Friday, October 17, 2014

Whatever logical reasoning is brought froward to justify social policies, the underlying divide is always the pre-conscious choice of "the deserving vs. the undeserving". It rests upon denying humanity to other humans, stereotyped as an arbitrarily chosen group.  To do that, an easily recognisable attribute (race, gender, disability, religion, sexuality, employment status) is picked to turn into catchy replicable soundbites and headlines. Although superficially "rational", such catchy slogans appeal directly to pre-rational, non-verbal affects, usually something very powerful and negative like envy, fear of the Other, anger, neurotic frustration, etc. That way, such slogans provide a channel for pent-up, unprocessed affects to surface on the verbal level accessible to the "rational" mind (aka, the secondary thinking process). The link between the slogan and the affect stays very powerful, strengthened further by media exposure and confirmation bias.

In the parlance of Russian spin doctors, such couplings are called "schizo-blocks", false dilemmas cooked up with the help of focus groups and brain-storming sessions.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Cultural, post-colonial, gender, etc. Studies

Anyone can say anything as long as it's wrapped in appropriately appropriated terminology, mostly leftist, Liberal, feminist or any latest flavour of the day marketed to possible discontents to keep them on the leash. Since no evidence based on empirical data is required, anything one says is unfalsifiable, can't be proved either right, or wrong. Argument exhausts at 'I say A, you say B." Educated guess is king.

The secret of London life

In an urban cosmopolitan setting, commitment is to events, not to people. Atomised individuals busy with their Selves seek out activity partners for events that constitute each respective life. So it's not events but self-events, a strain of YouTube clips, chosen with an ever-increasing finesse, to compile into the full-feature film of one's life. It is one's self-events that one needs to lay allegiance to, in order to avoid disappointment and wasting time.

It might be right, it might be wrong in the bigger scheme of things, but it's the art d'existence in a world city.