Not to confuse Tolerance with Wisdom

My enemy is the mirror of my priorities, my values - even if only as my inverse.

But as my mirror, it would do me well to listen to my enemy so as to learn more my true self, before I attack.




[[ I may even find that I am an enemy of my now-uncovered self as well! ]]

Am I right or am I wrong?

I have been trained to discern error. But am I my own false-teacher?

Will government election-parties become "Brands" that fail?

I was reading the always-behind, monthly 'update' on Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve (the Culture Pulse section) for this September. It is titled "The End of Brands."

Summary of the short article: Brand loyalty is going away. Quickly!

Her assessment? Because Brands don't really deliver on what they promise. The antithesis of 'the Brand' (or, read another way, where Brands have failed) is "transparency", "Honesty", and "Serv[ing the customer]".

Jean Baudrillard in his anti-Consumerist (read: semi-Marxist) days had a pretty interesting observation: those running for Office in the U.S. use a marketing approach (vs. an intellectual or governmental/service or ...).

Putting Baudrillard and Popcorn together, the "Two Parties" have become Brands. And they are failing. They promised Utopia and are, at best, fulfilling their own Utopia of power and importance (amongst those in D.C., ironically).

But we can't stop 'buying' the government like we can a Brand. The government doesn't 'go out of business' if we don't vote. It's easy enough to simply buy the brand stocked right next to The Brand. Maybe we should buy the Party right next to the Brand parties.

[ Unless you live in Washington, and maybe other states, where the "pre"elections make sure we leave off the non-Brand options. Isn't the Pacific Northwest supposed to be 'progressive'? not Super-Limiting?!?! ]

Idolatry in a Land without gods

Historically, it seems the VAST majority of people (or better, people-groups) have had some kind of super-human entity/entities** as a part of their understanding of the world/universe.

(Western) Modernity has put forth a variety of methods to negate the need or connection with all things more-than-human. My assessment is that this comes from the voracious drive we had (and have largely satisfied) to control . . . everything! [for those that chew on such statements, I think 'prediction' is a form of control]

So here's my theory on the usefulness of a deity/deities. It is a theory that, for the moment, ignores the question of the existence of deity(ies) and the question of whether deity-existence is innate to humans or created. This only looks at utility/usefulness.

As far as I have read, seen, been told, etc. a spirit or god is really important for those parts of life that we cannot control but rely upon nonetheless. Weather, war, & women (that's funny - 'women' can be men and children, too, but they don't illiterate :: 'weather' can be food, too) being the most common.

What these super-humans hold is two things: power and information. What Western Modernity has attempted to accomplish is actually a two-fold feat: massively and rapidly increase knowledge to the place where the sum of information & wisdom can actually become a power in itself. Somewhat similar to how energy and matter become roughly the same thing in "E equals m c squared." as if we attempted to make "Power = Information Application squared." Not sure it worked (nor are most postModern philosophers), but it has largely satisfied a centuries-old desire.

Then came the more subtle shift in what we call 'epistemology' (how is truth determined to be truth). In the Classic period (for discussion, ~500 B.C. to ~500 A.D.), 'truth' is a rationalized ideal, Medieval truth came from authority, with Modern truth swinging back to ideals. What caught my attention is that what was swinging was not just epistemology by itself.

In the Classic period, truth was bigger than the gods, but the gods had Power. Medieval truth came from the humans who had some power, but not much. (the following only works if your browser allows a fixed-width font like Courier)

                 Truth               Power

Classic          people              gods

Medieval    (human)demigods          people

Perhaps in Western Modernity we were able to fully collapse Power and Truth into one source. "Information is Power" sums up the belief that Truth is either equivalent or a subset of Information and that it is convert-able, back and forth, with Power ( I=PA^2 like E=mc^2 ). People, if we work hard enough and 'smart' enough, will eventually conquer all Information (from sub-atomic physics to biology to psychology to sociology to astrophysics). Then, we can become all-powerful (modified by the assumption that prediction is a form of Power).

Then we hit relativity, in all its forms. Philosophically (in my opinion [sic]), 'relativity' means each person lives as if they are the final judge on what is True or not; that we are not hypocrites when it comes to Truth (as if we are fine holding onto something we absolutely know to be false).

Practically, if I can get enough information, I can be all-powerful ('enough' being, ironically/recursively defined by 'me'). So I gain Information, mastery, etc. of what I think is important and, thus, fulfill the role that used to be ascribed to deity(ies).

So as the West moves towards a practical (if not real) atheism, we are turning our lands into Mount Olympus where each person thinks of themself as Zeus.

No wonder religions of any kind are having a bit of hard time during these last days of Western Modernity... any god, set of rules, etc. that places itself over Me, King Zeus Himself, is my enemy and must be pummeled like the Titans!

[Note: this is, in good David Malouf fashion, just the beginning of a thought. I'm not sure I like it... yet. Please feel free to interact with me in the comments, personally, email, etc. !!]

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** deity, super-human, spirit, etc. are all considered the same thing in the context of this post precisely because this post only looks at the utility of any kind of being/entity, not the essence.

The cure for media, newspapers, and trust

I hear/read more and more about how newspapers, and the news in-general, are crumbling financially. And even more so, people no longer 'trust the media.' Evidently, Walter Cronkite took trust to the grave with him. I start to giggle when I see people get REALLY up-tight that Jon Stewart is now 'the most trusted news giver.' Actually, it's always conservatives that are up-tight...

I laugh because ANYONE who has ever been interviewed knows that misquotes, undesired spin, and slander are expected on everything from the Iraqi war to 'how my neighbor's cat got stuck in a tree.' Just because journalists seem to be held to some standard higher than 7th grade gossip doesn't mean it's happening!! "The news" and meteorologists go to the same school (sic), "Give them just enough truth so that you can't be ignored, but be wrong often enough to never be trusted."

So here's my quick-and-easy solution: attach the audio or video of the interview. Super easy. One can even use YouTube for free.

I predict this will not be done for a few reasons, none of them financial/storage related:
1) the public will get to see what a total moron the journalist is (cf. the absurd John Stossel and other national, talking-heads) by listening to the incredibly useless questions and follow-ups
2) the public will get to see what a total moron the journalist is (cf. the fully incapable John Stossel and other national, talking-heads) when we read/listen to the journalist's synopsis of the whole interview
3) the public will see just how much the 'objective' journalist is fully 'subjective' (seriously, do people really think any journalist is 'objective'?!?!)
- actually, this is a great reason to publish the whole interview. Jon Stewart makes it obvious that he has a political/philosophical bend. I 'trust' him to be biased so I can 'un-spin' what he's saying to fit my tastes as needed. I, then, 'trust' Jon Stewart as a journalist because I know his biases as he does not hide them. It's the fake 'objectivity' that makes me not trust journalists!

Basically, publishing full interviews will make clear whether or not I want to ever read/listen-to a given journalist. But that kind of clarity will destroy the careers of MANY journalists. So I suspect this will never happen. As long as this 'trust' issue remains in-tension (i.e. is NOT resolved), inept journalism will continue as-is.