A paragraph

If we were to paint this as a picture, we would get a diagram of alienated subjects. Which, to be blunt, is the opposite of the actualized subjects our syllabi talk about. Modernity is present, and we are far from the idyllic democratic world the Ancients are depicted as living in. It's a fractal picture of the present, and it contains the opposite of the traditional dot that proclaims "you are here". We are not there, but are nevertheless expected to be.

A philosophical point

Texts can be organized in two ways. The first way gradually builds up to a conclusion, each step leading to the next in a logical progression. As an argument is made, the text points back to it and says “thus”. The next argument is then made, and the text points back to it and says “thus”.

This is a way of pointing at the logic of things. The text works if and only if it is internally coherent, and the appointed arguments follow from each other. If a, then b, then c. Tendency is discouraged.

The second way is what we might call externally coherent. It points first to this thing, then to that thing, then to a third thing, and then to some sort of conclusion or imperative. The difference being that these things can be anything, without apparent connections to each other. The argument is not made by the things themselves, but in the order and way of their presentation.

This might seem counterintuitive, but an example should clear up any confusion: look at the nice weather outside (point one), remember that time we went on a picnic and had a wonderful time (point two), you always bury yourself in words this time of year and need to be cheered up (point three), let's go picnic (argument/imperative).

As philosophers are wont to point out, most actual arguments found in the world follow the second path. Whilst pointing this out, they usually make sure to also point out that the philosophical way of explicating each step of the way is better than to wantonly go on picnics. You never know what you might get yourself into otherwise, and then you're none the wiser.

Thing is. There's an economy to human communication, and humans can only summon so much mental effort before they deem something incomprehensible. No matter how logical the progression. This makes it imperative to know the most expedient route from point a to point b, and how to mobilize someone's imagination into a shared understanding of this route. That is to say, what to point at in order to mobilize the inherent understanding already present in those reading.

A blunt example would be someone shouting FIRE in a crowded building. Whilst the inherent premise of the danger of a fire spreading in a crowded space remains unstated, it is nevertheless effective in mobilizing the knowledge of such dangers. It moves about, rhizomatically enthymemic.

The proper lesson here is to listen carefully to those talking about fire safety procedures.

As a writer, what you want to take away from this is that most things do not need to be explained in order to be understood. You can safely assume that they know that the sky is blue, and that you can point to it in order to ground what you are saying. You can also safely assume that they know the general correlation of water and wetness, and that the specifics doesn't matter when you point out that it's a rainy day. You know, they know, and this mutual understanding is a firm basis for future communication. It is up to your text to act on it.

Let the philosophers play their word games. They know too well that the things we understand need to be explained, rather than the other way around. -

Rant on privilege bubbles

Privilege is not having to deal with shit.

This is a radical and comprehensive way of defining it. Radical in that it goes to the root of the matter, and comprehensive in that it can be applied across the board. No matter how privileged you are, there's always someone else who doesn't have to deal with the shit you have to deal with, and thus they are more privileged than you. In the grand scheme of things, there's always a bigger fish.

Thing is. The human condition is dealing with shit. Both literally and figuratively. There's always uncomfortable things to be done, and the more you are called upon to deal with it, the less privileged you are.

Which makes sense intuitively. Some people never catch a break, and always have to deal. They have to constantly struggle to fulfill even the most basic of life demands, and when they try to go home after a hard day of Maslowing they remember that they do not have a home, and have to deal with being outside all night. Or seek fleeting refuge in warm places where they are not welcome, but that are sometimes less guarded than usual.

Some temporary heat is better than no heat at all, given enough cold.

In reverse, some people have dealt so little with it that it literally never crosses their mind that they might have to. Or that others have to on a daily basis. It is so completely removed from their minds that they, for all intents and purposes, live in another world. Not having to deal with it is the same thing as not knowing about it, as knowledge is gained from the experience of dealing. No experience, no knowledge.

Approaching privilege from this angle, the notion of a privilege bubble is completely understandable. That is to say, privileged lives are so shielded from the experience of having to deal with certain aspects of human suffering that they are free to devote themselves to arcane and frivolous things. All that energy that otherwise would have been spent on avoiding cold and hunger are channeled into concept interior decoration, and suddenly it makes sense to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on creating the perfect kitchen/living room experience. Inside the bubble, priorities are free to roam in the darnedest directions.

Which is not to say that those inside the bubble do not have to deal. But they have to deal with different things. The bursting of the housing bubble and the rampant foreclosures following it is a brutal example of this; the rampant tendency of working oneself to death in order to afford said kitchen/living room experience is another. Which doesn't lessen the effect of living inside the bubble - it only points to the fact that there are those who do not have to deal with those things.

Which, to be sure, makes the male experience privileged by default, no matter how poor it might be. No matter how dire and hungry the straits, it's a plus to not have to deal with being constantly sexually harassed on top of everything else. And if you do not understand what this means, then that is an imperative to checking your privilege bubble - no experience, no knowledge, and so forth.

The universal human condition is to worry about things, and taking measures to alleviate this worry. Being in a privilege bubble does not change this - it only changes what you worry about. Some worry about starving to death, and take measures to find food, so be it if it happens to be out of a trashcan. Others worry about not being seen as a worthy member of their social group, and invest millions in a yacht just to be one of the crowd. The impulse is the same, but the measures taken to deal with it differ brutally. And the means available to do so.

Do not mistake this rant as a plea for sympathy for the privileged. There are plenty of privileged people who know so little about those without that they literally wish they'd just die and disappear - for real, and not just in their lived experience. This needs to be called out and acted upon. Understanding is not automagically the same as sympathy, though, and understanding privilege bubbles is the first step towards dismantling them in a way that actually works.

Or towards getting out of them, as the case might be. -

Why is school a traumatic experience?

We've all gone to school. It doesn't matter which class we happen to belong to - working class, upper class, struggling remnants of what used to be the middle class. We all went there.

And we all have stories to tell therefrom. Good, bad, indifferent.

The biggest argument in favor of public schooling is that society needs a common fount of shared experience to cohere. Which, in a sense, is true. But it does point towards the question of what these poor pupils really get to learn during these experiences - especially as the notion of them getting their own personal experiences is frowned upon during the process. Johnny can't read, and thus he's not allowed to do anything else until he can.

You learn things in school, and not only those who are specified in the curriculum. Even more effectively, you learn things that are not in the books, by the very design of the school as an institution. Things such as the inevitable ordinariness of rising and shining in the early morn to be punctual and on time yet another ordinary day.

Now, there's nothing in the act of educating children that demands that things begin in the morning hours. The school day could just as well begin at noon without loss of utilized learning potential. But it simply would not do to have a generation of kids who weren't disciplined to rise in time for business hours.

The kids also have to get used to other things. Such as constantly being interrupted. Most brutally through the schedule, where the day is segmented into predetermined blocks of arbitrary content. As soon as one activity is initiated, the bell rings and it is time to go to the next block, which may or may not have any relation to those previous. Which hampers the learning of those interested and uninterested both - those interested are interrupted in their learning, and those uninterested won't have enough time to become interested.

They learn to ramble aimlessly between arbitrary activities, and to indifferently obey the arbitrary instructions given. Without any note of their interests.

Moreover, they learn to be constantly surveilled. Not only by their teachers, whose stated functions are to be present and vigilant, but also by virtue of the records. Everyone present is noted, those not present are sanctioned. Thus they learn to constantly monitor their relationship to the system - no one gets away, even when they get away. Those who do are swiftly punished.

Especially for younger pupils, whose attendance is measured down to the last minute. What is taught by such constant combination of documentation and surveillance?

The definition of being disciplined is the preparedness to be watched. In a strictly controlled environment such as a school, being watched is the default mode. Not just in relation to the teachers and the ever present schedule, but also in relation to other pupils. There are very few private spaces in a school where it's possible to breathe and look less than presentable. They will be seen and noted.

Speaking of other pupils - one of the most repeated lessons is that cooperation and mutual effort is a sin. The words used to describe such behavior tend to be synonymous with "cheating" and "plagiarism". And punished as such. In order to judge and discipline the pupils properly, they need to be taught to do things on their own, and woe betide those who dare to improve their learning capabilities by mobilizing available social resources.

So. What are we teaching kids these days?

To wake early, to arrive on time, to tolerate constant interruptions, to move from one arbitrary boring activity to another, to be constantly watched, to be constantly judged, that cooperation is cheating, and that there is no escape.

If this sounds eerily familiar to being imprisoned - well, Foucault did say that schools, prisons, factories and military bases operate on similar principles. Discipline and punish.

Is it really that strange that many think school was (and still is) a traumatic experience? And is it really necessary to systematically perpetuate these experiences in the name of social cohesion?

There's no lack of those who'd answer yes.

Originally published November 15, 2011

Freeriding the dark train of anxiety, pt 2

A while back, I wrote a post on Foucault (and the subtle art of freeriding on trains). When writing it, I planned it to be twice as long as it turned out to be. The reason for it being at half length being that as I finished the part on Foucault, I was tired of writing and thus thought that I'd write the second part later. I already knew the general outline, and it would just be a matter of filling in the blanks. Piece of cake.

Not to put a fine point on it, but July 9 2014 happened quite a while ago.

Thing is, I've been thinking I should write that second part ever since. Which is a long time to think about doing something. To make matters worse, I forgot the general outline, because of course, and efforts to recapture it have proved unsuccessful.

Thus, I've decided to unwrite it. That is to say, write something that is not it, but is close enough to put its spirit to rest.

Now, the general metaphor of part one is being on a train without a valid ticket. There is no getting out of the situation, as the train is at once both a moving and confined space. You can either endure the ride, or get caught and suffer the consequences. Which, being a metaphor, transports over to other life situations, be they large or small - you can probably recall similar situations from your own past.

My helpful advice, as someone who surfed these situations freely for years, was the ever helpful imperative to not beat yourself up over it, seeing that the situation did that very efficiently all on its own. It's good advice, to be sure, but it's incomplete.

Hello, Bauman. Your time has come.

Zygmunt Bauman, of sociology fame, wrote about many things. Among these things are parvenus, people who for whatever reason cannot be themselves. Or, to quote him quoting Hannah Arendt, people who are "denied the right to be themselves in anything and in any moment". People who, try as they might, will never quite fit in, even thought they might understand the game better than those who were born to play it.

A prime example of this would be immigrants who excel at learning the culture and customs of their new home. While they may in fact know more about where they are than the natives (pun very intended), there will always be that smidge of "but where are you really from?" clinging to them. And to their children, born and raised right here. They have all the qualifications and pass all the tests for being true citizens, yet they will always be seen as not-quite-it. They are Other, and will always be, even though they are more assimilated than those who would wish them to assimilate.

Ponder the similarities to the ticketless situation. As I galavanted around, I learned the intricacies of the rail system: where connections are made, how to get from one place to another, which part of the train to board to be able to disembark closest to where you're headed - and so on and so on. Useful inside information that I on multiple occasions put to good use in helping confused newcomers. Nevertheless, the fact that they had tickets and I did not created a rift between us that had nothing to do with who knew more about what was going on; the fact that I felt more at home than they did, did not change the fact that they were more at home than me.

The train has the advantage that it is a very confined social situation. The associated anxiety can be dealt with, as it has very definite end states: eventually, you arrive. And there is always the choice of not embarking in the first place - a choice best described by the word 'privilege'.

The aforementioned immigrant, though, does not have this luxury. No matter how hard they work, study and live the 'right' way, they will always be parvenu. Pretenders, impostors, whose scam can be exposed at any moment, for any reason, their loyalty always in question, their sincerity viewed with suspicion even (and especially) when there is no fault to be found. They are not seen as belonging to the legitimate Us that makes the distinction between Us and Them. They are, forever, potentially Them.

This goes for any number of categories, to be sure. Bauman most assuredly did not write about "fake gamer girls", but the principle is the same; no matter how encyclopedic a girl's knowledge of games and game lore is, the notion that she's fake still permeates the situation. Those who deem themselves 'true' have always-already decided the falsehood of those untrue. Yet they keep insisting that the standards of true gamerdom be strived for, even as they deny access to joining their select fellowship.

The omnipresence of these demands to live up to the standards of inclusion is mirrored by the brutal absence of any institution that would officially proclaim them fulfilled. It is not possible to simply buy a ticket and become a member of the club - that's not how these things work. The fate of the parvenu is to endlessly strive to fit in, to succeed at it, and to live it - forever at the mercy of those who would suspect them of not doing any of these things. There is no stamp of approval, only an endless arsenal of stigmas to brand those deemed unworthy.

This is another level of anxiety, different yet similar to that of Foucault. It creates situations wherein one asks for permission, and where this very action denies the possibility of it being given. To invoke a parable from Kafka:

I ran past the first watchman. Then I was horrified, ran back and said to the watchman: "I ran through here while you were looking the other way." The watchman gazed ahead of him and said nothing. "I suppose I really oughtn't to have done it," I said. The watchman still said nothing. "Does your silence indicate permission to pass?". . . 

This silence, of course, does not mean either permission or anything else. It only means that nothing has been done yet that warrants action. Yet. But the watchman is still watching, waiting, in case you slip up and prove that you are indeed as fake as suspected. You are never above suspicion; there is always a reason for anxiety.

Yes, the pronoun has shifted. You are in focus now - as a potential terrorist, there's really no reason to ever let you out of range of the watchful eyes of the watchmen. Or the data mining algorithms, as it were. You too are suspect.

And thus, I can finally conclude and complete the advice given in the first post:

Don't beat yourself up over this either.

If rhetoric is wrong, I don't wanna be right

When I say I've studied rhetoric, I'm frequently asked this question:

What is rhetoric?

Which is a fair question. In fact, it is the yardstick of fair questions - it's straight to the point, no beating around the bush, no hidden assumptions. Especially since I've just claimed something, and am ever so directly being asked to clarify this claim.

Answers to this question differ.

When I'm in memetic mode, I answer along the lines of this here enormous picture you've no doubt seen long before you actually got to reading this part. It's point and click, basically - you point at something, say something related to it, then point at another thing, say something related to that, and so on.

I rarely use this answer, though, since the notion that such things as "truth" and "justice" and "a proper taste in culture" are pointable is hard to convey in everyday settings. Which is the opposite of effective, given the everyday setting I've recently pointed at. Thus, another answer is called upon:

Rhetoric is the art of making things up.

This is both easy to understand, and fun to demonstrate. It's easy to understand since it's what most people already think anyway, and thus comes as no surprise. It's fun to demonstrate, because it's true: as a rhetor, you are good at making things up. And since the most recent pointage happened to be at this very fact, you now have a proper and sufficient kairos to simply make anything up. Anything at all.

Even if these things are totally wrong. Especially if they are totally wrong.

Some think rhetoric is all about finding the proper thing to say. This is true to a point. In the process of finding this right thing, you have to discard many improper things. And most of these things are unexpectedly funny, seeing as they are both improper and wrong.

This, too, builds on preexisting doxa: most people have an intuitive sense of propriety and genre, and know what to expect from people in general. Public officials speak a certain way, doctors another, presidents a third, and so on. This is known. Thus, it can be worked with. Like, say, pointing out that it would be funny if Obama began a speech with the immortal words:

Dear fellow anime lovers of America!

This gives ample opportunity to goof around, and to get to the point: that your rhetorical superpowers consist mostly of making things up until you find something that sticks. Most of these things will never see the light of day, but those that do will be better because you've seen how much worse they could be. There is gold in them hills, among all the mud and lost irrelevant relics and animes.

It's all about making things up. And it's all about speeding up the process in such a way that it can be done on the fly.

...and about making sure you don't make too much an ass out of yourself whilst doing it.

Most of the time, it works. Then you fall in love, and all bets, definitions and pointers are off. -

The Tendency

Virilio has a very important concept, that of the 'tendency'. Much like the accident, it is one that is hard not to think about once it has made its appearance. It introduces itself, and then it reintroduces the world.

The gist of it is to take what is given and extrapolate it three steps ahead. Take it from where we're at, and go to where it's logically going. Without doing the proper philosophical move of explicating every step of the way in expounded detail.

I encountered my favorite example of this in an episode of This American Life. It went something like this:

"I had noodles for breakfast"
"Oh yeah. Cheap ones, or expensive good ones?"
"Dunno, my girlfriend bought them."
"Do you love her?"

As you can see, there are intermediary conversational steps that are brutally bypassed in this example. It also makes for an interesting conversation - rather than focusing on the minutiae of noodles, it went straight to a point. Not the point, mind, as conversations rarely have one singular predetermined point, but a point nevertheless.

In writing, this takes the form of applied enthymemes. A paragraph begins with an opening statement, some expansions of this statement, and then ends by moving everything along. Without remorse, it moves from the present to what could be, should we but think about it. It harnesses the tendency and displays it before our electronically weary eyes. It is but a step on our way to becoming immortal cyborg heads.

This, to be sure, is one of the reasons many who attempt to read Virilio give up after a while. Either because they haven't been clued in to this, and are thus confused by the sudden leaps, or they see what the deal is, and rejects it as lazy writing. Either way, the tendency is real.

In life, you can apply this in any way you want. I would suggest poetry. -