Being & Culture

Politics and Pretense

Politics, pretense

Today I was asked about politics, power, and justice. "How does it look with ONT?"

Interpreted very loosely and using common terminology, I suggested that left-wing politics focuses on "mind over matter" strategies and right-wing politics focuses on "matter over mind" strategies.

This is interesting in and of itself. But now, what of emotion? Few would displute that mind, matter, and emotion are inextricably linked -- somehow.

What the dominant political factions have in common is that both function (and fuel their mutual struggle) by  pretending that emotion is not at play. I'm going to write that sentence one more time and put it in bold so you are sure to pay close attention. 

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Me Think’st Thyself Trivial: deconstructing the corrupt spirit

“Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak when power to flattery bows? To plainness honor’s bound when majesty falls to folly.”

-- from Shakespeare's King Lear

Corruption is a scourge, and all kinds of systems are vulnerable to it. Why? Is it something insidious about human nature? If so, is it an inevitable state for every individual?

Corruption is not a moral failing but rather a shared vulnerability. When the human spirit does not develop immunity to mental triviality, the systems it creates or is obliged to respond to get fueled not by the fullness of reality but by the power of terminal belief streams. What do I mean by that?

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Cowgirl Science — It’s a ramble

Super-Compliance Mob?

I’m flummoxed at the idea of a science march on Washington, DC. The first ever is slated for April 22, 2017. The theme seems to be equally climate change and the promises of science. Scientists, especially the young, are itching to show their moxy. Forget waiting for make-believe super-heros to save the planet. It’s time for Super-Compliance Mob to do the job.

Scientists achieve a position the hard way — they prove it, and then recruit others to take heed. And generally, there are sufficient reinforcements for said proofs and positions, and science and the policies it informs march forward in a sort of intangible but traceable provisphere.

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Nobel Prize in Useful Paradoxes, or why paradoxes exist

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences delivered a zinger of a paradox. People’s behavior is predictably irrational. The wisdom that springs from it is known as behavioral economics and aims to systematize people’s actual behaviors rather than preconceived, idealized behaviors.

It’s proven useful for economics (thus the prize), and yet it’s counterintuitive (thus the prize).

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