They're very good at pressing home the advantage, but I wonder if they see it that way. If your ontology revolves around all conceivable manifestations of victimhood perhaps this necessarily involves seeing yourself as the victim too.
It reminds me of when they accuse the right of waging culture war, as if their own worldview is the self-evident truth and that any pushback is necessarily stupid and unjust.
Paradoxically, academia is full of people who are really quite low IQ, and those applying for these research grants are the ones most likely to be susceptible to groupthink and hardly likely to be pushing the boundaries of knowledge with their cultish brains.
Another excellent analysis, David. Certainly helps account for glaring inconsistencies... though if we simplify, there is a relationship to schoolyard behaviour and making up the rules as one goes along. Seems like there's a lack of principles or even of the notion of principles.
"Communion" is a great word here. I believe that the lockdown enthusiasts have demonstrated that desire for communion or what I've been calling the "will to incorporation." We must all join the one body or be severed and excommunicated. And the vaccine was the new eucharist, the communion of believers in TheScience, driven by the ethos that we all ought join the grand experiment, while those who refuse are deemed unclean... contaminants.
My view of academia is very simplistic, it seems that many of them are them are altleft fascists, much like Stalins "useful idiots" of the 20th century 🙄.
Part 1 section 1 paragraph 1 of the 2010 equality act illuminates the purpose of the act in relation to socioeconomic inequalities “ ……. Designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome”. Hardly innocuous as you have said elsewhere, this is absolute poison and a neo - communism dressed up in all sorts of equal opportunity language. But equality of outcome is its driving force and direction none the less.
Yes as you say the governing class are vulnerable to the increasingly emotional manifestation of communion, but this is their fault, they have sown to the wind and are reaping the whirlwind.
But it is also the substance of the matter which needs to be analysed especially if a new better narrative is to be formed by Jordan Peterson ,Toby Young and all….. This is because this emotion which you have described is more than just a manifestation of communion. It is the primary driver to an equality of outcome as desired and encouraged by the 2010 act, because that is the ultimate good of a democratic majority basis to ethics and morality. If the good is only “objectively” what the majority currently agree on, then goodness and righteousness is clearly increased by the broadening and widening of that consensus. Because no objective basis is necessary in democratic majority ethics, instead just the agreement of that majority, then this is a reason why it is also significantly spread (not just by some kind of ultimately baseless argument) but also by these emotional “we are in this together” kind of communion statements. This is why it then becomes acceptable to outcast the minority, it enhances the goodness and righteousness of the populace in two ways by both being an expression of communion but also by increasing the broadening and widening of the consensus as the outcasts no longer count. But the root problem is not emotional communion, it is the substance behind it.
The current democratic majority consensus basis to morality and ethics has essentially developed and filled the space of a loss of faith. It has moved from a more passive Political correctness to, since Tony Blair opened the flood gates in 1997 to an evangelical woke-ness. Initially it was “do the politically correct” thing or else, and now it is “sign up and speak up as a believer to democratic majority consensus ethics” or else.
If there is to be a new narrative then it must replace the current belief in a democratic majority consensus to ethics and morality. It must both show that this basis is utterly bankrupt, but also provide a better working alternative. The two basic alternatives for grounding ethics and morality are either 1.) an objective divine one 2.) or an objective natural imperative as a kind of brute fact of nature. In practice I feel that you will find that 2.) can only in fact be a de - deified version of 1.). Basically the same but with reference to God specifically taken out. i.e. instead of image of God it will be something like the best human flourishing given his innate natural characteristics.
But lets us be clear one of the base innate characteristics of man is his freewill; that is his ability to have responsibility for what he has done. To be enabled in this freewill requires a mutual reciprocity giving him space and freedom to express it both in his physical and spiritual (that is mental or non physical) spaces. This common reciprocal respect for these spaces is essential because these are spaces which he also in fact shares in common with everybody else. He only gains responsibility by the fact that he did it in the common space and not someone else.
This leads to some significant substantive conclusions which enables us to analyse current situations. Anyone who does not show mutual reciprocal respect for these spaces, who is not willing to give and allow that freedom for others is by definition denying it to themselves. These people should be censored for this, or worse. They hate others by denying them these basic rights, while presumably demanding it for themselves.
• Hamas (nor any other middle east country which has the same belief) by its own founding documents does not support a reciprocal space for the Jews. They by their own words therefore condemn themselves. Anybody who support Hamas is doing the same.
• The scientific space is another basically physical space. Its truth comes via scientific consensus with the objective facts on the ground, not a consensus of scientists nor a politically enforced narrative. People who deny the basic scientific process with conflicting discussion and results until there is a consensus with the objective facts on the ground should be censored because they are denying the common ground of science to others.
• Likewise and more subtly in the mental space, the common space is primarily language. Yes the meaning and use of words change through time, but slowing through a bottom up usefulness. Hi jacking words and meanings top down through law and peer pressure is to deny a common basis for meaning and language to everyone, especially if this contradicts the scientific process. People who deny this common space to others should have it denied to them in turn.
So then let’s stop faffing around. Yes we all use language to try to identify and belong, but it is the substantive basis behind it which ultimately counts and give its form. The governing class is only going to find safety by the development of a new narrative; but its going to be difficult because it needs an objective basis. I guess that most of the sceptics and population are unbelievers and would not want to go near the divine. But creating an entirely natural objective alternative version (which is not a variation of democratic majority ethics), will still require some by faith brute fact statements about how things “ought to be”.
The nation lost its faith partly because, as it was in moral and ethical power, the church did not need to properly explain its ethical and moral narrative – it could just enforce it and so I would say it never actually got around to working it out properly. Then when its power was ultimately questioned it did not have its best possible reasons in place, so people maybe rightly walked away, and the church ultimately lost its place of primacy.
This is also part of what has happened to the conservative party as well (it no longer knows what it is there to conserve) and it now rules in the democratic majority moral and ethical space, unable to get itself off this hook. But pretending that this hook is not the main thing won’t help.
They're very good at pressing home the advantage, but I wonder if they see it that way. If your ontology revolves around all conceivable manifestations of victimhood perhaps this necessarily involves seeing yourself as the victim too.
It reminds me of when they accuse the right of waging culture war, as if their own worldview is the self-evident truth and that any pushback is necessarily stupid and unjust.
Paradoxically, academia is full of people who are really quite low IQ, and those applying for these research grants are the ones most likely to be susceptible to groupthink and hardly likely to be pushing the boundaries of knowledge with their cultish brains.
Another excellent analysis, David. Certainly helps account for glaring inconsistencies... though if we simplify, there is a relationship to schoolyard behaviour and making up the rules as one goes along. Seems like there's a lack of principles or even of the notion of principles.
"Communion" is a great word here. I believe that the lockdown enthusiasts have demonstrated that desire for communion or what I've been calling the "will to incorporation." We must all join the one body or be severed and excommunicated. And the vaccine was the new eucharist, the communion of believers in TheScience, driven by the ethos that we all ought join the grand experiment, while those who refuse are deemed unclean... contaminants.
My view of academia is very simplistic, it seems that many of them are them are altleft fascists, much like Stalins "useful idiots" of the 20th century 🙄.
Hi David
Part 1 section 1 paragraph 1 of the 2010 equality act illuminates the purpose of the act in relation to socioeconomic inequalities “ ……. Designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome”. Hardly innocuous as you have said elsewhere, this is absolute poison and a neo - communism dressed up in all sorts of equal opportunity language. But equality of outcome is its driving force and direction none the less.
Yes as you say the governing class are vulnerable to the increasingly emotional manifestation of communion, but this is their fault, they have sown to the wind and are reaping the whirlwind.
But it is also the substance of the matter which needs to be analysed especially if a new better narrative is to be formed by Jordan Peterson ,Toby Young and all….. This is because this emotion which you have described is more than just a manifestation of communion. It is the primary driver to an equality of outcome as desired and encouraged by the 2010 act, because that is the ultimate good of a democratic majority basis to ethics and morality. If the good is only “objectively” what the majority currently agree on, then goodness and righteousness is clearly increased by the broadening and widening of that consensus. Because no objective basis is necessary in democratic majority ethics, instead just the agreement of that majority, then this is a reason why it is also significantly spread (not just by some kind of ultimately baseless argument) but also by these emotional “we are in this together” kind of communion statements. This is why it then becomes acceptable to outcast the minority, it enhances the goodness and righteousness of the populace in two ways by both being an expression of communion but also by increasing the broadening and widening of the consensus as the outcasts no longer count. But the root problem is not emotional communion, it is the substance behind it.
The current democratic majority consensus basis to morality and ethics has essentially developed and filled the space of a loss of faith. It has moved from a more passive Political correctness to, since Tony Blair opened the flood gates in 1997 to an evangelical woke-ness. Initially it was “do the politically correct” thing or else, and now it is “sign up and speak up as a believer to democratic majority consensus ethics” or else.
If there is to be a new narrative then it must replace the current belief in a democratic majority consensus to ethics and morality. It must both show that this basis is utterly bankrupt, but also provide a better working alternative. The two basic alternatives for grounding ethics and morality are either 1.) an objective divine one 2.) or an objective natural imperative as a kind of brute fact of nature. In practice I feel that you will find that 2.) can only in fact be a de - deified version of 1.). Basically the same but with reference to God specifically taken out. i.e. instead of image of God it will be something like the best human flourishing given his innate natural characteristics.
But lets us be clear one of the base innate characteristics of man is his freewill; that is his ability to have responsibility for what he has done. To be enabled in this freewill requires a mutual reciprocity giving him space and freedom to express it both in his physical and spiritual (that is mental or non physical) spaces. This common reciprocal respect for these spaces is essential because these are spaces which he also in fact shares in common with everybody else. He only gains responsibility by the fact that he did it in the common space and not someone else.
This leads to some significant substantive conclusions which enables us to analyse current situations. Anyone who does not show mutual reciprocal respect for these spaces, who is not willing to give and allow that freedom for others is by definition denying it to themselves. These people should be censored for this, or worse. They hate others by denying them these basic rights, while presumably demanding it for themselves.
• Hamas (nor any other middle east country which has the same belief) by its own founding documents does not support a reciprocal space for the Jews. They by their own words therefore condemn themselves. Anybody who support Hamas is doing the same.
• The scientific space is another basically physical space. Its truth comes via scientific consensus with the objective facts on the ground, not a consensus of scientists nor a politically enforced narrative. People who deny the basic scientific process with conflicting discussion and results until there is a consensus with the objective facts on the ground should be censored because they are denying the common ground of science to others.
• Likewise and more subtly in the mental space, the common space is primarily language. Yes the meaning and use of words change through time, but slowing through a bottom up usefulness. Hi jacking words and meanings top down through law and peer pressure is to deny a common basis for meaning and language to everyone, especially if this contradicts the scientific process. People who deny this common space to others should have it denied to them in turn.
So then let’s stop faffing around. Yes we all use language to try to identify and belong, but it is the substantive basis behind it which ultimately counts and give its form. The governing class is only going to find safety by the development of a new narrative; but its going to be difficult because it needs an objective basis. I guess that most of the sceptics and population are unbelievers and would not want to go near the divine. But creating an entirely natural objective alternative version (which is not a variation of democratic majority ethics), will still require some by faith brute fact statements about how things “ought to be”.
The nation lost its faith partly because, as it was in moral and ethical power, the church did not need to properly explain its ethical and moral narrative – it could just enforce it and so I would say it never actually got around to working it out properly. Then when its power was ultimately questioned it did not have its best possible reasons in place, so people maybe rightly walked away, and the church ultimately lost its place of primacy.
This is also part of what has happened to the conservative party as well (it no longer knows what it is there to conserve) and it now rules in the democratic majority moral and ethical space, unable to get itself off this hook. But pretending that this hook is not the main thing won’t help.
regards JD