Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Hi op,

Hey, thanks for the compliment of making use of my humble commentary as a basis for a blog post. I am truly grateful, and frankly honored.

By way of reply to your question of 'whether the SMBIVA couch tomato can live with him/her self,' I'd say it's an excellent question, and similar to one posed by Dostoyevski himself: "Can a man of perception respect himself at all?" Notes from Underground, end of Chapter 4.

His answer is precisely why I, following Dostoyevski, recommend as an excellent occupation sitting with one's hands folded. Because at least this way at least we aren't fooling ourselves by believing people who are, at best, merely chasing their tails and making a show of it so that they too might not be excluded from the crowd.

So if we can respect ourselves, self-respect borne of ourselves; that is, not borne of some other's invention, which, of course, wouldn't be self-respect at all, but instead self-mockery.

Pied

Either self directed and self oriented
Or other directed and other oriented
The two verticals of the 2x2 matrix
What about the other two ?
The diagonals

self directed and other oriented and other directed and self oriented

Is there room in your steel trap logic for either or both
of these two alternate possible combos?

Hi op,

Sure there's room for the diagonals, but I don't know if I'd adopt them for my own use - which is not to say that others might rightly adopt them for theirs.

Action that's self-directed/outer-oriented, while it may be indicative of a truly benevolent person, the question needs to be asked, how can benevolence be determined? In other words, who gets to be the judge of what's benevolent, and further, by whose yardstick do we make those measurements?

For example, one could call my sitting quietly with my hands folded self-directed/self-centered, that is, selfish (with its attendant negative value judgments).

I, however, could call sitting quietly with my hands folded self-directed/non-centered because I don't give a crap about some normative label being assigned to my inactivity, and further, if we're going to use normative labels I'd say that my sitting quietly could be deemed as of infinite benevolence for the simple reason that I'm leaving everyone else alone.

And there's a side point: my observation is that most people who concern themselves with activity of whatever type should be ignored most of the time. I've often found that they're the ones who build social structures that eventually become hierarchies, notwithstanding their stated noble intentions.

While this may not be true all the time, it's happened often enough that I tend to hold busy people at arm's length.

how can benevolence be determined?

"I... could call sitting quietly with my hands folded self-directed/non-centered "

you use antinomianism as a birth right
to trump other high cards

do you consider your mind a social product ??

at any rate

lets move to your rradical scpticism

"how can benevolence be determined?'

the arguments of the form
how can one know x
are straight from pontius pilate
if we denign revealed truths
what have we but this satanic query:

"what is truth ? "

why the father pulled that on me
a short distance back here

"who can know who speaks for the people"

it leads to crucifictions
just as suredly as a zealots dogma

"my sitting quietly could be deemed as of infinite benevolence for the simple reason that I'm leaving everyone else alone."

washing the hands does not exculpate the passive but aware bystander

"I don't give a crap about some normative label being assigned to my inactivity, "
once again the defiant antinomian

------------------

who could gainsay this however:

"my observation is that most people who concern themselves with activity of whatever type should be ignored most of the time."

" I've often found that they're the ones who build social structures that eventually become hierarchies, notwithstanding their stated noble intentions."

"While this may not be true all the time,
it's happened often enough that I tend to hold busy people at arm's length."

yes but often leaves room for sometimes

and the burst of liberation are inded the rarest of the rare
but surely they are real and not miraculous

and more specifically
they emerge from definite preconditions
and thru definite activities

all the motions are not sunk in pitch darkness out there in society
we can not only observe but act accordingly

pied

i fail by these standards far mopre then you me thinks

so i judge as myself
a multi times convicted wastril

and not to pull you down to my louche level either

but to perhaps allow you to avoid this
slime pit i put myself in these past 30 years

Hi op,

I'm not going to deny any of what you assert, as everything you say is possible, if not probable.

I think where we disagree is on the assignment of normative values to various activities, or, for that matter, to inactivity.

Biblical references (and the moral connotations they contain) aside, I stand by my assertion that I tend - and I believe it's often proper - to hold busy people at arm's length.

The Occupy phenomenon is a worthy example: I'm quite sure that most people participating are doing so for all the right reasons. There is, however, a core of people responsible for planning, logistics, agenda setting, etc., etc.

Many of those people, no doubt, are doing their jobs for all the right reasons as well. But just as we can admit to that, I think we also must admit to there being within that core certain ruthless persons who have their own agendas that take precedence over any nominally-benevolent and socially-beneficial activity in which they might be engaged.

Why do I say that? Simply because I've never seen an organization of any type - benevolent or vicious - that didn't contain such personalities at their highest levels. Indeed, my experience is that benevolent organizations in particular contain some of the worst offenders.

(I'll say parenthetically - if not self-aggrandizingly - that you might be interested to read my Pied Cow Theory of Success for more details: http://piedcow.blogspot.com/2012/02/pied-cow-theory-of-success.html )

So when you say "washing the hands does not exculpate the passive but aware bystander," I tend to agree.

At the same time it does not mean that it's entirely appropriate - if not morally preferable - to refuse to join forces with people who would lead one to believe that they are the ones who carry the banner of human salvation and eternal happiness.

I would hope (but I will admit that my hopes are already dashed) that humanity would have learned that lesson by the glowing examples of the Church, the Roman Empire, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the Golden Age of Imperialism, and so on down the Road to Progress on into the present.

Given that history of savagery, fratricide and slaughter, one might reasonably ask if this pattern is worthy of replication.

Occupy, apparently, answers the question in the affirmative: let us yet again organize ourselves into a force to be reckoned with. This time we really mean it.

For my part, however, I submit that tending sheep, hoeing beans, taking a daily walk to the village well for a little fellowship, and then to retire by sitting quietly with my hands folded may be far more socially responsible.

For my part, however, I submit that tending sheep, hoeing beans, taking a daily walk to the village well for a little fellowship, and then to retire by sitting quietly with my hands folded may be far more socially responsible.

I like more fellowship and less quiet sitting, but otherwise, yeah! That's the ideal social condition, as far as I can tell.

And at the risk of belaboring the obvious, it's the ideal until someone asserts an exclusive right to the sheep, beans and village well. That's when fellowship gets tricky.

sheep would be safe if the only
"interested" predators
were of the size
and of the same solitary humor mix
as my sister dibble paine's motled ginger cat
" purr-fry "

but as my wise pal
sturmnovik Al
points out above
albeit
with his usual
non pointing
pointing

big nasty hungry fuckers are "out there "

poisoned unto acedia by organization man

a very understandable outcome pied one

you gothically beatified ruminant you

I like the Pied Cow way. If someone has that going, it is indeed socially responsible. I'd recommend it as at minimum a genuinely benign default. If, and when, it gets destroyed by external pressures—theft, fraud, whatever—then the attempt to recreate it is also socially responsible. The only rub I can see is that what comes of it is immensely valuable, that it will get stolen, over and over again, and it will happen with terrible pain to loved ones. When that happens, I feel moral ambiguity starting to bite. At that point it's probably best to just sit quietly; en masse, if that's possible, but alone is more likely.

"And at the risk of belaboring the obvious, it's the ideal until someone asserts an exclusive right to the sheep, beans and village well. That's when fellowship gets tricky."

I'll belabor the obvious yet one step further.

Should the occasion rise wherein someone asserts an exclusive right to the sheep, beans and village well, people of good will should gather together in fellowship and shoot the son-of-a-bitch who wants to take them.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate for a bit and say that shooting the son of a bitch is the first step on the road to the Pied Cow Theory of Success. I think it would be better if everyone simply sat down and refused to produce anything worth stealing.

There's room in my moral universe for both shooting and sitting, but I have the sinking feeling that an effective active defense creates exploitable hierarchies, and an ineffective one does too.

Oh, I don't know. While your point is a good one and well-taken, in my mind's eye I see something akin to Shay's Rebellion when our s.o.b. shows up to steal my means of sustenance.

A hierarchy isn't really needed for a bunch of people to get together to persuade someone that taking stuff might not be a great idea. Certainly an entrenched hierarchy such as those that presently control our lives wouldn't be necessary.

And to the extent that an ad hoc hierarchy was necessary I'd probably be willing to live with it, at least insofar as the need to counter an immediate threat was concerned.

pied one

you have cut a lot of trails out of your
moral hermitage

i especially like this line

" to the extent that an ad hoc hierarchy was necessary I'd probably be willing to live with it, at least insofar as the need to counter an immediate threat was concerned"
what more could we ask of anyone
and in turn the hierarchy oughta
"stay the fuck out of your hermitage "

i like the notion of an exploitable hierarchy

----not to be confude with a hierarchy for exploitation--

even if it is a case of tautology
like jewish rabii

why ?

beause hey some people don't know
only jews have rabiis

and all hierarchies can be exploited

defending the social revolution
and defending ones communal rights and individual rights
all have parallel forms and functions

the hermit has her shotgun and a hound

ther commune has ...well they can hire the 7 samurai

hide you good stuff

which is hardly foo proof
or as Al suggests
have nothing worth stealing

-- i've been there myself more or less
but no commune can get that low
i'm almost certain of that

at a minimum even if there's nothing to consume of fence
the blood and lust sportsmen
of the neighborhood
would find some dick sized aperture or other
to jolly well violate
b4 the act five
random throat cuttin

---

actually i don't spend too much idle time
musing on tooth and claw threats to a commune

but rather the next stage

the market place

though i never fear the rise of the NEP men

i think a state backed by a shrewd party is necessary if alas not sufficient
to keep these clever industrious mites
within socially useful bounds

it does no good to fantase about fully communal autonomy

the market will creep thru the communes big hall windows at nite
and be among the peaceful souls b4 they can cry
"hog farm "

now
i don't share our lost brother bethune's concern about the infestation of jack the rippers etc
any fully liberated stateless society will produce
its fair share of nut balls
but tribal culture suggests they are better contained in a communal structure

aggragated into forest thieves ??

again the simpler the social structure the less parasitism that can be supported

---AL's point can be seen as the left pole of that spectrum ---

oh well
i ramble
as usual

Rambling is okay. It's been a good discussion and good discussion turns to rambling. Pied Cow, any last words are all yours, if you want them. Your points are well made and well taken.