Wordsmithing, Academia and You

So I lurk on message boards and every once in a while, I come across a post that gets my mind whirring and filled with ideas and observations. I'd like to discuss the one I found today, as I learned quite a bit from it, even though most of what I learned, had very little to do with what the author was attempting to express.

From this thread here on Above Top Secret; a psychologist under the name of "Astrocyte" goes into a long rant on the subject of Gnosticism and sacred geometry with the intention of correlating these ideas with mental illness. Here is his/her post, with the title of the thread labelled, "The Delusion of Gnosis" (which actually means "wisdom").

Warning: heavy thinking ahead.

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posted on Oct, 24 2016 @ 04:00 PM   
"All the delusions of the gnostic mentality may be derived from this one, very ancient statement:

Let no one ignorant of geometry enter"

So, the legend goes, was what appeared above the front door of Plato's academy.

Understanding the delusion of gnosticism - and by gnosticism, I specifically refer to the belief that man is the creator, man is "alien", and man, in essence, is transpersonal - is very fundamentally about the dissociative significance of putting a speculative geometry above an embocied self-awareness.

I do not for one instant doubt that we have a cosmic meaning and a cosmic source - but I am a psychologist, and unlike the ancient gnostics, I have far more knowledge about the Human condition in my hands to work with - on human psychological illness, and most importantly, the nature, structure and evolution of the human nervous system - and so, unlike naive freemasons, I make use of modern science and philosophy, and, more importantly, am properly skeptical about the influence of secret societies as a powerful neurological-psychological biasing factor on Human interpretive mechanisms.

This last point is very, very important, yet the person caught up in the "allure of ancient knowledge", surrounded by others who render the process magical with profound ritualization and garb, do not realize that what they are being "initiated" into is not an objective-knowledge of reality, but a philosophy which receives its imprimatur and status from the way and manner the information is conveyed i.e. exploits Human affective processes.

So why is this belief a fallacy and a horrendous, ancient delusion - typically infecting the minds of the elite, the established and the advantaged - particularly those educated in western academies? Quite simply: math. No intellectual faculty more effectively speaks to mans egotism than the elevation of an abstract impersonal representational structure (numbers, shapes) over the actual processes which structure its existence. If demons exist, they are genius for exploiting math as a dissociative device - to get the Human disconnected from the sort of knowledge which keeps entropy - demons - at bay, and so, out of competition with more coherent understandings.

Yes, how obvious, yet how pernicious. The glorification of man - the individual - has everything to do with the dissociation of self-knowledge, and the subjugution of emotional and interpersonal understanding to an abstract, disembodied, literally alien way of looking at yourself, and even worse, at others. Elitism is very much related to the "mystification" of mathematics, inasmuch as it establishes within the individual a way-of-seeing that does not entail an analysis of flows or a recognition of inter-dependence.

The glorification of geometry, morphed itself into a spiritual system that became monstrously monological. Monologism is a way of seeing things which basically works by dissociating the inherently and fundamentally dialogical nature of reality. And dialogism, for Humans, is synonymous with a knowledge of feelings, needs, and attitudes.

In the west, Mary Shellys "frankenstein" should be read as an expression of Mary Shelly's psychology - the psychology of the elitist culture that carried within itself a horrendous cynicism - a creature created and responding to its own creations - morphing and changing as a function of a "structural drift" - or the 'shifting baseline syndrome' which keeps the Human being from recognizing how it keeps shifting in its understanding as a function of its shifting perceptual and cognitive conditions. Whenever I read a work of fiction or even science (such as Rene Thom) and certain negative themes emerge, particularly that of an intrinsic alienation to the Human condition, I know that the author is probably pursuing yet another gnostic allegory - an allegory fundamentally dependent upon the structuring process of cities, taxes, commerce, and the other experiences of living since the start of the agricultural "revolution" that presents the Human experience as "alien". Yet what is alien? The gnostic, instead of more logically attributing the sense of world-alienation to a set of ecological scaffolds that structure mind-brain functioning (this interpretation needed modern neuroscience, perhaps?) in its ontogenesis as an individual, instead mythologizes the Humans dysfunction as if it were essential: more so, they blame the God of Genesis - the relationally disposed deity of the Hebrew Bible - that is, they put themselves in opposition with expressed reality, as if the problem were "in reality", rather than the individual.

Is this not an obvious case of philosophical projection? It is. All around this schematization lies negative feelings of being with others - the Other is not trusted, and a cynicism seems there as the "core referent" for the indiviudals functionality. The person feels 'alienated' from others, and so, quite logically (within this closed system of referents, that is) he is prone to accept and internalize a philosophy of "blaming God", or, rather, positing a "God above God", and thus structuring into reality a dualism - as if reality weren't one, but in "competition", and the competition, more so, is that between man and God!

The solution? Well, math becomes a center of interest, and moral and ethical behavior - the very essential basis of Human consciousness - is swept aside as something only people who want "face", or "honor" do - as if this interpretation wasn't a rationalization of a selfish mind that is habituated to pursuing its own selfish interests.

So herein lies an interesting dilemma: your actions constitute the ground for your perceptions. Action and perception mutually "inform" the synthesis of your feeling body, and so, the feeling body is the only thing a Human needs to pay attention.

"Gnostics", or people who assume themselves to have some essential and fundamental knowledge, are nevertheless structurally determined in their functionality by species typical evolutionary attractors. This attractor is systemic: it is a "we" that is always above your I; in fact, your I receives its phenomenological quality from the "reaction" within the interpersonal encounter: just like any object in the natural world (an electron or molecule) converging objects (humans, in this case) 'work out' their asymmetric differences on route towards a 'relaxed correlation' in both ideas and concepts (common beliefs) but more essentially, through feeling.

Yet, the only way to get a hold and so shape these attractors - via orbitofrontal regulation of the amgdala - is to pay them mind: to, in other words, say a big "phuck you" to Plato, because the reality of the constraints of living and being and the conditions underlying human harmony and has absolutely nothing to do with numbers.

Indeed, any sane person should be afraid of another Human who has come to see numbers - or math - as more "real" than you - your feelings or your needs as a person. Math lends itself quite well to a machiavellian eugenic style characterization of all "mathematically illiterate" people as inferior - as if math itselfl wasn't 'bootstrapped' by the same interpersonal experiences of living.

In short, and as others have written before me, we ARE NOT GODS. Even more importantly, we derive our capacities FROM OTHERS, and so, must honor Others. "

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Wow, huh? I could see the rational of the argument being made, but I saw a few other things that I didn't expect.

First of all, notice the way Astrocyte types. Certain words have been needlessly shoehorned in, such as pernicious. Imprimatur. Schematization. Ontogenesis. Monologism. Monological. Even "ecological" doesn't seem to fit well enough inside of the context it was in, although I was able to comprehend it correctly enough.

Out of curiosity and my interest in learning new words, I checked what imprimatur meant. This is what google gave me,

im·pri·ma·tur
ˌimprəˈmätər,-ˈmātər
noun

an official license by the Roman Catholic Church to print an ecclesiastical or religious book.

a person's acceptance or guarantee that something is of a good standard.
"the original LP enjoyed the imprimatur of the composer"

Okay. Cool. I'll add this word to my WordWeb dictionary app so I that I might use it in the future sometime. 

Opening the app then gave me a different definition of the word,

"Formal and explicit approval" is what it said.

Followed by the example sentence, "a Democrat gets the union's imprimatur."

That pissed me off.

Here's another definition,

1a :  a license to print or publish especially by Roman Catholic episcopal authority

b :  approval of a publication under circumstances of official censorship
2a :  sanction, approval
b :  imprint
c :  a mark of approval or distinction

(sighs) So "imprimatur" is an ineffective word to express meaning by, because it has a flexible definition and can only serves to confuse whoever is reading. Why bother with it other than to sound like a pompous jackass?

One of my gripes when it comes to learning new things, are people refusing to use words that speak to the layperson and not using words that are appropriate to the context they are in. What purpose does "imprimatur" serve when "approval" is more readily understood and digested? 

Why stick that in there, if 99% of English speakers have no idea what it means or have a different understanding of how it's defined? There is no need to obfuscate (heh) and be obtuse (double heh) a point being investigated and made. It insults the philomath (triple heh) in all of us.

I like what Philip K Dick once said about this subject.

"The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque."

So obviously, this was an "academic" posting. Not a revelation in of itself, but this is where the window gets opened up enough to see inside of the psyche of the person who is writing.

Don't get me wrong. I love it when an intelligent person goes on a rant and drops in words I've never heard of; but it became evident to me while I was reading, that using such words were an open form of reverse condescension. It was egotistical and arrogant. I know that if the autocorrect on my phone keeps confusing imprimatur with "impromptu" then there is cause for concern. The point being expressed, would not demand jargon to be used in order to facilitate an understanding between an author and his audience. 

So, right after I had this thought, I kept reading more for the mind writing, than for the information being presented. I found the author more interesting than the material because this is how many (most?) academics behave. They are egotistical, condescending, arrogant and ignorant of those who don't exist inside of the bubble they've surrounded and insulated themselves with.

I should know, I've spoken to psychologists before. Heck, I was in a relationship with one for almost six months. Dated another one a few months ago. Almost all academics and professional types I've encountered, seem to fall victim to feelings of superiority over others and develop a lack of self-awareness as a result. Whether they are "good" people or not, they seem to have problems with adopting a more tolerant and humbled perspective towards opinions and ideas that conflict their own. They develop a kind of smugness that I find unpleasant. More so about affirming the worth of their character than anything else.

My ex-girlfriend wrote a thesis in 2006 which I still have. It's titled, "Therapeutic Filmmaking" and it's about using filmmaking as a form of therapy for people suffering from depression and dissociative disorders. Nothing wrong with that idea, but check out this paragraph she wrote:

"Bridging the chasm between my heart and mind, the present thesis research allows me to traverse the expanse between film and psychology through the exploration of the therapeutic properties of filmmaking. Inspired by experience and passion, this research will create flight paths between distant interdisciplinary universes, reconnect the heart with the mind in the context of academic inquiry, and prove to be the groundwork for therapeutic filmmaking."

(groans) .. This paragraph by itself may not reveal much, but this is only a sample. The rest of her thesis is dotted with personal confessions like "my heart and mind" as well as plenty of moments where she places the idea of therapeutic filmmaking on such a high and golden pedestal that it becomes severely annoying to read about. Why did she write like this? Because this is a new form of "therapy", and she apparently came up with the idea for it herself. So she's understandably proud of her baby and wants to show it off, warts and all and demonstrate her intelligence in the process. Since intelligence is mostly the criteria academics go by when it comes to validating the worth of an argument -- big words; floaty, silky paragraphs dipped in honey dew and unconvincing rhetoric is the flavor they're most accustomed towards. 

But again, that is only one paragraph I've selected. Reading from start to finish makes my point more evident that most (of the ones I've conversed with) academics are full of themselves and will do whatever it takes for themselves to realize an accolade of some kind. This means using words like imprimatur and monological when there is no cause to, nor any universal agreement as to exactly what they express. Such words are exclusionary also, given that most of the population will have no idea what they even mean and furthering the divide between academia and laypersons.

And that manner of speaker comes from a place of arrogance. Tempered arrogance, but arrogance just the same. I'm pretty sure as imprimatur was being typed, that the person typing it knew there was a better word to be used, but chose not to use it. Why? Because rarely used words like that, give off the air of legitimacy as far as validating one's intelligence goes. To get a point across effectively, you can't be thumping your chest trying to impress and draw attention. You can't exclude most of the population by typing, "schematization" when "process" would be a better way of describing the same thing.

Now.. here is where I segue into Donald Trump, and why he got elected.

Don't worry. It's relevant.

Earlier today, my stepdad texted me from a resort in Cuba, where he and my mother are staying for a week. This is the conversation that resulted,

Chris: "Ola,how is the Fort Saskatchewan,very nice resort and weather in Santa Maria,Cuba,take care

Yes, there are no spaces after the commas for some reason.

"Ola" is the name of my aunt. I figured it was some kind of slip-up until I saw Fort Sask mentioned.

My reply,

Me: "My name is not Ola. It's cloudy and cool here. Glad you guys are having fun. Congratulations on Trump getting elected 😁 "

Chris: "Ola that's mean in Spanish,hello"

Me: "Its "hola" actually. What kind of Mexican are you? 😁"

Chris: "I made it easier for you"

And with that, I didn't bother writing back. It was a condescending reply. Typical negative condescension from my stepdad.

Then, I got a message from my mom,

"Sunshine love mama  here is nice  happy about Trump soon we be back love you mamsi"

They are both happy that Trump got elected. 

(groans)

Happy? Really? And then that got me thinking. What is it about Trump being elected is making my mom and stepdad happy? They don't even live in America. 

Thinking about this some more, I came across two possibilities that can apply only to them. Discarding the rest.

Possibility #1: They are like Michael Moore said, wanting a way to throw a molotov cocktail into the mess of what we call 'government' and politics in general. Voting for Trump is a way for the people to express their disgust with the establishment and politicians that have made a career by lying and cheating the public they pretend to serve, when it really is their own self-interest they are serving.

Possibility #2: They think banning/deporting Muslims is a good idea. And that Trump has his finger on the pulse of the American (and Canadian, it seems) people.

So... which possibility is it? Maybe its both? My mother has no idea what any of Trump's policies are. Even Trump has no idea what his policies are. She has no emotional investment in rebuilding the (American) economy, or to "Make America Great Again". So why is she "happy" that Trump won? It wasn't because of his "policies" or any of the promises that he made, because she is not concerned about a wall being built around Mexico, or that tax cuts are going to the wealthy.

So, why is my mom and stepdad happy?

I think I figured it out. Because Trump echos their concerns. Specifically about immigration, which has been a hot-button topic in their household. Both my stepdad and mother do not like Muslims. Or black people. Or Chinese.

In short, they're racist. Intolerant. And ignorant.

And.. then it kind of hit me that President Trump shares their point of view. And almost half of America as well.

Casting aside immigration for a second, I believe another compelling reason to be a Trump supporter comes from the fact that people like my mom and stepdad, are both tired of political correctness. They don't want trans-people to have their own washrooms or for a woman to go into the men's washroom because she "identifies" as male. They don't want gay marriage. They don't want to affix certain pronouns onto people that insist to be called a certain way. They don't want to feed into the left-wing delusion that resulted in upending the things that they value. Such as marriage being between a man and a woman. Or that the words, "In God We Trust" be taken out from American currency. A country founded upon Christian principles.

They're hardcore conservatives, really. And hardcore conservatism has been taking a beating lately in the past decade or so. Both in Canada, and in the States.

So.. they are the disgruntled. The ones that have to listen to rhetoric from people more "intelligent" than they are, and told that their conservative values are the wrong ones to have, and that society needs to be more progressive and inclusive and tolerant when they feel otherwise.

They are the blue-collar worker, who toils day in and day out to pay their taxes and earn their fair share, only to see a mass amount of people arrive and take unfair advantage of our welfare system. Supported by tax dollars, which then means further tax increases and further erosion of the quality of life that we all want to make better for ourselves. But finding it progressively harder and harder to do so as we get nickel and dimed for reasons we do not agree with.

Remember, my mother is only getting around $1,300 a month in pension. You can't live off of that, and yet many immigrants are collecting more than that amount, for free, because of the safety nets our society has structured. And immigrants know this, and take advantage of our charity in many different ways. Such as having more children and getting a child-tax benefit for each one.

So.. the reason why I segued into Trump, is to point out the fact that the "system" we have in place now as a result of elitism, is failing us. Academics and career politicians and any person that has elevated themselves to the point where they feel they can speak down to the average person and force them to comply a certain way with their views; is exactly why Trump was elected. The left-wing progressives are mainly more educated and liberal than the rest of us. They are the ones that think we should have female equality, when most people know that women have more rights than men do. Look at abortion for instance. How come only the woman gets to decide? What about custody battles? How come the woman comes out on top? Child support? Alimony? And lets disregard all that, and talk about wage-equality. Women in my profession make exactly the same amount per hour as I do, but they make less than the average annual income their male counterparts do. Why? Because they decline overtime. They take more time off to spend with their families or to do whatever they do. In short, women have different priorities than most men do. They value relationships while men value money, ambition, material things, achievement.

But the left-wing types are all trying to convince us that being progressive is the way to go. Yes, they do have their good and noble points. But they also fail to see the damage they're causing to principles and ideas that many of us still hold sacred. Whether or not these core values are the wrong ones to have, is simply a matter of speculation and opinion. Opinions are not truth until they are held by an overwhelming majority. Then it becomes "truth" even if its only a matter of perception.

With all that being said, it's no wonder both of them are happy that Trump got elected. They've had enough of being talked down to and lied towards and made to compromise their values because an entitled minority has gotten loud enough to mock them for it. And then make their lives more inconvenient and harder as a result.

Voting for Trump was really about sticking a monkey wrench into the cogs of the system that controls all of our lives.

And still, the left-wing has no idea as to why people voted the way that they did.

If my mom, with her being Canadian can overlook a guy grabbing women by the pussy, and all the scandals and shameful childish behavior that followed in Trump's wake; if she can overlook all these things, like half of America did; then you know there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.

Academics. Experts. Career politicians. Political correctness. Liberalism. Socialism.

Your days are numbered because you are too wrapped up in your own little bubble that you can't see more than three feet in front of, to see how your rhetoric has been affecting the average person and how intolerant and contrary your preaching actually is.

It's so easy to grandstand when you are wealthy, and look down upon those of us who haven't had it as well as you did. I'm sure if I was able to afford the tuition, I would've gone for a PH D. myself in one field or another, and then possibly finding myself in the same position as these left-wing types. Having to defend my education and intelligence so as to justify the amount of time I've invested in a particular field of study. I would have to. Especially if I'm going to be needing a job afterwards. I'll need to convince people to give me a grant, or tenure, or pay me $200 an hour to listen to them talk about their eating disorder, sexually abused childhood, drinking problem, or whatever people go to see psychologists and therapists for. It's a business, really when you think about it. I'd do everything I could to ensure my success in it.

And this is the thing, money changes people. Had education been free, and had everyone been paid a fair wage for what they do (not $200 an hour); then there would be no conflict of interest between the therapist and the client. There would be no bullshit going around. No words like "imprimatur" being used for the sake of buffeting one's ego and credibility. There would be no need to resort to these kind of games. Just a genuine interest in wanting to help people and to discover new ways of helping them.

As it should be.

There is a reason why some people go to Cuba or Mexico for health-related issues. Not because its cheaper than if they got it at home, but because those places are more professional. More thoughtful and considerate of the people that are being treated. Cuba doesn't have an interest in pushing ineffective drugs onto people, that lobbyists have convinced doctors to endorse. They won't want to keep you a day longer in the hospital so that they can make a bit more money off of you. They won't charge hundreds of dollars for a test that someone doesn't really need performed, or to recommend expensive treatment options when cheaper more effective alternatives are available.

They aren't in it for the money. Or the accolades.

And that, I think is why Trump got elected. And that is why I am bothered by academics and highly-paid "professionals" who's arrogance has got us all into this mess.

Arrogance is a poison of the left-wing that has managed to invent more problems than it has been able to fix. Arrogance breeds intolerance, and condescension / entitlement / separation is the inevitable result of it. When you empower a certain group of people to act a certain way and to propagate a certain point of view that many do not share; you will find blowback. You will find resistance. And these people become the very thing thing that they claim not to be. Intolerant and ignorant, just like the rest of us.

Anyways.. long enough rant.

Got up at 630 this morning, and my suspicions were correct. I *did* wake up in a better mood today. I felt more "optimized" and attentive than I did yesterday. By a wide margin. Getting up early made a world of a difference without me realizing it until later. Yesterday I said I was feeling spiteful, hateful and today I didn't feel any of those. 

I made sure to stay away from video games, and I got out to visit the library to return an overdue book. No longer was I seeing this monotonous, boring and static version of the world like yesterday. I was now paying attention to my surroundings. Took in every detail from birds perching on top of a hotel roof as I waited in line at the drive-through at Tim's; to being able to focus more on the newspaper and even writing off a well-thought out email to a columnist in favor of Keystone XL getting built. I felt engaged and interested in the world around me. Content, even.

I enjoyed listening to music again.

So, it's very interesting to think that maybe getting up early deserves the sole credit for this reversal of mood. I can't think of any other explanation.

Had a weird dream later in the afternoon after a short nap. It was somewhat boring, but I managed to predict the "future" inside of my dream; and later on, the "vision" I had, came (somewhat) true. Kind of interesting. I don't remember ever having a dream where I've had a "vision" before that later came true as the dream progressed. Sort of a dream within a dream, kind of.

Another interesting about it, was that I had to pee immediately upon waking. In my dream, there was a quest to find a toilet and I woke up exactly at the time I started urinating into a plastic chair that appeared to be some kind of sitting bedpan for patients to use (the dream took place inside of a hospital and I had to ask an old lady permission to use it).

I wonder.. how much of that dream was really me, making it up? Having a full bladder might have altered the dream sequence, and I would accept the explanation that my imagination skewed it; but, I was dreaming about the bathroom very early on, and I don't think having a full bladder would create this kind of an elaborate fantasy/story. That is what I've always been intrigued by. How much of dreaming is really my imagination, and how much of dreaming might be something outside of my imagination and possibly created/influenced by other processes? Hmm. Who knows. I'm familiar with symbolism, but sometimes symbolism fails to explain certain things that happen.

Had three cops come to my door later in the evening, surprising the hell out of me thinking I was getting arrested for something, but they were nice. All three were ladies, and they asked if I had called 911, which threw me off, because I didn't and they had no reason to be at my doorstep asking. Kind of seemed a little shady, so I asked for details, and was told that someone in the area called 9/11 and they weren't able to find an exact address. Which is still strange, but okay. I rolled with it.

Hmm. Black Mirror yesterday. Great fucking episode I watched called, "San Junipero". It was the most romantic depiction of lesbian love that I have ever seen on screen. Perfectly casted. Thoughtfully produced (loved the detail put into the 80s theme) and the script was shockingly good, although par for the course as far as this series goes. I'm happy that there is still intelligent and thought-provoking science fiction being made. These sort of shows are important to have around, even if Black Mirror tends to lean onto the negative outcome of our possible future rather than to go the utopian route and finding solutions instead.

Well. Back I go.

My fingers are sore.