logicp_writings/new/geniuses.md

---

title: genius date: 2020-06-27 17:40:00 tags:

• politics
• academics
• intersectionality
• social justice ---

Geniuses

Definitions

People are talking about taking the right position on race issues.

Beyond that, not simply about race, but even just about justice and fairness. Things that are not being defined, and that we are assumed to all have the same definition for to begin with. Of course that's nonsense, as people never agree on the definitions of things, and are probably beholding more disparate definitions of the same term than ever before.

What one person considers just might be considered criminal by another.

Failing to enforce a standard definition for terms before permissing their use, without criticism, or even requiring the use of specific terms and refusing any cooperative discussion until one's interlocutor accepts the use of those specific terms (even if such a discussion is merely about the standard for a discussion) is both infantile and warlike. It demonstrates clear intransigence and an intent for absolute dominance in all aspects of the interaction. This doesn't mean that we can have a shared understanding, or develop some form of progressive mode of traversing a problem. The only progress, in their eyes, is to be in sole control of the parameters, to dictate their values, and to enforce an adherence to a declared outcome of their choosing. This is intolerance.

This is a moral failure, an intellectual failure, and plain cowardice.

Cheap values

We see this time and time again with intellectuals, the ivory tower elite. In almost every case, they previously held values of liberal democracy and secularism, as these had been espoused through mediums with greater rigor than that which they contend with today, and that they have become intellectuals today necessitates their having traversed a field of development whose mode of operation was predicated on them. This is likely the case, because without having employed such values, they wouldn't have been privy to a process which would have allowed them to become the intellectual elite, unless closely related to a feudal lord, monarch, or other form of dictator.

These values included equality of opportunity, equality before the law, due process and respect for private property. That they were able to flourish and enjoy the blossoming their way of life to a point where they could have such aspirations, such broad pursuits, which do not require the immediate construction of market offerings which can be utilized for a direct material application, but are able to consider sociological matters and governance is a great achievement for mankind. That they were able to focus their thought on making recommendations for calibrating particular modes of being and ways of living by the populace as a whole, in order to yield some outcome whose predictions are most heavily abstracted, especially in comparison with any other means of empiricism that we also take seriously, is an astonishing accomplishment which would never have been possible without the use of those aforementioned values.

These are things which we all inherently agreed with, at least at one point in time, because we've all felt the effects of these values being transgressed, when someone takes control of your property without your permission, defaces it, and so forth.

We've all been that child on the playground who had their toys stolen, sand kicked in their face, and both physically and psychologically violated. Admit it, you cried like a pitiful little worm.

Lack of agency

We've come to a new overpass, and people are deciding not to make decisions, to just sit back and let the narrative take over, and to assume that they can infer, from the news media, or their politicians, or their echochamber of whatever sort it happens to be, which side is the correct one for them to be taking. Since this is heavily influenced by media and corporations, as always (and perhaps now more so than ever, if not by sheer technology alone, prevailing ideologies not withstanding), it becomes increasingly difficult to take a stand.

If you are an academic, or better yet, a prestigious one, then you need to contend with the fact that your academic institutions are playing the same tune as the news media, the corporations, your political elite, the celebrities, and on and on and on. There's no other way to describe it - there is unanimity among all of these representatives, and I call them representatives because they establish a consensus and ensure, increasingly more than ever, that those who speak publicly are disseminating this well delinated range of consensus, at least in terms of general concepts, as the demarcated lines are always moving. To fall outside of it brings about more criticism than remembered, at least since the cold war, and the criticism is increasingly more damning, having taken on an arguably religious form.

Intentions

Intentions, are what can be inferred, or even ignored. That is to say, we have seen a normalization of the concept that proven intentions are inadmissible. That intentions could be proven is not important, it is more or less important to infer them based on outcome, or to do away with the notion of intentions completely and only look at the outcome, or proposition as to what the real outcome was, and asserting that the more serious of a nature, as is demonstrated by the degree of oppression upon which the proposed outcome was to have been inflicted, and deducing the gravety of the gesture. That the group whom was infringed was particularly more oppressed, by societies current accepted consensus, necessarily allows us to impose the understanding of whether or not intent is to be considered, and if it is, to intolerantly demand that the intent is read based to have been as severe and malicious, as it corresponds to the degree to which the group is oppressed.

This means that all aspects of justice, such as due process, standard for evidence in criminality, and so forth, are all fair game for having their standards reevalutaed or, in some cases, ignored. If intentions don't matter, and only the the end result, or the opinions of those who observe the result, then we don't really need to respect anyone's individual rights.

Outcomes

It is assumed that what we need most is a conceptual model as to the most desirable, quantifiably verifiable distribution pattern, and proposed strategy as to how we, as a society, have already agreed it should be achieved, and whether or not one's particular actions contribute can be understood to have been congruent to that strategy. Is your net contribution observed to push towards that ideal distribution pattern? The pattern which has been agreed upon, by consensus, to be the correct one? Your own proclamation of intent is not to be evaluated in your case, as it can be inferred based from the action in question in terms of its transformative effect on the corresponding distribution pattern.

That you might resist accepting the explanation of your intention, or the effects, which must be considered supreme over your own proclamations, is not only ignorance to the facts of your actual congruence to morality, but the mere predisposition towards this resistance is an admission of guilt, and should be consequently treated as evidence that you are working against justice.

This frame of mind in viewing the discourse is becoming more prevalent and, as it does, the potential for bloodshed and injustice at the individual level increases. This is necessarily so, as there's no way to remove the consideration of specific intentions in specific circumstances without also dehumanizing. As it is the communication and understanding of individual actions and their motives which allows us to contend the reality that we share a space with humans without sharing the same experience.

Experience

Most would agree that as we exist, observe and act, and that this constitutes what we refer to as an experience. That this occurs at the most direct interface of human existence suggests that it would be reasonable for a human to believe that it is real. That the experience is real, or worth having, also means that we need to consider that other beings have some form of experience, analogous to our own. An experience that can be reasonably considered as equal in the sense that it is real, and thus valid enough to be given attention and to considered as the prime frame through which that individual is operating, and thus necessarily to be considered when deducing moral observations from their conduct.

If one is operating without having an experience, without perception, then of course it would make sense to only expect the outcomes matter, at which point we can ignore that the person is an individual.

Humanity

That they aren't a being with an experience, but are just part of that distribution pattern, and are either correct or incorrect depending on how the behaviours arising from their existence affect the distribution pattern, means that we can employ an antihuman, or inhuman, mode of analysis which is necessarily antithetical to the valuing of human lives.

Given that all this discussion of morality and justice is had on the basis of preserving human lives, or valuing them, it is quite suggestive of that there is currently a calamity of mindless and poisonous ideas which have percolated and become apparent in all aspects of society.

Alas, this is our challenge. This is what we must be making sense of and working steadfastly to correct and reveal in the most objectively receivable light. We need to uphold the notion that humans might value an objective truth which is universal and possible to be understood by one another based on logic itself, and not the institutional narrative's consensus as to the list of core principles, or list of effects, which are agreed to correspond with the tribe to which one has been ascribed.

Clever intellectuals

What is the right way to be thinking about problems of injustice and inequity? (And are those terms interchangeable?)

Academics and faux intellectuals who espouse that "certainly, there may be many factors, given that that there are inequities, and that we can propose immutable characteristics that can be observed in humans, and that these characterstics link them to humans who are agreed upon to have historically experienced an injustice, or suffered the effects of injustice, given these things, we have sufficient reason to assume that if any of the inequities currently observed follow a pattern which corresponds to the people sharing those immutable characteristics who did experience injustices, this is evidence that these inequities are caused today by the same injustices, and that since those who suffer today are suffering because of these injustices, those who were guilty in the conduct of the historical injustices, can be linked to any who share their immutable characteristics.

There is, therefore, only one way to talk about these inequities. To assume that injustice has occurred, against them, and that the cause of the injustice must be others, and that justice must be served. To discuss this in another way would be facile and incomplete. Always, the immutable characteristics should be considered to take primacy in all of related deliberations, and thus the characteristics need to be considered in both the guilty and the innocent. The oppressor and the oppressed. The moral and the depraved.

Any suggestion that a multivariate analysis which might lessen these veils of consideration is, in a sense, less intellectually astute, more facile, more simple. Too simple, and for the simple minded.

It is of course not more simple to be considering a greater variety of angles and variables which can affect the whole. And though the case might be made that Critical Theory does this, it actually does the opposite since it enforces an ordering of variables which always put immutable characteristics at the top of the list. Whether this be in the form of intersectionality, of radical black feminism, the group membership in these specific "domains of study", though Marxist, move beyond simple class and necessarily include genetically heritable traits.

Why do academics fall victim for this? One suggestion is that this mode of thinking requires a sacrifice off some kind, and this might make it seem more intellectually astute.

Sacrifice

Something must be sacrificed for the good of all, because it makes sense that in order to make progress of any kind, a sacrifice is always made. Whether your personal productivity, at the expense of free time, or something even more costly, such as reputation and lives, we're basically saying that, as we agree that a sacrifice is being made, we are so making a sacrifice. This is both a moral act, and an intellectually mediated decision in the sense that we are choosing a morally compelling outcome which fulfills greater obligations than any one individual, as we believe that the plight of humanity is greater than ourselves.

It's still nonsense, though, because there's no reason to think that your way of thinking, which supposes that a sacrifice is being made, is even causing you to make any sort of sacrifice at all.

You might be delegating the sacrifice to other people who sort of relate to your group, or are defined, in some superficial way, as being in your group. Through their sacrifice, you are performing a sacrifice of yourself, and that raises your moral standing.

This is an idiotic way of thinking. To believe that people can raise their moral standing, with no real clear expense to themselves, and also claim that those who work against it are working against morality and the seeking of justice.

Privilege

Alas, this is how academics have been taught, because they already have a place of privilege, and that they may or may not deserve it is not even important. That they have this position means they must do things which demonstrate, or at least symbolize, their being deserving of that position, and its power. How wonderful this great moral good is. What would these moral busybodies be doing otherwise, instead of naming evil and making the world a better place? They might otherwise be doing something less useful, like creating implements for the world in the form of edificies. Yes, they choose to create the new world through the justice of destroying other people's edifices, based on what symbols they've been ascribed to, and how this can be measured while regarding the current trends and values of today.

How astute. Brilliant. Surely to hold this view necessarily means one is a genius. To be such a genius that you might be able to always take the most commonly held position, both among intelligentsia, and the proles who are mostly programmed through mindless entertainment.

It fits together most elegantly.