraditi.

 

Kako su kršćani postali Mao Zedong, a komunisti postali katolički sveci

Prvo, među bitne psihološke „orijentacije“ ovdje bih naveo i ljudsku sklonost pretjeranom optimizmu, kao i pretjeranom pesimizmu. Gotovo nitko od nas ne živi u „realnosti“, ponajviše vi koji si upravo slavodobitno mislite „ha, ja sam realist!“. Ovo se očituje možda najviše u načinu na koji tržište vrijednosnih papira funkcionira, ali stvarno, bilo kakvo predviđanje (da ne kažem modeliranje) budućnosti osuđeno je na takvu propast. Dovoljno je pogledati opus futurista 20. stoljeća koji varira gotovo isključivo iz sumanutog i komičnog optimizma u tmurni, depresivni pesimizam, pa naravno nazad; i to među ekspertima i znanstvenicima, dapače, među njima najviše. Sve to ovisno već o nepredvidivim tehnološkim otkrićima, te geopolitičkim igrama koje su ih potencirale, omogućile, te na nejasne načine uvjetovale. Tako su oba naša korona-plemena, svaka u svoje vrijeme, i na malo drugačiju temu, promašila za točno red veličine, ali i dalje svatko to obavezno spočitava svakom, sada doduše manje nego prije. Istinabog, samo jedno pleme je sklonije blokirati ljude ako se uopće spomene da oba (!) griješe, ali to je već druga, i meni osobna, tema, ali testirano i na puno manjem uzorku. Ipak, cijela ova dijalektika optimizma i pesimizma također zaslužuje novi tekst, i taj ću nadam se jednom i zapisati, a zasad neka samo bude spomenuto, kao bitna urođena pristranost kojom smo svi označeni, osuđeni, prokleti. O budućnosti mogu sa sigurnošću reći samo: jao onom što previđa budućnost.

 

 Drugo, još malo o shvaćanju slobode. Naime, ako te dvije kulture (a koje se onda očituju poput fraktala, ali blaže, i unutar pojedinačnih društava) poimaju slobodu na toliko drugačije načine, dobro je da smo definirali što mislimo pod jednom, a što pod drugom. Kao često, da ne kažem uvijek, problemi u filozofiji svode se na probleme u jeziku, značenju, odnosno na semantiku. Pa da ponovimo da je prva sloboda specifična, te da u njoj u biti dolazi do zbrke u klasičnoj distinkciji „slobode za“ i „slobode od“, to je sloboda koja uzima za sebe kao slobodnu upravo zbog toga sto se odriče odgovornosti, kao što smo prije kratko rekli, dakle koja uzima svoj objekt kao temeljno pravo (iz definicije „slobode od“), dakle nužno bez dodatnih uvjeta. „Ja neću nositi masku, ja nisam odgovoran prema nikome, ja nikome ne dugujem ništa“, da citiram prijatelja. Druga sloboda, ona kolektivistička, nužno veže koncept više slobode sa proporcionalno više, svakako ne manje, odgovornosti, barem u velikoj većini slučajeva (vrlo niska razina  osobne slobode odnosno „slobode od“ društava Sinosfere). Ali u biti to je i ona tradicionalistička sloboda, barem svojstvena zapadnim tradicionalizmima. Zanimljivo, neki su tu protiv vlastitih principa, primjerice, protiv principa svetosti ljudskog života, a kojeg su mnogi tobožnji katolici naglo izgubili. Ali u tom drugom shvaćanju slobode, odnosno u toj opreci samoj dolazimo do bitnog problema. Obje strane su za slobodu, tu nema sumnje. Ovo je truizam na razini šestogodišnjaka koji, priupitan, intuitivno staje na stranu dobra, pa što će drugo? Ali pitanje je, valjda za nas odrasle – smatramo li slobodu koja maksimalizira omjer onog-što-smijem vs. onog-što-moram-zauzvrat, dobrom, ili pak smatramo dobrom slobodu koja nužno taj omjer ostavlja na 1:1, odnosno, točno onoliko koliko je slobode, toliko je odgovornosti. Naravno, i tu postoji kontinuum, jer neke stvari zaista valjaju biti temeljna prava, a neke ograničene, i to razborito i stupnjevito, u pravilu ne apsolutno. Problem je što je spomenuta polarizacija društva potpomognuta tehnologijom realno uništila te lijepe sive zone gdje istinski život te istinska misao obitava. Pa se fokusiramo na one prve, ali i jer je lakše mentalno baratati ideal-tipovima (koji su istovremeno najviše apstrakcije ali i najčešće konkretizacije, u medijskoj atmosferi u koju smo uronjeni). Samo da se kratko vratimo na tradicionalističku nekonzistentnost u vezi života: ja osobno mislim da je vrhunac globalne kulturne ironije što su mahom kršćanske nacije odlučile maksimalizirati dobit, BDP, kod nas je tu naravno turizam, odnosno čuvena „sezona”, a blaže ili ozbiljnije odstraniti „one koje ionako ne pridonose“ (nego opterećuju sustav), ta kvragu i sa svetošću ljudskog života. Da ni ne spomenemo hrvatsku kulturu kafića i neke vrste osobnog komfora koji je izrazito hedonistički, a vrlo malo kršćanski. Dok je kultura ili pokret poznat po masovnim pokoljima, naročito u novijoj povijesti pod utjecajem maoizma, odlučila štititi baš svaki život pa makar to značilo snažan ekonomski pad (za one koji vole brojke: tri smrti na milijun, drugim riječima, 3 milijuntinke ukupne populacije), a Wuhan i drugi gradovi su trpjeli odricanja i pokoru dostojnu divljenja, ako ona već nije eksplicitno kršćanska. Naravno, svi odgovorni imaju svoj legitimitet za očuvati, i svaka elita radi ono što joj je na kraju u interesu, pa je obrat kršćanstva i komunizma ovdje sasvim slučajan, osim komunitarnog duha obojega. Ali ne može se reći da taj obrat, promatran na globalnoj razini uslijed dekadencije Zapada i uzleta Istoka, nije poetičan, ili simboličan. Da, dobro ste uočili, čitav naslov ovog poglavlja samo je radi ove glupe zamjedbe.

 

 

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Nema univerzalnog odgovora na ovaj problem, baš kao što nema univerzalnog odgovora na pitanje „Što je dobro?“. Neki ljudi naprosto spadaju u prvu kategoriju, a neki u drugu (rijetki u onu kompliciraniju) kao što svjetonazorski lijevi ili desni stavovi (primjerice, u vezi homoseksualizma ili imigranata) snažno koreliraju sa „osjetljivošću na odurnost“ (disgust sensibility) za desnu opciju, a koja je prirodno distribuirana u populaciji (i desnica u širem smislu, i ta osjetljivost). Ipak, ako težimo nekoj univerzalističkoj etici i spremni smo prihvatiti određene nužno upitne aksiome, možemo reći deontološki, da je dobro da se svaka smrt spriječi, neovisno o ekonomiji; ili pak konzekvencijalistički, da se balansiraju smrti i dobrobit ekonomije, za što veću korist odnosno što veće dobro (za što veći broj ljudi?). Naravno, obje etike mogu dovesti i do suprotnih zaključaka, ali ovako se najčešće manifestiraju u stvarnosti. Isto tako je etikom vrline trivijalno doći do bilo kojeg od tih zaključaka; ili pak ni jednog, kao što ja uporno odbijam, jer sam kul. Ali to samo implicira da će ovaj sukob ostati ovdje još dugo, te da će pronaći još puno šarenih oblika (kao što su prije, ali i sada aktualne, klimatske promijene izazvale). Na kraju, implikacija je da će ostati zagarantirano, dijelom zbog ljudske prirode ali ponajviše zbog načina funkcioniranja društvenih medija, koji monetiziraju ekstremne emocije, da što god dođe sljedeće, nastaviti biti upravo Cirkus. Barem u takozvanim slobodnim društvima, odnosno u liberalnim demokracijama, gdje slobodni javni diskurs postoji. Ne znam za druge, ali ja ću nastaviti promatrati, kao što Cezaru priliči. Ako postoje samo teoretičari (teorija originalno znači promatranje) i cirkusanti, kako kažu na engleskom: that’s not even a choice. Ostalima želim samo da vam Jupiter podari mudrosti, ili da sami odaberete mudro, ako već vaša psihologija ne odabire za vas.

Lažem, potonje je.

Before hello, goodbye

 

That’s an illusion. Just because it’s raw and unedited and flowing through me at the same pace as it is to this keyboard and all the way back to my eyes on the double monitor (why the fuck did I buy the second one?)… where was I, OK, feedback loops? I wasn’t really there but that’s where I got. I guess that’s what this style of writing is all about. He died month ago. More. It might have been me. I feel like he still is. It. He. Me.

This world is the best of all possible worlds, but I don’t think this writing will get me closer to any truth. As we said in the beginning, that’s an illusion, alluring one to which many people eventually subscribe but… We will do anything to run away from the void, so I don’t blame them. Blame, huh. How could I ever blame anybody? Besides, he blamed everyone, look where it got him. I shouldn’t be saying this, but this is either gonna be unconstrained or not gonna be at all. So I should say this. He used to quote that bullshit about meaning. That the problem is not there is no meaning. Problem is actually, ah of course, what else could it be? – that there are too many meanings to choose from. We are overwhelmed with meanings  and we get paralyzed and stuck. I do think that’s bullshit. Show me one. You can’t. I win.

It’s an illusion, this reality isn’t any more raw than the immediate feeling of the fan blowing wind on my chest, or the chirping of birds in this songs sample. Let me check the name. “Thank you” by Mounika. 

Well, if this is gonna work as a sort of obituary, gratefulness would be a good emotion and an idea to stop on.

Thank you, Druid.

Pošast meta-Dunning-Kruger efekta u 4 čina

Ovo će biti neuobičajeno kratak blog post, što jer se nema puno toga za reći, što jer je većina problema ilustrirana u slici (koja ovdje skoro ili doslovno govori tisuću riječi).

Kao prvo, započeo bih samo sa dvije ključne obzervacije, odnosno, jednom činjenicom i jednom obzervacijom:

  1.  Downing effect poznat svakom sa imalo znanja iz psihologije, a za ostale dobro ali ukratko opisan na Wiki linku. Radi se dakle o činjenici da velika većina ljudi preuvelićava procjenu vlastitog IQ-a. U narodu postoje i mudrosne poslovice o ovome, iako, jasno, isti narod je i statistički žrtva tog biasa (logički, radi se o podskupu šireg kognitivnog biasa iluzorne superiornosti).
  2. U zadnje vrijeme postalo je međumrežno opće mjesto zazivati, najćešće ili gotovo uvijek u raspravi, Dunning-Krugger effect. Sličan Downing efektu ali osim IQ-a vezan i uz stručnost odnosno kompetenciju, te nesposobnost nestručnjaka (ali i niskointeligentnih, što se uvelike preklapa) za metakognitivne sposobnosti koje i čine stručnjake (moć apstrakcije, primjerice), dok su stručnjaci, nakon što shvate koliko u biti malo znaju i koliko je stvarnost duboka i kompleksna, više suzdržani u vezi kategoričkih tvrdnji o prirodi stvarnosti, tiši, nesigurniji, a hoi polloi iz upravo objašnjenih razloga puno glasniji, samouvjereniji, često i uvjerljiviji od samih stručnjaka i inteligentnijih ljudi. No glavni problem koji vidim ovdje je što se Dunning Kruger effect počeo koristiti kao internet-raspravna poštapalica na razini “Ok boomer“, i time ironično često dolazi upravo od onih na koje se referira – glupaka, ljudi sa jako ograničenom sposobnošću samorefleksije, apstrakcije i fluidne inteligencije i drugih metakognitivnih sposobnosti koje nas čine ljudima.

Zato sam ovaj fenomen samodopadno krstio “Meta-Dunning Kruger effect“, jer je očito po srijedi DK o DK petlja, u uobičajenom ironičnom smislu Božanskog humora koji je bez premca.

Ovoliko za sada, u prilogu slika koja sve objašnjava – uz naglasak da je ovo već jedan od nekoliko puta da sam osobno optužen za demonstraciju Dunning Krugera, od ljudi koji se ponašaju otprilike ovako, ponekad čak šire teorije zavjere, ali u svakom slučaju do sad naprosto pobjegnu od bilo kakvog pokušaja racionalnog diskursa. To je zanimljivo. 

Uživajte,

(desni lik -> view image za cijelu sliku, lijevi klik za tragičnu junakinju):

Čekao sam dugo, ali dalje nije odgovorila, a i prije toga je rekla da ne raspravlja sa… Ne znam. Dunningkurgerovac (sic) valjda može biti i stručnjak i glupak, jer se efekt odnosi i na jedne i na druge?  Što je onda Dunning-Krugerovac, zna samo um Maje S. Killmister.  Nagađati ću da nema nikakve veze sa pubertetlijskim fake imenima na Facebooku.

Ignoramus et ignorabimus. Uglavnom, stoga je na kraju slike fin. Drama je došla svojem antiklimaktičnom kraju.

Najzad mi je žao što me draga Maja nije naučila ništa novo. Odnosno valjda na neki način je, ali svakako ne o Lacanu i njegovoj verziji psihoanalize i filozofske misli.  Lacanovci out there, opravdajte mi Lacanovu ljigavu upotrebu meni očitio predrage matematičke znanosti racionalnim argumentom, da vas sve poubijam ZFC aksiomima i predikatnom logikom.  😀 

Bonus bodovi za one koji skuže da se (negdje) implicitno pozivam na Gödel, Escher, Bach

 

Franciscus Augustus Tusculum,

Pontifex Maximus et imperator Sacri Imperii Croatici,

Filius Solis Invicti et Aedes Iuppiter Feretri,

Summus Cultist Martis Exterminans

 

 

SPACE, SPACE: This 19 August, 2004 NASA Solar and Heliospheric Administration (SOHO) image shows a solar flare(R) erupting from giant sunspot 649. The powerful explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection(CME) into space, but it was directed toward Earth. AFP PHOTO/NASA (Photo credit should read HO/AFP/Getty Images)

On the World Porcupine

Or: Why does Something exist rather than Nothing?

Oneness. Duality. Multitude.

First check the Friday, 27 March 2020 6:23 AM GMT update notes at the end of the this weird text. Thank you for Your understanding.  SPQR  
 

Zwei, hier kommt die Sonne
Drei, Sie ist der hellste Stern von Allen (
Rammstein – Sonne)

 Save Each Other From Togetherness  (Rammstein – Herzeleid)

 That is why, I am sure, a man once grieved that white thread should be dyed in different colors, and why another lamented that roads inevitably fork. (Yoshida Kenko – Tsurezuregusa)

El temor de separación es todo lo que une. (The fear of separation is all that unites.)( – Antonio Porchia – Voices)

 “Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand. The thing we cannot see is culture, in its intrapsychic or internal manifestation. The thing we do not understand is the chaos that gave rise to culture. If the structure of culture is disrupted, unwittingly, chaos returns. We will do anything–anything–to defend ourselves against that return.” (Jordan B. Peterson – Maps of meaning)

 Introduction

The best part of inspiration for this text-shaped piece of shit came from:

  1. Rejection (keywords: life, borderline, instability)
  2. Talking with my exes (too many)
  3. Rammstein songs (surprisingly few of them actually)

Other parts are all due to my current situation as a stranger in a strange land, complete with an insomnia (caused by benzodiazepine-withdrawal) and of course, as it usually is the case, an utter confusion with the subject matter. I need to thank to Mr. Jordan B. Peterson for most of stuff here also, and to God Almighty, amazing ex partner Petra, beautiful borderline nutcase Nila, my Mother (not related to the former), my Father, and especially the first hamster I ever owned (forgot the name at this point, but he was a good guy).

The Purpose of this is not to say anything on one matter or another, in order to inform you about anything new under The Sun, or to impart any special knowledge on you that you might already not have. All knowledge and understanding is a from of remembering what once was forgotten. In fact, its almost amazing that everything here-written (but not said) is part of our intuitive nature as a billion year old life-form, and a sentient one at that, and, to increase the stakes, a self-conscious one. The latter is the part of the problem and also the part of the solution: the mere interaction of one’s sentience with itself, that is to say, being’s sentience of its sentience (I see that I see, but I also see that I hear – what English language somewhat mystically but  very appropriately called the mind’s eye). This is the ultimate and obvious cause of all duality (animals know nothing of duality, or language, which is the same thing fundamentally) and hence the multitude as such, and in turn the Mother of all problems, questions, answers, and in fact of everything that exists in opposition to other (that is, every thing that exist, period), as Buddhist ontology firmly expounds. So, what’s the fuss all about?

Being more specific

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Of course, it is easy, simplistic but correct, to attach significance here to either Oneness (mystic traditions, some religions) or Difference (structuralism, deconstruction, Derrida) as being primal, and even venture into ethics and make them analogous to the good and evil, to healing and suffering (in English word “whole” is etymologically connected to the word heal. Obviously: to heal is to make whole again), and to billion another analogies that exist everywhere from mathematics, biology to physics , philosophy, as if reality is fundamentally fractally structured, and thus we thrive in understanding analogies. But this is for some other essay, where we could focus on Douglas Hofstadter,  my brother in enthusiasm towards analogies.

To further elaborate. The Word (Logos) that was the Beginning was a Word, only because a self-conscious mind can be even thought of having a word to say (or on itself, as we would say: on his mind – hence thinking itself was born). On the other hand, the body is, as a certain absolutely awe inspiring Japanese person called Mishima once noticed, of a completely different nature than language: and he himself questions: “How was it possible that I started to think even before I felt my existence embodied?” (Sun and Steel) . At least he made sure that the ending of his life was a bodily experience, and was beautiful. But the point here is not to trod on, on how the things are this way or another. Why? Because, in fact, they are not. As one Sutra says: things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise. We can see two (not one?) tendencies here emerging, of making differences where they seem to be none, or equivalences where there are apparently not. As one of the greatest Minds the World has ever Seen has once expounded:

“Hegel seems to me to be always wanting to say that things which look different are really the same. Whereas my interest is in showing that things which look the same are really different. I was thinking of using as a motto for my book a quotation from King Lear:I’ll teach you differences!‘. (…) ‘You’d be surprised’ wouldn’t be a bad motto either.”

Engine of Reality

The whole process of being might as well be called learning (and teaching) the differences, and yes, I also don’t know why he added that remark in the end. But as it might be already obvious, Kent’s quote from King Lear comes from asserting ones dominance over another (poor Oswald, being humiliated and pushed off the stage, to the delight of the King). But the existence as such is existence of a hierarchy – not only the one we are most used to, as in King Lear, dominance hierarchy, but also to the physical and infinite number of other hierarchies nested upon each other – from Standard model of physics to social institutions we dwell in, from biology to chemistry to psychology, from any and every self-regulating automatic system, every feedback loop which has it’s special evolutionary purpose in the service of the Whole, and so ad nauseam. The One at the end of this hierarchy, in our experience – is God, or not even to be named (道), or void as such, or Selfhood (Atman), or even equated to the notions of Good and True and Beautiful (or Truth, Path and Life?). But we also know that our self-reflective subjective experience of ourselves is in fact It itself looking in its own mirror image. The Sun as a cover picture was chosen as an appropriate expression of The Beautiful, The One, The All Giver, but we also understand that It projects its energy on another plane, penetrates the space, makes the difference itself – duality, and multitude, unfoldThere is no other thing aside of this unfolding. This other plane, the cradle of life, is the Earth, which we often endearingly call our Mother. Appropriately the Rammstein song playing while I was writing this part was „Mutter“, meaning of course Mother – which we will first think its beautiful – but at the same time we will know that it is equivalent to death as much as it is to life (going back into one’s mother) but also analogous to orgasm (la petite mort) –  I will not further elaborate on this, but it is absolutely obvious, and more than just “true” (somebody once called this types of truths as meta-truths). And as much as it, the Mother,  symbolizes empathy, we know that empathy is extremely dangerous and tragically counterproductive. So this concept is creative-destructive and our collective unfolding is creative-destructive, and the Love we feel or claim or suppose or identify as the root of All, is the all domineering all prevailing force that unites and separates everything (and every thing) . And as one Mind has once noticed, there is and cannot be nothing either good or bad about it – if Love is the cause of the action.

 

Psychology:

Borderline personality disorder & Love

But let us now be more concrete on this notion of Love. We might not yet want to talk about Love of certain quarks in relation to another (in fact we never do observe quarks in isolation, a thing called color confinement, which has nothing to do with color as you think of it, but it might have with Love), but at least in interpersonal relations – and especially in the more intense kinds  of relationships – we are finding the same mechanism of union and separation. Here comes into play what I always found the most astonishing and intense form of Love, but also the most dangerous, destructive and death craving form: the Love of a person with what is in a DSM-5 known as Borderline (emotionally unstable) personality disorder. Again, it’s almost astonishing to watch this mechanisms nested upon each other unfold in almost real-time: life-times worth of Love in what now seems to be a one brief moment – and it all comes from only one source – the fear of rejection, i.e. the intense dislike toward the idea of separation: the need for unity, but also death, melting in but also against, one another.

I had way too many of those

Okay, and the ways our societies are structured, what do they have to say about Love, in this more cosmic ontological sense of the word as we use it here? You can notice that we are jumping from one nested hierarchy to other. I might as well keep on talking about quarks and astronomy, for instance. But simplicity and clarity behooves me to stop at a  certain point.

Hedgehog’s dilemma

 

Here I will both link and quote Wikipedia, because Schopenhauer explained it better than I ever could, while at the same time his idea is uncannily analogous to what we had discussed before  (click here for Wikipedia article on this concept).

Quote from the article itself:

The concept [of Hedgehog’s dilemma] originates in the following parable from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer‘s Parerga und Paralipomena, Volume II, Chapter XXXI, Section 396:[1]

A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told—in the English phrase—to keep their distance. By this arrangement the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied; but then people do not get pricked. A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself.

When Freud went to USA in the beginning of the 20th century, he said his mission was to tame the wild hedgehogs (or porcupines). He found American society to be too unruly, almost barbaric, and in a state of feral collective unconsciousness – society was prickling one another in an unhealthy manner, both mentally and physically, especially in the long run. Of course, ultimately he failed, after his students did their part in creating Sexual revolution in the late ’60s. But here I want to use this beautiful and very well thought metaphor of Freud’s. If there was such a thing as an American porcupine in the 1920s, could we also speak about the World Porcupine, in a Hegelian sense,  Geist– kind of – and its development, especially in recent years? We might also conclude that in Freud’s times – although he thought American porcupines were wild – they were in fact in their best and tamest condition in the last 100 years. Especially if you look at the current problems Mankind is facing – here I don’t want to elaborate on them, because we all already know, nor is this the goal of this text. What I want to do, as somebody who so admires Chinese culture, their political and economical system, language and tradition – to use this knowledge and try to create an idea of a World Porcupine – and maybe even predict the way in which He will behave in the future. So let us first start with the application of Hedgehog’s dilemma in the case of Chinese, or any other sinospheric (Japan, Korea) society. We will see that Schopenhauer’s Hedgehog developed in Prussia and that it is product of liberalism and civil society par excellence, and that Chinese culture and norms use vastly different ways (and yet, quite similar) to achieve the same goal – not to get too close lest they get pierced, but also, avoiding going too far from each other.

Solution in both cases is basically analogous the the Ancient Greek concept of the “right measure” or Golden mean and in Wikipedia (that is, some textbook Wiki is quoting), its is elaborated in this very convincing fashion:

“The hedgehog’s dilemma suggests that despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm, and what results is cautious behavior and weak relationships. With the hedgehog’s dilemma, one is recommended to use moderation in affairs with others both because of self-interest, as well as out of consideration for others. The hedgehog’s dilemma is used to explain introversion and isolationism.”

Of course, this is almost impossible to accept from the BPD (borderline) perspective. It is a widely different perception of the world, it is a widely different world, period. But both are manifestation of the same fundamental ubiquitous force of Love, only quantitatively different, with the same essential (and primordial) quality. But it is also interesting to notice that this “middle way” or “golden mean” path of life was a very influential school of thought both in the East and in the West, from Seneca and Buddha, Aristotle and virtually all patriarchs of Buddhism, all  the way to Vedas and other less known scriptures and philosophies. Again, World Porcupine always seems to develop independently from one another and simultaneously, in a truly mystical way.

What does the future bring

The Chinese well mannered and distance loving Porcupine will have a peculiar confrontation with the Western much more closer together  (but hurtful, piercing) porcupine constellation. On the other hand, Western pop culture is spreading in China like wildfire in this age of social media and decentralization. Here I am an optimist – although I consider this a profoundly realistic position. It is in everyone’s best interest, it is the work of universal force of Love as we elaborated before, and after thesis, antithesis will bring about the synthesis of this two vastly different world experiences and comprehensions.

Quarks loving each other

Repetition is important

Love manifests as a driving force of Universe (which is a never ending, never beginning play between One and Many – God and Creation – Sun and Earth – Body and Language – I will stop here, but indeed, there are simply too many examples anyway ) . As we see from this analogies – there are many examples of the same process (don’t let me get into quarks again). Sociology, Ontology, Psychology, Physics, Biology: reproduction on all levels – energy, Astronomy, Mathematics. Even the apparently trivial distinction between discrete and continuum is fundamentally based in this analogy. And aporias we stumble upon if we ponder to much, they are precisely the fundamental structure of reality, because this Love is as allusive as God itself (or Laws of Nature modern physics is struggling with, or Language in it’s ambiguity, or Buddhist void in it’s inexplicable, ungraspable and allusive nature (“Turn towards the void and you shall turn It’s back“).  It all falls back to one simple principle.

https://youtu.be/0-BnfC0cuvU

Instead of conclusion

Finally, an ethical turn. What are we ought to do? What is Good?  So far it seems I have made everything reasonably clear. But as somebody who was always overly concerned about the destiny of Mankind, I still wouldn’t be able to properly answer this question – what we ought to do with us, with Mankind?  To not let it die? Why? Because I felt a little piece of me dying at the mere writing of the capitalized question “why’ in the last sentence?  Or, in one sentence, because in I personally know that I am, in essence, It manifesting itself, together with itself – and Others? I don’t know, but it sounds like a plausible enough idea for now. I have yet to see a more – for me personally – intuitive ethical idea by which to act in the world.

Everything

I would also like to just mention the Native American (I think Hopi ) myth of primordial Man and Woman creating Universe by the force of Love, via Divine Copulation:  but this myth also abounds with references to Chaos and Order: this again fits really well into the gist of this theme, especially because this oral transmitted myth is estimated to be 20-30 thousand years old. And of course, these kinds of myths are ubiquitous throughout human civilization, and prehistory, and are obvious meta-truths in which we are, as beings, immersed.  I would like to add more examples here, and I will do so as soon as I get inspiration. I have absolutely forgotten using the Nagarjuna’s doctrine of two truths (let’s say for simplicity sake – Truth from the perspective of One, and conventional truth of duality) as a sort of “solution” to our ” problem here.  But since Nagarjuna also expounds that Nirvana is Samsara, and Samsara is in turn Nirvana, my omission is hardly problematic – since this teaching is, again, as obvious as anything we ever intuitively comprehend. 

Explanations come to an end somewhere.

 What, you scoundrel, you would speak no nonsense? Go ahead and speak nonsense – it doesn’t matter! (Holy Augustine)

 

lā ʾilāha ʾillā llāh

The End

 

This is an update made on Anno Domini 2020, the month of Martis, 27th day, as the spring cometh so does everything new and true appeareth. 

I apologize for the prophetic tone and the theatrics, but indeed, I do think that just maybe, on 2018 April, day 21th, when this text was first published in it's original form, it predicted something interesting, and something which due to the Covid19 pandemic and the end of the boom cycle in USA and the West as such, seems to be catalyzed to a much faster extent that I could have dreamed of at that time. I do not know is this Providence, Simulation, both, or neither, but I do believe that even the mere "acting as if the transcendental is true" is effectively good, no matter the truth value of this kinds of propositions (what is belief anyway, if you don't act it out? Thank you Dr. Peterson and hope you will endure. )

But theosophy or ontology aside, this text was due to some error also updated (just nominally, nothing added) on 2019 (April 9th) and also in January, disregard that but I will leave both texts as is because of the SEO I guess. Beats me. 

I will update the text with just a few new passages from my Facebook, that are currently and sadly in Croatian (South-Slavic to be precise)

It's here now

It is here but soon it will be translated both here and on Facebook, and I do intend to do some updating on the whole post and later sending it to some interesting people who might see something in it. One of them already answered my email but probably didn't have time to actually check it out. 
We will see soon, especially since most of my correspondents are of course, in the West, in USA and other countries, ridden with this pandemic and their own incompetent government responses and institutions (but also detrimental cultural habits as opposed to the Sinosphere), how and when these people who's thinking I respect will answer.  Good luck and Fiat voluntas Dei.

SPQR

SPACE, SPACE: This 19 August, 2004 NASA Solar and Heliospheric Administration (SOHO) image shows a solar flare(R) erupting from giant sunspot 649. The powerful explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection(CME) into space, but it was directed toward Earth. AFP PHOTO/NASA (Photo credit should read HO/AFP/Getty Images)

On the World Porcupine

Or: Why does Something exist rather than Nothing?

Oneness. Duality. Multitude.

Zwei, hier kommt die Sonne
Drei, Sie ist der hellste Stern von Allen (
Rammstein – Sonne)

 Save Each Other From Togetherness  (Rammstein – Herzeleid)

 That is why, I am sure, a man once grieved that white thread should be dyed in different colors, and why another lamented that roads inevitably fork. (Yoshida Kenko – Tsurezuregusa)

El temor de separación es todo lo que une. (The fear of separation is all that unites.)( – Antonio Porchia – Voices)

 “Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand. The thing we cannot see is culture, in its intrapsychic or internal manifestation. The thing we do not understand is the chaos that gave rise to culture. If the structure of culture is disrupted, unwittingly, chaos returns. We will do anything–anything–to defend ourselves against that return.” (Jordan B. Peterson – Maps of meaning)

 Introduction

The best part of inspiration for this text-shaped piece of shit came from:

  1. Rejection (keywords: life, borderline, instability)
  2. Talking with my exes (too many)
  3. Rammstein songs (surprisingly few of them actually)

Other parts are all due to my current situation as a stranger in a strange land, complete with an insomnia (caused by benzodiazepine-withdrawal) and of course, as it usually is the case, an utter confusion with the subject matter. I need to thank to Mr. Jordan B. Peterson for most of stuff here also, and to God Almighty, amazing ex partner Petra, beautiful borderline nutcase Nila, my Mother (not related to the former), my Father, and especially the first hamster I ever owned (forgot the name at this point, but he was a good guy).

The Purpose of this is not to say anything on one matter or another, in order to inform you about anything new under The Sun, or to impart any special knowledge on you that you might already not have. All knowledge and understanding is a from of remembering what once was forgotten. In fact, its almost amazing that everything here-written (but not said) is part of our intuitive nature as a billion year old life-form, and a sentient one at that, and, to increase the stakes, a self-conscious one. The latter is the part of the problem and also the part of the solution: the mere interaction of one’s sentience with itself, that is to say, being’s sentience of its sentience (I see that I see, but I also see that I hear – what English language somewhat mystically but  very appropriately called the mind’s eye). This is the ultimate and obvious cause of all duality (animals know nothing of duality, or language, which is the same thing fundamentally) and hence the multitude as such, and in turn the Mother of all problems, questions, answers, and in fact of everything that exists in opposition to other (that is, every thing that exist, period), as Buddhist ontology firmly expounds. So, what’s the fuss all about?

Being more specific

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Of course, it is easy, simplistic but correct, to attach significance here to either Oneness (mystic traditions, some religions) or Difference (structuralism, deconstruction, Derrida) as being primal, and even venture into ethics and make them analogous to the good and evil, to healing and suffering (in English word “whole” is etymologically connected to the word heal. Obviously: to heal is to make whole again), and to billion another analogies that exist everywhere from mathematics, biology to physics , philosophy, as if reality is fundamentally fractally structured, and thus we thrive in understanding analogies. But this is for some other essay, where we could focus on Douglas Hofstadter,  my brother in enthusiasm towards analogies.

To further elaborate. The Word (Logos) that was the Beginning was a Word, only because a self-conscious mind can be even thought of having a word to say (or on itself, as we would say: on his mind – hence thinking itself was born). On the other hand, the body is, as a certain absolutely awe inspiring Japanese person called Mishima once noticed, of a completely different nature than language: and he himself questions: “How was it possible that I started to think even before I felt my existence embodied?” (Sun and Steel) . At least he made sure that the ending of his life was a bodily experience, and was beautiful. But the point here is not to trod on, on how the things are this way or another. Why? Because, in fact, they are not. As one Sutra says: things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise. We can see two (not one?) tendencies here emerging, of making differences where they seem to be none, or equivalences where there are apparently not. As one of the greatest Minds the World has ever Seen has once expounded:

“Hegel seems to me to be always wanting to say that things which look different are really the same. Whereas my interest is in showing that things which look the same are really different. I was thinking of using as a motto for my book a quotation from King Lear:I’ll teach you differences!‘. (…) ‘You’d be surprised’ wouldn’t be a bad motto either.”

Engine of Reality

The whole process of being might as well be called learning (and teaching) the differences, and yes, I also don’t know why he added that remark in the end. But as it might be already obvious, Kent’s quote from King Lear comes from asserting ones dominance over another (poor Oswald, being humiliated and pushed off the stage, to the delight of the King). But the existence as such is existence of a hierarchy – not only the one we are most used to, as in King Lear, dominance hierarchy, but also to the physical and infinite number of other hierarchies nested upon each other – from Standard model of physics to social institutions we dwell in, from biology to chemistry to psychology, from any and every self-regulating automatic system, every feedback loop which has it’s special evolutionary purpose in the service of the Whole, and so ad nauseam. The One at the end of this hierarchy, in our experience – is God, or not even to be named (道), or void as such, or Selfhood (Atman), or even equated to the notions of Good and True and Beautiful (or Truth, Path and Life?). But we also know that our self-reflective subjective experience of ourselves is in fact It itself looking in its own mirror image. The Sun as a cover picture was chosen as an appropriate expression of The Beautiful, The One, The All Giver, but we also understand that It projects its energy on another plane, penetrates the space, makes the difference itself – duality, and multitude, unfoldThere is no other thing aside of this unfolding. This other plane, the cradle of life, is the Earth, which we often endearingly call our Mother. Appropriately the Rammstein song playing while I was writing this part was „Mutter“, meaning of course Mother – which we will first think its beautiful – but at the same time we will know that it is equivalent to death as much as it is to life (going back into one’s mother) but also analogous to orgasm (la petite mort) –  I will not further elaborate on this, but it is absolutely obvious, and more than just “true” (somebody once called this types of truths as meta-truths). And as much as it, the Mother,  symbolizes empathy, we know that empathy is extremely dangerous and tragically counterproductive. So this concept is creative-destructive and our collective unfolding is creative-destructive, and the Love we feel or claim or suppose or identify as the root of All, is the all domineering all prevailing force that unites and separates everything (and every thing) . And as one Mind has once noticed, there is and cannot be nothing either good or bad about it – if Love is the cause of the action.

 

Psychology:

Borderline personality disorder & Love

But let us now be more concrete on this notion of Love. We might not yet want to talk about Love of certain quarks in relation to another (in fact we never do observe quarks in isolation, a thing called color confinement, which has nothing to do with color as you think of it, but it might have with Love), but at least in interpersonal relations – and especially in the more intense kinds  of relationships – we are finding the same mechanism of union and separation. Here comes into play what I always found the most astonishing and intense form of Love, but also the most dangerous, destructive and death craving form: the Love of a person with what is in a DSM-5 known as Borderline (emotionally unstable) personality disorder. Again, it’s almost astonishing to watch this mechanisms nested upon each other unfold in almost real-time: life-times worth of Love in what now seems to be a one brief moment – and it all comes from only one source – the fear of rejection, i.e. the intense dislike toward the idea of separation: the need for unity, but also death, melting in but also against, one another.

I had way too many of those

Okay, and the ways our societies are structured, what do they have to say about Love, in this more cosmic ontological sense of the word as we use it here? You can notice that we are jumping from one nested hierarchy to other. I might as well keep on talking about quarks and astronomy, for instance. But simplicity and clarity behooves me to stop at a  certain point.

Hedgehog’s dilemma

 

Here I will both link and quote Wikipedia, because Schopenhauer explained it better than I ever could, while at the same time his idea is uncannily analogous to what we had discussed before  (click here for Wikipedia article on this concept).

Quote from the article itself:

The concept [of Hedgehog’s dilemma] originates in the following parable from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer‘s Parerga und Paralipomena, Volume II, Chapter XXXI, Section 396:[1]

A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told—in the English phrase—to keep their distance. By this arrangement the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied; but then people do not get pricked. A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself.

When Freud went to USA in the beginning of the 20th century, he said his mission was to tame the wild hedgehogs (or porcupines). He found American society to be too unruly, almost barbaric, and in a state of feral collective unconsciousness – society was prickling one another in an unhealthy manner, both mentally and physically, especially in the long run. Of course, ultimately he failed, after his students did their part in creating Sexual revolution in the late ’60s. But here I want to use this beautiful and very well thought metaphor of Freud’s. If there was such a thing as an American porcupine in the 1920s, could we also speak about the World Porcupine, in a Hegelian sense,  Geist– kind of – and its development, especially in recent years? We might also conclude that in Freud’s times – although he thought American porcupines were wild – they were in fact in their best and tamest condition in the last 100 years. Especially if you look at the current problems Mankind is facing – here I don’t want to elaborate on them, because we all already know, nor is this the goal of this text. What I want to do, as somebody who so admires Chinese culture, their political and economical system, language and tradition – to use this knowledge and try to create an idea of a World Porcupine – and maybe even predict the way in which He will behave in the future. So let us first start with the application of Hedgehog’s dilemma in the case of Chinese, or any other sinospheric (Japan, Korea) society. We will see that Schopenhauer’s Hedgehog developed in Prussia and that it is product of liberalism and civil society par excellence, and that Chinese culture and norms use vastly different ways (and yet, quite similar) to achieve the same goal – not to get too close lest they get pierced, but also, avoiding going too far from each other.

Solution in both cases is basically analogous the the Ancient Greek concept of the “right measure” or Golden mean and in Wikipedia (that is, some textbook Wiki is quoting), its is elaborated in this very convincing fashion:

“The hedgehog’s dilemma suggests that despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm, and what results is cautious behavior and weak relationships. With the hedgehog’s dilemma, one is recommended to use moderation in affairs with others both because of self-interest, as well as out of consideration for others. The hedgehog’s dilemma is used to explain introversion and isolationism.”

Of course, this is almost impossible to accept from the BPD (borderline) perspective. It is a widely different perception of the world, it is a widely different world, period. But both are manifestation of the same fundamental ubiquitous force of Love, only quantitatively different, with the same essential (and primordial) quality. But it is also interesting to notice that this “middle way” or “golden mean” path of life was a very influential school of thought both in the East and in the West, from Seneca and Buddha, Aristotle and virtually all patriarchs of Buddhism, all  the way to Vedas and other less known scriptures and philosophies. Again, World Porcupine always seems to develop independently from one another and simultaneously, in a truly mystical way.

What does the future bring

The Chinese well mannered and distance loving Porcupine will have a peculiar confrontation with the Western much more closer together  (but hurtful, piercing) porcupine constellation. On the other hand, Western pop culture is spreading in China like wildfire in this age of social media and decentralization. Here I am an optimist – although I consider this a profoundly realistic position. It is in everyone’s best interest, it is the work of universal force of Love as we elaborated before, and after thesis, antithesis will bring about the synthesis of this two vastly different world experiences and comprehensions.

Quarks loving each other

Repetition is important

Love manifests as a driving force of Universe (which is a never ending, never beginning play between One and Many – God and Creation – Sun and Earth – Body and Language – I will stop here, but indeed, there are simply too many examples anyway ) . As we see from this analogies – there are many examples of the same process (don’t let me get into quarks again). Sociology, Ontology, Psychology, Physics, Biology: reproduction on all levels – energy, Astronomy, Mathematics. Even the apparently trivial distinction between discrete and continuum is fundamentally based in this analogy. And aporias we stumble upon if we ponder to much, they are precisely the fundamental structure of reality, because this Love is as allusive as God itself (or Laws of Nature modern physics is struggling with, or Language in it’s ambiguity, or Buddhist void in it’s inexplicable, ungraspable and allusive nature (“Turn towards the void and you shall turn It’s back“).  It all falls back to one simple principle.

https://youtu.be/0-BnfC0cuvU

Instead of conclusion

Finally, an ethical turn. What are we ought to do? What is Good?  So far it seems I have made everything reasonably clear. But as somebody who was always overly concerned about the destiny of Mankind, I still wouldn’t be able to properly answer this question – what we ought to do with us, with Mankind?  To not let it die? Why? Because I felt a little piece of me dying at the mere writing of the capitalized question “why’ in the last sentence?  Or, in one sentence, because in I personally know that I am, in essence, It manifesting itself, together with itself – and Others? I don’t know, but it sounds like a plausible enough idea for now. I have yet to see a more – for me personally – intuitive ethical idea by which to act in the world.

Everything

I would also like to just mention the Native American (I think Hopi ) myth of primordial Man and Woman creating Universe by the force of Love, via Divine Copulation:  but this myth also abounds with references to Chaos and Order: this again fits really well into the gist of this theme, especially because this oral transmitted myth is estimated to be 20-30 thousand years old. And of course, these kinds of myths are ubiquitous throughout human civilization, and prehistory, and are obvious meta-truths in which we are, as beings, immersed.  I would like to add more examples here, and I will do so as soon as I get inspiration. I have absolutely forgotten using the Nagarjuna’s doctrine of two truths (let’s say for simplicity sake – Truth from the perspective of One, and conventional truth of duality) as a sort of “solution” to our ” problem here.  But since Nagarjuna also expounds that Nirvana is Samsara, and Samsara is in turn Nirvana, my omission is hardly problematic – since this teaching is, again, as obvious as anything we ever intuitively comprehend. 

Explanations come to an end somewhere.

 What, you scoundrel, you would speak no nonsense? Go ahead and speak nonsense – it doesn’t matter! (Holy Augustine)

 

lā ʾilāha ʾillā llāh

The End

Kanye & Peterson i zeitgeist suvremenog kapitalizma – Part 1#

Ovdje ću analizirati jednu sad već malo stariju Kanyeovu pjesmu, ali u duhu trenutačnog globalnog duha vremena te u analogiji sa stavovima Jordana B. Petersona. Pjesma je “New slaves” – a suštinu iste je stvarno teško sažeti, pa ću tu stati sa opisivanjem. Koristiti ću dva Youtube linka, jedan live nastup, drugi studio version. Tekst pjesme je cijeli u ovom postu (seciran, ali vjerujem dovoljno pregledno).  Počnimo:

My momma was raised in the era when
Clean water was only served to the fairer skin
Doing clothes you would have thought I had help
But they wasn’t satisfied unless I picked the cotton myself

Referenca na (preminulu) majku, ropstvo, pamuk, boju kože – sve uobičajeno lijevom diskursu. U pozadini live nastupa se vrte reklame, konzumeristički ethos u nekoliko brzih frejmova, uskoro ćemo vidjeti zašto. Ništa novo, idemo dalje:

You see it’s broke nigga racism
That’s that “Don’t touch anything in the store”
And this rich nigga racism
That’s that “Come in, please buy more
What you want, a Bentley? Fur coat? A diamond chain?
All you blacks want all the same things”

Ok, dakle posotje dvije vrste rasizma. Ovdje već vidimo malo nijansiraniju sliku stvarnosti, onako kako bi iz neke nepristrane perspektive i trebalo biti. Ovdje je Kanye puno sličniji Petersonu nego bilo BLM pokretu, markistima, bilo cijelom desnom dijelu političkog spektra. Naprosto – zbori istinu, govori ono što osjeća da je preslika stvarnosti – Istina. A to je, morati ćemo prihvatiti, najviša vrijednost.

Used to only be niggas now everybody playing
Spending everything on Alexander Wang
New Slaves

Malo detaljnije:

  • Broke nigga racism – vjerojatno će ukrasti nešto.
  • Rich nigga  racism – dođi opet, kupi još!  Luksuzni auti, bling, $50,000 obleka – ma neka. “All you blacks want all the same things“.

“Use to only be niggers, now everybody playing” 

Ovo je isto vrlo slojevit stih. Naime,  jako je zanimljivo pratiti kako se jezik i nomenklatura mijenja kroz povijest, te kako istovremeno politička korektnost raste i dobija na značaju. Prije su bili crnčuge, pa su postali obojani, pa je prešlo na “crnac“, a danas je POC (“person of color“) najbolji politički korektni termin, općeprihvaćen od liberalne lijevice, i to za sve afro-amerikance  ali i za sve druge manjine.  Dakle: now everybody playing. Ne treba puno objašnjavati zašto je društveni fenomen Jordana Petersona (kao zakletog protivnika PC kulture) ovdje u neočekivanoj ali očitoj harmoniji sa Kanyeovim stihovima.

Ono što slijedi je dakle hook pjesme, onaj najbitniji dio koji bi trebao izraziti poantu pjesme, u ovom slučaju suštinu društvene situacije čovječanstva te Kanyeov osjećaj prema istoj:

“You see there’s leaders and there’s followers
But I’d rather be a dick than a swallower”

Ne znam što više dodati ovdje – Kanye West ovdje prihvaća društvenu hijerarhiju (naspurot markističkoj ideji “klasnog konflikta” te egalitarizma) – i jasno odabire svoje mjesto u njoj. Kao netko sa net worthom od 150 milijuna USD, donekle je razumljivo. Opet, ako sličnost sa Petersonovom slikom društvene stvarnosti nije očita, onda vam ne mogu više pomoći. Explanations come to an end somewhere (Ludwing Wittgenstein).

I throw these Maybach keys
I wear my heart on the sleeve
I know that we the new slaves
I see the blood on the leaves
I see the blood on the leaves
I see the blood on the leaves
I know that we the new slaves
I see the blood on the leaves
They throwing hate at me
Want me to stay at ease
Fuck you and your corporation
Y’all niggas can’t control me
I know that we the new slaves
I know that we the new slaves

Ok, ovdje smo došli do lijepog libertarijanskog i radikalno individualističkog dijela. Koliko god Kanye bio bogat u utjecajan, on je ništa naspram nekog milijardera, a još manje naspram korporacija koje imaju tržišnu kapitalizaciju oko 3000 puta veću od njegovog cijelog bogatstva.

Što to zapravo znači? Koji vrag je moć individue u društvu u kojem jedna koropracija vrijedi više nego  pet (5) BDP-a  Republike Hrvatske, i što on može pred takvim Golijaotm? Ovo je stara tema, koja je u zadnjih 10 godina opet, i to s pravom, dobila zamaha. Radi se o pro-tržištnom anti-korporatizmu, ili kako je izraženo u ovom izvrsnom članku “free market anticapitalism.” Ovo je zanimljiv twist u pro-kapitalističkom narativu, jer je s jedne strane potpuno u skladu s onim što ljevičari zahtjevaju (i jako ih zbunjuje, vjerujte mi na riječ 😀 ),  dok je i dalje individualistički i libertarijanski.  No što je to toliko loše sa velikim korporacijama?

 

 

“Small businesses are the backboone of the economy”   

U ovom dijelu ne namjeravam prepričavati gornji video – ali ga toplo preporučam bilo kojem još-uvijek skeptičnom čitatelju. Poanta je – prostor za djelovanje malim i srednjim poduzećima se s vremenom sve više skraćuje,  M&A je u boomu (što se događa i  u Kini), posljedično njihova moć lobiranja (ali i karteliziranja, monopoliziranja) raste, dok se u relativnom smislu moć našeg Kanyea i dalje smanjuje, koliko god nam je njegovo bogatstvo teško pojmiti.

U drugom dijelu ćemo vidjeti što je to toliko bitno u malim i srednjim poduzećima, na primjeru Njemačke, te nastaviti analizirati Kanyeove, Petersonove i ine stavove u duhu vremena u kojem nastaju.

Za kraj studijska verzija, puno bolje zvuči. 🙂

 

Stay tuned.

 

Predivna slika

O ideologiji, zlu, i ljudskoj prirodi

Ovaj tekst neprirodan je brak teksta kojeg sam počeo pisati prije nekoliko mjeseci, sa sadašnjim tokom misli, pa će u tom smislu ponekad zvučati anakrono ili zastarjelo, ali i neuredno i nezgrapno. Potruditi ću se prilagoditi ga u tom smislu, dakle u duhu sadašnjih zbivanja, ali ionako nema ničeg novog pod Suncem, rekao je netko mudriji od mene. Volim skakati sam sebi u usta.

 Za početak nekoliko buzzwordova i/ili ključnih rijeci da tema bude jasnija: echo-chamber, liberalizam, totalitarizam, ljudska priroda (te evolucijske reperkusije na istu), Platon. Već iz samog ovog kratkog nabrajanja je jasno da je ovo tema psihologije, biologije, sociologije, politike, jednako koliko i filozofije i religije – gotovo da ne postoji područje ljudskog istraživanja i razumijevanja svijeta koje se na ovaj ili onaj način ne bavi ovom temom. Utoliko sam zagrizao puno vise nego sto mogu pojesti (volim kalkove), ali kao opaki filosofski mamojebač neću odustati. Boriti ćemo se s jezikom, i nadam se da ćemo u potencijalnom dijalogu doci do nekakvih zaključaka. To je ujedno i poanta teksta, ali sve u svoje vrijeme.

Cini se uzavrela situacija trenutačno u hrvatskom društvu. Jučer su javno zapalili Novosti. Općenito sam apsolutno protiv Novosti, ali i protiv javnog paljenja fizičke manifestacije ljudske misli i ideja. Nešto je fundamentalno barbarski (ne samo anti-liberalno) u samom činu; i onda opet, Novosti su glasilo srpske manjine koje je oteto od umrežene klike politike i onog najljigavijeg od hrvatskog novinarstva (popularno i opravdano znanog kao dnovinarstvo. Nemojte biti dnovinari, molim Vas. Ubijajte mačiće, tucite beskućnike, samo nemojte biti dnovinari).

Ali ovaj tekst nije o Novostima niti o hrvatskoj dnevnoj politici. Ono sto meni prvo upada u oči, valjda zbog sociološkog obrazovanja (hvala FFZG) i općenito ljubavi prema analogijama, jest nevjerojatna analognost društvenih pojava u RH, s onima u svijetu, globalnom društvu takoreći. Ovdje valjda otkrivam toplu vodu, ali bear with me. Istovremeno dok su nasi dnovinari pisali moralni šrot, a njihovi konzervativni partneri u plesu palili njihov opus, dogodio se i Charlottesville, i netko je nekog ubio jer je eto, to valjda postalo normalno. Autom se on zaletio, kao da ga je ISIS inspirirao, i tu ironiju je jednako lako primijetiti koliko ju je teško ignorirati. Ali ovdje neću previse ni o kripto-fasitima ni o SJW-ovima, koju su upravo jednaki partneri u plesu kao spomenuti tradicionalistički piromani i dnovniari, nego bih vise pozornosti volio posvetiti echo-chamberima i trenutačnoj društvenoj situaciji temeljnog nerazumijevanja tuđeg poimanja svijeta, potpunog izostanka društvenog dijaloga, a ovo potonje je čini mi se ključno. Dijalog je, napisao sam u uvodu u ovu stranicu jučer, primarna i glavna forma filosofije. Zašto sad najednom filozofija? Ovako:

Mala povijesno-filozofska digresija: kada filozofi, suvremeni (Žižek, Despot, Badiou), ali i oni od prije (Heidegger, Hegel, Platon), kažu, da nama (društvu!) treba više filozofije (preferiram “s” ipak), onda, da je ovo jedna od stvari na koju misle, barem meni je, sasvim validna interpretacija. Sokrat je osuđen na kvarenje mladeži. O tome je moj dragi internetski prijatelj Davor Katunarić lijepo objavio blog post kojeg Vam toplo preporučam, evo i mali izvadak, dakle autor je Alain Badiou:

Sokrat, kako ga vidi Platon, eksplicitno osuđuje korumpiranu prirodu moći. Moć je ono što kvari, a ne filosof. U Platonovom djelu nalazimo nemilosrdnu kritiku tiranije, žudnje za moći, koju nije moguće poboljšati i na neki je način konačna riječ o toj temi…. Tema filosofije je pravi život.

Tema filosofije je pravi život. Ovo ćemo analogno primijeniti u ovom tekstu, ali se ovdje ipak neću baviti pravim životom, koliko pravim su-životom (društvom, a ne toliko individuom, te prirodom zla). Ali to dvoje nije odvojivo – samo naglašavam kontrast Badiouovog teksta, s ovim iz mojeg pomalo zbrkanog, pera. (Nadalje, Badiou šalje poruku mladima, dok ja pišem tok misli o društvu i njegovoj bolesti, a poruka je upućena svima, bez iznimke).

Da se vratimo ipak na gornji izvadak: Platon osuđuje korumpiranu prirodu moći. Za nekoga tko je htio da filosofi budu vladari, zanimljiva je ovo situacija. Ali, ovdje bih ipak stavio naglasak na predivno suglasje ovakve interpretacije Platona s klasičnim liberalizmom, odnosno radikalnim centrizmom, kako ga je Davor Huić (kojeg izuzetno cijenim) nedavno prekrstio. Ovdje su Platon, Huić, Katunarić, i Jordan Peterson (moram namedropat, ne mogu si pomoći) na istoj, po meni suštinski mudroj, strani. Ovdje je centrizam, kako ga i Liberal.hr unatoč nazadnosti hrvatskog društva (ili upravo zbog iste) promiče, jedino i istinsko rješenje problema ljudskog suživota. Uistinu, povijest, i ekonomski progres čovječanstva, pa i sam kapitalizam koji ga je direktno i nedvojbeno uzrokovao – svi ti fenomeni jasno pokazuju koja i kakva društva prosperiraju, a koja stagniraju odnosno propadaju (to je istoznačno). Ali ne radi se ovdje samo o pojedinačnim društvima (razvijenom Zapadu, NR Kini i cijeloj sinosferi, Japan, J. Koreja), nego o upravo neprikosnovenom napretku ljudske vrste i civilizacije u cjelini. Hegel, da je živ, bi klicao od sreće. Možda ga je Fukuyama dobro inkarnirao, ali ne bih u te detalje u ovom trenutku. Valja ipak spomenuti kratko, ali lijepo objašnjenje Hegela, citirano sa srpsko-hrvatske Wikipedije, zajedno i s citatom samog Hegela:

U analizi države Hegel je pokazao kako svjetska povijest ostvaruje svoj razvoj u napredovanju u svijesti o slobodi: u istočnjaka samo je jedan slobodan (Car,  天子, Sin Neba op. franjo) ; u Grka slobodni su mnogi, ali još uvijek ne čovjek kao takav (zato imaju robove);

tek su germanske nacije u kršćanstvu došle do svijesti da je čovjek kao čovjek slobodan.” (G.W.F. Hegel)

Ovdje imamo i meni osobno predivnu analogiju kršćanstva i liberalizma, i to je već moj dragi prijatelj Ivan Čović izvrsno objasnio, citatima iz Novog Zavjeta odnosno evanđelja, u svom prvom članku na Liberal.hrIsus Krist liberal? Ovi citati iz Biblije to potvrđuju

Nietzsche je također, iako je žestoko kritizirao kršćanstvo, dobro primijetio da je upravo kranski duh introspekcije i skolastike, disciplinirao Europu tj. Zapad, te, ovo je moj dodatak: doprinio razvoju filozofije i ljudskog društva – kapitalizma, moderne znanosti – svega. (Jordan Peterson to objašnjava nekakvom vrstom duhovne samodiscipline – ovdje bi mogli i o Weberu, protestantizmu i kapitalizmu, ali mislim da ovaj tekst ima već sasvim dovoljno digresija za prosječnog čitatelja).

Za kraj bih cijelu ovu priču povezao s drugom ključnom idejom ovog teksta. Prva je, znam da je umoran čitatelj već zaboravio, dijalog. Druga, koje se nisam dotakao osim implicitno filozofirajući o društvu, ljudska priroda. Ovdje ću biti vrlo kratak i eksplicitan. Čovjek je fundamentalno pokvaren. Mogu li reci zao? Možda. Naime, zao u određenim situacijama – u datim okolnostima, svatko je stražar u koncentracijskom logoru (ovo je parafraza Petersona). Ne moram tu ni spominjati Stanford eksperiment. Kloniti ću se i evolucijske psihologije, ali moram naglasiti da je ona bitan dio ove slagalice. Dovoljno je reci da je po nekima sama evolucija jezika (kao sredstva komunikacije, ali i laganja) i viših kognitivnih sposobnosti (apstraktno razmišljanje, samosvijest) uzrokovana potrebom za dominacijom. Na kraju krajeva, čovjek je apex predator, to jest predator koji nema ni jednog drugog predatora – top of the food chain. Jednako kao sto je kršćanstvo, ali i gotovo svaka druga religija, ali nikad s istim naglaskom kao kršćanstvo, prepoznalo ovu veliku istinu, u svojoj ideji istočnog grijeha, te inherentne grešne prirode svakog pojedinca. Samo želim citirati sto je Solzhenitsyn, koji je preživio Gulag i najgoru torturu, napisao:

 

Da barem postoje zli ljudi, na odredenom mjestu, podmuklo cineci zla djela, pa bi samo bilo potrebno odvojiti ih od nas ostalih, i unistiti ih. Ali linija koja dijeli dobro i zlo reze ravno kroz srce svakog ljudskog bica. A tko je spreman unistiti dio vlastitog srca? (Aleksandar Solženjicin, Arhipelag Gulag)

Leva ruko, čuvaj se. Desna, tvoja sestra, drži nož. (Dobrica Ćosić)

To je uglavnom to. Problem ideologije, SJW-a, fašista, i komunista, je ta ideja da će zle ljude pronaći, locirati, i neutralizirati na manje ili vise brutalan način. Nije veliki skok od SJW-evskog “punch a Nazi” do sjevernokorejske ideologije po kojoj su 20% (možda vise, zaboravih) vlastite populacije reakcionari koje treba odvojiti (poslati u radne logore jednom za svagda, ili smaknuti, zajedno sa cijelim njihovim obiteljima). Problem ideologije, problem je moralnog apsolutizma te temeljnog nerazumijevanja ljudske prirode. Utoliko bih ovaj članak htio završiti citatom iz pjesme benda System of a down, koji se ponavlja tijekom pjesme prikladno poput mantre:

 

Don’t you

realize

that evil

lives in the motherfucking skin?

 

Koji je lijek? Mislim da sam rekao dovoljno puta, ali nekako se volim ponavljati. Centrizam. Klasični liberalizam. Dijalog. Filosofija. U suštini su ista stvar, a drugog lijeka naprosto – nema.

EDIT:

Zaboravih spomenuti kljucnu ideju, u zlu, gdje onaj tko čini zlo prisvaja za sebe ulogu žrtve. Hitler je bio žrtva Židova (o njima eksplicitno priča kao virusu ili bakteriji koja izjeda zdravo tijelo njemačke nacije), muslimani su žrtve Židova, Amerikanaca. General Mladić je navodno bio opsjednut tom psihozom viktimizacije srpskog naroda. Hrvatski nacionalisti i nasi ratni zločini jednako su “opravdani” time sto smo eto – žrtve. Povijest poznaje i nekoliko primjera gdje se ogromni zločini i masakri događaju i bez tog prisvajanja uloge žrtve (pada mi na pamet sino-japanski ratovi i Nanjing masakr), ali to su iznimke koje potvrđuju pravilo. I danas Kinezi, kao istinske žrtve, suštinski mrze Japance – tu još valja vidjeti kako se geopolitička situacija razviti.

Ovoj ideji također treba dodati – to jest dodatno ju pojasniti, sto Jordan Peterson često radi – da je ovdje protivnik, tj. neprijatelj žrtve, u stvari interpretiran kao predator. Ne samo interpretiran, shvaćen, nego na najdubljoj razini doživljen – kao predator. Nakon stotina milijuna godina evolucije, ovo je naprosto puno bitniji dio ljudske prirode od onog sto bi društveni konstruktivisti htjeli (naime, da je ljudska priroda apsolutno fleksibilna i promjenjiva). Sapienti sat.

 

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