Recently I’ve reconnected virtually with Jesse Hirsh, who is hosting MetaViews. I have been making comments on some of the podcasts and articles in the notes part of this site, as well as some articles.
It's all over all the stuff I write, but basically, I just feel and know trends as they come and go (we all do) and this violent push against where we're going is a thrust, for sure, but it'll soon be a whimper. Misdirecting people to fight about causes and roots of what's really going on (we've enabled greed and fear to rule all of us) is the real problem, and the violence in both directions is losing its momentum, not gaining it. I can't cite evidence for optimism or pessimism, they're just human conditions, really, if you're content right now, you're going to feel like the world is content, and if you're unhappy right now, you're inclined to argue that an externality is making you unhappy. Figuring out how to be content is the only thing we need to do. We want to cite history, data, research, and play blame games, but monocultures fight just as nasty and with the same logical fallacies as multicultural ones do. It's human to oscillate between fear and greed, but we CAN get better at our reactivity. I'm optimistic that young people are seeing how pointless it is to blame history and institutions, and how important it is to build emotional resilience and cooperative mental health strategies to stay the course and be less reactive.
Reminder of important context: I’m only expressing my own ideas, lived experiences, and lifelong learning. Please don’t take any of this as a challenge of your own worldviews or anything about individuals. I’m aware that sometimes when I speak about subjects that are not part of my identity, but are part of someone else’s identity, they take my discussion as some challenge of an individual.
We can discuss this more in the future if you wish, or skip this as an "agree to disagree".
It has been my observation that the gerrymandering of Western notions of linear time has been a core tool to maintain the social hierarchies that are the roots of pretty much all the problems I've observed.
There is a desire in Western worldviews to maintain multi-generational inheritance of privileges and unearned benefits, but never multi-generational responsibilities such the Seven Generations thinking of many domestic nations.
I don't believe it is possible to move away from any of the problems we may both agree are problems (the overlapping subset of what each of us individually believe are problems) without figuring out where we actually are. Part of that is recognizing the different worldviews (not institutions, not about blaming individuals or even being concerned by the notion of individuals at all) that are at the core of how we perceive the world around us.
I haven’t observed a significant difference in the worldviews of younger generations within the dominant culture. Even pointing to their elders as being outdated and to be ignored is a continuation of worldviews that led to the 1600’s and 1700’s European colonialism of this continent. They aren’t even just mirroring the worldviews of the recently named cohorts of British North American social generations, which only started after WW1 with the so-called “lost generation”.
From all of what I've learned about Neurotypes, and non-Western cultures, I've given up on what I've been told was "human nature" or "human conditions", as most of what has been included in those concepts are actually culturally specific.
As an Autistic person I'm an outsider to most of the cultures I interact with, even the “Canadian” culture that I was born into, and I'm nearly always trying to do cross-cultural translation even when talking with fellow settler Canadians of similar Western European descent.
You NEVER have to worry about me and my identity or views, because I don't have a world view (I'm cosmo-view) and I don't identify as human either. I feel like I'm consciousness watching consciousness, and I have no empirical evidence proving or disproving my feelings of free will (and predeterminism). What I do know is that we are all hung up on what we're hung up on, and then we tend to see it everywhere. When I hit rock bottom (my wife abducted our son and left me broken, financially and emotionally with no legal recourse to fight my good fight), I saw every feminist post as rewarding her heinous moral crimes, I saw any attack at men as a direct social nod to approve what she did, and it took me a lot of work to get back to "happy mike who likes people and respects people and doesn't make it all about himself." The unintended consequence of that ordeal was that I'm now open minded to letting life play out, and I know that all I can do is be a bright spot of love for anyone who comes my way.
I think more and more people, thanks to Internet podcasting, rogue substackers, and other "non-legacy media outlets" are trying psychedelics, not just for fun, but for psychological self-research and therapy, and also trying breathing techniques, kriya yoga, and other forms of mental exercises to get past the ego and feel what we really are "consciousness seeing itself, live, every second" and I believe that this breakthrough, which happens to "all neurologies" not just mainstream or divergent, are experiencing a breakthrough like mine, and it's just a matter of time before too many people have exceded the overton window of "traditional cult and tribal behavior" and we live in new paradigm, (which will likely have its own problems that I cannot foresee, predict, nor would I waste my time pretending I could do either).
So that's where I am in life, and in my view. I see this world as but a play, like Shakespeare said, and we're all acting, and you have to play your role, with conviction, as do I, but I am definitely past the point of feeling personally attacked by words, opinions, ideologies, and even "evidence and facts" since everything is very, very relative.
I think you're awesome, I like the way you think, and I'm honoroed that you would engage this much with me, a new friend and a stranger.
I respect what you see and what you think, but I just don't think any of us have a mind that can foresee or predict what will happen. We can only play along and do our best to "nudge" this powerful boat of humanity with our oar...but we're just one oar...there are 7billion oars each paddling...
It might be that we are using a different meaning for the word "worldview", which is really about how you see and understand the world outside your door (or also inside yourself). In describing that you felt you didn't have a worldview, you were sharing aspects of your worldview.
What you describe of "feminists" reminds me of what I recently wrote about "woke racism".
There are people who think of themselves as "feminists" who actually only want to gain individual power for themselves and other who are like themselves (not specifically gender) rather than get rid of flawed social hierarchies (a misdirected focus on individuals rather than systems). They misunderstand mysogyny as being something individual "males" deliberately do to individual "females", and then believe that individual "males" need to be punished simply for being males. This is fake feminism, and this fake feminism doesn't solve any underlying problem but it does generate animosity against getting rid of the social hierarchies within Androcentrism/etc.
Androcentrism, the roots of misogyny, are systemic/cultural, and won't make sense using an indidividualism lens. With that nels it will appear with that lens to be something that non-males (it is beyond "women", and gender isn't a binary) do it to themselves and to fellow non-males.
There are other aspects to consider, such as how "White" (non-racialized) femanism fails racialized women. I referenced the book " White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color" by Ruby Hamad in a different blog article.
It is such a mess when trying to discuss ideas outside of the mainstream as there is terminology where there is deliberately generated confusion about the meaning of language. So much time gets spent even trying to find words in English that convey compatible meanings to there other person, both because of the regional history of English (unique history of England) as well as imposed geopolitical ideologies built into the language.
I mean, they only let us heart a reply once, but yes, yes, and even more yes! I totally "grok" this, feel it, and I'm trying, all my life, to show (not tell) people how to live a peaceful life. Nature is violent. Prey, predators, in between...the nature of life is to change, and changes can seem volatile and without purpose, but with our "brain on top of a brain" we always have the ability to witness our desire to react, then react, and that's what I think we should all be working on. Less finger wagging and lecturing, more personal restraint. Thanks, Russell. And keep reading AND relating what you're learning. I appreciate it tremendously.
oh and that clip was good! I don't identify as neurodivergent or neurotypical. I'm not sure what the term is for that, but I feel like meditating every day for 40-60 minutes since I was 13 has the most to do with this than anything else about me. It made it very, very hard to ever feel like I'm "me." I'm always witnessing myself and "laughing/cringing/celebrating/shaking my head..."
I am 6'4'' in height, but would there be a term for if I didn't personally "identify" as tall?
Have we conflated biological traits and "identity politics"?
Neurotype is actually about biology, not something that an individual choses. With invisible diversity the person may choose to not disclose the attribute, but that doesn't make it any less real than visible attributes like height, eye colour, skin colour, etc.
In my case, my being Autistic defines who I am more than being Canadian or something like that. Canadian is an externally created attribute that I can choose to be part of me, which is different than things which are part of me that I might choose not to disclose.
BTW: On "identity politcs", have you ever seen "Lefty Boot Camp"? I love when comedy is used to try to share complex ideas that so many people just aren't getting. I referenced this regularly when I'm discussing some of the weird finger-pointing that is happening on both the self-identified "left" and "right".
(Note: I don't "identify" with the left-right political spectrum at all, especially when trying to communicate with people who believe the word 'spectrum' refers to something that is linear and starts at 0 and goes all the way up to 11 )
I think, based on history, someday they'll define types of autism with hierarchies. I think we'd be better off not diagnosing anything and taking everything at face value, but also, society is rigged by one type, against all other types, so those minorities need representation and protection. That's where I lose my mind. I've seen minority power take majority power and act the same as the minority, so I just try to brace myself for whatever leadership will emerge next, and also to deal with the current ones. I've rarely seen someone take power and wield it with true deference to kindness (But I HAVE seen it happen, and i've even done it a few times, so I believe we can accomplish that, but I don't know how to screen for "true integrity" and I don't know why some people have it and lose it, but I pray I don't)! I know my "EQ" makes me feel divergent...
The hierarchies are the problem. That is how it started in the West, with much of the research on Autism being done by eugenicists.
Within the USA (and Canada regularly follows the USA) we can see discussions of tracking Autistic individuals in a registry, and other ongoing aspects of the Eugenics movement (which, contrary to myth, originated and grew most strongly within the Anglosphere and British North America -- the Germans adopted some ideas and were more efficient, but Eugenics is primarily an Anglosphere issue).
You have expressed a concern I have always had with individualism, which leads some people not wanting to rid culture of social constructs that generate social hierarchies, but only try to improve their specific position within the hierarchy. Rather than trying to create equity (which is an entirely different concept than equality), they try to elevate themselves (and people they consider their peers) by pushing everyone they declare as "not like them" downward.
While my Irish and Scottish ancestors came to this continent more recently, my French ancestors have been hear longer. There is this odd thing you may not see from the southern side of the British North American negotiated border. I write about that in:
While they have received the bronze in the priviledges Olympics within non-racialized groups on this continent (old stock British settlers have Gold, anyone who fully assimilates to Anglosphere colonial worldviews Silver, and loyalists to French colonial worldviews Bronze), they claim to be one of the most oppressed groups on this continent. Some of the most extreme parts of the ideology are quite open, with one FQL leader writing a book where even the title is extremely offensive: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1518400.White_Niggers_of_America
Of the demographic groups of my ancestors the French colonial loyalists have been the least oppressed, and yet they are the most vocal in trying to step on everyone else's heads to try to reach the top of the pyramid scheme.
(The same ideological extremism applies to many groups, but I wanted to stick to one that is part of my ancestry).
I do not understand the ideology that suggests that if you believe you are a victim of something, that gives you some right to victimize someone else. In my mind this relates to individualism, a political philosophy I don’t subscribe to or even understand the attraction others have to that philosophy.
I loved this, and despite your cited source and other contrarian opinions, I believe science (specifically pharmaceuticals and robotics) will extend the average "old person's" median age to about 100...I think this will occur around 2040, but not sooner. I am basing this on nocebo and placebo research and the recent developments in artificial heart transplants and genetic revelations with stem cells and injection. BUT, I happily agree to disagree!
If by "average" you mean rich white people, then we agree.
I don't think we disagree as it relates to natural sciences and technology, but that you might not also be including social sciences and all the social hierarchies that Western worldview adherents create and impose.
When I think of averages I'm not only thinking of people who look like me and have incomes similar or above, but actual global human populations -- the vast majority of which were never were granted all the undue Priviledges I have.
I believe the future is far less dystopian than you do. I think we're going to conquer a lot of our issues and we're going to get better at sharing and seeing humanity as a cohesive whole. I just think there's some hard years between now and then
I see the growth in things such as the Manosphere which is trying to turn back the clock a few centuries, I see a growth in the violence of those with other gender ideologies (IE: that gender is a binary fixed to chromazones or some such unscientific nonsense), and I see a growth in racialization and other social constructs and hierarchies.
And I don't think I need to directly discuss the Climate Crisis, and how backward the antique foreign economic theories of Canada and the USA are.
It would take work to actually make progress, but I see very little recognition of the underlying problems. I see quite a bit of finger pointing from individuals to other individuals, not even recognizing that individualism itself is one of those ideologies certain cultures need to move past in order to even begin to think about the future you believe is possible.
I am aware of the "Myth of Progress" and I believed that myth in my own past, but have since become aware that the blind belief in that myth is actually the greatest barrier to actual progress.
It's all over all the stuff I write, but basically, I just feel and know trends as they come and go (we all do) and this violent push against where we're going is a thrust, for sure, but it'll soon be a whimper. Misdirecting people to fight about causes and roots of what's really going on (we've enabled greed and fear to rule all of us) is the real problem, and the violence in both directions is losing its momentum, not gaining it. I can't cite evidence for optimism or pessimism, they're just human conditions, really, if you're content right now, you're going to feel like the world is content, and if you're unhappy right now, you're inclined to argue that an externality is making you unhappy. Figuring out how to be content is the only thing we need to do. We want to cite history, data, research, and play blame games, but monocultures fight just as nasty and with the same logical fallacies as multicultural ones do. It's human to oscillate between fear and greed, but we CAN get better at our reactivity. I'm optimistic that young people are seeing how pointless it is to blame history and institutions, and how important it is to build emotional resilience and cooperative mental health strategies to stay the course and be less reactive.
Reminder of important context: I’m only expressing my own ideas, lived experiences, and lifelong learning. Please don’t take any of this as a challenge of your own worldviews or anything about individuals. I’m aware that sometimes when I speak about subjects that are not part of my identity, but are part of someone else’s identity, they take my discussion as some challenge of an individual.
We can discuss this more in the future if you wish, or skip this as an "agree to disagree".
It has been my observation that the gerrymandering of Western notions of linear time has been a core tool to maintain the social hierarchies that are the roots of pretty much all the problems I've observed.
There is a desire in Western worldviews to maintain multi-generational inheritance of privileges and unearned benefits, but never multi-generational responsibilities such the Seven Generations thinking of many domestic nations.
I don't believe it is possible to move away from any of the problems we may both agree are problems (the overlapping subset of what each of us individually believe are problems) without figuring out where we actually are. Part of that is recognizing the different worldviews (not institutions, not about blaming individuals or even being concerned by the notion of individuals at all) that are at the core of how we perceive the world around us.
I haven’t observed a significant difference in the worldviews of younger generations within the dominant culture. Even pointing to their elders as being outdated and to be ignored is a continuation of worldviews that led to the 1600’s and 1700’s European colonialism of this continent. They aren’t even just mirroring the worldviews of the recently named cohorts of British North American social generations, which only started after WW1 with the so-called “lost generation”.
From all of what I've learned about Neurotypes, and non-Western cultures, I've given up on what I've been told was "human nature" or "human conditions", as most of what has been included in those concepts are actually culturally specific.
As an Autistic person I'm an outsider to most of the cultures I interact with, even the “Canadian” culture that I was born into, and I'm nearly always trying to do cross-cultural translation even when talking with fellow settler Canadians of similar Western European descent.
https://youtu.be/sFilhW486qQ?si=7rOJ62VV2H3mt0mb&t=304
You NEVER have to worry about me and my identity or views, because I don't have a world view (I'm cosmo-view) and I don't identify as human either. I feel like I'm consciousness watching consciousness, and I have no empirical evidence proving or disproving my feelings of free will (and predeterminism). What I do know is that we are all hung up on what we're hung up on, and then we tend to see it everywhere. When I hit rock bottom (my wife abducted our son and left me broken, financially and emotionally with no legal recourse to fight my good fight), I saw every feminist post as rewarding her heinous moral crimes, I saw any attack at men as a direct social nod to approve what she did, and it took me a lot of work to get back to "happy mike who likes people and respects people and doesn't make it all about himself." The unintended consequence of that ordeal was that I'm now open minded to letting life play out, and I know that all I can do is be a bright spot of love for anyone who comes my way.
I think more and more people, thanks to Internet podcasting, rogue substackers, and other "non-legacy media outlets" are trying psychedelics, not just for fun, but for psychological self-research and therapy, and also trying breathing techniques, kriya yoga, and other forms of mental exercises to get past the ego and feel what we really are "consciousness seeing itself, live, every second" and I believe that this breakthrough, which happens to "all neurologies" not just mainstream or divergent, are experiencing a breakthrough like mine, and it's just a matter of time before too many people have exceded the overton window of "traditional cult and tribal behavior" and we live in new paradigm, (which will likely have its own problems that I cannot foresee, predict, nor would I waste my time pretending I could do either).
So that's where I am in life, and in my view. I see this world as but a play, like Shakespeare said, and we're all acting, and you have to play your role, with conviction, as do I, but I am definitely past the point of feeling personally attacked by words, opinions, ideologies, and even "evidence and facts" since everything is very, very relative.
I think you're awesome, I like the way you think, and I'm honoroed that you would engage this much with me, a new friend and a stranger.
I respect what you see and what you think, but I just don't think any of us have a mind that can foresee or predict what will happen. We can only play along and do our best to "nudge" this powerful boat of humanity with our oar...but we're just one oar...there are 7billion oars each paddling...
Thank you so much for the reply. You wrote quite a bit, and thanks for sharing.
I may have more to say later, but I wanted to offer something quick earlier.
Your discussion of worldviews reminded me of a Rush song: https://www.rush.com/songs/freewill/
"You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice"
It might be that we are using a different meaning for the word "worldview", which is really about how you see and understand the world outside your door (or also inside yourself). In describing that you felt you didn't have a worldview, you were sharing aspects of your worldview.
What you describe of "feminists" reminds me of what I recently wrote about "woke racism".
https://r.flora.ca/p/woke-racism
There are people who think of themselves as "feminists" who actually only want to gain individual power for themselves and other who are like themselves (not specifically gender) rather than get rid of flawed social hierarchies (a misdirected focus on individuals rather than systems). They misunderstand mysogyny as being something individual "males" deliberately do to individual "females", and then believe that individual "males" need to be punished simply for being males. This is fake feminism, and this fake feminism doesn't solve any underlying problem but it does generate animosity against getting rid of the social hierarchies within Androcentrism/etc.
Androcentrism, the roots of misogyny, are systemic/cultural, and won't make sense using an indidividualism lens. With that nels it will appear with that lens to be something that non-males (it is beyond "women", and gender isn't a binary) do it to themselves and to fellow non-males.
There are other aspects to consider, such as how "White" (non-racialized) femanism fails racialized women. I referenced the book " White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color" by Ruby Hamad in a different blog article.
https://r.flora.ca/p/tinder-swindler
It is such a mess when trying to discuss ideas outside of the mainstream as there is terminology where there is deliberately generated confusion about the meaning of language. So much time gets spent even trying to find words in English that convey compatible meanings to there other person, both because of the regional history of English (unique history of England) as well as imposed geopolitical ideologies built into the language.
I mean, they only let us heart a reply once, but yes, yes, and even more yes! I totally "grok" this, feel it, and I'm trying, all my life, to show (not tell) people how to live a peaceful life. Nature is violent. Prey, predators, in between...the nature of life is to change, and changes can seem volatile and without purpose, but with our "brain on top of a brain" we always have the ability to witness our desire to react, then react, and that's what I think we should all be working on. Less finger wagging and lecturing, more personal restraint. Thanks, Russell. And keep reading AND relating what you're learning. I appreciate it tremendously.
oh and that clip was good! I don't identify as neurodivergent or neurotypical. I'm not sure what the term is for that, but I feel like meditating every day for 40-60 minutes since I was 13 has the most to do with this than anything else about me. It made it very, very hard to ever feel like I'm "me." I'm always witnessing myself and "laughing/cringing/celebrating/shaking my head..."
I'm not sure what the term would be.
I am 6'4'' in height, but would there be a term for if I didn't personally "identify" as tall?
Have we conflated biological traits and "identity politics"?
Neurotype is actually about biology, not something that an individual choses. With invisible diversity the person may choose to not disclose the attribute, but that doesn't make it any less real than visible attributes like height, eye colour, skin colour, etc.
In my case, my being Autistic defines who I am more than being Canadian or something like that. Canadian is an externally created attribute that I can choose to be part of me, which is different than things which are part of me that I might choose not to disclose.
BTW: On "identity politcs", have you ever seen "Lefty Boot Camp"? I love when comedy is used to try to share complex ideas that so many people just aren't getting. I referenced this regularly when I'm discussing some of the weird finger-pointing that is happening on both the self-identified "left" and "right".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lcYP_zOOXg
(Note: I don't "identify" with the left-right political spectrum at all, especially when trying to communicate with people who believe the word 'spectrum' refers to something that is linear and starts at 0 and goes all the way up to 11 )
I think, based on history, someday they'll define types of autism with hierarchies. I think we'd be better off not diagnosing anything and taking everything at face value, but also, society is rigged by one type, against all other types, so those minorities need representation and protection. That's where I lose my mind. I've seen minority power take majority power and act the same as the minority, so I just try to brace myself for whatever leadership will emerge next, and also to deal with the current ones. I've rarely seen someone take power and wield it with true deference to kindness (But I HAVE seen it happen, and i've even done it a few times, so I believe we can accomplish that, but I don't know how to screen for "true integrity" and I don't know why some people have it and lose it, but I pray I don't)! I know my "EQ" makes me feel divergent...
The hierarchies are the problem. That is how it started in the West, with much of the research on Autism being done by eugenicists.
Within the USA (and Canada regularly follows the USA) we can see discussions of tracking Autistic individuals in a registry, and other ongoing aspects of the Eugenics movement (which, contrary to myth, originated and grew most strongly within the Anglosphere and British North America -- the Germans adopted some ideas and were more efficient, but Eugenics is primarily an Anglosphere issue).
You have expressed a concern I have always had with individualism, which leads some people not wanting to rid culture of social constructs that generate social hierarchies, but only try to improve their specific position within the hierarchy. Rather than trying to create equity (which is an entirely different concept than equality), they try to elevate themselves (and people they consider their peers) by pushing everyone they declare as "not like them" downward.
While my Irish and Scottish ancestors came to this continent more recently, my French ancestors have been hear longer. There is this odd thing you may not see from the southern side of the British North American negotiated border. I write about that in:
https://r.flora.ca/p/french-descendents
While they have received the bronze in the priviledges Olympics within non-racialized groups on this continent (old stock British settlers have Gold, anyone who fully assimilates to Anglosphere colonial worldviews Silver, and loyalists to French colonial worldviews Bronze), they claim to be one of the most oppressed groups on this continent. Some of the most extreme parts of the ideology are quite open, with one FQL leader writing a book where even the title is extremely offensive: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1518400.White_Niggers_of_America
Of the demographic groups of my ancestors the French colonial loyalists have been the least oppressed, and yet they are the most vocal in trying to step on everyone else's heads to try to reach the top of the pyramid scheme.
(The same ideological extremism applies to many groups, but I wanted to stick to one that is part of my ancestry).
I do not understand the ideology that suggests that if you believe you are a victim of something, that gives you some right to victimize someone else. In my mind this relates to individualism, a political philosophy I don’t subscribe to or even understand the attraction others have to that philosophy.
I loved this, and despite your cited source and other contrarian opinions, I believe science (specifically pharmaceuticals and robotics) will extend the average "old person's" median age to about 100...I think this will occur around 2040, but not sooner. I am basing this on nocebo and placebo research and the recent developments in artificial heart transplants and genetic revelations with stem cells and injection. BUT, I happily agree to disagree!
If by "average" you mean rich white people, then we agree.
I don't think we disagree as it relates to natural sciences and technology, but that you might not also be including social sciences and all the social hierarchies that Western worldview adherents create and impose.
When I think of averages I'm not only thinking of people who look like me and have incomes similar or above, but actual global human populations -- the vast majority of which were never were granted all the undue Priviledges I have.
https://r.flora.ca/p/my-privileges
I believe the future is far less dystopian than you do. I think we're going to conquer a lot of our issues and we're going to get better at sharing and seeing humanity as a cohesive whole. I just think there's some hard years between now and then
Can you expand on why you have this optimism?
I see the growth in things such as the Manosphere which is trying to turn back the clock a few centuries, I see a growth in the violence of those with other gender ideologies (IE: that gender is a binary fixed to chromazones or some such unscientific nonsense), and I see a growth in racialization and other social constructs and hierarchies.
And I don't think I need to directly discuss the Climate Crisis, and how backward the antique foreign economic theories of Canada and the USA are.
It would take work to actually make progress, but I see very little recognition of the underlying problems. I see quite a bit of finger pointing from individuals to other individuals, not even recognizing that individualism itself is one of those ideologies certain cultures need to move past in order to even begin to think about the future you believe is possible.
I am aware of the "Myth of Progress" and I believed that myth in my own past, but have since become aware that the blind belief in that myth is actually the greatest barrier to actual progress.
https://apihtawikosisan.com/2013/08/we-cant-get-anywhere-until-we-flip-the-narrative/