It looks like you view affect primarily as a disruptive or distorting force — Number2018
I’m curious if you think it would be appropriate for wokeists to ignore something like this: — praxis
A critique or even assessment of wokeness can feel ad hoc (and therefore unsympathetic) if it is not situated within a broader theory of error or understanding/assessing. — Leontiskos
perhaps it will help for me to acknowledge that the general error of the woke is not only found elsewhere, but is actually the basis for almost all bad/evil acts of judgment whatsoever. — Leontiskos
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
Eichmann's reason became a slave to his passions, at least if we see Nazism as part of his passions. — Leontiskos
Eichmann’s work duties amounted to a network of language games authorized by a form of life which made his work life intelligible to him both practically and ethically. — Joshs
Affect cannot influence rationality from below — Joshs
However, for Deleuze and Massumi, as well as according to Foucault's concept of power-knowledge, affect is the necessary condition of reason and deliberation. My position is that true progress in thought requires an acknowledgment of how we, and our thinking are impacted by the same affective forces and assemblages that shaped figures like Eichmann or contemporary "woke" individuals. This is not a moral equivalence but an ontological and epistemological commitment. Affective investments shape all subjectivity, including our own. — Number2018
They are relativist to a point.
Don’t confuse flows and concatenations with value-free causal bits. These flows are anything but value-neutral. And they are anything but motive and purpose-neutral.
The fact that we are concatenations and flows of values and desire means that no one can stand outside of some stance or other to judge from on high, including the philosopher who writes about such flows. They are not a neutral observer but are writing always from within context , within history, within perspective. There is no perspective which doesn’t already have a stake in what matters and how it matters, but this doesn’t prevent one from talking about it from within one’s relation of care and relevance to the world.
Affect cannot influence rationality from below
— Joshs
Is this a reframing of the source of error? Or are we moving away from error making? In which case we are drifting from our thesis it seems. — Fire Ologist
Your position, like that of Leontiskos, harks back to an older way of thinking about this relation, wherein emotion and reason run on partially independent circuits, and emotion can distort or inhibit rational processes of thinking. — Joshs
What I describe is not very clear, even to me, but I think it is more clear than what I see you describing of Deluze (who I’ve read a little) and Witt (read a bit more). I see carts and horses being moved around, but not much clarity regarding independent circuits being identified. — Fire Ologist
emotions are forms of judgment: They aren’t just feelings or reactions; they involve interpretation, appraisal, and meaning. — Joshs
Emotions are not just ways of thinking or judging, they are pre-reflective ways of being in the world, shaping how things matter to us. — Joshs
First, I'll just point out that I think it's a mistake to conflate "emancipatory" with "critical theory" and "definitely not post-modern." Even in less explicitly activist texts, the "free rollicking of thought," the opening of "new lines of thought," or the deconstruction of systems so that new ways of thought and action can come into being are often presented as desirable in themselves.
The freedom of thought, an increase in potentialities available, of lines of action and thought, are themselves only good as a means of reaching choiceworthy ends, better means to those ends, etc. Greater potentiality is, of itself, not actually emancipatory nor is it desirable. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The fact that we are concatenations and flows of values and desire means that no one can stand outside of some stance or other to judge from on high, including the philosopher who writes about such flows. They are not a neutral observer but are writing always from within context , within history, within perspective. There is no perspective which doesn’t already have a stake in what matters and how it matters, but this doesn’t prevent one from talking about it from within one’s relation of care and relevance to the world.
Right, but then this is also taken as a reason for bracketing out or eschewing moral judgement. It's that line of reasoning I find faulty. Consider that Socrates does not need to "step outside his humanity" to judge, universally, that "all men are mortal." He can do this just fine while remaining a man. — Count Timothy von Icarus
They are relativist to a point.
Yes, it varies, but they do seem to tend towards various forms of anti-realism as well, including historical anti-realism. I think you are selling short the level of commitment here. One of the things right-wing media made the most hay over was straightforward pronouncements of the relativism and anti-realism coming out of activist circles.
My general impression is that, broadly speaking, the median Woke position is simply contradictory. It is morally and epistemically anti-realist and strongly relativistic, while at the same time being absolutist. This is, in many cases, an unresolved, and perhaps often unacknowledged contradiction. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Even in writing here, we likely operate under the same general conditions that enable and reinforce what we now call wokeness. As Foucault reminds us:"The strategic adversary is fascism... not only historical fascism, the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini—which was able to mobilize and use the desire of the masses so effectively—but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us." (Preface to Anti-Oedipus, p. 13)My position is that true progress in thought requires an acknowledgment of how we, and our thinking are impacted by the same affective forces and assemblages that shaped figures like Eichmann or contemporary "woke" individuals. This is not a moral equivalence but an ontological and epistemological commitment. Affective investments shape all subjectivity, including our own.
— Number2018
Bringing it back home again to the thesis.
So we no longer need care about what is different between “woke” and “Nazi” in order to discuss this subject?
I think error theory is essential here - wokism is error obfuscation. And wokism puts emotion first. — Fire Ologist
The divide between woke and not is so large I still am not sure if people are actually upset about this ad or whether this is American Eagle contriving outrage for publicity, with perhaps a few confused people buying in. — Hanover
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. — Fire Ologist
BTW - I do appreciate the effort, and I am working on a response. — Antony Nickles
There was a big controversy about a transwoman being allowed to compete a couple years ago. Last year the world surfing league tightened up the requirements though, to appease the anti-woke. All that over 1 surfer, and a longboarder at that. — praxis
Thus the importance to imagine a context in which people are trying to decide what to do where the value of those criteria (above) for deciding what to do, in that situation, is up for grabs. — Antony Nickles
How is talking about a board going to help us get to where we want to go? — Leontiskos
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 — Antony Nickles
or draw in a certain demographic. — Antony Nickles
gets in the way of a broader practice of assessment. — Antony Nickles
hat would be valuable to get clear about before judging how the board would go forward and what that looks like here. — Antony Nickles
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. — Antony Nickles
Appointing someone to a board based on "lived experience" is not relevant? — Antony Nickles
I agree. I think the discussion is evidence in itself.But I think your idea that we will be able to decide what to do without a goal is simply incoherent — Leontiskos
I can't understand Antony's intention — AmadeusD
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 — Fire Ologist
We do understand these things, and we do not need to reinvent the wheel. — AmadeusD
You have to make a proposition: Lived experience is a valuable aspect of a person's exploitable wisdom. — AmadeusD
The veil of ignorance, I suspect, is at play…. I just think Antony is importing (maybe unconsciously) plenty of goals which he/they (others, not a gender joke) implicitly carry, without these base discussions. — AmadeusD
If you're talking about how we decide on goals, that's really not what this thread or discussion are about. But it would explain the disconnect. — AmadeusD
I take issue with trying to frame the opposing side as unreasonable in this particular way (its not always a sin). A single male surfer taking a female accolade is enough, on the "anti-woke" side (though, that's misleading of a label). A single harmed child will have us looking at child abuse law. A single dead engineer will have us overhauling H&S. A single female being abused or harmed by a male in the bathroom should have the same response, to be consistent, or discuss why they aren't similar. — AmadeusD
In these terms, my point was that the ad hoc assumption of—inherently to prove legitimacy/not legitimate up front—say, the desire for, a framing of irrationality/emotion, is endemic in philosophy and humanity, and gets in the way of a broader practice of assessment. I should have qualified this with the recognition that there are mistakes (to be) made (bad means), and I do think it is important to sort the wheat from the (general) chaff. And here it seems there is some distinction to be made between (general) bad means separate from certain goals or criteria, and those intrinsic in the value(ing) of certain criteria, and, recognizing there are costs to meeting most goals, is the juice worth the squeeze (and what that is, and if avoidable, able to be mitigated, etc) — Antony Nickles
And what I suggest is not to understand the other’s “experience”, which has been philosophically pictured as ever-present and always “mine”, which manifests as the desire to remain misunderstood (or be clear on its face), or be special by nature (always unique). But it is also used as a justification to ignore the human altogether in only recognizing fixed standards for knowledge and rationality. I take these as a general human desire to avoid responsibility to answer for ourselves and to make others intelligible. — Antony Nickles
To add on a bit of a late point, I have often found that people who are pro-woke tend to retreat to theoreticals and philosophy while neglecting the material concerns that were brought up. It's an understandable impulse, but a frustrating one. I am sympathetic to moral concerns, obviously, but I find woke actions often have a startling lack of pragmatism backing them up. It gives off the vibe that they would rather lose than compromise what seem to be increasingly rigid beliefs. While I find this admirable to an extent, it makes attempts at rational discussion about pragmatic solutions all but impossible sometimes, even when you ultimately share similar goals. — MrLiminal
That should have been more plainly said by the critic of the critique/assessment. Are you trying to be woke about criticizing wokeness? — Fire Ologist
True. So maybe what is peculiar about “wokeness” has not been peculiar at all? “Woke” is merely a new window dressing, a new word, for erroneous justification of emotional conviction? — Fire Ologist
Let’s start with this: If you agree with Barron that CT doesn’t adhere to an ‘anything goes’ relativism, are you claiming that some wokists do adhere to an ‘anything goes’ relativism? Can you give specific examples here, (besides Amadeus’s assertions)? — Joshs
I suggest it is extremely unlikely the woke leadership, much less the rank and file, has assimilated any of this stuff — Joshs
Is it your contention that wokist practices are so wildly deviant from the philosophical antecedents Barron mentions that ‘blurring the difference’ deprives us of a vital understanding of wokists? — Joshs
Are you suggesting that wokists, in treating others as a means to an end, don’t believe they have intrinsic worth? Should I be looking in the direction of Kant to locate the context of your critique of means-ends thinking? — Joshs
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. — Joshs
It seems like a stretch to compare longboard surfing, something that doesn’t even qualify for the Olympics, to child abuse, industrial safety, and sexual assault. — praxis
I am going to point out some of the grammatical problems first, because these seem to be present throughout. What does "it is" refer to? What does "these" refer to? It's hard to follow what you are saying. — Leontiskos
And what I suggest is not to understand the other’s “experience”, which has been philosophically pictured as ever-present and always “mine”, which manifests as the desire to remain misunderstood (or be clear on its face), or be special by nature (always unique). But it is also used as a justification to ignore the human altogether in only recognizing fixed standards for knowledge and rationality. I take these as a general human desire to avoid responsibility to answer for ourselves and to make others intelligible. — Antony Nickles
<We must move beyond fixed standard for knowledge and rationality — Leontiskos
I still can't critique them because my critique involves a "fixed standard for [...] rationality." — Leontiskos
you aren't allowed to appeal to fixed standards — Leontiskos
but without judging the value of the things being stretched, just to judge the length of the stretch — Fire Ologist
I was literally not arguing; how can I “disagree”!? And 3/4 of this discussion is y’all and Joshs bashing on about theories on how we approach things!
I see; sorry I wasted your time with all this. — Antony Nickles
I said, “to ignore… in only recognizing fixed standards”, and this would be preset (created) requirements, not “any standards” — Antony Nickles
And here, as I have said (quite a few times now), I am not trying to cut off argument or dismiss anyone (not saying “can’t critique” or “aren’t allowed”), only suggesting we find out if our (any) assumptions are getting in the way of seeing things clearly. — Antony Nickles
I think the presumption here [...] is that I actually do have a position — Antony Nickles
Isn’t this what anyone is against, being judged prematurely, say, based on an inappropriate standard? — Antony Nickles
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? — Leontiskos
You rightly take from Wittgenstein the anchoring of sense in systems of intelligibility that he talks about in terms of language games, forms of life and hinges.
What Wittgenstein does not discuss is how difficult one should expect it to be to persuade another to change their way of looking at things. — Joshs
As Wittgenstein observes, "There is no why. I simply do not. This is how I act" (OC 148). — Moliere
How should we respond to Wittgenstein here? Apparently by pointing out to him that there is a why, and that other people act differently than he does. As soon as two people who act in foundationally different ways come into contact with one another the "why" will become a question of interest. — Leontiskos
Armed with this knowledge, you hoped to steer the discussion of wokeness away from what is true, rational , reasonable and logical to a preliminary exploration of the different ways participants construe what is at stake and at issue, and then see what kind of consensus might arise from this hermeneutic exercise. — Joshs
My guess is that both of you do not think that moral error is possible (which includes ideological error), — Leontiskos
In AO Deleuze distinguishes between investment in pre-conscious interests and unconscious desires. Pre-conscious interests guide and organize what matters and how it matters. — Joshs
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