cell913blog.com #14

 Here is a quote I found recently that begs unpacking…and as a Friday morning self-challenge, let’s try to unpack it imagining if Mandela were responding:

Why are so many problems today perceived as problems of intolerance, rather than as problems of inequality, exploitation, or injustice? Why is the proposed remedy tolerance, rather than emancipation, political struggle, of even armed struggle? (Slavoj Zizek)…Mr. Zizek is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University and senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy. In a debate in Toronto in 2019, with Jordan Peterson, in which the topic was Happiness: Capitalism vs Marxism, Professor Zizek is reported to have uttered these words: (L)ess hierarchical, more egalitarian social structure would stand to produce great amounts of (this) auxiliary happiness-runoff.” (wikipedia.org)

It may seem trite to observe that public debate, at least in the west, has devolved into a personality litmus test, whereby the political, intellectual, professional individual’s words are viewed from a lens that is dominated by questions of hypocrisy, integrity, honesty, consistency, predictability and the individual’s perceptions of the role of power, bifurcated into: for personal self-aggrandizement, or for the public good. Personalization as a perception has supplanted ideas, policies, programs, and certainly philosophy. We ‘like’ these few men and women because they seem to be more resonant with ‘how we see the world’; and we dislike these other men and women because they seem to see the world very differently. Either-or! And either-or from another perspective that can be depicted as ‘black or white’…there are no nuances, no alternative, no options, and no doubt in anyone’s mind as to the righteousness of their views or the heinous contemptibility of both the ‘other’ and his views. The fusion of person and view/attitude has replaced any discernment that s/he is NOT only his/her position on a specific issue of public interest. “Personalizing” as a frame for culture, is only one of the several ways of picturing it.

Having dumbed-down, simplified, and effectively performed a kind of (metaphorical) surgical lobotomy on our public leaders and the issues about which they are charged with being responsible to address, at a time when technology has made individual personal opinions, most of them emerging from the collection of ‘moths’ of persons and opinions that surge around a light-bulb, instantly accessible in real time, everywhere, and also at a time when local media has been eviscerated of dollars, staff, offices and even existence, and international media is struggling by a cash-thread, we are living in a time of minimal, if not excoriated, intellectual engagement, interest and especially trust.

Critical thought has been a casualty of both the social media and the coup of democratic, and small-l liberal governance by narcissistic, nationalist, tribal despots funded primarily by right-wing financial oligarchs. Their argument, of course, would be that they are only protecting the public interest by their patronage, given their focus on the trickle-down economics of unfettered capitalism. No economic system, if and when allowed complete free reign, without guardrails, reasonable regulations and controls, a serious commitment to the welfare of even the ‘least among us,’ can be justified, tolerated nor can it even support itself. Untethered, like a green-broke horse, it will ‘run wild’ and self-destruct, as history has demonstrated frequently. Neither extreme of capitalism nor communism can survive, nor can the extremes of any polarized issue find the needed oxygen to survive. What is true in personal psychic biography is also true in municipal, national, and geopolitics…extremes burn themselves into oblivion. Nevertheless, the damage they can and do generate can and does last for eternity. And we have a complex, unnuanced, and seemingly mutually exclusive perception of extremes: we adore their theatricality, their histrionics, their drama and their risk and we also wither at their limitless ambition, their relentless absorption and/or consumption of everyone and everything in their wake. And we oscillate between these polarities, sometimes consciously, often unconsciously.

Now, let’s look more carefully at the ‘tolerance/intolerance’ ‘diagnosis/disease’ dichotomy!

Elevating personal relationships to the top of our ‘value totem pole’, as it were, we have effectively turned a blind eye to the complexities of ideas whether those ideas have their roots in history, philosophy, religion, economics, sociology or psychology. In our seemingly obsessive-compulsive rush to worship at the altar of science, and the proposition that our universe can be reduced to its atomic (both literal and metaphorical) structure, for the purposes of all ethical, moral, political and intellectual debate, the very notion of abstractions, ideas, propositions, principles and especially the multiple, varied and highly complex and nuanced relationships between various ideas, in various theatres (venues, playing fields, boardrooms, lecture halls, sanctuaries, stock exchanges, institutions) has become a vestige of history. We have fallen into our self-obsessed microscopic magnification of ‘our ego and our person’ as the defining totem in our value system. And we are unable to assign culpability either to Capitalism or Marxism, or any other ‘ism’ for our ‘fall’. Indeed, we have fallen, like Narcissus, in love with our own image and then found readily available, vulnerable and accessible targets for our highly inflamed judgements, based on what once would have been considered adolescent hormonal outbursts. Ad hominums gone wild! Call it hubris, or call it anxiety, or call it insouciance, or call it sanctimonious, or call it sycophantic, or even pre-pubescent, or call it myopic….nevertheless, our social and cultural perspective is a form of blatant, if unconscious, self-sabotage, both individually and certainly collectively.

What is behind diagnosing another as ‘intolerant’ whether the diagnosis comes from a legal perspective, or a corporate management perspective, or a social justice perspective or a religious perspective, effectively means that from the perspective of the ‘diagnosing source’, that person has instantly become ‘persona non grata’…And we all know that ‘intolerance’ has so many faces, iterations, ramifications, and even reprehensible consequences. Inside each of us, there seems to be a cast of characters (images) for which/whom we feel an attraction, as well as those for which/whom we fell a kind of rejection. At the moment when that ‘switch’ becomes conscious, whether we are in direct contact, or virtual contact, with the other, we are ‘responding’ to that image. We often know little to nothing about the ‘other’ person; that lack of information, however, is almost irrelevant to our ‘switch’. And whether we actually put ‘words’ to our response to the other person, or not, we have, it seems, at least metaphorically if not also scientifically and biologically, released a chemical, or an electrical, or a neuronal impulse. Even the notion of this image of ourselves, as involuntarily responsive, without seeming to engage in any cognitive or willful engagement, may seem preposterous to some.

However, tolerance/intolerance as a dichotomy, has to be considered, at least if not first, as a personal response. And each of us likely has numerous such responses daily, depending on our circumstances.

From the personal/psychological, let’s move to the public issue depictions of our universe. Tolerance/intolerance is a highly effective, worthwhile litmus test for assessing racism, sexism, ageism, religious bigotry, nationalism and tribalism, in sum, personal identity value!…It is, however, highly defective, incomplete and inadequate in any legitimate exploration of public issues that, while embracing the persons charged with decision-making, nevertheless, call for a perspective that embraces multiple options, perspectives, ideologies, attitudes and even philosophies. Binary choices, in the final analysis, may have legitimate application if only after multiple perceptions, discernments, interpretations and circumlocutions have been explored. Rushing to an ‘either-or’ at the beginning of any question, whether about a person or an idea, is both an escape from fully embracing the person or issue, as well as an easy way out of confronting the either. Tip-toeing around both persons and issues, however, they might be ‘framed’ by whomever, for whatever purpose or motivation, is a sure-fire approach to avoid the fullness and complexity of the truth, at least in so far as we are able, (in all aspects of that word) to discern it.

Take for example, the issue of global warming and climate change. A person can be considered to be ‘tolerant’ and thus supportive of measures to combat the crisis. Another person, considered ‘intolerant’ will be much more favourably disposed to continuing the production and deployment of fossil fuels, and the resulting increase in emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other toxins. And, of course, among both sides of that and other issues, are ‘allies’ and ‘enemies’.

Another binary reductionism, allies/enemies, only insults both the observer and the subject of the assessment. Like cardboard cut-outs, we not only reduce our opponents to that flimsy, incomplete and insulting image; we also reduce ourselves to a perspective that tolerates,  endorses and engages in more of the same.

Think, for a moment, about Mandela’s obsession to defeat apartheid. He could be categorized as ‘intolerant’ of this oppressive system. He was never, however, intolerant of those who passed the laws, worked as wardens in the prisons, inspected men, women and children in search of their ‘passes’ under the pass law regime, or those who burned down the house his wife and children were living in. Indeed, even those who accused the ANC of being ‘communist’ were treated by Mandela simply with the truth: that some in the ANC had communist affiliations yet the organization itself was never controlled by, dominated by, or dependent on the Communist Party. He did, however, see the benefits of a focus beyond the individual to the public good, the collective, that helped preserve both his perspective and his never-failing hope and optimism that the movement would eventually succeed. He never forgot or ignored, or denied that, in any post-apartheid South Africa, the men who had imposed and sustained the system would still be there and would have to be ‘part of the solution’…In Mandela’s perspective, this was not mere transactionalism; it was respect and honour for the ultimate worth of every human.

 

One of the most frightening aspects of AI, and its insertion into our political life, according to forensic Artificial Intelligence scholars, is that political actors will be able to say literally anything, without worry about having to defend, validate or authenticate it. And they will then defer to the now infamous “it is fake” defence which has already showed its indelible ‘face’ on our screens. Similarly, by infecting our public consciousness, and the concomitant public debates, with ‘a frame of ‘tolerance/intolerance’ those who are responsible (or at least were) for researching the back stories to the public issues they wish to champion, or oppose, and then arming themselves with the most relevant and applicable ‘data’ and then attempting to form a legitimate, if debatable theory that embraces those facts, have been freed from all of that ‘dirty work’ of the intellectual. Public rhetoric on steroids, that fires character assassination word-bullets, or burns a political operative over a specific and heinous failure, whether on the public or private/personal stage, imitates a scorched-earth battlefield.

Free speech, especially in the American context, has become a ‘wild west’ of not merely tolerance but actual totem heroism. Hate speech has been slaughtered, dismembered and buried in the dust-bin of archives along with shame, responsibility, decency and respect for one’s public and political and ideational opponents. And along with that funeral, buried in the same columbarium, is collaboration, co-operation, compromise and shared responsibility, irrespective of ideology, for the public good. Some will argue that capitalism has become cancerous, and that may be true. Others will argue that the capacity for and the will to engage in critical thought has withered on the vine of ‘Facebook, Twitter (X), tik-tok and other social media platforms. Others will note a growing chasm between those with post-secondary education and those without, owing to a divide in thought, perceptions, values and aspiration.

In the current public discourse around the upcoming presidential election, the phrase, “I don’t like the man, but I do like his guts, his courage, and the fact that he gets things done!” is repeated frequently in reference to the twice-impeached, multiply-indicted, ex-president. “I don’t like his mouth but I do like what he accomplished!” is another rationalization for their intent to vote for him again. “God chooses unlikely people to do his work, and God has chosen him to do His work in our time!” is another of the bandied-about simplifications, all of them echoes of that ‘either-or,’ ‘black-white,’ reductionism that has come to characterize the culture. Indeed, this one man, through the most nefarious, heinous, historically-embedded strategies and tactics of the worst kind of dissembling and propaganda, under the most repressive regimes in history, has somehow catapulted his ‘straw-man,’ feet-of-clay’ embodiment of Eliot’s Hollow Men to the top of the U.S. political-entertainment-fake-manipulative-pseudo-saved public opinion polls, and as of this date, stands ready and likely to win another election to the Oval Office.

And the world shudders at the prospect! As it and we all should!

Personal, narcissistic unbridled ambition, for whatever one’s ego demands, has, like trump, become an engraving on the totem pole of the culture, the ethos, even the theology. Some have written that class becomes a kind of theology for those whose inheritance includes privilege, superiority, even supremacy. And such ‘status’ is not and cannot be isolated as ‘white supremacy’. Indeed, we have all witnessed a kind of privileged superiority (and oppression, repression rejection etc.) in our lives, not all of it attributable to Caucasian or European, or Catholic of Protestant, Muslim or Jew, educated or illiterate, wealthy or even poor. Whether it is a human defence against perceived inadequacy, worthlessness, abandonment, alienation, separation, sin or evil, or the judgements of others on various projected perceptions, Eric Berne’s, Games People Play, one of which quarters assigns the epithet, “I’m not OK you’re not OK” and another “I’m not OK,” your’re OK” are still relevant, if out of favour and fashion in our vernacular.

A human fear, distaste, even revulsion at ‘looking inside’ and finding the ‘gold’ of our deepest wounds, fears, inadequacies, uncertainties, may well be a part of the ‘soil’ of our individual ‘soul’s identity and perception. And such fears know no boundaries, of any kind. Our eagerness to detach and analyse, in some kind of ‘objectivity’ that seems (we believe) to keep us safe from being ‘uncovered’, offers numerous opportunities for engagement with others, with some vague notion of the ‘rules of engagement’ in which to feel safe. The private, personal ‘Shadows’ of our lives, however, continue to remain both mysterious and thereby somewhat frightening. On the other hand, the tradition of diplo-speak, so highly valued among nations, courtrooms, lecture halls, science labs, and sadly seminary seminars, offers a kind of veneer of protection.

We can, however, continue to honour and to embrace our ‘Mask’ (Persona) without devolving into a personality deconstruction mentality or culture, while keeping a diligent training program for our critical thinking capacity. We are all ‘tolerance and intolerant’ to and for ourselves, at various times, (simultaneously?); and yet we are not and must not be reduced to either polarity, as a final ‘sentence’. Neither can the issues we face, including especially the human agents and actors with whom we will engage in search of solutions and resolutions (the latter may have to precede the former), become polarized as ‘tolerable or intolerable’ if we seek not merely to survive but to thrive.