The Hand that Feeds.

The Hand that Feeds.

I am honestly done with Behavioural Psychology/iatry. Alanna would say:

The shrinks! It is maddening. But what ever lingering guilt I might feel in glaring in to the Abyss is cleared away by the Abyss Her Self. I am merely weary and upset at the totali-

tarian anti-intellectualism and conventionality of these Self-Help Cult Gurus.

As usual, their definitions (in this instance, for manipulative be-

haviour) are SO banal and SO murky and opaque that one is led to suspect that they are All manipulators.

Authenticity.                      |Manipulation.

Artistry.                                                |Control.

Ambiguity.                          |Evasion.

Reality.                                 |Semblance.

Critical                                   |Word games. Diss-

Thinking.                              |trust. Idiomatic.

Moral                                    |Shaming. Victim-

Authority.                           |Blaming.

Optimysm.          >>           |->Cynicism.

Disappointment.->          |>>Confidence.

(The Dialectic does on and on…)

Really: It is no wonder, if mani-

pulation is so pre/-valent in the Debate Community, that a thing like Derridean De-construction could be termed ‘Abuse’. Yet not every Artist is a Confidence Artist. Not every Lover is a Seducer. Not every intro-

vert a Master Mind.

Alanna manipulated me for drugs. That is hard to admit. But I fore give her. It was my intent and consent.

What is harder to fore give is the Gothic accusation of my own mani-

pulative tendencies. Were I to say: At least I KNOW that my intent was good, or: At least *I* know ‘twas not *MY* fault, a ‘man’ like K. or Dentoni would re-

ply: But of course! A mani-

pulator NEVER admits to his own faults! And I would reply:

It is YOU that would manipulate ME to entertain so dim a world view!

For were it so that I could not trust my Own feeling to be genuine and sincere, then we could atomise ALL heroism to deception, and all internal feelings of a righteous conscience to Bad Faith.*

Manipulators will tend to treat others as though THEY were the manipulators. This is the essence of victim-blaming.

It is symptomatic in Awilda’s accusations of Sarah and Dewi.

It is symptomatic to Arthur’s whole ruse, and to Kresten’s entire Akt.

*This is called ‘poisoning one’s world-

view,’ and it is the hint that I have found a foot-

note foot-

hold in.

Yet such objectivity could not be Universal.

dm.A.  

I like deliberate ambiguity just for its own sake. That I am Heide-

ggerean does not render me a Nazi; that I am Nietzschean does not establish me to be krazy.

I like ending a para-graph just at the very korner of the page,

so that in trans-scribing it I can choose to treat both sides of the page as either ONE para-

graph or two. It is not that I disguise the ‘Truth’. I rather RESIST the very Notion of a Truth! It is in fact my HONESTY that leads me to be such a stickler for detail in trans-kryption.

The arguments for spotting a manipulator by behaviour are ridiculously manipulative:

1.       ‘Manipulator twist the Truth.’

What truth? Manipulators might just as easily demand the ‘Truth’ of you to gain the upper ad-

vantage whilst LYING.

2.       ‘Manipulators blame others.’

So do any self-respekting viktims.

Unless you mean to say that no one is EVER a victim. Now WHY should you want to attest to that?

May be they are YOUR victims!

Manipulators try to make their victims accept their own responsibility.

3.       ‘Manipulators are sarkastik’.

We do not need to be. We choose to be.

It is a matter of stylistic pre-

ference. A manipulative person Relies upon such emotions, but a genuine crusader (like Dr.

Whearty) uses it to not only salt his enemies’ wounds but to un-mask them.

4.       ‘Manipulators try to make their victims accept their own responsibility’.

My own words yes. But a case in point for both deliberately art full ambi-

guity and deceptive post-modern evasion.

Whose is ‘their own’? That of the assailant? In this case, I mean that of the ‘viktim’.

Hither/to I meant to say that the manipulator tries to burden the victim with the MANIPULATOR’S OWN guilt.

Yet not all guilt belongs to the assailant, who there in had been the manipulator. Some times it is the VIKTIM that must be held responsible. Not the defendant but the ever-so defensive Plaintiff is the mani-

pulator in what is called a case of Histrionic Personality.

Not all preaching, blaming, and holding others accountable is malevolent. Were we to presume it to beso, not only manipulators but all criminals would run amok.

So it is that just as the true victim must stand up for her self the Histrionic must be condemned.

Is this an easy situation? No.

But neither is the virtuous life.

To atomise all moral authority to relativism, suspect of mani-

pulation, as though all judge-

meant were immediately hypo-

Kritikal, is again to poisson

one’s world view.

5.       ‘Manipulators are elitists.’

The most dangerous ones I have met are in fakt the most egalitarian levelers.

‘Who are you to judge me?’* is the best defense against all finger-pointing. To say that requires an a posteriori warrant, such as ‘What have I done wrong?’ or

‘Have I done no right thing?’ The mani-pulator when confronted with this problem is reduced to re-

petition in the face of the fakts,

refusing to admit either to the innocence and virtues of the accused nor to provide any defense for one’s self out side of

*a priori leveling.

As I have demonstrated:

Manipulators can make all others look like manipulators. They can level indefinitely. Yet their

leveling is a lie, and Truth (in the sense of Honesty, even if Truth cannot be called Absolute)

will lay their indefinite leveling to the waste of the pathetik.

                                                                                                                dm.*A.A.*

ADDEND: All so: About Derrida. Per

                haps Whearty is suspicious be-

                cause he takes the murkiness of human motivation to be a start-

                ing point. I doubt that Ms. Watkins isso innocent. As for me: I am a genuine optymyst. Like de

Beauvoir. DM.

CONCLUSION.

Propriety does not an Ethic make.

Politeness is the breeding ground that manipulators feed on. Hence Trevor claimed Politeness and Morality/Ethics to be identikal and the same, and Thompson too rejected the notion that Ethics (public) and Morals (private) could be separated, reducing all to propriety by suggestion.

At least he covered the material.

                                                                dm.*A.A.*

After Thought. Just remembered.

6.       ‘Manipulators do not respect boundaries.’

Pat a lying man on the shoulder and you will notice your trust go down.

Get a seductive girl drunk and she might let slip more than she lets on.

Cathy Ames in EAST OF EDEN hated Steinbeck’s drug of choice for this very same reason. Are all mani-

pulators followers of Dionysus? No.

Are all Dyonesiacs manipulative.

No; they are too busy dansing.

And Appollo Knows that Many of his followers are deceptive and Haephestian.

So be it. One does not pick one’s fans. I guess.  dm.*A.A.*

Whilst I do espouse Transparency at every Corner of the Marxet...

I am beginning to grow suspicious of who it is that reads this blog regularly.
And why he does not leave a comment ever.
Julian. Is that you?

Dmitry.
Dm.A.A.

(The) Untitled One. (Not) The Entitled One(.)

Of course the greatest shock imaginable and the surest symp-
tom of a venge-
full God would be to introduce one's prospective lover to all of one's friends and family, one's best and most presumed loyal friends, knowing that one would boast of her as a 'catch', knowing that for once one would be Happy, and not only by virtue of the self-
transcendance of a volunteer, and that one was justified by Fate in this immeasurable pleasure, that the both of you would become a beacon of Hope for all aspiring lovers, parents, and children, if not cultural icons then at least kind, gentle souls, only to find that she does not love you.
How then to make sense of the violent passions of human emotion that had hitherto been cele-
brated as 'Love'?
How to justify the sexual appetite? How to pardon the un-
validated and, again as in childhood, meaningless songs of sentimentality on the Juke Box?

And what an affront by God.
What an affront by the woman.
What an affront by the mass of once-thought friends and elders and betters, who now with such selfishness and inhuman delight sink their grinning teeth in to the Splendour of this person that you had thought your equal. It would be as though to say: God does not love you. Your most intimate of impulses are vile, and your existence is utterly super-
fluous and there by un-
justified. What value would you possibly possess as a man then? What did you do wrong?? The world of friends and benefactors that one had presumed plotters for one's own joys, to whom you had been in-
debted, who had with every seductive coaxing smile promised you the heart of a girl like HER -- and none other --
who by every gesture of either marital fidelity or a passing fancy pro-claimed:
Marriage is justified! Love is justified! Even lust serves our Highest Purposes!
What purpose has your life then? How did you fail in your heroism?

What remains? For you to re-
solve your self to the embarassment of selfishness and arbitrary idleness?
To become less than human as all others evolve to attain greater and greater dimensions of altruism and Eros?

No. I know that you love me.

Dm.A.A.

But then how could you do that?
How could you lie? How could you accuse me of entitlement? Have I not only been kind to you, patient and polite, the hope its self justifying my endurance, its own re-
ward, with no anti-
cipation of a reward but the most eager desire, un-
abashed and surely -- as older women have in-
tuited -- sweet?

Who are you to accuse me then of entitlement? To your own joy? To the pleasure of my friends' company, and that they might have the honor of your presence?

I still recall the face of my band-mate's uncle.
The fourth of the four siblings.
That sunken, clamped look in his face that tightened about his eyes. I must have thought then: This man is whipped; you would dis-approve of him.
If only I had known his wife then! I had felt my intuitions corroborated by the fact that he checked his cell phone within minutes of entry to his brother's home, boasting suspiciously of the responsibilities of marital life. His days of getting high were over.
If only I had known her.
I spoke with her for at least an hour at the Graduation Party.

Dm.A.A.

A brief Aphorism in defense of Marxism. Hope fully not a Swan Song.

A brief Aphorism in defense of Marxism. Hope fully not a Swan Song.

The argument that Marxism is a futile line of inquiry simply because of inherent Elitism is its self a weak and not a Strong argument. In fact, it is totally counter intuitive to the facts. Capitalism harms both the weak and the Strong by pitting the one against the other in an absurd scramble for limited resources. Unless one is granted a bourgeois privilege, one has to enter the game at the same starting point as all the rest, and this entrance becomes blocked by an insatiable crowd. Why not just tear down more of the walls? If the ceiling caves in, so be it. We should have true Equality then.

Dm.A.A.

Sexism Good: a Camusian Critique.

Sexism Good: a Camusian Critique.

Wollenstonecraft was wrong. Women are not as capable of reason as men. What might appear rational to one party is irrational to the other. Their tension is Absurd in the truest Camusian sense of the word. Our opponents in denying this if they are innocent are acting out of privilege and false Hope. If they are not innocent they are being deliberately patriarchal, pre-disposing more naiive soles to the most crushing dis-appointment. And it would only affect the poor heterosexuals, who are all ways minorities in S.A.F.E. Spaces and whose woes are systematically dis-enfranchised even though their suffering is per chance greatest. One can suffer as a minority and derive pleasure from the suffering. Yet to suffer in a majority is to have no hope of redemption, for one cannot blame the Mass. One suffers just as solitarily but is only burdened by the company of one's commiserators, as in Sartre's Nausea. So how is the equalist attitude patriarchal, one might ask? Simple: it was invented to FORCE women to conform to male logic and to be dis-possessed and shamed for their natural right to date abusive and inattentive guys, break the hearts of idealists, and to have slutty sex at parties, which, as we have established through California's rape laws, is their God-given right. How dare our opponents compell women to pretend towards reason and fairness? Would human life be Absurd without our lovely female counter-parts? Per chance not. The feminists only WISH that it WERE a man's world, by virtue of a self-full-filling prophecy. The only silver lining is that adamant anti-feminists actually cite their kind husbands and boy-friends as counter-examples to misandric conceitions [sic; conceptions] of men. So there is hope for nice guys. Most women who use feminist ideas pick and choose what ever dis-confirms the sovereignty of the male most efficiently at a given moment. And women who are affronted by this only corroborate it for their affront, denying this to be the case and lying about a shimmering future. And men who are affronted by this are rarely single and tend to be popular. Have you noticed?

Dm.A.A.

There is no such thing as “rape rhetoric”: A deconstruction.

There is no such thing as “rape rhetoric”: A deconstruction.

Whilst preaching the virtues of anarcho-primitivism I encountered a contention from a good friend that in tribal suicides [sic; "societies." Pardon the slip.] rape happened very often. That this justifies cultural elitism I do not know; I am not a cultural relativist, but our notion of what rape is have become so absurd that per chance we might learn some thing from primitives.

Yet what is per chance the greatest danger in the lingering primitive psyche of man is this tendency to confuse symbol with substance, fantasy with reality (though admittedly where the ever shifting line rests at any given moment we do not know), and literal rhetoric from metaphor.

When Adam Levine sings “Baby I’m preying on you to-night,” I doubt that his referent is literally either to sexual predation or to ritual prayer. In fact, the latter is more likely, supposing he has ever practiced tantra. The former suggestion is not only cynical, but neurotic. It is not unlike the instance that that bastard – I should like to find him – destroyed that painting at S.D.S.U. of the ostensibly Native American man because the viewer did not take kindly to the CHOICE OF PAINT that the pain-staking and hope fully generous artist had used.

You know what? If there’s one thing that makes me happier than the presence of rapists on college campuses, it is the presence of vandals in the Speech and Debate community. I really can not decide which of the two I like more. One party is a set of libertarians and the other are total totalitarians. Hm. Choices…

If I had been led on by a girl for say all most five months, it would be an affront to my intelligence should I not be able to conclude how she feels about me. It would be an affront to her not to inform her of these findings, even if being held accountable for one’s behaviours can be punishing.

There are both a practical and a deontological dimension here. Pragmatically, the means of ignoring her for a week following the stated revelation would justify the ends of both proving my hypothesis accurate by my absence (because absence makes the heart grow blonder; I mean fonder) and corroborating my own findings by seeing the stream of letters that I receive. Even were these letters expressions of apathy, they would be expressions of caring; one does not walk up to a guy at a bar just to say: Hey. I really do not care about you. The response would of course be the childishly simple: Then why do you bother to tell me?

But supposing that she does not reply. Then the means justify the ends. In other words, I all ready have established that I am right. This is not patriarchal but masculine; if I cannot deduce what is up after five months, I cannot call my self a man. I would know regardless of what this other free agent does that she cares. If she with-draws totally it is into private guilt that I cannot assuage. She would not, as a pragmatist, totally sever ties with a good friend were it not out of some guilt. She could pretend towards “independence”, but she would be merely cutting her self off from a valuable an many times openly valued resource. Even when she denied my effectiveness she would still willingly take my advice in practical matters, some times with barely any hesitation, and were she to revoke this advice I know, with the same certainty that I had offered it, that it would be to her own detriment.

So what does the poet say? I have her cornered. If she tries to with-draw, I know that she does it out of shame. If she tries to deny, I know that she does it out of denial. If she owns up to it, I know she does so courageously and out of love. Yet no matter what I know that I am right, and she must own up to her own karma now.

And the feminist replies: Rape! To corner a woman, how dare you? We shall unabashedly burn all your paintings and destroy any text or video that brings this sick dream on the part of your unpardonable Soul to physical incarnation.

Well *that’s* a bit mean and proto-Fascist. After all: What have YOU done? Stirred up anti-pathy betwixt the genders to the point that one in four women on college campuses are totally paranoid and seventy-seven out of one hundred women in professions are totally cynical? Or did I read those statistics wrong? I guess that Art, even the most banal, truly is open to public and private interpretation.

Really, any attempt made to depict rape in Art is all ways going to be metaphorical. Any attempt to interpret Art will all ways be individually subjective; only through direct relationship with the Artist, as with the aforementioned lover, can any hope of objectivity be attained.

So have at it. I mean: May be I enjoy hearing rape stories because I KNOW the limits of my experience and I KNOW, just as readily as the fact that not a single person in Extemporaneous speaking knows what the hell she is talking about, that we look at these stories and, if we are so fortunate not to have personal experience, we project upon the Art our own difficulties with the opposite (or at times same) gender. If you enjoy these tales, there is nothing wrong with you; it just reflects the relationships of power that have scarred your psyche and those lingering energies. It says nothing of the “innate depravity of man”, and it must not be controlled. We must de-construct our fantasies in order to more clearly see reality.

This is the function of B.D.S.M. and risqué art. Where ever we see rape depicted in art, it says NOTHING of “actual sexual violence”, but it is all ways a poetic expression, even if it is intended to be objective. And if you disagree with this in a logocentric manner then you are a part of the problem. You see the physical, external world as just an expression of your own internal longings and drives, and I will bet that it is this same primitive tendency, which Jung calls participation mystique and that Derrida calls phallogocentrism, that is the mentality of the true rapist.

So have at it. Make art not war. Explore these dark aspects of life. Do not condemn Fifty Shades of Grey as abusive, Nine Inch Nails as patriarchal, or people who like bondage as creeps. And do not diss Maroon Five because of their lyrics. God and the Devil know there are other reasons to hate on Adam Levine. I mean: You saw him in that film “Begin Again” right? What a prick. Using his seduction to prey on all those young rocker chicks.

It’s a metaphor people. Check your self.

Dm.A.A.

Happiness versus Fate/Results versus Duty.

Happiness versus Fate/Results versus Duty.

I will conclude as prosaically as possible, for your relief.

This might be a bit aphoristic.

I am channeling Wittgenstein.

[You should read the Tractatus by the way. It is (un)utter(ab)ly ingenious. I even recommended it to Hunter. You remember Hunter? INTP kid from Debate.]

1.       If your happiness compromises some one else’s happiness, it cannot be an end in and of its self.
2.       If your “love” makes me suffer, and I do not deserve to suffer, and I am justified in this undeserving and condemned to suffering by that same name of “love”, then your love is not justified, for it conflicts with my love in the same way as your happiness would conflict with my happiness.
3.       If your “love” makes you happy, but I suffer, then by virtue of both 1 and 2 your love is unjustified.

3.a. [Ouch. Your ego.]

4.       The means justify the ends. How you treat people justifies the results that you get. You will only know that you are justified if you feel justified in your means.
5.       My means justify my ends. What ever results I get from you have no bearing upon whether or not my actions (means) were justified, for your karma is not my karma.
6.       I trusted you. We discussed the distinction betwixt Eros and Agape. You led me on to believe that you were not a selfish person. This would accord with dictates 1 through 3. All so, in so far as Agape is akin to nish kama karma (which I had intuited prior to your betrayal [#9], and which I had out-spokenly STRIVED to live up to) then this proclamation of Agape would be consistent with 4 and 5, because if one acts with out anticipation of a result, then the means justify the ends, for no ends are plotted for.
7.       It was inevitable that I would presume, based upon what you had said about Eros and Agape, that you would hold me to the standard out-lined in dictate 6.
8.       It was because I trusted you, as I was compelled to morally, that I invited you to meet Kresten. I knew that Andrew was unjustified in his suspicions of Kresten’s charisma with women. I knew that you would not be selfish, by virtue of 6, which of course implies 1-5 as well, as explained.
9.       Kresten’s charisma with women was the probable factor for your not behaving in accord with 1-6, as expected. This you could not be blamed for, for it could be argued that I should have warned you, knowing this in advance. Yet I was morally unjustified in expecting such behavior on Kresten’s part, violating the principle of Generosity which all so pervades dictate #6.
10.   This was why I never blamed you.
11.   You demanded that I blame you, so I had to act against the implications of dictate #10.
12.   That night I was dis-illusioned with Eros and Agape. I was tempted to seek vengeance by dissolving in to Eros my self, but to no avail. I never had a woman beside you. I gave you a second chance when you apologized whole-heartedly. I made a vow not to so much as fantasise about other women, except in passing or to serve my love for you. I suffered GUILT at my temptations. But I was redeemed by my decisions. I never danced with any one else. I barely even flirted.
13.   Despite my dis-illusion I maintained my dignity. I under stood that you had affirmed the value of Eros. As Kierkegaard pro-claimed: God is a paradox. As Schopenhauer stated: The philosopher loves the paradox.
14.   Had you been patient with our first meeting we could have worked out openly our feelings towards one an other. Any pain that would follow would have to be swallowed, because we would be morally unjustified in using it as a pre-text for any sort of behavior. (This would have been a Naturalist Fallacy.) Yet when the pain that ensued was its self unjustified (as explained in the prior dictates, but especially 1-6, 14), then it was not used as a justification in its self but rather as evidence for the moral infraction.
15.   You were pardoned for this moral infraction, again, by virtue of #9.
16.   Had Kresten been patient, all of the benefits of #14 would have followed through.
17.   He cannot be pardoned for this moral infraction, by virtue of #9. He is still bound to 1-3/5. He is bound to the other dictates as well, for had he had patience he would have learned them.
18.   Because #14 did not come to fruition, I was left to my own devices. All I had to go by from you was that you felt Eros to be justified. I all so had to feel that my pain was justified.
19.   I was a victim because I did not dis-obey any of the dictates and still suffered pain with little immediate benefit.
20.   If I was a victim, and if Eros was justified, and if my pain was justified, then it followed logically that not only did I love you erotically, for which reason I suffered pain as a victim, but all so that this love was justified.
21.   I could not be held morally reprehensible for my pain if I was a victim. So it had to have been justified on my part.
22.   I could not be held to the virtue of Agape any more, which might other wise have offered me release (but only in dim and naive theory) from my pain.
23.   I served you and adhered to the remaining dictates.
24.   I gained your approval to be sentimental.
25.   I gained your approval to be honest.
26.   This vindicated my love. [20-26. (esp. 20, 23-25.)]
27.   Kresten’s guilt corroborated my intuitions.
28.   Your unwarranted attacks corroborated my intuitions.
29.   The attacks were unwarranted because I violated no moral principle.
30.   My intuitions were that he had wronged me. I refused to believe that you had wronged me. (#10.)
31.   You demanded that I blame you. (#11.)
32.   Your attacks were symptoms of a Guilty Conscience. This corroborated my intuitions about Kresten without my having to suspect you of guilt a priori to these attacks. So I never violated principle #10; it was logically super-ceded by #11 and #28.
33.   The attacks consisted of denying Kresten’s guilt and compelling me into a destructive friendship.
34.   It was hypocritical of you to accuse me of trying to compel YOU into a destructive relationship with me, or to claim that OUR friendship had been in any way destructive towards you in a similarly unjustified way.
35.   I could not deny Kresten’s guilt. Not only had it been self-evident and revelatory, but it was all so corroborated by his stated feelings of guilt. (#27.)
36.   If an other man or woman entered in to your life and asked why you were my lover, you would be able to list 23-25. The pain on the part of this other would be unjustified because I had actually worked to deserve your love.
37.   #36 re-inforces #26 against threats of Leveling.
38.   If I made you suffer it was for your benefit.
39.   I suffered for you all this time because the means would justify the ends (4 and 5). I did not love you because you made me happy. I loved you because it made me a better person.
40.   If I make you suffer it is because I make you a better person.
41.   Again, Kresten could not have made you happy because that happiness would be unjustified from the very beginning (Fact #1.).
42.   Because you are a good person and not a selfish person, it is impossible that he made you happy. Some thing else must have.
43.   This other force was a product of my relationship with you, most probably.
44.   I am not crazy. As indicated by #39, I have operated in a logical, emotionally stable, and ethically justified manner.
45.   If I am not crazy, I deserve your respect.
46.   If I deserve your respect, I do not deserve your scorn.
47.   If I made you happy, I solve for both Pragmatism and Deontology.
48.   This is as logical as I can make it.
49.   I thought that you would appreciate it. As an INTP.
50.   I love you.

Dmitry.

Dm.A.A.

Post-scriptum/Addendum:

51.   You cannot condemn me to madness on account of working against my own happiness. If I had hurt you and that had made me happy, then I would have violated the first dictate and all that follows would have been a waste of breath.
52.   You cannot condemn me to hypocrisy because I suffered for you and only derived happiness as an occasional by-product of this.
53.   You cannot condemn me to cruelty because this will only benefit you (#38) and only ever has.
54.   Because the means justify the ends, I have no way of knowing what will hurt you. I only know what it is my duty pro-claim.
55.   Even if logic is swayed by affect, it does not mask it.
56.   My conscience is clean. (#5.)
57.   You cannot condemn me to malice or sadism on account of #38 because you have hurt me too.
58.   This pain was involuntary and logical.
59.   You cannot condemn me to stupidity because I was unjustified in questioning your intentions. (#’s 6 and 7.)
60.   Games have rules Alanna.

Dm.

The Evel of Leviling.

The greatest danger with leveling is that you can never criticise any one without being suspected A PRIORI (as opposed to a posteriori, but rather with out due cause) of hypocrisy. “Who are you to say this?” is an idiomatic form of bureaucratic democracy. It is predicated upon the conditioned Christian notion that we are all rotten to the core (as opposed to the Genuine Christian notion that God Loves His Children) and that all well-wishers and nay-sayers are suspect. The proto-Fascism of Hobbes, who believed that man should never rebel against his government, because he could not surpass his own ethical egoism (which is bunk; it is simply difficult to find one’s altruism and adhere to it, especially in the midst of rampant cynicism), is prevalent ironically through out America to-day, as an exceedingly stifling set of Social Norms takes precedence over Individual Responsibility and Existential Freedom.

By leveling you over-step my boundaries. You narrow your view and take every idiom I use to try to level with you out of context. Now that I am suspect I can never say that I am a victim, because you refuse to be seen as the moral inferior that you are when you wrong me. The lines disappear, all men are equally inferior, and all men become savages. I can never stand up for my self without feeling GUILTY for the wrongs done to ME. And as conformism grows, enflamed by this distorted sense of ethical imperative, it becomes more and more difficult for me to find my voice to yell: I was wronged!!!

Leveling is hegemonic, and the people who accuse elitists of hegemony are only projecting their own impulses. Fitting since they have done all in their reckless power to tear down all boundaries of decency that would make it clear that THEY are responsible for their own wrong-doing. But *I* shan’t be fooled and take the blame for it.

Dm.A.A.

Free Will.

I. As Simone Weil pointed out: I suffer. Therefore I exist.

II. Because I worry about what to believe, I know that I have a CHOICE in what TO believe.

III. From that choice follow all deductions. The determinists fall off at this threshold. They want things to be easy.

IV. One cannot derive an Ethic from a Fact.

V. This proposition, like all propositions, is true until proven false.

VI. The man of facts is profoundly tempted to surrender his soul. This was the message in Faust.

VII. The determinist has surrendered his soul. He has surrendered self-control and will in favour of scientific "facts".

VIII. There are no scientific facts.

IX. One must use one's freedom to arrive at this threshold of understanding.

X. The threshold is of course a stepping stone. Further thresholds may in fact [no pun intended] contra-
dict this fact. But contradictions suggest paradoxes.

XI. The American Buddhist* is a style of determinist that surrenders suffering for happiness.

XII. Happiness is afforded only to a few by virtue of chance.

XIII. Chance is conceived of my the determinist as a play of mechanistic "non-chance" forces.

XIV. This is because the determinist has used his will to deny his will. [Bad Faith, a la Sartre.] The determinist's world appears to be a matter of fact rather than chance because it is a microcosm (frame of reference) devised by his will and imposed UPON chance.

XV. Yet it denies chance, patriarchally.

XVI. Because Happiness is only available to a few people by virtue of chance, the enjoyment of it by the determinist is not merely amoral but immoral.

XVII. This is because not all others COULD follow his example. He fails to meet the Deontological criterion: Act as though the world would benefit if all others might act as you do and follow your example. He only dimly and theoretically realises the Pragmatic end of Greatest Good for the Greatest (Possible) Number, and only in so far as he under-estimates the Possibility of Great Good out of sheer sloth.

XVIII. It is impossible to criticise the buddhist without violating his notions of propriety.

XIX. The notions of propriety are the template for the surrender of the individual will. They are proto-Fascist and require an Internal Corollary (Value) in order to be genuinely (and not merely conventionally) moral.

XX. The determinist is incapable of creating happiness for the greatest possible number because that requires the exercise of will, to supplement the inadequacies of chance.

XXI. We call what is easy involuntary and what is difficult voluntary.

XXII. In this way, the man living an easy life afforded to him by chance forgets chance and dreams of a deterministic design, fashioned after his own entitled intellect, that had brought him here.

XXIII. The demand for such thinking is so wide in a proto-Fascist state that he seems to have the full force of society behind him.

XXIV. Detachment means to evade moral responsibility and to choose apathy. Buddhism affords this.

XXV. Attachment means that free will must be acknowledged as a brute fact. THIS is Responsibility, in the upper-case sense of the word.

XXVI. Simone de Beauvoir was right. She had never felt a greater peace than in reading Hegel. Every thing was systematically described. Contemporary Positivism is Hegelian, drawing on the prejudices of the March of Progress and the capacity for Reason and Intersubjectivity (or Dialectical opposition, both of whom occur as one in scientific "debate") to lay "illusions" such as Free Will to waste.

XXVII. Hegel was a proto-Fascist simply because he believed that Truth was Absolute. Scientific Positivism still operates under the assumption, shared by Kant, that Truth must be true and Universal (Absolute) for All Rational Beings.

XXVIII. Most men seek A philosophy as a means to an end, but do not arrive at the point that Philosophy is an end in and of its self.

XXIX. Freedom consists of not being pigeon-holed by one's own consent. Ethical sanctity thus rests as much in contradiction as in consistency. Tough decisions are ones where in a contradiction must be entertained in order to affirm the most critical underlying consistency. Hence Kierkegaard conceived of the highest form of ethical reasoning as relation to a paradox.

XXX. Not all contradiction is hypocrisy. This is only so in people of weak character.

XXXI. Not all deductions are based in what one has read, or even in what one has experienced. One can intuit responses instinctively to situations that cannot be explained through any scientific frame of reference because the experiences are solitary and rest outside the streetlight of intersubjectivity.

XXXII. The socialite believes all others to be socialites. Gender is not a social construct; that proposition (that it IS a social construct) is a social construct.

XXXIII. Some intellectuals acquire knowledge only to ultimately (whether or not this was the initial intent) shoot down old trends. They offer nothing new, for new thinking might require building upon existing trends.

XXXIV. Genuine novelty requires not only an existing frame of reference but experience. It all so goes beyond experience to encompass Mysteries such as Intuition, Premonition, and Grace.

XXXV. Because the pretentious intellectual has his dogma to satiate his desires, he sees no need to acknowledge a realm beyond the socially conditioned. The proto-Fascist argues that all that the Truth Seeker has was conditioned that the Truth Seeker would surrender one's freedom (volitionally) to the illusion of Determinism.

XXXVI. Were the pretentious intellectual a Determinist he would see no reason to hold his self responsible for this as a crime. He would not be motivated to confront the fact of his own WILL and to use it. He would systematically reject all that does not accord with his dogmatic, mechanistic microcosm. He would have no motive not to marginalise, and he remains inhuman, able to reduce most input to the sub-human, because the birth of the human being as a compassionate animal is in the use of free will to cultivate compassion.

XXXVII. Again: The Angst that one encounters when confronted with such a menace is evidence of the existence of Free Will. To quote Jung: They all ways seek their own existence. Against nothingness. Against meaninglessness. Man cannot tolerate a meaningless life.

*This does not account for all buddhism.

Dm.A.A.

Pragmatists and Deontologists. Part two and end.

What adds dimension to this conflict is the relationship betwixt the pragmatist AND the deontologist.

If the particular pragmatist happens all so to be a manipulator, a seasoned deontologist will re

cognise her instantly. He will know that he is being abused because no deontologist would need to FORCE  an other deontologist to alter his behavior. Such a conflict can only arise betwixt a deontologist and a prag-

matist. The prag-

matist will need the other to conform to a pre-

conceived end, however super-ficial and un-

stable. Yet the deon-

tologist has little reason to do so. If he happens to please her, that is fine.

If she is hurt or up-

set, it may be regretable, but that’s fine, too. This angers the pragmatist, especially if the signals are in-consistent.

Consistency of dis-appointment is tolerable to the prag-

matist; she can adapt to stable ground and even terra-form it, using consistency to mani-

pulate the other. Yet in-

consistency is the most maddening. She has yet to realize that the other’s role is not to satiate her expectations.

Turning to bitterness, she pro-

 jects her own sense of en-

titlement upon the Deontologist.

Surely it is *He* that has un-

attainable standards for *Me*!

Were that not so, why should he be-have so strangely and erratically? He MUST be possessed of some delusion if he thinks that I ENJOY this.

Yet in fact the Deontolo-

gist is plotting neither for her enjoyment NOR for his own. His only interest is in doing what is right. Up on close examination, she sees that he holds the world not merely to ‘his’ standards, but to hers as well. He has subtly internalised them. Yet this was not done manipulatively;

naturally, he pre-

sumed that she would have expected no-

thing less. Yet HE appears to her to be the manipulator. He is merely a mirror for both her values and her own mani-

pulative tendencies.

What he seems to share in common with the manipulators that she most fears is that he seems totally content to hurt her. Yet that is never his In-tent. It is merely the end. The means is what matters.

The torture, un-witting, consists in this:

She must now own up to a set of ideals that she had long ago abandoned like children in pursuit of the per-

petuation of her pragmatism. They became the means towards ‘greater’ ends, or per haps they were never ends in their selves but all ways means, and now they serve no purpose to her. Re-

volted by the desicatting flesh of her old snake’s skin, she is disappointed again by the other’s failure to satisfy her pro-

ject. And here the story ends abruptly.

Dm.A.A.

Pragmatists and Deontologists.

I have surmised that there are two chief styles of people:

Pragmatists and Deontologists.

This is no new distinction.

For the pragmatists, the ends justify the means used to arrive at those ends; they do every-

thing in pursuit of a result.

Yet the Deontologist is not looking for results to be met.

He has goals, but so long as he does all that he needs to to feel morally justified in the pursuit of these goals, he rarely if ever feels disappointed by outcomes that do not accord with his Platonic pre-conceptions.

His means justify his ends. If he is ever disappointed it is only that not all people are all so Deontologists. And this dis-appointment appears Immanently Mutual. The pragmatists all so expect all others to be pragmatists, but for different reasons.

Yet who is right? As I shall demonstrate, the Deontologists are.

The chief dis-advantage of being a Deontologist is that of being a victim of parasitism and futility. One operates in a mode of constant vigilance and exhaustion. There is no rest for the Deontologist, even in sleep. No authorities exist externally to tell you when you are on or off the clock; if a value holds true now, its value is practically eternal. It can only be ignored is [sic; “if”] super-

ceded by a Higher value.

The Deontologist lives there-fore in a shroud of personal but private conscience, often miss-understood, miss-

treated, and under-appreciated.

She is condemned for hypocrisy when she acts in the face of a paradox. She is condemned to elitism when she must assess the character of one person against that of an other.

She is charged with egoism when she puts her values before the expectations of others.

And not only does she operate with religious fervor and with out guarantee of a reward. She all so has no promise that even her enter-

prises to help others will come to fruition. She must own up to the fact that the pursuit of her values may wreak more havoc than peace,

more harm than good. But the alternative – the abandonment of these values, is intolerable, so even in tragedy she is no more than a victim.

She is justified and vindicated.

The means justify the ends.

The advantage of course of being a Deontologist is that one is never wrong. The voice of the mass, the group, and the other are all silenced before the monarchical conscience.

Yet it is a popular miss-

take to think that she did not take those voices in to consideration and concern.

Every moral imperative that she hears is filtered through an elaborate and tricky system comprised of all the other imperatives. She has immunities developed against dogmae that would limit the scope of her caring, and she cares little to flatter the dogmatists just to attain the End of a polite but ingenuine correspondance. This constant conflict pro-

duces ‘her values’, and when she elevates her values above all else she is not in any way being selfish. She sees beyond the immanent limitations of the Group and the people that she ‘wants to please’, her attention extending to innumerable people with whom she had had encounters, and over an inestimable time-span that super-cedes and engulfs not only the interests of her surrounding peers, but of her own well-being as well.

As a result she all so tends to rely more readily up on [the] Intuition. The Intuition is a well-

spring of the Soul and a window in to the Sub-

Conscious. Given the sheer breadth of imperative in-

puts with which she needs to deal, it would be ridiculous to expect them all to remain Conscious.

Ultimately, the Deontologist is only accountable towards his own self. The external world is outside of his control. Taking personal but private responsibility for his own actions, the Deontologist holds others to the same standard. He knows that the ‘consequences’ of his actions upon others’ lives is not his own fault, for it is in Their choice to respond to him, and in so far as they run the risk of making a poor choice, he cannot be blamed.

They will have to know for their selves that the choice was miss-

informed, and he has no shame correcting them and learning from their miss-

takes.

A cynic might argue then:

How are we to discern the Deontologist from the socio-

path? From the manipulator?

From the cheat?

Well, first one must re-call that ‘internally’ the Deontologist is not un-empathic at all. She never seeks her own interest, and her values are drawn pretty much entirely from the needs of other people. Yet the danger seems really to exist for HER. How is SHE to discern other Deontologists from manipulators?

Simply put, it takes one to know one. When two Deontologists meet they need no introduction.

No conflict of interest exists. If they are compelled* to agree, it is a delightfull and illuminating surprise. Where they dis-agree, it is an exciting challenge, provoking, in-voking, but not with out the deepest Trust and Availability.

This is be-cause each of them knows that at any point through out the day she is only accountable to her self, not the other. The other is merely there to provide Ideas. And since each member feels self-

motivated to spread Ideas, they never truly dis-appoint one an other.

Oh were it so with Pragmatists. Yet by nature it can not be.

Pragmatists require validation constantly from others. The other becomes a means of which the pragmatist’s self-

conception is the end, and to meet the end that is the other’s needs one must use the means of flattery. Two pragmatists engaged in dialogue are really involved in a form of projection. This I have witnessed to my terror betwixt lovers. *[*] In this sort of ‘relation-

ship’, each partner seeks to find the projection that the other finds most pleasing, until both are satisfied and their selfish appetites satiated. Yet as with all pragmatic dis-course the benefits are short-lived, corrosive, and superficial.

The problem occurs (or incurs?) at the moment of honesty.

Consider a situation betwixt a pragmatic Capitalist and a pragmatic Marxist. The one, hoping to flatter the other, tells him ‘I am a Marxist’. Yet her audience hears: She believes her self to be of superior opinion Capitalists such as my self. The dis-

appointment becomes obvious.

The Marxist notes the futility of her attempt. The means used to meet her own end in turn were not the ends that her partner desired.

Usually such correspondances end with bitter politeness.

The pragmatists hide much, and so little gets resolved.

They part with a gesture as sterile and kurt [sic(k)] as a fist-

pump. Yet what is retained is glowering disappointment.

The pragmatist, having ex-

pended so much time in pursuit of this End – the perfect relationship –

refuses to believe her time to have been spent in vain. Oh, were it so that she could enjoy the easy conscience of the ever-

disappointed Deontologist.

Upon the shroud of lingering intransparency are projected the manic strobe-

lights of delusion. She craves more than any thing else the attain-

ment of that End, if not simply the retention of a façade that can never satiate her desires. And all pre-

tense towards her being a ‘practical’ person falls apart for her entire global Audience to see.

[T.B.C.]

Dm.A.A.

*or is it ‘impelled’?

**Alanna, you knowwhy I say ‘terror’ here. I might say ‘horror’.

The American Dream. FULL.

There is not a single doubt in my mind that the system of capitalism is corrupt and can never be made uncorrupt. I mean: It is just so simple. Capitalism actually ENABLES individuals to DEPRIVE OTHERS of RESOURCES. The very individuals who reserve to “right” to do so are given greater STATUS in society, and THESE PEOPLE Tend to be in charge of it.

I don’t know about you, but to me that seems ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

I mean, look: The food is right there! The means of production. My neighbour’s home. Supposing that I accidentally left the stove on and locked the house. My dog is trapped within. I locked my self out. I have taken such precautions to avoid THEFT that I have no way at all to break IN to my house, at least not with out potentially risking the life of my loved ones – a dog, a child, what ever – who are INNOCENT and there fore more vulnerable. My only chance might be to throw a stone throw a window, and then what if my stone hits my loved one? What if my loved one comes to my rescue and is scarred by glass? And before I might rescue her, within MOMENTS of rescue, and in a state of total panic, the Police will arrive to detain me, tearing me away from my baby daughter whose face I see, about to die in ashes, because my neighbor (who of course does not trust me because the media imbibed him with a distrust of even his own neighbours) called the cops on me? And as I struggle against these militarized pigs, they insist: Don’t worry. Your anxiety evidences that you are clearly delusional and that you require treatment at a mental hospital. We can dismiss every thing you say. And we have done our job. The money that we make to-night we are FREE TO SPEND AS WE PLEASE. Perhaps we shall go to a strip-club, where your older daughter is working now, being oogled by men whose occupation was the systematic annihilation of a people in a foreign land where – guess what? CIVILIANS NEVER STEAL FROM ONE AN OTHER, AND MANY OF THEM CAN NOT AFFORD LOCKS.

The American Dream.

Of course my opponents will argue that my account is biased. But I should think: SURELY any tale of horror how ever gruesome does not rival the Absurdity of that of the Rugged American Individual. What’s worse? A firing squad ordered by Pol Pot? Or being unable to trust even your own neighbours, to speak nothing of your own government, your own police force, and of course your own judgement?

It is okay. Jung DID say that intelligence varies from person to person, and so do ethics. I do not usually go for statistics, but at least for its (mytho)logical value I might cite the claim that one out of five Americans is a sociopath. But not many people take kindly to the term “sociopath” any more, and rightly so; all mental illnesses are invented. I like my name for these people best: Capitalists.

Dm.A.A.

Of course the parallel betwixt capitalism and sociopathy is belaboured. It is as ubiquitous as that of Fascism and sociopathy. And of course as Mussolini pointed out the natural out-come of Capitalism is Fascism. Per chance the only real reason that I even tolerate people who are not against Capitalism is that the liberal egalitarian school system that I was raised in compelled me not merely to spend time around people of EVIDENTLY a dangerous inferiority of intelligence but all so to actual establish grudging PARTNERSHIPS with them, expected to deal with them as all capitalists do: In a bureaucratic game of zero sum where compromises are made based on the nebulous conception of “self-interest” rather than a mutual striving towards a Common Goal that has been furiously deliberated upon as an Ethical Imperative.

There is no thing at all in this world that might entitle you to the “Fruits of Your Actions”. Incentive is the feeblest of pseudo-ethical appeals, and pragmatism the most depraved. But I am not here to preach the Categorical Imperative or the consequences of Utilitarian Totalitarianism. My appeal is rather to Common Sense.

If you loathe your work, you are doing a poor job at it. Plain and simple. It in no way justifies your greed.

If you enjoy your work, you should be grate full for the opportunity to take part in it. It in no way justifies your entitlement to some fruits.

If we all adopted this principle, we would all work and ALL enjoy the fruits. This is simply the most basic and ubiquitous of ideals. HOW was it that we strayed so far from it? There can be absolutely no excuse.

But some might say: What if my neighbor does less work than I?

Fantastic. And yet allow me to remind you that your NEIGHBOUR might even have needs that SURPASS yours. So he is weak and you should be proud to be of superior character to him. May be his own shame will motivate him to work harder.

But others might say: What if no one will do work?

But of course that is absolutely mad. If no one works then we all suffer. I would rather set an example for others with the desperate hope that they will follow than to become suicidal.

But still more will say: What if only a few are exploited by the many?

Is it better than the many exploited by the few? I wonder. Each of us who has been cheated has suffered alone. Why should one feel entitled that society would spare one the human condition? Why not in stead live moment by moment, thinking no thing of routines, payment plans, and dues? A wrong would naturally have its consequence in derision and scorn, but must society acknowledge the wrong-doer? He is often in fact one of the capitalists, a hypocrite who feels entitled to reciprocity and to the fruits of his actions because he has no soul or conscience.

But still more interlocutors will ask: How does one assess the merits of a person in such a society?

Well you might re-call the film Amelie de Poulain. In this film, at a climactic moment, we see a young girl who had devoted her life to the service of others. Yet she suffers at the climax because, despite her success in all of her altruistic enterprises, the one time that she tries to help her self she is disappointed. And one might imagine her privately asking: WHY God? Why am I a victim of such poor fate? Do I not DESERVE the full fill ment of my own needs? I have clearly done only my best to serve others. It is not that I served them with ANTICIPATION of a reward. But if every human being on this planet is entitled to his own needs, then WHY is my fortune so poor? (to speak nothing of my richness of spirit.)

If you think that this could only happen in a communistic society, then you need to check your privilege.

Of course only a sociopath would compare her to say one of Al Pacino’s gangster characters. Whether it be Tony Montana or Michael Corleone, the gangster’s plight is not one of victimhood but one of his own guilt. He has to face the fact that not only he but OTHERS (the worse of the two consequences, invariably*) suffered on behalf of his lolly-gagging enterprise, which was entirely motivated by Self-Interest and with tragic hybris could not see beyond the spoke that Pragmatism had drawn.

THAT is how we shall judge character. By those who serve without anticipation of a reward being rewarded and those who seek their own end (and are all bastards and hypocrites) being punished.

We are not ashamed to say any of this.

*Per chance only the products of our own projected Shadows could ACTUALLY benefit at the expense of others and not suffer. But then may be sociopaths DO exist, as evidenced by the endurance of these ills.

Dm.A.A. 

The American Dream.

There is not a single doubt in my mind that the system of capitalism is corrupt and can never be made uncorrupt. I mean: It is just so simple. Capitalism actually ENABLES individuals to DEPRIVE OTHERS of RESOURCES. The very individuals who reserve to “right” to do so are given greater STATUS in society, and THESE PEOPLE Tend to be in charge of it.

I don’t know about you, but to me that seems ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

I mean, look: The food is right there! The means of production. My neighbour’s home. Supposing that I accidentally left the stove on and locked the house. My dog is trapped within. I locked my self out. I have taken such precautions to avoid THEFT that I have no way at all to break IN to my house, at least not with out potentially risking the life of my loved ones – a dog, a child, what ever – who are INNOCENT and there fore more vulnerable. My only chance might be to throw a stone throw a window, and then what if my stone hits my loved one? What if my loved one comes to my rescue and is scarred by glass? And before I might rescue her, within MOMENTS of rescue, and in a state of total panic, the Police will arrive to detain me, tearing me away from my baby daughter whose face I see, about to die in ashes, because my neighbor (who of course does not trust me because the media imbibed him with a distrust of even his own neighbours) called the cops on me? And as I struggle against these militarized pigs, they insist: Don’t worry. Your anxiety evidences that you are clearly delusional and that you require treatment at a mental hospital. We can dismiss every thing you say. And we have done our job. The money that we make to-night we are FREE TO SPEND AS WE PLEASE. Perhaps we shall go to a strip-club, where your older daughter is working now, being oogled by men whose occupation was the systematic annihilation of a people in a foreign land where – guess what? CIVILIANS NEVER STEAL FROM ONE AN OTHER, AND MANY OF THEM CAN NOT AFFORD LOCKS.

The American Dream.

Of course my opponents will argue that my account is biased. But I should think: SURELY any tale of horror how ever gruesome does not rival the Absurdity of that of the Rugged American Individual. What’s worse? A firing squad ordered by Pol Pot? Or being unable to trust even your own neighbours, to speak nothing of your own government, your own police force, and of course your own judgement?

It is okay. Jung DID say that intelligence varies from person to person, and so do ethics. I do not usually go for statistics, but at least for its (mytho)logical value I might cite the claim that one out of five Americans is a sociopath. But not many people take kindly to the term “sociopath” any more, and rightly so; all mental illnesses are invented. I like my name for these people best: Capitalists.

Dm.A.A.

A Tale of Race.

A Tale of Race.( Consider if you will this narrative)-:

You return home to find the most beloved person in your life missing. The two of you live together. After searching through the house innocently for about fifteen minutes, gently calling your beloved’s name, but with mounting tension and gently rising volume, you finally find her. She is not all in one piece, as they say. Her remains lie in a bloodied rest room, her head severed from the remainder of her body, a life less expression of shock upon what could have once been called her face.

Now, needless to say, you are upset, taken aback, and furious.

So naturally, having registered what you have witnessed, inferred what has happened, and come more or less to an even keel about the whole thing, you surmise two things:

·         There is no chance of reviving your beloved, restoring her to health, within the known physical limitations of this Universe and the human frame of reference.

·         You should probably inform some authorities about this.

After all: You would HATE for them to blame this on YOU!

The police, having shown up, inform you that your spouse (or what ever) was the target of what they suspect to be Gang Violence.

And you ask, curiously of course: What is Gang Violence?

They reply: We do not really know. All we know is that our job description says that Gangs are our avowed enemy.

This explanation checks out with you, you think, given the nature of your predicament. Given the shock that you have at finding what once had been your lover now trans-muted into a truncated corpse, you can empathise with the Police for the anti-pathy.

So then you venture to find a member of this supposed “Gang” and to address your concerns with him.

You meet one one day on the streets. His loud, abrasive and overtly violent music, his style of “urban” dress, et cetera all indicate his affiliation. You wonder briefly (that is, for a brief time. Not wondering about his briefs) if you are essentialising him. Then you surmise that he probably has bigger worries, given the possibility of being essentialised by the members of a rival gang. So you surmount your apprehension and unhesitantlingly approach the gentleman.

No, he says. I do not know who killed your wife.

That is quite unfortunate, you say. But you are unsatisfied. You inquire:

But WHY do you think that she was murdered?

And at that point he guffaws.

Well, THAT is obvious. Had you asked me that, I could have told you the answer IMMEDIATELY. (Bro.)

You persist in your curiosity. He explains:

She was killed because of her race.

You stand puzzled, for a moment. Then you ask:

With whom was she racing?

Laughing again, with a touch of hesitation, he replies: She was racing with the members of the other races, quite probably.

And he leaves you standing there, puzzled.

Over the course of an other short while you meet an other gentleman. This man is cleverer, and he seems to have the same affiliation.

You ask, care full not to ask the same question twice, even of two different people, so as to avoid the banality of redundancy:

Why do gangs exist?

And he replies, sternly: They exist because of the Police.

This puzzles you even more. The Police up until now had vowed to be enemies of the Gang, bent on their destruction. Now this fellow seems to suggest that THEY are responsible for the Gang, and by association for the death of your beloved.

So you ask: How is it that the Police gave way to the existence of their sworn enemy?

And the lad replies: Racism. And he walks off.

You follow him.

Wait! You say. What is racism?

He turns about, looking at you as though you were mad. Following a few words of anger that you can not comprehend, he calms down to explain:

RACISM is DISCIMINATION based upon RACE.

That word again. Race. You ask: What do you mean by Race? What do you mean by discrimination? Is it how one judges a race?

Of course, you still have in mind this thought: Whom was my beloved racing to begin with? Who was the judge of this race?

The lad replies: Yes. It is the entire system by which we judge race. And we judge people ACCORDING to their race.

Your befuddlement grows deeper and deeper. Yet this starts to make sense: Not only is a judge required to determine the outcome of a race. So it is that the participants must have their character judged depending upon how they behave over the COURSE of that race.

Bit how does any of this justify your love’s brutal murder? You remain puzzled and un-convinced.

You ask: So why is it that the judges of a race are so violent?

And he replies: Because they they are racist! Their souls are corrupted.

You pardon his out-burst, and you ask again.

He says: Look. I might be wrong. But it looks as though you are a bit naive. (What’s that mean, you think.) Let me break it down for you. Real simple. Race is a VERY COMPLICATED MATTER (all ready your eyes begin to droop, wondering how elaborate the race-track is and why your wife never told you about her participation in such an event.) and here’s the thing: Most of the JUDGES OF RACE were them SELVES not only GUILTY of Racism, but VICTIMS of it.

And he walks away, leaving you thinking only of this:

If THEY were victims, how could they be guilty? How could they commit a crime if their heads were all so cut off?

You decide to go out and find a Racist. You ask around. Finally some one refers you to a group of young men and women convened in private. They seem to take kindly enough to you. You notice faintly a kind of uniformity of appearance amidst them. But you figure that it is probably just by virtue of their clothing.

So you ask one of these young men: Who here is the Judge of Race?

And he replies: THE judge? I am not THE judge. Neither is any man. There is only ONE judge, and he is not only here but every where.

You venture: What is his name.

And he replies: JEHOVAH!

AT this point all of this non-sense is starting to bug you. Your curiosity has reached a limit point. Now you just want justice. You ask: Who was it that killed my wife?

And the crowd replies: The OTHER!

So you ask where you might find this Other. And they refer you to a congregation of this group of people.

You visit the congregation, much as you had visited the prior congregation, but now with greater restlessness and a growing sense of cognitive discomfort.

You ask the members of this group, who seem less uniform in appearance but all so to take less kindly to you: Who killed my wife?

And some say: THE OTHER.

Others say: We do not know.

And still others say: We killed her. But we were provoked.

Then others more said: No. We did not kill her. Our kind did. [You pause to think: “Kind?” Does he mean to say that it was KIND for her to be killed?] Yet they were provoked.

And finally you have to interrupt:

But I thought that it was RACISM that killed her!

And your pro-clamation is met with a hushed silence. One elderly woman breaks the silence, laughing gingerly as though to calm her neighbours, explaining: Oh but my poor dear. What might YOU know of RACISM?

This angers you now. You feel as though you had drunk a touch too much alcohol and your passion is beginning to sub-vert your Reason.

Look, madam. I do not know who it was that killed her. But I was told that RACISM was the cause. I have suffered a long day on the behalf of this menace. I should like you to acknowledge my experience in the matter as a cause for respect to my knowledge.

And she replies: But my dear. If it were RACISM that you were looking for, why did you come to us? Why not go to The Other?

I was told that *Y’ALL* were The Other.

Perplexed, she asks: By whom?

By *THEM*.

And she slaps her hand to her mouth, then draws it aside, and says: Well of COURSE. It is *THEY* that are The Other! And she is met with murmurs of agreement.

Now you are TRULY bamboozled. You would leave, but you have no where left to go but home.

You ask: Look. Where might I find the source of RACISM?

And a man of middle age and still fair health says to you: My dear boy. No one knows the SOURCE of it.

But then why was my wife killed?

Ahh. That we know not the source of either.

You walk away, pondering all of this.

What if the SOURCE of Racism was a choice on the part of its believers?

What if it was that same CHOICE to behave irrationally and violently that was responsible for your wife’s death?

But then you put the mad thought from your mind, as you approach a young boy in gang attire.

You ask him if he has ever heard of Gang Violence.

His eyes widen.

THAT’S RACIST! he yells at you.

Stunned, you look up, like a frightened animal who is all so carnally excited, and feverishly scan your surroundings.

But the alley-way of your meeting appears un-occupied.

You return your gaze to the boy.

Where is the Racist? Who is he? What does he look like??

And the boy points at you, to your infinite puzzlement, and pro-claims:

YOU are the Racist! He looks like YOU! Just like THEY said you would!

And you ask, after a moment coming to your senses, for if not the second then the dozenth time that day:

How am *I* the Racist? What have I done to judge what race?

And he replies: It is quite simple. There are some things that I can do because of MY race that YOU cannot do because of YOUR Race because when YOU do these things you are RACIST. They told me so.

Not bothering to wonder how the boy knew Them, you reply:

So what makes it Racist if *I* do it?

But the boy hears some thing you do not, and suddenly and swiftly, he turns about to run home.

Dm.A.A.

NO Subject.

Dm.A.A.

Judges are People Too.

Judges are People Too.

Supposing that one was acquainted, how ever peripherally, with a judge that was assigned to one’s round. Leaving the round, and with in ear-shot of the opponents, you said: I have heard so much about you as an instructor.

Later, a team-mate approaches you and says: You should never do that. It looks like you are trying to suck up to the judge.

You explain your affront. How dare your team-member even SUGGEST that a single word you said with in that class room was not from the pit of your own heart?

Your interlocutor explains: It just looks really bad. And you would not want to give your self an unfair advantage over your opponents?

And of course this is a cruel manipulative technique: To use your higher motives and to try to pass judgement on your sensitive soul as to sub-vert those motives to the insensitive whole and to group control.

You would say: I don’t give a *damn* if it gives me a competitive advantage! If it reflects well up on my character that I express my gratitude for the institution of education, attributing credit where credit is due, then I deserve the advantage. Were my opponents of lesser character this would have been apparent all ready, and were it not, I do not regret that this last gesture was the arbiter. Were they of comparable character a fair judge would not allow the gesture an undue bias; he would note its extra-curricular implications. How am I to be suspected of inviting judge inter-vention? The very ACT and INSTITUTION of a judge is a form of intervention. It is insane to lend the instructor the authority of Judge if one did not trust his JUDG*-ement. One would much rather throw a-round than to allow a person of weak character that authority. It would be an Example not to lend such a person that.

So who are YOU to judge me? YOUR only contention is that it might put me at a DIS-advantage. But I don’t give a damn about either. For one thing: The very nature of your claim en-sures that the risks are the same (in a zero-sum game). If YOU could conceive of my acts as reprehensible, so might the judge, so it is theoretically just as likely that the gesture will afford me a DIS-advantage as an advantage. That clears my conscience a bit. So what remains of your indictment? You only want me to have an advantage. But I don’t give a damn about what that ballot says. I don’t *care* if I gain leverage in the community by virtue of my connections. How absurdly silly. Bureaucracy all ways struck me that way. If the judge deserves credit, I OWE it to him, and I deserve credit for knowing people that know him and have given him his due as well. If you know that it’s him, and you know it’s not whim, then the poet with in you will know it: You owe it to him.

Supposing he suffered from some strange depression.

Would it be not buffered by my kind trans-gression?

Would you rather win a round fair and square

than to be so profoundly aware?

Or would you not care?

Academics are hard

on their selves and are scarred

and their students are all so self –

serving imprudent

so if I won ballots by brightening days

then what kind of person would be so de-praved

as to crave a mere ballot when there are lives to be saved?

Would they worsen this hell that impersonal

People made?

Do not tell me how I ought to be-have.

Debate is not a game. If the point were to win then there would be no loser. We would not run “Net Benefits”, a Utilitarian attitude, in a game that hinges on Ethical Egoism. We would be more honest to run Elitism!

So fuck the ballot. If I deserve to win it is only because my opponents are of lesser character or intelligence. If not, then it GENUINELY DOES NOT MATTER. Let’s throw the masks off. If you are going to gripe be-cause you lost a round that you DESERVED to win, then you deserve to lose. I am more ashamed of the rounds I won unjustly than any of the rounds I lost unfairly.

And if Debate has any value what so ever then it is in teaching us to love the institution of education, and that means loving our teachers, and not as mere bureaucratic machines and means to ends.

*we see “judge” abbreviated this way at times, as in “judgmental.” To remain aesthetically consistent with my moral position I shall honor this despite the presence of the first “e”.

Dm.A.A.