@Leontiskos @AmadeusD @Number2018 @frank @Count Timothy von Icarus @Joshs @Fire Ologist

This is to start a separate thread than the boardroom example above (of method) to address any philosophical clarifications separately.

The means to see what the possibly unexamined interests are is to articulate the goals while we lay out the criteria these goals are articulated in/with.. — Fire Ologist

I would hope this is clearer given the example, but I am suggesting looking at the existing and proposed criteria used in a particular situation (not, criteria for an abstract goal), which will take some work to flesh out (not being clear as in, even uncovered yet, much less drawn out in terms of how they work, i.e., considerations, implications, distinctions, etc.), and then we can try to imagine what the various interests might be, in seeing how those current and proposed criteria reflect what matters to each.

As I take this quote of @Number2018 to reiterate: “ “Events of decision that we experience as rational choices, seemingly without the motive force of affect to move them, envelop the complex of the pre-cognitive and micropolitical processes of the event-based situation. The ‘rational’ aspects of the event— judgment, hypothesis, comparative evaluation of alternatives, decision— were mutually included in the event along with all the other co- operating factors.” (Massumi, ‘The Power at the end of the Economy’, pg. 47) (my emphasis). The “‘rational’ aspects of the event”, the particular criteria in a situation, he says “envelop” and “include”—I would say reflect (as OLP claims)—“all the co-operating factors”, which are the interests in those (“mutual”, or shared societal) criteria for judgment, in that particular event.

This might be overly coarse, but I take the other option to be claiming/attributing/assuming a certain goal first and then perhaps treating “interests” as justifications for the goal, or motivations for the goal. Whatever that may be, I take it as the classic philosophical discussion to first determine what is right or what ought to be done, which can lead to setting the requirement (criteria, basis) ahead of looking at the criteria of a particular case, and abstractly arguing for what is to be considered “rational”, and thus “irrational”, (which can leads to/come from, a desire for things like universality, completeness, certainty, etc., as discussed above, because all criteria include our desires/interests, even “rationality”). Again, I take this difference as a matter of analytical philosophy, and not as some kind of proxy for woke/not woke (although there is, as we have discussed, the theme in philosophy of: not reflected upon yet, fully thought through, etc. which I can see now as possibly analogous, though I wouldn’t take as equating the discussions).

“Events of decision that we experience as rational choices, seemingly without the motive force of affect to move them, envelop the complex of the pre-cognitive and micropolitical processes of the event-based situation. The ‘rational’ aspects of the event— judgment, hypothesis, comparative evaluation of alternatives, decision— were mutually included in the event along with all the other co- operating factors.” (Massumi, ‘The Power at the end of the Economy’, pg. 47). Overall, the production of subjectivity and affect underpin wokeness’s enactment of moral discourse — Number2018

This sounds fine, as far as it goes. I’m concerned with an interpretation of the above which sanctions something like Protevi’s concept of political affect. I see a fair amount of overlap between Protevi and Massumi on affect.

Operating from below conscious subjectivity, Protevi proposes evolutionarily adaptive neurological modules that program subjects for prosocial behavior as well as for narrowly construed self-preservation. Impinging on persons from above are socially originating forms of conditioning . Notice the Deleuzian language that Protevi incorporates.

"Zahavi (2005) and Gallagher (2005), among others, distinguish agency and ownership of bodily actions. Ownership is the sense that my body is doing the action, while agency is the sense that I am in control of the action, that the action is willed. Both are aspects of subjectivity, though they may well be a matter of pre-reflective self-awareness rather than full-fledged objectifying self-consciousness. But alongside subjectivity we need also to notice emergent assemblages that skip subjectivity and directly conjoin larger groups and the somatic. To follow this line of thought, let us accept that, in addition to non-subjective body control by reflexes, we can treat basic emotions as modular “affect programs” (Griffiths 1997) that run the body's hardware in the absence of conscious control. As with reflexes, ownership and agency are only retrospectively felt, at least in severe cases of rage in which the person “wakes up” to see the results of the destruction committed while he or she was in the grips of the rage. In this way we see two elements we need to take into account besides the notion of subjective agency: (1) that there is another sense of “agent” as non-subjective controller of bodily action, either reflex or basic emotion, and (2) that in some cases the military unit and non-subjective reflexes and basic emotions are intertwined in such a way as to bypass the soldiers' subjectivity qua controlled intentional action. In these cases the practical agent of the act of killing is not the individual person or subject, but the emergent assemblage of military unit and non-subjective reflex or equally non-subjective “affect program.”

“A little more detail on the notion of a “rage agent” might be helpful at this point. Extreme cases of rage produce a modular agent or “affect program” that replaces the subject. Affect programs are emotional responses that are “complex, coordinated, and automated … unfold[ing] in this coordinated fashion without the need for conscious direction” (Griffiths 1997: 77). They are more than reflexes, but they are triggered well before any cortical processing can take place (though later cortical appraisals can dampen or accelerate the affect program). Griffiths makes the case that affect programs should be seen in light of Fodor's notion of modularity, which calls for a module to be “mandatory … opaque [we are aware of outputs but not the processes producing them] … and informationally encapsulated [the information in a module cannot access that in other modules]”.

Perhaps second only to the question of adaptationism for the amount of controversy it has evoked, the use of the concept of modularity in evolutionary psychology is bitterly contested. I feel relatively safe proposing a very-widely distributed rage module or rage agent, since its adaptive value is widely attested to by its presence in other mammals, and since Panksepp 1998 is able to cite studies of direct electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) and neurochemical manipulation as identifying homologous rage circuits in humans and other mammalian species (190)."

"In the berserker rage, the subject is overwhelmed by a chemical flood that triggers an evolutionarily primitive module which functions as an agent which runs the body's hardware in its place.”"The vast majority of soldiers cannot kill in cold blood and need to kill in a desubjectified state, e.g., in reflexes, rages and panics."

There is no gainsaying the Bishop on this point, and that’s half the point. — praxis

If there is no gainsaying the Bishop on that point, then you are already committed to the same sort of hierarchy he is.

Rather, the fixed hierarchy is key to power stratification that wokeness aims to reduce. — praxis

My point is that the idea that hierarchical thinking is an evil bogeyman is a strawman. Anyone who admits that some values are higher than others is involved in hierarchical thinking. It's just not about power stratification. The power hermeneutic is something that the woke imposes on everyone and everything.

My point is that the idea that hierarchical thinking is an evil bogeyman is a strawman. Anyone who admits that some values are higher than others is involved in hierarchical thinking. It's just not about power stratification. The power hermeneutic is something that the woke imposes on everyone and everything. — Leontiskos

You may be more conversant with Hegel than I am, but I suspect that thinking a hierarchy of values according to power originates with Hegel’s dialectical ‘stages’ of history. His idea of a totalizing emancipatory telos in the form of absolute Spirit becomes naturalized as dialectical materialism with Marx, and rethought as discursive power relations with CT writers. This is where I situate wokism, more or less. Only with Nietzsche and postmodern writers like Foucault is the logic of an emancipatory hierarchy and telos abandoned.
If to be woke is to be enlightened, then Foucault’s response to Kant’s 1774 essay ‘What is Enlightenment’ is instructive of where he might depart from wokists. He considers enlightenment not as emancipation through reason (as in Kant), but as the use of reason to challenge authority, norms, and institutions. This is true of wokists as well, but woke movements often aim to enforce moral clarity, while Foucault sees that impulse as itself a form of power-knowledge that should be questioned.

“The critical ontology of ourselves has to be considered not, certainly, as a theory, a doctrine, nor even as a permanent body of knowledge that is accumulating; it has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life.”

Here are a bunch of related quotes that I want to gather together for this post:

That’s why I hoped you would start the interests/criteria method you propose (and which sounds good to me). — Fire Ologist

Also, I am not trying to undermine any assertions or judgments in particular (I am not arguing). I am merely suggesting that it might be helpful to look at what is at stake, how that is to be judged compared to now, etc. Not to judge the criteria (first) but as a means to see what the possibly unexamined interests are. — Antony Nickles

For any discussion of this kind, we need to establish what goals are on the table — AmadeusD

3. The interests are our skin in the game of achieving the goal, not in carrying out the criteria. Criteria do not care how you feel, they care about what you want to achieve. — AmadeusD

Yep, agreed. That's why I resorted to saying we're talking in Circles in my reply to Antony. It seems like no start point is acceptable. — AmadeusD

-

Even before reading these posts I was tempted to make a new thread on this meta-topic, because it is quite prevalent on TPF. Much of this will build on what @AmadeusD has been getting at. Often on TPF people of a certain stripe try to talk about criteria, or frameworks, or something else as if they are presenting a wholly neutral starting point. I was up against the same sort of thing in this thread with @Srap Tasmaner in particular:

J and Srap Tasmaner in particular tried to say, "Let's take a step back into a neutral frame, so that we can examine this more carefully. Now everyone lives in their own framework..." Their "step back" was always a form of question-begging, given that it presupposed the non-overarching, framework-view. That's what happens when someone falsely claims to be taking a neutral stance on some matter on which they are not neutral* (and, in this case, on a matter in which neutrality is not possible). In general and especially in this case, the better thing to do is simply to give arguments for one's position instead of trying to claim the high ground of "objectivity" or "neutrality." — Leontiskos

I don't mean to pick on Antony, as he has been very humble and intellectually honest (and he is not doing the same thing described in that quote). Still, I am going to use him as an example since something very close to his approach is what I am going to try to argue against, or at least qualify in certain ways. In this thread @Antony Nickles has been saying something like, "Before we argue, let's talk about our interests":

Also, I am not trying to undermine any assertions or judgments in particular (I am not arguing). I am merely suggesting that it might be helpful to look at what is at stake, how that is to be judged compared to now, etc. Not to judge the criteria (first) but as a means to see what the possibly unexamined interests are. — Antony Nickles

The problem with this idea is that human action is always goal-directed. We are always acting for an end. It is psychologically impossible to step out of this goal-directedness. This is explicitly true when it comes to practical reason, and therefore it is confused to say, "Let's look at our criteria/interests objectively without making any value judgments; without making any arguments." This cannot be done. There is no such thing as a reason-less volitional act, or an uninterested analysis. The reason someone wants to "take a step back" is because they have already made a judgment and they already have a practical syllogism (even if implicit or subconscious). To advise taking a step back without providing an interest or a reason is inherently problematic, and this is why @Antony Nickles ran into trouble by saying things like, "Our goal is not X."

I would argue that what is always needed is argument. We have to give an argument/reason why we should take a step back, or why we should have a different goal, or why we should examine our implicit assumptions. There is no shortcut around argument. There is no way to rationally motivate (persuade) someone to take a step back without providing an argument/reason.

Arguments don't have to be caustic or burdensome. What is @Antony Nickles' reason/interest for taking a step back? Presumably he wants to take a step back because he thinks it is a good idea to do so, and therefore his argument must communicate to others why it is a good idea to do so. His argument might be <There is a communication breakdown; if we take a step back and re-evaluate our interests we might overcome the communication breakdown; therefore let's take a step back and re-evaluate our interests>. Or if we are going to set an issue before a board or group of people we might want to establish criteria beforehand according to this argument: <If we explicate our criteria for a decision beforehand, then we will be fortified against post hoc rationalization once the arguments begin; it is good to be fortified against post hoc rationalization; therefore we should explicate our criteria beforehand>.

In the present case when "beforehand" is already behind us, I think @Antony Nickles is more or less trying to say what Nathan Jacobs says about the "four levels of discourse" at 1:24:36. It is definitely important to unearth deeper premises in this way, but the premises that are being unearthed are still premises of an argument. Explication of premises is a part of argument, not something that is separate from argument (and in this case the relevant premises are the interests or the criteria which are being applied). Granted, the arguments that occur at these higher levels of discourse have a slightly different and more "meta" flavor than the arguments that occur at lower levels. Also granted, understanding must precede judgment, and therefore we must take pains to understand before we judge. All of this is true, but it doesn't mean that we ever fully step outside of the mode of argument or persuasion, at least when we are on a philosophy forum.

What I always find so ironic on this topic is the line from scripture, "by the mouth of babes and infants..." Too often we think of those who argue for things as naive, and much of philosophy has become purely hypothetical and descriptive, where no one is willing to argue for anything as being true. Ironically, I think the "novices" who are giving arguments for positions are more meta-logically sound than many of the learned. But the difficulty is particularly acute when it comes to moral issues, i.e. deliberation about which course of action to take. Issues like wokeness are moral issues: they are about practical reasoning. In this area of moral or practical deliberation you can't be satisfied with hypothetical judgments. Or as ' put it, "we can pass judgment at any point, and we must at some point."

adding people to a board. — Antony Nickles

I don't understand what you're describing or trying to set up here. This doesn't jibe with anything we've said, that I can tell. The follow ons seems non-sequitur for that reason.

the ability to contribute to the board's goals — Antony Nickles

On our exchange, this is what's going on. The rest is window dressing. You could add something like "In a way that is not obvious unethical" going to things like corruption, deceit etc.. which are non-co-operative. But the rest seem illegitimate (or, baked into this one like history of leadership. That's a consideration of one's abilities in the present with recourse to statistical evidence supporting that claim of ability).

“Experience” — Antony Nickles

Is the question what's the difference between "experience" in the sense of a job interview, and "lived experience" in the sense of emotionalizing political issues? That seems... perhaps... not a reasonable question to ask. Experience is literally experience of success in a given field in the former. Usually, to extremely specific criteria which are necessary to assess one's potential. The latter has none of these features. The latter (in practice) categorically ignores any metric. It is not a criteria, other than a brute claim criteria. There is no nuance, there is no metric and there is no way to value one over the other (or, as I see it, reason to "value" it for policy purposes at all). We can take aggregate self-reportage somewhat more seriously as a indicator of what problems exist. I can't see it being useful otherwise.

having been part of the population the board is trying to help — Antony Nickles

This is used in two scenarios I'm aware of:
1. In certain law contexts so that hte committee at hand has a "lay person's perspective" but they are essentially ancillary to any decision making processes;
2. Where there is adirect, measurable relationship between this person's membersihp of some class (demographic?) and their ability to report an aggregate opinion of that class to the committee (or board, whatever). This seems problematic in plenty of ways, but at least has a basis to move from.

Otherwise, I cannot see how this could be helpful. The other criteria you posit are directly related.

aluing having people that are connected with the lives they are trying to change — Antony Nickles

This insinuates the board themselves would not have stakes of the same kind. That seems wrong. They are from the same demographic they are serving. Adding "lay people" for the purpose of lived experience seems to simply shift the rhetoric around a bit and have us feeling as if there's some "authenticity" in the decision making process, or "representation". I personally reject that rep. along lines of sex, ethnicity, nationality etc.. are actually helpful or give us much, socially but that aside, clearly the board themselves are representative. This, though, goes to some confusion about the scenario. Why would this be the way to discuss it? Surely it would make more sense to find an issue and discuss why lived experience might be helpful there. You're certainly more likely to find an example that could be agreed on. In broad-strokes, this seems, again, to be an exercise in saying quite a lot, but not going anywhere with it.

I had also mentioned earlier that if you are on vacation looking for something to eat, you ask a local — Antony Nickles

I treated that example. I don't think there is any value, other than to get directions. You could consult Google.

If things need clarifying, counterexamples, go ahead; if it’s broke, fix it—I suggest first trying to get at a good overall sight of all the grounds (get it). — Antony Nickles

I think I've done so, and responded in ways that, to me, seem totally reasonable. The scenario doesn't really move us toward anything helpful, and I'm unsure it addresses the issues we're talking about for lack of being specific enough to actually engage them. I make a suggestion earlier as to how we might proceed a little clearer.

This might be overly coarse, but I take the other option to be claiming/attributing/assuming a certain goal first and then perhaps treating “interests” as justifications for the goal, or motivations for the goal. Whatever that may be, I take it as the classic philosophical discussion to first determine what is right or what ought to be done — Antony Nickles

I think this is quite clearly wrong. The goal is essentially arbitrary, as all must be more-or-less. That's the point. If can't get a moral discussion of goals going there's no point moving to methods. If your position (one's position) is that white people need to be removed, by legislature, from some positions of power - okay, cool. We need to talk about how you're going to get there. One issue is convincing people. So we're off to a good start.

If we start with criteria about goals, we're looking for an objective moral. That seems a bogus endeavour, particularly around Woke issues.

Again, I take this difference as a matter of analytical philosophy, and not as some kind of proxy for woke/not woke — Antony Nickles

There does seem to be a semi-direct link between the Analytical/Continental divide and woke/non-woke arguments, though. I'm unsure that's an unfair connection to make.

I would also posit that the portion between these two quotes is again, using a lot of words to say not much. Rationality is not up for grabs. Rationality is a particular process. If we want to jettison rationality that's fine and we can discuss from there. I think what you're trying to do is to say "Well, what is rationality?" which is again, bogus. Rationality is a known process. Its place at hte top of hte hierarchy of deliberation may be questionable. But I doubt it, given these exchanges.

I don't mean to pick on Antony, as he has been very humble and intellectually honest (and he is not doing the same thing described in that quote). — Leontiskos

100%. Absolute gentleman.

My point is that the idea that hierarchical thinking is an evil bogeyman is a strawman. Anyone who admits that some values are higher than others is involved in hierarchical thinking. It's just not about power stratification. The power hermeneutic is something that the woke imposes on everyone and everything. — Leontiskos

That’s what I was saying.

and simply acknowledge the absence of a state and organized religion, yes? This, in my opinion, loosens the rigidity of the bishop's hierarchy of values — praxis

I don’t know that we have any idea of what people did in a time before political and moral interaction, community narratives and stories of the dead and the invisible but apparent forces. There has always been a type of political state as soon as more than one family create a clan, and there has always been a type of religion as we see burial rituals going way back in time.

Plus you are placing an interest in egalitarianism over and above an interest in hierarchy - thereby creating a hierarchy.

So why fight the hierarchy itself? How about instead we focus on setting the right ideals and goals at the top?

My point is that the idea that hierarchical thinking is an evil bogeyman is a strawman. Anyone who admits that some values are higher than others is involved in hierarchical thinking. — Leontiskos

I’m not attacking a strawman or anything else. I’m merely voicing the opinion that the fundamental conflict is between hierarchical vertical thinking and egalitarian horizontal thinking.

It's just not about power stratification.

Of course the belief that values are baked into reality in a particular order is not just about power stratification. It helps to uphold the order nevertheless.

His argument might be <There is a communication breakdown; if we take a step back and re-evaluate our interests we might overcome the communication breakdown; therefore let's take a step back and re-evaluate our interests>. Or if we are going to set an issue before a board or group of people we might want to establish criteria beforehand according to this argument: <If we explicate our criteria for a decision beforehand, then we will be fortified against post hoc rationalization once the arguments begin; it is good to be fortified against post hoc rationalization; therefore we should explicate our criteria beforehand>. — Leontiskos

@Antony Nickles. I think we are trying.

this meta-topic, because it is quite prevalent on TPF. Much of this will build on what AmadeusD has been getting at. Often on TPF people of a certain stripe try to talk about criteria, or frameworks, or something else as if they are presenting a wholly neutral starting point — Leontiskos

Yes. Instead of talking about some thing, we end up talking about how to talk.

I fully admit the criteria and the step back is important. It’s like putting all of the products on the shelves and giving them a price and having a cash register and hiring the employees and planning for opening day. All vital. But we never get to opening day and to cash out any of the criteria or see what products sell and which don’t and see a customer smiling as they say “thanks”.

We never conclude something together.

It’s all back-office paperwork.

I think it’s unconscious.

I also think it is a characteristic of woke - if the other party doesn’t appear to agree with you, they must need to reevaluate their whole approach so let’s talk about that instead of whatever thing we both disagree with.

But, I would rather discuss whether woke avoids direct confrontation every time - meaning argument (the woke obviously love a good protest, but they seem to hate a good disagreement.)

Or how about whether woke or traditionalists seek to verify the facts more. Both sides accuse the other of making up facts - does either side do this more often than the other (both accuse or actually use, false “facts”)?

Or we can start with a traditionalist thing - Leontiskos called wokeism heresy, and @praxis saw this as counterintuitive since woke and Christ seemed to both root for the little guy, the down-trodden. How can Leon’s heresy claim be consistent, or how come the religious are not more woke?

In this thread Antony Nickles has been saying something like, "Before we argue, let's talk about our interests": — Leontiskos

3. The interests are our skin in the game of achieving the goal, not in carrying out the criteria. Criteria do not care how you feel, they care about what you want to achieve. — AmadeusD

I would suggest perhaps we look at, engage in, the process I am suggesting, using the example, because I’m not sure I can (possibly) clear this up abstractly. I am not suggesting an argument about interests (first), but an investigation to uncover them, in our society, in a particular practice, so this is also not our interests (the ones arguing) but a look at, investigate, make explicit, our shared (current) criteria which encapsulate/reflect, not justify, our society’s interests in those criteria—not that they are the (rational/irrational) arguments for the criteria or for making a particular decision based on them.

The problem with this idea is that human action is always goal-directed. — Leontiskos

This is a whole ‘nother can of worms, but, in what I would call a moral moment, call it a crisis of criteria, we don’t know what to do, so this is perhaps jumping to a conclusion and then arguing to justify it, or, worse, arguing about how we justify it. I am merely suggesting a philosophical practice.

Presumably he wants to take a step back because he thinks it is a good idea to do so, and therefore his argument must communicate to others why it is a good idea to do so — Leontiskos

I have tried to explain this, make an argument for it; maybe the desire for a specific kind of answer is getting in the way? In any event, I don’t have a compelling reason to make you do it, as it is voluntary, as is continuing despite an inclination to stop (move to decide we cannot agree), as is the acceptance of the description of the criteria. Perhaps if we try, this might be easier to understand.

I have tried to explain this, make an argument for it; — Antony Nickles

Maybe I just missed it. Can you point me to the post where you provide reasons for why we ought to take a step back?

But we never get to opening day and to cash out any of the criteria or see what products sell and which don’t and see a customer smiling as they say “thanks”.

We never conclude something together.

It’s all back-office paperwork. — Fire Ologist

Yes, and this is largely why the "step back" is not necessarily unobjectionable. We have members who literally argue that there is no correct judgment to be had, and when they counsel taking a step back this is what they are aiming at.

@Leontiskos @AmadeusD @Number2018 @frank @Count Timothy von Icarus @Joshs @Fire Ologist

Yes. Instead of talking about something, we end up talking about how to talk. — Fire Ologist

So maybe it’s just better to pin this and take a look at my post above as an example of the method.

We never conclude something together. — Fire Ologist

Always a risk/possibility, and this creates the desire to agree beforehand on/use, terms that will ensure we agree (or be judged irrational, etc.), say, “logic” or whatever. Also, I did say, even if we end up disagreeing, we can at least have a better, more explicit understanding of the terrain (learn something about our society).

It’s all back-office paperwork. — Fire Ologist

Ouch, philosophy is doomed.

I think it’s unconscious. — Fire Ologist

Not unconscious, unexamined, yet to be reflected on, taken from implicit never-think-about, to made explicit, drawn out in assumptions, implications, distinctions, etc. Who actually thinks about what makes an accident different than a mistake? (@Banno)

Plus you are placing an interest in egalitarianism over and above an interest in hierarchy - thereby creating a hierarchy. — Fire Ologist

The religious hierarchy is fixed. Good reason for the separation of church and state in a democracy.

We need a situation obviously. I’ll just throw out there what AmadeusD and I started on, which was basically, say, adding people to a board. — Antony Nickles

the ability to contribute to the board's goals
— Antony Nickles

On our exchange, this is what's going on. The rest is window dressing. — AmadeusD

I think AmadeusD is right. A board hires someone who will best contribute to their goals. The rest of your post is based on assumptions about the different kinds of goals different kinds of boards would have. But like my other questions, I don't know why we are pretending we are on a board. I think you have to provide some rationale for why we should think up a pretend "situation" and then think through that pretend scenario.

For example, I might say, "Antony, let's pretend that we're surfing. Let's brainstorm about our criteria for choosing a wave. There's a big wave forming, but it looks like there's a shark nearby..." You might say to me, "This is a thread about wokeness. Why do you want me to pretend I am surfing? Shouldn't we be talking about wokeness in a thread on wokeness? Unless I am missing something and you can give me a good reason why I should pretend I'm surfing...?"

Is your point with the board that if the company serves some group—say a minority—then that minority should be represented on the board, and that this therefore has something to do with DEI?

Can you point me to the post where you provide reasons for why we ought to take a step back? — Leontiskos

My first post was to get at why “rational/irrational” gets in the way, and to suggest a way around that, but I think I did such a poor job of it, not expecting confusion in the right places, that I think it better to just see what I am doing in, participate in the method of, the example and maybe hold off of on the larger philosophical issues; or we could just read every discussion you and I have ever brought up. ;)

I’m not attacking a strawman or anything else. I’m merely voicing the opinion that the fundamental conflict is between hierarchical vertical thinking and egalitarian horizontal thinking. — praxis

I don't disagree that the conflict is bound up with that polarity. Let's revisit what you said here:

In the video linked on the previous page, Bishop Barron refers to an 'objective hierarchy of value'—a structure he sees as embedded in the very fabric of reality. While that may be a compelling theological claim, it also implies a preference for maintaining a vertically structured society. And in any vertical structure, there is always a lower class. — praxis

So in Barron's "vertical structure" where justice is good and injustice is bad, the thief is forced to answer to the non-thieves, i.e. he is punished for stealing. That's true, and perhaps it's no coincidence that many of the woke do not believe in theft.

Rather, the fixed hierarchy is key to power stratification that wokeness aims to reduce. — praxis

Well, if you were "merely voicing the opinion [above]," then I don't think you would be using the word "key." That word implies that the non-woke is using hierarchy as a means to their desired end of power stratification. A hierarchy of value results in normative structures and "power stratification" (such as the case where the thief and the non-thief are viewed differently), but I think it is a strawman to impute bad intentions here, as if "power stratification" is the desired end.

But here's a question for you. Take the wokist and place them in every possible world. Is there any possible world where they look around and say, "Ah, there is no power stratification in this world and therefore my wokeness will lie dormant"?

@Leontiskos @AmadeusD @Number2018 @frank @Count Timothy von Icarus @Joshs @Fire Ologist

After the following flat dismissals:

But the rest seem illegitimate — AmadeusD

The rest is window dressing — AmadeusD

[what the different criteria are for work experience vs lived experience] seems... perhaps... not a reasonable question to ask. — AmadeusD

I can't see it being useful otherwise. — AmadeusD

@AmadeusD decides:

The scenario doesn't really move us toward anything helpful, — AmadeusD

Reeeally…

[Experience] is a consideration of one's abilities in the present with recourse to statistical evidence supporting that claim of ability). — AmadeusD

Experience is literally experience of success in a given field in the former. — AmadeusD

Usually, [experience is judged on] extremely specific criteria which are necessary to assess one's potential. — AmadeusD

[Lived experience] (in practice) categorically ignores any metric. — AmadeusD

[lived experience could be valued as] a "lay person's perspective" but they are essentially ancillary to any decision making processes; — AmadeusD

[Lived experience may matter] where there is a direct, measurable relationship between this person's membership of some class (demographic?) and their ability to report an aggregate opinion of that class to the committee (or board, whatever). This seems problematic in plenty of ways, but at least has a basis to move from. — AmadeusD

. [One criteria for] adding "lay people" for the purpose of lived experience [may be to make the public feel] as if there's some "authenticity" in the decision making process, or "representation". — AmadeusD

I don't think there is any value [to a local], other than to get directions. You could consult Google. — AmadeusD

This is a laundry list of proposed criteria (even some about lived experience!) that we had not yet made explicit or examined. And I would offer there is “meat” here to develop, clarify, compare, etc. that would be valuable to get clear about before judging how the board would go forward and what that looks like here.

Surely it would make more sense to find an issue and discuss why lived experience might be helpful there — AmadeusD

(emphasis added)

You're certainly more likely to find an example that could be agreed on. — AmadeusD

I took it that people take issue with appointing people to boards based on lived experience. I would concede to suggestions from the group for agreement on a different example as long as it is a situation (not an “issue” abstracted from any sense of a possible context) about how to decide what to do in a particular case, i.e, with competing, say old vs new, criteria.

I very much appreciated your rendering this in terms of aesthetics.

But I've found it's all up to what you value... — George Harrison

A board hires someone who will best contribute to their goals — Leontiskos

Okay, but how they decide (what is important in deciding) is based on criteria. Contributing to their goals is one criteria (do we have a goal that each other criteria satisfy? “Our goal is to have someone with work experience” How is that saying something different?). There are no more? I have suggested some; I would think a discussion would involve more than just ignoring those; more to my hope, adding to the process—maybe pointing out how my explanation doesn't take into account something about the criteria, etc. I mean, I thought @AmadeusD did well.

This is a thread about wokeness. Why do you want me to pretend I am surfing? — Leontiskos

Appointing someone to a board based on "lived experience" is not relevant? As I said, any other examples are fine by me. (except surfing, though I know there's a joke in there somewhere)

A board hires someone who will best contribute to their goals
— Leontiskos

Okay, but how they decide (what is important in deciding) is based on criteria. Contributing to their goals is one criteria (do we have a goal that each other criteria satisfy? — Antony Nickles

Okay, but you need to cash this out. What does this have to do with wokeism? Are you demonstrating how woke thinkers think, or are you coming to a woke conclusion, a woke thought, somewhere in there?

I don’t think this expressly needs to have anything to do with woke yet.

A board hires someone who will best contribute to their goals. The rest of your post is based on assumptions about the different kinds of goals different kinds of boards would have. But like my other questions, I don't know why we are pretending — Leontiskos

A few posts back I raised as an interest or goal that all people are individuals, that kinds of people or groups are less important than any single individual that might be placed into the group for sake of argument.

This to me is an unwoke interest. Nothing came of it because you wanted criteria and underlying interests.

Now with the Board example, as with my individual example, I will still prioritize the particular when seeking the criteria and/or the interest/goal - I sort of, assume a criteria and find some particular with it and augment the particular by expanding the criteria.

So I can’t even begin to balance Board criteria without just discussing the particulars.
What kind of company/entity does this Board lead? For profit or non-profit? What is the product or service?
Who is on the board already? Who is being replaced, or is the new person being added?

These particulars are mostly external to the new potential Board member. The criteria you mentioned are mostly internal to the person:

history of leadership, subject-matter or practical experience, the ability to contribute to the board's goals (say, fundraising, lobbying), connections (political, celebrity). We may need to elaborate how judgments are made on those criteria with examples — Antony Nickles

These are about the new individual. Before I can start to prioritize and identify these people factors, I need to know the company, service, physical pieces…

But let’s look at what you said. One thing is the different notions “leadership, experience, moneymaking, goal setting. The other thing is “how judgments are made.”

@Leontiskos mentioned a third thing about making judgments, or understanding.

So in another prior post I talked about doing two things at once (like answer why and how, or clarify goals and criteria as @AmadeusD mentioned.”

Now in this post here, the method now becomes doing three things:
Criteria. (Substance based X)
How judgements are made. (Reasoning).
Judgment. Or understanding. (The particular truth, universalized, or simply what is now known.).

So we have some criteria and underlying bits. Now let’s talk woke or not-woke with these bits in mind.

Is your point with the board that if the company serves some group—say a minority—then that minority should be represented on the board, and that this therefore has something to do with DEI? — Leontiskos

@Antony Nickles Is there a way to promote inclusion, without first dividing different exclusive groups and identifying types of people to be included and represented, and others to be excluded as already represented enough?

Is there a way to promote equity without blindness to particulars?

Is there a way to promote diversity without recognizing all of the inequities that make things diverse?

When are we going to cash this out in terms reflecting the woke?

Let’s just pick something important, say what and how that is the case, and see what criteria emerge in the process, so that next time when we pick something else important again, we’ll have stronger criteria. Let’s go back to the topic, criteria be damned )before we damn the toooc and review the criteria again…)

@Leontiskos @AmadeusD @Number2018 @frank @Count Timothy von Icarus @Joshs @Fire Ologist

you need to cash this out. — Fire Ologist

Literally the first thing you say? No attempt to humor me? I mean, at least @AmadeusD gave it a go, and there is nothing there worth discussing/exploring? All right, maybe just not your cup of tea.

I can’t even begin to balance Board criteria without just discussing the particulars. — Fire Ologist

Adding details in order to clarify how certain criteria work can be helpful. It shows how our words are connected to the world in a way. I suggested lived experience might be important in a certain way if the board was doing work that affected that lived place. So sure, feel free to suggest how certain criteria would require certain situations, or vice-versa., etc.

Now in this post here, the method now becomes doing three things… — Fire Ologist

I love the energy, but why the hurry? is there nothing of interest so far?

So we have some criteria and underlying bits. Now let’s talk… — Fire Ologist

So the discussion of criteria seems done and clear to you?

Is there a way to promote inclusion… — Fire Ologist

Is there a way to promote equity… — Fire Ologist

Is there a way to promote diversity… — Fire Ologist

I don’t even think we’ve gotten what we have mapped out, and you want to add three more new criteria? Again, I applaud the ambition. If everyone wants, we can shift to one of these other criteria (just one please), but I hate to throw out our efforts so far. But, if another is more interesting, or would be easier to draw out in a more appropriate situation, I’ll concede.

Let’s just pick something important, say what and how that is the case, and see what criteria emerge in the process, — Fire Ologist

We can also abandon the experiment, if that’s what this means; or just try it out. Your call.

I think it is a strawman to impute bad intentions here, as if "power stratification" is the desired end. — Leontiskos

Of course the belief that values are baked into reality in a particular order is not just about power stratification. It helps to uphold the order nevertheless. — praxis

We can also abandon the experiment, if that’s what this means; or just try it out. Your call. — Antony Nickles

I didn’t mean to imply abandoning the experiment.

I guess I’m saying it needs more structure (in my eyes) to ensure it is even related to wokeness, and the way I propose giving it that structure is with a bit of dialectics - adding some Yang of goals, to the Yin of assumptions and criteria, to then come back with a new synthesis and re-inquire about the assumptions and criteria (the experiment).

But to recap progress (I’ve asked the secretary): we are seeing criteria reflecting assumptions in the identification of: general lived experience, leadership, practical task at hand experience, moneymaking/fundraising, goal setting. I see some methodological awareness of a distinction between judging, and understanding, and some thing understood. (But we haven’t really fleshed that out yet).

That’s all mostly Yin. Method. Criteria. Not many assumptions made explicit.

I’d like to provisionally “cash out” this just to see what happens - to see if the experiment is going to help us at all to understand wokeness. I am losing sight of that. OR maybe there are tons of assumptions YOU have in mind that make all of this clearly about wokeness. Please put them on the table.

But to continue building the experiment I’ll call “How to Build a Better Board”:

What kind of company? This will matter. Is it an American based for-profit, publicly traded mineral and mining company with 5,000 employees whose business model involves trashing third world resources? Is it a non-profit think tank aimed at educating HR departments in how to foster DEI? Let’s go more neutral, and say it’s a small business (200 employees), that makes low cost baby and children supplies (whatever that means, doesn’t matter to me more than manufacturing/selling kid stuff). So a nice little retail/manufacturing start up, privately held corporation, struggling to grow in today’s marketplace. (Or you tell me if this kind of detail is not necessary and I’m way outside the intended experiment.)

Do they currently have 5 board members or 12? This matters because a board of 5 members leaves no room for error and each member will have hands pretty full or all will share all duties (just operate differently than a board that has room for sub-committees). Lets say they have 7 members, all of them have some degree of ownership (profit share) in the company, but there are more employees who own some of then company that are not on the board, and the Board is looking to add an 8th board member, and don’t care if they are an owner or not. (Will this new even number of 8 members allow for stalemates in voting? so do they need to consider adding 2 members and bringing the Board to 9?)

And how about this specific - which brings up age-ism - the current Board and leadership recognize the company needs a bigger and better online social media presence. Want to almost become a baby-stuff influencer as a company. Do they make someone young and fluent in social media a board member? Even if a candidate happens to be great at social media, if they are over 55, it just won’t give the appearance they want for the role. They want a mom or dad, not grandparent type, dare I say. This new board member is going to develop initiatives that involve both their employees internally (stuff to post about in the company) and they have a lot of young employees, and they will have a bit of a marketing role themselves, be a face for the Board, so a younger face makes the sense (but no one is sure it’s necessary).

Am I getting us anywhere?

Nope

I guess I’m saying it needs more structure (in my eyes) to ensure it is even related to wokeness — Fire Ologist

Does it help to say the board is considering adding lived experience as a criteria for appointment to the board?

As far as limiting the scenario ahead of time, the idea is to allow the investigation of criteria to drive the boat. Now we could of course say, in this scenario, a certain company, etc., leads a board to other criteria than we have drawn out, or more to the point, criteria x is qualified by certain aspects of the world.

I did suggest a pin in the philosophy. What I would say is we might not see the benefit, not having really gotten anywhere yet, to get to a point where we can judge it or compare it, but you certainly can investigate the relationship between goals the board might have to the criteria suggested, or others we have overlooked, such as…

Do they make someone young… a board member? — Fire Ologist

And is this the same as, or how different, than lived experience, or just for a skill (social media), or like a celebrity…

Am I getting us anywhere? — Fire Ologist

It’s a start, so thank you.

BTW - I do appreciate the effort, and I am working on a response. I think you gave us a lot to think about. I thought I might give @Leontiskos and @Fire Ologist, or others, a chance to give some more input on the criteria we are discussing.

I have tried to explain this, make an argument for it; — Antony Nickles

Can you point me to the post where you provide reasons for why we ought to take a step back? — Leontiskos

My first post was to get at why “rational/irrational” gets in the way, and to suggest a way around that, but I think I did such a poor job of it, not expecting confusion in the right places, that I think it better to just see what I am doing in, participate in the method of, the example and maybe hold off of on the larger philosophical issues; — Antony Nickles

So are you saying that you don't really know of a place where you provide reasons for why we ought to take a step back? Again, I don't know what your example is supposed to show. I don't know how it counts as a reason.

-

Okay, but how they decide (what is important in deciding) is based on criteria. Contributing to their goals is one criteria (do we have a goal that each other criteria satisfy? “Our goal is to have someone with work experience” How is that saying something different?). There are no more? — Antony Nickles

If you think there is a criterion that is unrelated to the board's goal, then what would that criterion be?

Appointing someone to a board based on "lived experience" is not relevant? — Antony Nickles

I'm asking you to tell us why it is relevant. This is the same issue we ran into earlier. You want us to do something but you won't tell us why. "Let's change our goal." "Why?" "Let's talk about a board." "Why?" It seems to me that just telling people to do things for no reason is coercive, and this is incompatible with philosophy. If you were my Zen master then you could just tell me to do something and I would do it, no questions asked. Or if I accepted your arguments from your own authority, then you could just tell me to do something. In both cases I would trust that you are leading me where I ultimately want to go. But I don't see you as an intrinsic authority who can just give directions without any rationale. So if you want us to talk about a board, then you have to tell us why. Again, should we start talking about surfing? Would I need to provide a reason if I said that?

How is talking about a board going to help us get to where we want to go? How is it related to the topic of this thread, and not a derailment? "Just trust me" is not a reason.

As I said, any other examples are fine by me. (except surfing, though I know there's a joke in there somewhere) — Antony Nickles

Why not surfing? That is precisely the sort of question you need to answer. If you can propose boards for no reason at all, then why can't I propose surfing for no reason at all? If we've done away with reasons then what's the difference?

@Antony Nickles

It is incredibly common on TPF for people to give "random" scenarios such as the board, which then turn out to involve petitio principii, even unbeknownst to them. This happened recently when Srap wanted to frame an issue in terms of moving from one town to another, but in the end his framing . He styled himself as a neutral party, but it turned out he wasn't, which is not surprising. Neutral parties are rare when it comes to these issues where we must all make decisions about the thing at stake. That's why you have to give a rationale for the relevance of your example (analogy?). No one just gives random examples for no reason. I desire transparency.

Operating from below conscious subjectivity, Protevi proposes evolutionarily adaptive neurological modules that program subjects for prosocial behavior as well as for narrowly construed self-preservation. Impinging on persons from above are socially originating forms of conditioning . Notice the Deleuzian language that Protevi incorporates.

"Zahavi (2005) and Gallagher (2005), among others, distinguish agency and ownership of bodily actions. Ownership is the sense that my body is doing the action, while agency is the sense that I am in control of the action, that the action is willed. Both are aspects of subjectivity, though they may well be a matter of pre-reflective self-awareness rather than full-fledged objectifying self-consciousness. But alongside subjectivity we need also to notice emergent assemblages that skip subjectivity and directly conjoin larger groups and the somatic. To follow this line of thought, let us accept that, in addition to non-subjective body control by reflexes, we can treat basic emotions as modular “affect programs” (Griffiths 1997) that run the body's hardware in the absence of conscious control. As with reflexes, ownership and agency are only retrospectively felt, at least in severe cases of rage in which the person “wakes up” to see the results of the destruction committed while he or she was in the grips of the rage. In this way we see two elements we need to take into account besides the notion of subjective agency: (1) that there is another sense of “agent” as non-subjective controller of bodily action, either reflex or basic emotion, and (2) that in some cases the military unit and non-subjective reflexes and basic emotions are intertwined in such a way as to bypass the soldiers' subjectivity qua controlled intentional action. In these cases the practical agent of the act of killing is not the individual person or subject, but the emergent assemblage of military unit and non-subjective reflex or equally non-subjective “affect program.”

“A little more detail on the notion of a “rage agent” might be helpful at this point. Extreme cases of rage produce a modular agent or “affect program” that replaces the subject. Affect programs are emotional responses that are “complex, coordinated, and automated … unfold[ing] in this coordinated fashion without the need for conscious direction” (Griffiths 1997: 77). They are more than reflexes, but they are triggered well before any cortical processing can take place (though later cortical appraisals can dampen or accelerate the affect program). Griffiths makes the case that affect programs should be seen in light of Fodor's notion of modularity, which calls for a module to be “mandatory … opaque [we are aware of outputs but not the processes producing them] … and informationally encapsulated [the information in a module cannot access that in other modules]”.

Perhaps second only to the question of adaptationism for the amount of controversy it has evoked, the use of the concept of modularity in evolutionary psychology is bitterly contested. I feel relatively safe proposing a very-widely distributed rage module or rage agent, since its adaptive value is widely attested to by its presence in other mammals, and since Panksepp 1998 is able to cite studies of direct electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) and neurochemical manipulation as identifying homologous rage circuits in humans and other mammalian species (190)."

"In the berserker rage, the subject is overwhelmed by a chemical flood that triggers an evolutionarily primitive module which functions as an agent which runs the body's hardware in its place.”"The vast majority of soldiers cannot kill in cold blood and need to kill in a desubjectified state, e.g., in reflexes, rages and panics." — Joshs

These quotes show a philosophical divergence between Protevi’s approach and Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy of subjectivity. For Protevi, agency and ownership are treated as distinct faculties, existing independently before or after the event. His focus lies in the emergent control systems, where subjectivity is bypassed or managed rather than produced. In contrast, for D&G, the subject is not an object of affective regulation or bodily control. Instead, it is the effect or residue of more fundamental productive machines and intensive processes. D&G would resist the reduction of desire to action’s behavioural management.

if you want us to talk about a board, then you have to tell us why. — Leontiskos

I assumed that considering using lived experience as a criteria for appointment to a board would be something that would at issue here. As I said, feel free to chose a different example that involves indecision on how to move forward. Having a situation only matters in that we would have existing criteria for doing something, but that there is either something happening that we haven’t considered or new criteria being suggested, etc. that make us uncertain as to how to continue, but, from where we are (lost). I am suggesting that, instead of assuming we understand the criteria and the interests they reflect, we actually investigate a situation with this uncertainty to use the criteria as a way in…

If you were my Zen master then you could just tell me to do something and I would do it, no questions asked. — Leontiskos

Again, I did try to explain the reasons/benefit (which you did go through?) of the method (tied up with what that even is); but the idea was to, for now, put a pin in the philosophical discussion, in the hope that trying an example would help see why do it, to understand the philosophical reasons to do it. As a courtesy I will say in summary (though I will not argue it here, as I have spelled it out in length above), wanting to first decide what we are going to do, or imposing criteria for how to decide that, is to skip over examining, in a sense, how the world works. Now, as I said, I think aaaallll the objections have not resolved whether that is a good idea (as I did not anticipate all of them in my explanations, nor explain well it appears), much less even an agreement on understanding it (though there were some times that parts of it were close), so, yes, barring your review of the above (and perhaps even after that), I am simply asking for a good faith effort to try. But I can understand your skepticism and reticence in the effort. (Is guilting someone coercion?)

where we must all make decisions about the thing at stake. — Leontiskos

And my suggestion is to look at the criteria for judging in a particular case (not justifications for x) to find out what is at stake (what is essential about it), as if we don’t yet know, and so would be trying to decide what to do blind (even about a goal).