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? — Leontiskos
A similarity in the two is that both a surfer and a board can decide to hang 10. — praxis
A similarity in the two is that both a surfer and a board can decide to hang 10. — praxis
Or do we allow men and women to compete together and name the victor “The Chairperson”. — Fire Ologist
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… — Antony Nickles
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. — Antony Nickles
I am simply asking for a good faith effort to try — Antony Nickles
(Is guilting someone coercion?) — Antony Nickles
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). — Antony Nickles
). What is uncertain about the topic of this thread, wokeness? — Leontiskos
There is very little uncertainty of how to proceed — Leontiskos
I am not questioning that you do not know how to proceed, as if, in this Discussion; what I am suggesting would be a situation in the world where the people involved do not know how to decide how to proceed. — Antony Nickles
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). — Antony Nickles
Let’s assume that I am uncertain about what woke is — Antony Nickles
What is uncertain about the topic of this thread, wokeness? Curiously enough, this thread has some of the strongest consensus I have ever seen on TPF. There is very little uncertainty of how to proceed. People from all different philosophical and political backgrounds are agreeing that there are problems with wokeness, and they are in large agreement on what those problems are. — Leontiskos
I finally get it (I think). You are looking for woke criteria. You are saying to the Board “we need to appoint a new member and want to make sure we are being woke, enlightened, in our selection, so, how do we make a woke selection? — Fire Ologist
What’s been said about wokeness.
1. It’s goals are chosen and driven more by affect/emotion than by rational analysis. — Fire Ologist
Diversity is an end in itself. — Fire Ologist
The woke are honestly compassionate for victims. — Fire Ologist
This all goes to the fairly recent notion of “virtue signaling”. — Fire Ologist
Self-contradiction. It seems to be a feature of wokeness. — Fire Ologist
Let’s assume that I am uncertain about what woke is (it seems not far from the truth); think about the criteria you would explain to me so I would be able to tell it from something else I would know that is close to it and/or opposite to it (as we were doing with work experience vs lived experience). — Antony Nickles
I thought lived experience was a woke thing, but I am more than willing to admit I don’t know what I am talking about, or I picked the wrong context. — Antony Nickles
I thought I was speaking Klingon. Yes. How do we tell? What matters to (in judging) it being “woke”? — Antony Nickles
rationality is not separate or universal but is embedded within specific configurations of embodied and affective dynamics — Number2018
The problem is that I think we are <derailing the thread>. Note too that as someone who thinks wokeness is being approached inappropriately in this thread, you wish for the inappropriate approach to cease or to be replaced by a better approach. By constantly attempting to change the subject and introduce new topics or examples, you have effectively ceased the discussion of wokeness that the thread is about — Leontiskos
they remain at a primarily descriptive level and lack sufficient explanatory power. — Number2018
apply a theory of affect to approach wokeness as an affective phenomenon. Its rituals of calling out and moral absolutism reflect a particular mode of being, a form of emergent subjectivity. — Number2018
You're right—and that's likely why I introduced a new example myself: the case of Eichmann. — Number2018
In this context, Eichmann's case can become a paradigmatic example. My knowledge of the case is based primarily on Hannah Arendt’s account. “He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing… It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed [Eichmann] to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. … That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together.” (Arendt, ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil’, pg 36) — Number2018
I answer that, A sin is an inordinate act. Accordingly, so far as it is an act, it can have a direct cause, even as any other act; but, so far as it is inordinate, it has a cause, in the same way as a negation or privation can have a cause. Now two causes may be assigned to a negation: in the first place, absence of the cause of affirmation; i.e. the negation of the cause itself, is the cause of the negation in itself; since the result of the removing the cause is the removal of the effect: thus the absence of the sun is the cause of darkness. In the second place, the cause of an affirmation, of which a negation is a sequel, is the accidental cause of the resulting negation: thus fire by causing heat in virtue of its principal tendency, consequently causes a privation of cold. The first of these suffices to cause a simple negation. But, since the inordinateness of sin and of every evil is not a simple negation, but the privation of that which something ought naturally to have, such an inordinateness must needs have an accidental efficient cause. For that which naturally is and ought to be in a thing, is never lacking except on account of some impeding cause. And accordingly we are wont to say that evil, which consists in a certain privation, has a deficient cause, or an accidental efficient cause. Now every accidental cause is reducible to the direct cause. Since then sin, on the part of its inordinateness, has an accidental efficient cause, and on the part of the act, a direct efficient cause, it follows that the inordinateness of sin is a result of the cause of the act. Accordingly then, the will lacking the direction of the rule of reason and of the Divine law, and intent on some mutable good, causes the act of sin directly, and the inordinateness of the act, indirectly, and beside the intention: for the lack of order in the act results from the lack of direction in the will. — Aquinas, ST I-II.75.1 - Whether sin has a cause?
A kind of short-circuit occurs in the judgment such that one goal is prioritized to such an extent that other goals are ignored — Leontiskos
that neglect is volitional, albeit indirectly volitional. The short-circuit is favored. — Leontiskos
you have effectively derailed the thread from the topic of the OP. — Leontiskos
“People often make premature judgments, but no one is doing that here.” — Leontiskos
But in truth, we don't need more examples; we're already overwhelmed by an abundance of facts and cases. — Number2018
You may be right this; I had thought we were getting somewhere, but getting to what counts for woke, much less to judge if it has ended, has been harder than I considered. — Antony Nickles
I must apologize for this; it was a joke, in bad taste, which I thought was clear, as you seemed hell-bent on assuming I was somehow, in not attacking your argument, I was attacking you, your character, or your ability to judge at all. Poorly done on my part. — Antony Nickles
Of course I was saying judgment was being made prematurely, but not any particular judgments, other than the assumption of the rational-irrational dichotomy, which, as I said, is how I got started... — Antony Nickles
Yes, like we all do in adolescence. — Fire Ologist
The emotional response to systemic power differences usurps good judgement. — Fire Ologist
Great—likely, we’re now much closer to a more nuanced and developed approach to the phenomenon of wokeness. What you describe as “neglect is volitional, albeit indirectly volitional. The short-circuit is favored” corresponds to our response to the pressures of immediate situations. We are constantly required to make decisions about complex matters within very short time spans.I would actually follow Aquinas to a conclusion slightly different from Arendt's. For Aquinas the evil of error is primarily a matter of neglect. For example, when you are excited to visit your beloved you might speed and "forget" the speed limit. You haven't really forgotten it since it's still there in the back of your mind, but you're neglecting it. More generally, there is a sense in which you are capable of following the speed limit and yet choose not to.
One could cash that out in terms of "thoughtlessness," but I think what is happening is more subtle. A kind of short-circuit occurs in the judgment such that one goal is prioritized to such an extent that other goals are ignored (which in this case is a restriction-goal: not-speeding). I agree that this is all deeply bound up with affectivity and the passions, but the moral point I would emphasize is that neglect is volitional, albeit indirectly volitional. The short-circuit is favored. The lover neglects to obey or even consider the rationale for not-speeding, or else he neglects to obey or even consider the cause(s) that would either allow him to consider that rationale, or which obstruct him from being able to consider that rationale. — Leontiskos
It’s goals are chosen and driven more by affect/emotion than by rational analysis. — Fire Ologist
this might be a sort of sabotage move where you hire a board member you know will annoy the current white chairman of the board — Fire Ologist
Great—likely, we’re now much closer to a more nuanced and developed approach to the phenomenon of wokeness. What you describe as “neglect is volitional, albeit indirectly volitional. The short-circuit is favored” corresponds to our response to the pressures of immediate situations. We are constantly required to make decisions about complex matters within very short time spans. — Number2018
As a result, many of our decisions become automatized, almost unconscious. This condition affects not only those identified as “woke” but all of us. Woke individuals primarely remain anchored in a relatively localized domain, where they can continuously demonstrate their vigorous sense of moral rightness and commitment to justice. In doing so, they vividly illustrate how rationality can become subsumed by the impact of ‘the short-circuit’. — Number2018
Hannah Arendt offered a remarkable account of Eichmann. However, it is not quite accurate to describe him as irrational—he was, in fact, following the bureaucratic logic of the Nazi regime. Most likely, his most consequential decision was joining the Nazi party. From that point on, he became a thoughtless functionary. But that pivotal decision was made at a more subtle level, shaped by unconscious affective forces rather than deliberate reasoning. — Number2018
Hannah Arendt offered a remarkable account of Eichmann. However, it is not quite accurate to describe him as irrational—he was, in fact, following the bureaucratic logic of the Nazi regime. Most likely, his most consequential decision was joining the Nazi party. From that point on, he became a thoughtless functionary. But that pivotal decision was made at a more subtle level, shaped by unconscious affective forces rather than deliberate reasoning. — Number2018
Eichmann's reason became a slave to his passions, at least if we see Nazism as part of his passions. So Eichmann was involved in a lot of thought and reasoning about how to further his goal of Nazism, but in another sense he was being thoughtless and irrational. — Leontiskos
a broader theory of error or understanding/assessing… is not only found elsewhere, but is actually the basis for almost all bad/evil acts of judgment whatsoever — Leontiskos
So they can be intelligent people, even skilled at logical argumentation, but the objects they argue about or judge to be important are just not always apt. — Fire Ologist
If one continues to draw one thinking from such pre-conscious interests, one will remain within a status quo even as one attempts to makes changes within itself. The unconscious however is transformative
change in thinking, opening up lines of flight which alter what is at issue, what matters and how it matters — Joshs
For Deleuze, whether Eichmann was an enthusiastic supporter of Nazi ideology or andisinterested bureaucrat the diagnosis is the same. Eichmann was ensconced within a social collectivity in such a way as to validate the most extensive rational deliberation he might attempt to justify his actions. — Joshs
Your reading of affect seems to differ from these accounts by treating affect, as Massumi does, as not just primary but autonomous. It seems to want to sever the dependence of knowledge on affect and value, as though affect can distort or inhibit rhe process of reasoned deliberation, and as though there could be a progress in logical , rational deliberation that was not at every point made intelligible in its very sense and meaning in an affective manner. Your Eichmann and your wokists are victims of this strife between affect and reason. — Joshs
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