Jim Carey’s been going around acting a bit wacky and people seem to be wondering if they’re being trolled or if he’s really lost his marbles.
The assumption is, if he’s not trolling, that with all his Allan Watts-ish metaphysical mumbo-jumbo of being one with all objects (everything and everybody) and having no Jim Carey-self anymore, that he’s ultimately lost touch with reality. So that begs the question, does enough of what we assume to be reality suggest more that we’re individual entities within it, or that we and everything else are all one?
A few days ago I wrote this thing about toe jam stew. The individual components of any stew (we’ll drop the toe jam part), generally, I suppose, are things like: beef, spices, some flour for thickening, potatoes and carrots and maybe even some celery. Though one with the stew, the carrots (or any component for that matter, except perhaps the flour) still retain the majority their individual characteristics (majority I’ll say cause, cause like Descartes’ wax, a carrot can either be crunchy or tender depending on its culinary state or state of ripeness). Though “at one with” the stew it is still a carrot. Or maybe I’m not understanding him well enough. Maybe Jim’s saying “I’m not the carrot. I’ve lost my individuality. I’m the flour that’s effused within the stew for it’s thickening. All the rest of you are the beef chunks and carrots and celery that continue to hold on to your identities” I’d really like some clarification on all this. The more I idiotically deconstruct it, the more of a metaphysical quandary I realize it to be. Like, let’s go the route of Jim being the carrot rather than the flour. So before becoming part of the stew, sitting in the bag on the grocery shelf with all his pals, the carrot was definitely carrot, not stew. Or maybe he was not carrot. Maybe he was “stew potential”, in which it’s all a matter of identification….sorta like the gender pronoun debate: ze, zem, per.
For sake of argument, Jim might be living in a fantasy world where no boundary between him and anybody else exists (In a way, that might be kinda cool. That way you could have your way with anybody without infringement on their rights, right? For example, in this metaphysical state, Trump’s pussy grabbing is just grabbing his own pussy, so no big deal.) Now internalized discord between belief and reality is nothing new but is it healthy? For example, I see these folks, decent Christian folks, that every time after a mass shooting massacre, take to social media to almost immediately defend gun rights with acknowledging comparatively little sympathy for the victims. So it would seem there’s some sorta internal discord that’s probably at play there, right? Christian (if not just human) sympathy versus defense fragment of an overall ideology that trumps the Christian element. For example, the foundation elements of my ideology may include: Christian, pro-gun, anti-abortion, etc. But an incident like a mass shooting brings two of those elements into conflict. So what do I do? Potentially disrupt the entire foundation of my ideology that gives me identity and a feeling of security, or just say fuck it and choose whichever reaction best suits the moment and deal with the psychic discord later with some booze or pills and venom spit at those who don’t think like me? Either way, trying to square all these elements of ideology seems like a pretty hard thing to formulate and it sure seems most folks fairly miserably.
Earlier the question was posed: “Now internalized discord between belief and reality is nothing new but is it healthy?” So what follows is probably more an empirical than metaphysical example but who the fuck knows, maybe there’s value in the consideration somewhere down the road (and maybe this is part of what Peterson and Harris were debating about truth). Let’s say there’s a festering cesspool that’s unfit for drinking. And based on a lack of knowledge or understanding of microbiology, we create a tale about that pool being poisoned by a witch (or whatever myth we concoct). At that moment, that belief (though empirically false) is a better solution/belief to the problem of us poisoning ourselves than whatever nonexistent or rudimentary knowledge we have of microbiology. So at least in this (ahem….micro) instance of belief, internal discord between belief and reality CAN serve us pretty darned well. So it’s not an absolute notion that said discord is necessarily a bad thing. Harris might argue that the witch belief inhibits (maybe he would argue imperils) us a better understanding of microbes, which in the long run is gonna lead to understandings of things like antibioitics, susceptibility and resistance, etc. But we’ve gotten there with that knowledge having piggybacked superstition. So maybe it’s ultimately a question of efficiency.
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My man crush on Joe Rogan is definitely cooling off. Maybe cause yesterday was Valentine’s Day and I was all alone and lonely and I’m needing a skapegoat. Anyway, I’ve been a fan of the podcast for a lot of years but I’ve been struck recently by a couple of instances of Rogan being so outright disingenuous that I can’t ignore it anymore. That’s when you start to wonder what the hell’s up. Like a cheating girlfriend who’s always working late but her paycheck don’t reflect any overtime. Sumthin’ just ain’t right.
So Rogan has on Jordan Peterson and a week or so later Steven Pinker. And somewhere in these interviews Joe starts bemoaning the state of our current political discourse. Now mind you, on the same day he had on Peterson and was whining about this, he had Steven Crowder on to play patty cake for 2.5 hours. Yes, Steven Crowder, one of the most obnoxious examples of right-wing shit slinging there is. So, no, Joe, you don’t get to play that card when you so frequently have on the Crowders and McInnis’s and Milos.
At this the right-wingers like drawing swords to declare what a left-wing nitwit I must be for being so inflammatory or whatever. But it’s not the content of their their ideology I’m criticizing. It’s what they do with it. Let’s take Christianity as an ideology. One preacher’s message to his congregation, week after week, may follow along these line, “We love Christ. Christ was good. Let’s try to be good like Christ. We are fallible. Let’s dedicate our lives to being better (i.e. less fallible according to our Christian principles.).
Another preacher’s message is, “We love Christ. Christ’s principles are better than anybody else’s principles (this is where the talking head cocksucker’s political rhetoricists comes in). Everybody else are a bunch of idiots. They hate us for being better. So we should hate them. Look at how fucking stupid and base and cowardly they are for not loving Christ like we do. Fuck them!!!!!!!” See the difference? It’s what you do the principles or ideology that counts just as much as their content.
Last thing about this whole right-wing media deal. Vice did a peace arguing that the left is getting it’s ass kicked in the realm of new media (except maybe Twitter). I’ve been thinking that’s necessarily a bad thing, again, no so much for the principles of the right-wing getting out there, but the technique or method through which they’re typically spread (shit slinging). See, fools, it’s not criticism of the doctrine. It’s criticism of what’s done with the doctrine.
Now for Rogan and Dave Rubin to play all coy and pretend they don’t get why they’re getting lumped with the right-wingers (or alt-right) if flat out fucking silly and insulting ot the intelligence of anybody who knows THEY have the intelligence to know why. Sure seems in part like it’s something to do with the economics of new media (however we wanna describe something like YouTube). So what you see with Rogan and Rubin, for example, is this bubble of economic nepotism. Rogan, for example, brings on Crowder or McInnis and it draws hundred of thousand or millions of views. That’s good for Rogan and that’s good for his guest to get all that expose which will lead to more views and subscriptions on their channel. And so the wheel goes round and round. Makes sense. There’s no evil in it. It’s mostly economic, right?
I assumed, at first, that nothing like that could be good cause it serves mostly to just give a friendly and comfortable Patreon paid studio platform to the shit slingers (i.e. it helps legitimize them and their methods). Conversely, though, Rubin and Rogan also gives a platform for guys with significant left leaning sensibilities, intellectuals not shit slingers, to come on and talk which, though they might dance around some of the more decisive issues, still gives these guys a platform for being seen and heard and a bit understood. And it’s refreshing to see Sam Harris and Eric Weinstein and Steven Pinker get access to the platform to discuss ideas – NOT rhetoricize ideas. And by giving reasoned discussion and debate a platform, it at least helps raise the quality of political and social discourse a bit, at least. And in that sense, it might not be entirely bad.
*****don’t shit the bed over not flaming Sam Harris as a right-wing shill. yah, he’s got a raging hard-on against Muslims or Islamists or Jihadists….however he wants to parse them apart. But his anti-Trump stuff , stance on guns, and abject atheism puts him on the left (or at least non-right) so it says something (not sure what exactly…maybe just the bubble of economic nepotism) that the right-wing institutions give him a voice, even though it’s mostly over a single issued in which they’re cross-pollinating.
mrobins71 