No Private Language
The premise that language makes sense only in the context of communication necessitates the conclusion that there is no such thing as private language (Wittgenstein), but can we prove the premise? We can do so by considering the necessary conditions for an isolated individual to create his own language. The use of language implies that something is ‘meant’. The use of language for an isolated individual would then be necessarily limited to signifying experiences or ideas 'meant' for oneself. Such signification would not make sense for the present moment, since the self that intends to speak already understands what is meant without speaking; the idea or experience is self-evident to the self that has that idea or experience. The only remaining use of a private language could be to signify ideas or experiences meant for the future self, as a historical message to self. This would require the individual to remember what the words meant, just as they were originally meant, in the right context, but this implies remembering perfectly the ideas or experiences that were meant, making the record redundant, therefore senseless, or, if one did not remember the context, the record would be meaningless, therefore also senseless. Another way, language is a system of rules of interpretation according to which words have the correct meaning, and a rule of interpretation cannot be meaningfully enforced on the basis of the same interpretation (circular reasoning). Therefore, the meaning of language could not be preserved by an individual for himself, but only by a multiplicity of individuals for one another. We think and conceive of reality in a shared language.
The premise that language makes sense only in the context of communication necessitates the conclusion that there is no such thing as private language (Wittgenstein), but can we prove the premise? We can do so by considering the necessary conditions for an isolated individual to create his own language. The use of language implies that something is ‘meant’. The use of language for an isolated individual would then be necessarily limited to signifying experiences or ideas 'meant' for oneself. Such signification would not make sense for the present moment, since the self that intends to speak already understands what is meant without speaking; the idea or experience is self-evident to the self that has that idea or experience. The only remaining use of a private language could be to signify ideas or experiences meant for the future self, as a historical message to self. This would require the individual to remember what the words meant, just as they were originally meant, in the right context, but this implies remembering perfectly the ideas or experiences that were meant, making the record redundant, therefore senseless, or, if one did not remember the context, the record would be meaningless, therefore also senseless. Another way, language is a system of rules of interpretation according to which words have the correct meaning, and a rule of interpretation cannot be meaningfully enforced on the basis of the same interpretation (circular reasoning). Therefore, the meaning of language could not be preserved by an individual for himself, but only by a multiplicity of individuals for one another. We think and conceive of reality in a shared language.
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The issue with identifying as an ‘ethnic German’, ‘ethnic Chinese’ or ‘indigenous’ is not that these biological categories do not exist, but consists in thinking that these are markers of personal value, that these categories morally matter, despite not being subject to individual choice or achievement. The irony of an identity constructed on the basis of ethnicity is that it implies that a German philosopher has more in common with an ethnic German street thug (whom they would never invite into their own home) than with a Chinese or African philosopher whose reasoning they agree with.
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Proponents of tribalism argue that the tribal instinct is an evolutionary adaptation that improves our chances of survival. History suggests otherwise: groups that exhibited the the strongest tribal instinct were the least likely to survive, whereas those who could organise and cooperate with other groups based on common interest and universalist ideals were building empires and could easily exterminate or subjugate any individual tribe. Nowadays, any tribal, clan-centric countries are the most impoverished, whereas the cosmopolitan and universalist countries are the most affluent.
Tribalism and ethno-centrism amount to natural selection against competence.
Belonging to a natural clan or ethnicity is not based on competence but on blood relations, hence tribalism and ethno-centrism unwittingly discriminate against competence that could be recruited and integrated into the community from elsewhere. At the same time, the most competent members of the tribe or ethnicity may be recruited by more affluent, more powerful communities that prioritise merit over blood-relations. Ethno-centrism and tribalism perpetuate relative poverty and incompetence. Geographic isolation of some communities could further amplify this effect.
Belonging to a natural clan or ethnicity is not based on competence but on blood relations, hence tribalism and ethno-centrism unwittingly discriminate against competence that could be recruited and integrated into the community from elsewhere. At the same time, the most competent members of the tribe or ethnicity may be recruited by more affluent, more powerful communities that prioritise merit over blood-relations. Ethno-centrism and tribalism perpetuate relative poverty and incompetence. Geographic isolation of some communities could further amplify this effect.
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Spirituality as Schizophrenia
Our primordial ancestors were mentally fragmented, ‘schizophrenic’ by contemporary criteria, lacking the integrity of Self, hearing voices, seeing things, without a clear boundary between dream and reality, between my-self and everything else. People typically call such fragmented schizophrenic states ‘spirituality’, but only insofar as they can be interpreted according to some symbolic system. Without the symbolic context it is just plain schizophrenia.
Our primordial ancestors were mentally fragmented, ‘schizophrenic’ by contemporary criteria, lacking the integrity of Self, hearing voices, seeing things, without a clear boundary between dream and reality, between my-self and everything else. People typically call such fragmented schizophrenic states ‘spirituality’, but only insofar as they can be interpreted according to some symbolic system. Without the symbolic context it is just plain schizophrenia.
From ‘Experiences in Groups’ by W.R. Bion:
“the group, when left to spontaneous behaviour, chooses as its leader, in baD, its most ill member. It has always been well recognized that this is so, so much so in fact that the great religious leader—and the religious group for obvious reasons is a group in which baD is active and vital—is commonly assumed to be mad or possessed of a devil, exactly as if members of a group with baD in the ascendant felt that if they were not led by a madman, then they ought to be. Indeed one could say that, just as they reject all facts that run counter to the belief that they are all individually looked after by the person or deity on whom they depend, so they reject all facts that might indicate that the leader or deity was sane. The belief in the holiness of idiots, the belief that genius is akin to madness, all indicate this same tendency of the group to choose, when left unstructured, its most ill member as its leader.”
“But against what danger is the priesthood striving to protect the group? It is not, I submit, merely the danger inherent in incompetent leadership; for one thing, leadership by the mentally disordered is by no means always incompetent—far from it. But apart from that I hope to show that there are far more weighty reasons why the priesthood should fear the spontaneous development of leadership in baD. To demonstrate this I must return again to experiences in the small therapeutic group. In its search for a leader the group finds a paranoid schizophrenic or malignant hysteric if possible; failing either of these, a psychopathic personality with delinquent trends will do; failing a psychopathic personality it will pick on the verbally facile high-grade defective. I have at no time experienced a group of more than five people that could not provide a good specimen of one of these.”
Hypothesis: the lack of mental integrity at the individual level (schizophrenia) may be stabilised only collectively, hence tribalism emerged as a primitive means of defence against individual madness, transforming it to a more stable state: collective madness.
“the group, when left to spontaneous behaviour, chooses as its leader, in baD, its most ill member. It has always been well recognized that this is so, so much so in fact that the great religious leader—and the religious group for obvious reasons is a group in which baD is active and vital—is commonly assumed to be mad or possessed of a devil, exactly as if members of a group with baD in the ascendant felt that if they were not led by a madman, then they ought to be. Indeed one could say that, just as they reject all facts that run counter to the belief that they are all individually looked after by the person or deity on whom they depend, so they reject all facts that might indicate that the leader or deity was sane. The belief in the holiness of idiots, the belief that genius is akin to madness, all indicate this same tendency of the group to choose, when left unstructured, its most ill member as its leader.”
“But against what danger is the priesthood striving to protect the group? It is not, I submit, merely the danger inherent in incompetent leadership; for one thing, leadership by the mentally disordered is by no means always incompetent—far from it. But apart from that I hope to show that there are far more weighty reasons why the priesthood should fear the spontaneous development of leadership in baD. To demonstrate this I must return again to experiences in the small therapeutic group. In its search for a leader the group finds a paranoid schizophrenic or malignant hysteric if possible; failing either of these, a psychopathic personality with delinquent trends will do; failing a psychopathic personality it will pick on the verbally facile high-grade defective. I have at no time experienced a group of more than five people that could not provide a good specimen of one of these.”
Hypothesis: the lack of mental integrity at the individual level (schizophrenia) may be stabilised only collectively, hence tribalism emerged as a primitive means of defence against individual madness, transforming it to a more stable state: collective madness.
The superior value of Modernity over Indigenous Cultures does not consist in everyone being more conscious, integrated and rational, but in the possibility of conceptualising and consciously pursuing more consciousness, integration and rationality. Modernity allows people to choose the indigenous lifestyle, any traditional ideology or religion, or be a mindless consumer, an obedient soldier or a hedonist, or to transcend all past cultural motifs towards higher states of self-integration and consciousness. These choices were not available to tribal cultures or those bound by strict tradition. Modernity liberates us from mandatory dependence on tribe or tradition, if we wish to pursue more creative agency and freedom.
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The easiest way for the State to destroy an ethnic minority is to give them overtly superior rights to those afforded to the majority, make them feel superior and entitled, use policing powers to enforce this moral imbalance until the majority feels well oppressed and humiliated, then remove its protection of the minority.
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Philosophers who post only articles, papers and books, and do not engage in conversation with their readers, reveal insecurity about their arguments. Intellectual proficiency on paper alone, without engaging with criticism, in isolation from the common man, is like teaching martial arts without allowing any challengers into your Dojo and without allowing the students to ask any questions. They are missing out on the unconscious wisdom of the mob, the best educator.
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The primary function of identity politics is to distract the mob from the only privilege that matters: the hereditary wealth privilege.
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BREAKING NEWS: The chairman of the WEF, prompted by Donald Trump’s suggestion that Palestinians ought to vacate the Gaza Strip for the sake of Build Back Better, has expressed great sadness for the suffering of the people of Gaza as well as for the trauma of the Israeli hostages and their families. He nevertheless reaffirmed WEF's long-standing position that Israel has the right to exist, as a Christian homeland;)
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White Aboriginals are those who can convincingly opt out of Aboriginal identity. They have no skin in the game. They are not the same racial category as those who have no choice about their racial identity.
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It is better to have no political representation at all than minority representation, which is always bound to lose and then cannot deny that it was given its due.
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A person who depends on AI to stay relevant is already redundant.
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Here’s a little something i jotted down last night, just before falling asleep, and forgot that I wrote it, until now:
Normal Party is a party of people who are always in the minority. Normal Party understands that it cannot rely on representative democracy to protect the minority from the moral wrongs of the majority. Normal Party is not represented, shall not be represented, and does not recognise the will of the majority as the standard of authority. The distinction between right and wrong does not depend on the will of the majority.
This is supposed to make just as much sense as you are able to make of it:)
Normal Party is a party of people who are always in the minority. Normal Party understands that it cannot rely on representative democracy to protect the minority from the moral wrongs of the majority. Normal Party is not represented, shall not be represented, and does not recognise the will of the majority as the standard of authority. The distinction between right and wrong does not depend on the will of the majority.
This is supposed to make just as much sense as you are able to make of it:)
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Forwarded from Normal (Michael Kowalik)
It is conceivable that democracy is only nominally about the majority rule but is essentially a moral test: those who are willing to impose their preferences on others by the arbitrary standard of being in the majority are implicitly denying that preferences can be objectively right or wrong in their own right, thus negating the rationality of their choices and the authority of their own preferences. It then follows that this collective self-negation has representative priority over the negated preferences. If this is right then the abusive, humiliating, deceitful and exploitative governments are not a failure of democracy but express its proper function, provided it is applied only to those who vote.
Turning the slaves into minority share-holders was a brilliant move. They now agree to own just a minority part of their labour:)
The only difference between ‘human error’ and ‘sabotage’ is mens rea.
1. ‘Every X is Green and No X is Green’ is not a contradiction. It is possible for the two ascriptions to be consistent if there are no X’s. For example, ‘Every unicorn is Green and No unicorn is Green’ is consistent if there are no unicorns: Every=zero and No=zero and zero=None.
2. ‘Every X is Green and Not-Every X is Green’ is an explicit contradiction. Not-Every implies Some, and Some is not-None, which implies contradiction even if Every consists of None.
3. ‘Some X are Green and No X is Green’ is a contradiction, as it implies Some X and not-Some X, or not-None and None.
4. ‘Some X are Green and Some X are not-Green’ is not a contradiction, as different X’s can be different colours.
This distinction is identified in Aristotle‘s Prior Analytics (section 15), where he differentiates between ‘universal contraries’ (1) and ‘opposites’ (2,3). Only opposites can be used to construct a contradiction.
2. ‘Every X is Green and Not-Every X is Green’ is an explicit contradiction. Not-Every implies Some, and Some is not-None, which implies contradiction even if Every consists of None.
3. ‘Some X are Green and No X is Green’ is a contradiction, as it implies Some X and not-Some X, or not-None and None.
4. ‘Some X are Green and Some X are not-Green’ is not a contradiction, as different X’s can be different colours.
This distinction is identified in Aristotle‘s Prior Analytics (section 15), where he differentiates between ‘universal contraries’ (1) and ‘opposites’ (2,3). Only opposites can be used to construct a contradiction.
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All Experts agree that their wellbeing is more important than your wellbeing, so please listen to the Experts;)