A Defense of the Apolitical Mind and on Practicing Political Self-Defense

I'm about as much apolitical as I am atheist but unlike religion, which isn't an inherent identity, I, as we all are, are a polity of sorts and there's no escape from being you. But identifying as a conservative in my teens and early twenties and then later becoming more liberal and now consciously or not, maintaining the middle ground, I've found myself looking through the eyes of my old selves and the eyes of others and realizing the validity of those political positions in the times, places and people who inhabit them. And as such, the only people I tend to get annoyed with are those for whom nuance is lost on and those tend to be the most self-assured, self-righteous and insist that their political diatribes must be heard. I have a large degree of tolerance when lives directly depend on political positions but it's taxing to society when everyone thinks their minor pet peeve deserves political priority over perhaps someone's tragic abuse of rights.

Those who so assert their beliefs without nuance can be compared to martial arts amateurs bragging of how they used such and such move to take down an opponent and perhaps implying that those moves are indefensible as some would believe their political or religious moves are. But there is no strike that is indefensible, no religions infallible nor no political views without proper and well-reasoned counters and ironically enough, even my own. Those being that of political and religious pluralism or if we keep the fighting analogy it might be equivalent to mixed martial arts; the notion that the majority of it has its proper time, place and host in which it serves an advantage in the form of self or group-advocacy. The counter to pluralism is that it's more intellectually taxing to practice and maintain many forms and with generalization comes less time for specifics and if certain specific moves apply to certain specific situations of time and place, then you won't be as practiced in that dimension as the specialist should it become relevant in that certain time and place.

If I may be obtuse here, I've long ago realized that politics is a sham determined not by who's right but by which sucker can attract the most suckers to his or her form of self-advocacy. To me, it's striking just how many people are taken by politics or specifically, not politics per se but tribalism. Perhaps it's like "professional" wrestling, everyone knows parties are a sham but loves to root for a team. And I suppose this tends to happen more when people are at vulnerable stages in their lives. When you're weakened, your tolerance for adapting to the world may be weakened and so you tighten your grip and hope the world will adapt to your lack of adaptations. In conservatism this may manifest as fear of change when more vulnerable to it because it's more taxing to defend yourself, be it because you're older and physically weaker, you have more assets which you can stand to lose (think castle defense, more points of exploitation makes you hunker down on defenses) or you lack intellectual capacity or will to adapt. This also manifests as fear in liberal politics in typical defense of racial minority positions and being in a minority inherently leaves you in a vulnerable position unless others step in to defend them. I'm also reminded of another study which I happened upon lately that ascribes increased moral vitality with increased environmental pathogens. Considering the most religious countries in the world seem to be the ones most taxed by disease, it makes sense. It also makes sense that those who turn to religion tend to do so at vital times in their lives when they're in need of comfort. And another anecdote, it may also relate to how bad smells may affect your political views. Sensing invasion of what might be a threat to our system, it responds by being more introverted and more independent of others and in search of something greater which is beyond that earthly threat. And when we're angry, sensing a threat, we typically get more introverted, tunnel-visioned and seek independence from threats and if on high-alert status, perhaps even over-vigilant. This is what I sometimes tell people it's like in my mind; I can be very untrusting and exaggerate certain threats. And since this is all too much correlation to resist I'm reminded also of a theory of autism in which inflammation may play a part. Perhaps the neurological system sensing a threat makes one more introverted or if we consider the synaptic pruning theory, perhaps lack of synaptic pruning leads to an aggressive overstimulation which then leads to exaggerated threat response leaving little recourse but to resign to one's own introverted world. Which brings up another topic, well, before I edited and went on about how biological threat models may affect and effect us sociologically...

The Weak Become the Strong

I make this argument in response to the ones who complain about racial minorities, women and those seen as less powerful in society in some form or another getting favor of some form or another. My theory, probably obvious in some cases, on why women, children, the elderly, minorities and those we may view as weak in some form or another, be it physically, intellectually, financially, socially, etc, is that in a healthy society, among other reasons, we tend to champion the weak as resistance to the bigger champions. This is to help subdue the champion's threat and/or we look to nurture and protect the weak as they may be, will or were protectorates of a productive functioning society. So it's only natural that we treat those in weak positions with certain favor and likewise it's natural for champions to test challengers for the good of a productive functioning society and as such we should have tolerance of some amount of bullying behavior. That is to some extent as it's justifiably looked down upon for champions to prey upon the very bottom of the chain as we might think it's not championship behavior to prey upon those already beaten down. Now as to whether "equal opportunity" policies are justified, personally I think as long as you're considered a fully functioning human adult, personal motive and work to overcome adversity beats government enforced equality if you want to be a healthy functioning individual and society.

That said, if society tends to have this self-healing mechanism for the weak, how would I explain genocidal atrocities throughout history where the very weak were preyed upon without repurcussion, especially ethnic minorities? Well, in our modern times and in the context of a non-homogeneous melting pot society as the US with a well-fed and reasonably satisfied populace, the above observation is more apt. In more culturally and racially homogeneous societies and in more brutal and urgent times, brutal and urgent powers tend to fill the mass social niche more successfully and so intellectual arguments be damned, the masses are starving and feeling oppressed and when mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. When an organism is evolutionarily stressed, reproduction is harmed, energy transfer is stressed and it's not just going to stop flowing, it's going to fill every thermodynamic or evolutionary niche it can should transfer be impeded in one direction, as rivers would part to maintain course. As pressures are applied, normalization or averaging pressure increases in the local system; this often entails outing those that are strayed from the averages of the fitting niche, ie, more 'othering', or oppression of "others". Isolated atrocities aren't as common a phenomenon now in our modern connected society but it was moreso an event when humans were in more scattered and disconnected groups. Violence can spread as a disease does but when a group is contained in its own biosphere, just as with disease, it tends to be rather benign to other like organisms if isolated although lingering thermodynamic resonances remain and disperse, with time and space it becomes rather ineffectual.

And of course I'm not trying to justify the travesties of warfare and genocide, merely observing and this observation can serve utilitarian purposes of prevention should one view it as preventable. Personally I'd rather defer opinion as I'm not very optimistic. But as we've seen throughout history, wars are rarely perfectly contained because humanity is hardly globally contained. Pressure in one niche begets pressure in another niche as the sum total of thermodynamic energy can't be created or destroyed, something has to give somewhere when something gives somewhere else, actions beget actions. So when you test others, you're sure to be tested as well. Or as I've said before, when your neighbors aren't happy, you're likely not going to be, if not now then in the future if you don't see to your neighbor's satisfaction. So in this case and as I've argued before, to some extent we have to be our brother's keeper.

But this rubberbanding or reverting to an average we can observe in other aspects of humanity such as underdog worship, perhaps opposite of Champion's Paradox, to see the bullies bullied or justice served. You might call this the Loser's Paradox in which the loser is seen as less a threat and so is given more mercy and push to rise through the ranks. Of course this mostly applies to those who have some competency in filling the niche as total losers, for lack of a better term, tend to gain little compassion and loyalty. See the second following paragraph where I basically mention that you have to have some degree of skill, practice and potential to remain viable in a niche unless you can capitalize on other powers to make up for lack of others, otherwise society may cast you by the wayside.

Even those who are considered invalids tend to have to rely on the powers of empathy and love which they can garner. You can be an invalid but if you're a malicious invalid, you're severing the few powers you have by which to survive on. You can only tax society so much as to where it will tax you. This is the rubberbanding effect that you might also see in politics and may be thermodynamically represented as adherence to a median degree. That's also what I love about the Yin-Yang, it beautifully represents all of life in opposing instances yet mutually complementary at the same time. I much sympathize with Buddhim or Taoism even though I'm not very studied at them but to me, just the symbol can better represent a thousand words. If I were to get a tattoo, it'd probably be a Yin-Yang as cliched as it may be or better yet, an entropy star, perhaps half of one to represent order and chaos both. Or a quarter of one encircled, anyway, to represent the little bit of entropy that feeds a healthy ordered organic system.

You Have to be Strong to Protect the Weak

If you want to justify soft tools such as intellectualism, theology, philosophy and such to protect the otherwise weak, I'd argue that you should still maintain knowledge and practice of harder tools such as the martial because you have to speak the language of your enemies to some degree to fight your enemies. I don't necessarily mean on an individual level but also on a national one in this day and age as it's now more viable to practice specialism although you can make the argument for some of us that enemies are those of our countrymen and with a more direct threat, direct counter-measures are more apt. But if you don't practice hard and soft powers both, you serve to handicap yourself and leave defenses vulnerable should you not. Now one can argue the merit of conquering more with little and that in itself may be something greater and rewarding but I'd say it's wiser to have some degree of more if you wish to conquer more and some degree of practice with defenses of defenders if you get my drift as arbitrary as it may be. In other words, as cheesy and as obvious as it may sound, you can't stand up for yourself and others if standing on quicksand.

And as much as we'd like to think that society will have mercy for us at our weakest, it's not something you can bank on. In my experience, it's probably wisest to view society from a Machiavellian point of view in some cases in at least pretending that people will always look to take you down if possible and so you should stay practiced in as many forms of power as possible. And I admit as much as I hate people getting in my face about the newest political fad to be offended about, I understand in some cases having to be forced to engage in politics. Even the forms of powers that our enemies use, whether we like them or not and as said before, it's good to stay practiced at them because potentially someone somewhere will use those against you at some point no matter how benign you think your beliefs are, or lack thereof even.

Case in point, if you're undecided about gods, in the Arkansas constitution among many more states in the US, you can't run for legal office as per Article 19. "No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court." Well, at least I can get out of jury duty. But yes, someone, somewhere, thought that you shouldn't have that right because deciding on which of the thousands of gods of thousands of interpretations of thousands of denominations of thousands of religions throughout thousands of years thinks it's just so cut and dry that if you don't affirm one such god or another, then you can't competently decide matters of the State because competent judicial powers are ostensibly predicated upon clear affirmation of one of thousands of gods. Albeit this wouldn't hold up constitutionally but it's there and proof enough that you have to stay on your political toes because militants just won't let you rest so you have to practice some degree of militance or vigilance in order to survive.

So the spice must flow, this case, the rivers of chaos which may wind up running through your backyard some day. I'd argue this also relates as to why "utopian" societies, societies in which all desires are filled, are a fantasy. Any society that becomes too comfortable, championed too much, Champion's Paradox again, will be too satisfied. And dissatisfaction, the need to find fulfillment in something, some way, somewhere is a prime human driver. For example, lack of food drives hunger which is a prime motive as well as lack of information which I'd argue encompasses food, love and friendly exchange, are a living organism's biggest drivers. With satisfaction comes lack of vigilance and practice in the martial powers, among others, and as such is doomed to failure any time that society's niche in the ecosystem is at threat. Basically too much satisfaction can be just as evolutionarily degenerate to the individual as it is to society and conversely too much dissatisfaction creates too much warring and evolutionary degeneracy as consequence. Although you could easily argue over the degree and order to which these motives are rooted in positivity or negativity much as we can for "freedom" such as positive, freedom to, and negative such as freedom from. This is also why I think satisfaction, happiness and love are often over-rated so bah humbug. While in other circles, war, sacrifice and labor. I'm hesitant to but freedom also can be over-stated as I discussed about the duality of freedom. People want a god, a word, a person, something greater than them that they can put on a throne to represent their pains and pleasures to either worship or destroy because simplicity and singularity is easy to consume, it fits man's quick-fix desire, not nuance. Nuance is intellectually taxing and people don't like to be taxed.

Anyway, I sit here and try to intellectualize matters, to make sense of things and process inconsistencies into seeming consistencies as a tool for self-expression and to find truth which I'd argue is ultimately a tool for survival. But I realize much of the world may not bank so much on this tool and I'd be remiss if I didn't practice other forms of self-survival and advocacy as we all should. As much as I don't want to, I have to stay in tune to social paradigms and not dwell in my own autistic world, which I really need to work on. I realize that trying to use reasoned thought as an end-all be-all to traverse this world is a fool's game. Some may not care how well you can state your beliefs or how nuanced and innocent they may be, it means nothing if it means nothing to your enemies. To quote Mike Tyson, "Everybody's got a plan 'til they get punched in da mouf", but pretend you're saying it with his lisp. To some, action is louder than words and action is their world, their language. To those people, they should also realize that the soft powers can concentrate and harness the hard to provide a targeted sting. We might think someone on the surface is powerless so we call them nerds and perhaps they may go changing the world by sending rockets to the moon or technology to people all across the world to exchange information from across the world. We might pick on the local band nerd thinking he's powerless yet he may go on to use his musical powers to harness social powers becoming famous and then rich with increased financial powers. We might pick on a bleeding heart for whom cares for the weak, but caring for the weak is for losers one might say, only for them to ultimately harness the power of the combined weak to create strength to overcome oppressors ala Jesus' style, which is often amusingly hijacked and co-opted by the ones who would often denigrate those who use softer powers. And we may pick on the local FFA kid who's into farming but through much learning, determination and work, manifests a powerful agricultural brand. We like to de-merit the use of soft powers yet they are what's gotten humanity to this level and are the drivers of hard powers. Every mighty robot runs on software. Every machine invented, designed and created only by intellect. Every MMA fighter wins ultimately by logical conditionals. I think it's just our pop culture fetish for the here, the now and the instantaneous, quick fixes, that has us more conditioned to praise harder powers.

So all in all, I like to go about life as if I had a Swiss Army knife or as if it's all just a MacGyver situation. Incidentally, I loved Swiss Army knives as an eight year old as well as watching MacGyver. I remember coming home from Cub Scout meetings and catching it on evening TV. I don't know if it's just the timeline that links them but Cub Scouts, Swiss Army knives and MacGyver seemed to occupy the same do-it-yourself part of my brain that's interested in engineering the world and making use of what little you have to accomplish greater feats or in my case, often very mediocre. I also realize the inconsistency there of previously discussing the value in attaining and practicing as many powers as possible but will also concede to the powers of the few to become the great or in mediocrity itself. Mediocrity is its own power, the power to not draw too much negative attention as to be a threat to champions but just enough wherewithal to not draw much positive attention and be seen as a threat to the challengers or perhaps even as a fellow to them. I can linger in my own niche, in this case, blog where no one bothers me and I can profess my thoughts as I feel them. I've always loved that cozy little niche where I can just hang with the uncool kids who no one cares for either way so you're mostly out of the way of the battlefield of highschool politics and can just remain a neutral observer although my heart was with the nerds who might get the brunt end of the system. Ultimately I've learned in life that there is no true observer or pacifist and at some point have to fight or stand up for something.

That concludes this instance of self-advocacy, as you could argue forms of self-expression are. And if the paragraphs here just seem a jumble of hardly-related thoughts, it's because they are. I mostly copied and pasted various notes that I sometimes write in a text file and think they may be interesting to discuss in a blog post at a later point and hopefully put them in a form that's easily digestible. But sometimes I don't gracefully merge topics and sometimes I just can't be asked because who's going to bother reading anyway? It's 4am, I'm tired, I'm a scatterbrain and I've got a headache, what more can you ask of a loser as I?

Anyway, time for the traditional music video. Normally I might listen to music as I write but this time I didn't however I'd like to mention my latest obsession, The National, a band I discovered much too late in their life and mine. If you've never heard of them, they're more contemporary indie rock, or as some might amusingly and I think appropriately term as "sad dad" genre, kind of a grown man's "sad boi", another cringy genre which I've explored but like any, has its jewels. But this song, it's so good and they have such a great percussionist. To lesser musical minds as mine, my first thought wouldn't be to mix an energetic complex beat with mellow vocal tones but those contrasts mix as well as peanut butter and chocolate.

Ladies and gentlemen, The National playing Quiet Light...

I'm not afraid of being alone,
I just don't know what to do with my time.