How we all get it wrong

This is my thing recently.. just like the post just below this one.  This is from DFW’s famed Kenyon Commencement speech [A] huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too. Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real. This is not a matter of virtue. It’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being “well-adjusted”, which I suggest to you is not an accidental term...

Nothing to see here...

“Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook – even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united – united with each other and against earlier and later ages – by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century – the blindness about which posterity will ask, ‘But how could they have thought that?’ – lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H.G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books,” – C.S. Lewis, in his introduction to Saint Athanasius’ On the Incarnation.

Political Inertia

This is fascinating to me -> CLICK THIS LINK!! It seems that the entire election season - including the selection of the the actual Republican nominee, was.... well...... pointless. The first picture in that link above, a prediction done in Feburary 2012, shows an error of less than 0.25%, and 49 of 50 states predicted correctly in an "Obama vs. Republican" election.  Romney hadn't even been identified as the candidate yet! So, what were Sheldon Adelson and friends buying with all that money?

Paying no Taxes

I havent been posting here for a while, mostly because I got bored of it - but also because everything seemed to be a re-run, or some sort of boilerplate bullcrap that was altogether unsurprising.  It seems that US polotics has taken on a tribalistic quality that is much more reminiscient of Michigan-Ohio State football fans than conservative-liberal issue-based political discourse.  You know, it doesnt matter how bad "your" team is, or how they play, or recruit, or hire, you will still be on "that" team and NEVER switch to the "other" guys, regardless of the circumstances - its like, you know, treason... or something. So anyway, I was reading about the incredibly stupid, but completely "thats what we think, just dont say it out loud" Mitt Romney 47% comment.  All of the typical UM-OSU responses aside, I saw one picture that surprised me.  Here it is: I'm not sure what I expected this to look like, but I didnt think that some of the MOST republican states in the country would also contain the most non-federal-income-tax-payers.  As seems to be the case more and more often, the tribalistic nature of US politics results in more people working against their own interests.  Why is this so?  David Frum has what I believe to be a decent explanation: "When you ask white Americans to estimate the black population of the United States, the answer averages out at nearly 30%. Ask them to estimate the Hispanic population, and the answer averages out at 22%. So when a politician or a broadcaster talks about 47% in "dependency," the image that swims into many white voters' minds is not their mother in Florida, her Social Security untaxed, receiving Medicare benefits vastly greater than her lifetime tax contributions; it is not their uncle, laid off after 30 years and now too old to start over. No, the image that comes into mind is minorities on welfare." So, is anyone you know in that dastardly 47% - careful... Class warfare, anyone?

The Middle East

I feel I should comment on the "Arab spring". While some believe that Democracy is emerging there (and maybe it is), the actions bear observation: 1. Palestine- "free" elections occured, and Hamas won. The US disagreed: we want democracy, but only if "our" guys win. 2. Iraq- US ally Iyad Allawi receives a dismal 8% of the vote. Iraq's democracy obviously doesnt know how to elect the "right" people. 3. Egypt- US ally Mubarak, whose government recieved more US aid than anyone except Israel, is out. Oops... 3. Eqypt again- Muslim Brotherhood was "allowed" to win roughly 20% of available parlimat seats. Is it still democracy of the guys you elect arent allo0wed to govern?

The more things Change...

This is simply great, from Ike: "This is what I mean by my constant insistence on 'moderation' in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid," Many agree ( lol).

Fiscal Conservatives?

I had to link this: Everyone who has any sort of objectivity already knows this, but there are SOOOO many who aren't.

Psyche

Psychology is cool - and annoying: You are not so Smart