Anti-intellectualism
Cliff Bostock recently wrote an essay for Creative Loafing called, Derrida and Dubya: Anti-intellectualism in America. It was very interesting. Some of his points made me immediately think of the OTO though. I read:
The anti-intellectual typically exhibits little curiosity about other perspectives and no skepticism about his own positions. When ( Read more... )
The anti-intellectual typically exhibits little curiosity about other perspectives and no skepticism about his own positions. When ( Read more... )
I think that anti-intellectualism is anti-thetical to Thelema as much as it is to Freedom. We are taught this lesson at some point in our journey within OTO but I dont think that the message is recieved or understood for one reason or the other. Either due to pisspoor representation or non-understanding. It causes a great deal of conflict. Think about how many times you bang your head against the wall when youre trying to approach a serious topic worthy of attention only to be accused of being a nazi.
Lets take the shuttle Columbia and its disaster here as an example. The special I just saw on that said repeatedly how many times out of fear of criticism, the seemingly harmless peiece of foam was defended against being the root cause of the shuttles demise. The original photos to be taken of the shuttle before it met its disasterous fate was cancelled. After disaster struck, investigation took place, and it was found that such a harmless peice of foam, indeed, was the root cause of a devistating disaster. Imagine had some been willing to pursue looking closer at that piece of foam and the damage it could have potentially caused, what might have been avoided...
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Seriously.
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No testing is possible if all people can do is attack the tone the questions are posed in. For example, let's say your math teacher came to school every day without a tie. Rather than listening to his lessons and doing the math work, you are your friends talked about nothing other than his missing tie. If he was wrong about the math, how would you ever know? If he was right, and knew more about math than you did, how would you ever know that? If he started wearing a tie would that make a difference? Or would his students then start complaining about his shoes? This is why ad hominem arguments are always counter-productive. They are a distraction. If John is wrong, attacking him for his tone will not show him why he is wrong.
"Every writer who confines himself to severe logic owes nothing to anyone. There is but one honorable revenge to take on him, and that is to reason against him and do so better."
- Joseph de Maistre
It's a difficulty that we, as Thelemites, are going to have to look at in many ways. Many, otherwise brilliant and capable people, will never study Crowley or take him seriously at all because of their objections about his character. In order to be the Thelemites we are, we have all had to "get over" that ad hominem problem at some point in our careers as OTO members. This is one reason why I so bewildered when otherwise intelligent people, I suppose, continue to make ad hominem arguments within the organization. We are the people, living in a glass house, who should have learned to stop throwing stones. Obviously, we all think AC's teachings are far more important than his character. John's ideas are, likewise, more important than his character or his tone. His ideas are going to be correct or not regardless of whether he can heal people's cancers at a touch or whether he ate seven infants for lunch today. If you really want to help him test his ideas, start engaging with them directly and stop worrying about non-essentials.
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To prove my point, a number of weeks ago scarletserpent brought up the topic of the revolutionaries. This is an issue that I have much concern about and have discussed with Sabazius directly in the past. In that discussion muelos brought up a number of good arguments and pointed out a significant number of problems with the way it is implemented. It has given me much to consider. I do have a better understanding of the issue from the discussion. I did not agree with all the stated positions, but they were compelling enough to cause me to reevaluate the current situation.
So I am interested in discussing issues, I am willing to listen. However, a constant drone of "I don't like your tone" and this is not a problem, is not convincing in the least.
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If someone's civil and not throwing in personal attacks, I guess I don't understand why another would object in a discussion about another's "tone"? Especially calling another person's tone "arrogant" (for male) or "uppity bitch" (for female) - how is that in practice precisely defined (unless the person's using phrases like "dearie", "child", "little one", "blondie", etc.)?
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The tone police, they come to me in my bed.
The tone police, they’re coming to arrest me, oh no.
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I used to love some of the arguments on a BBS (my first exposure to the computer discussion medium), they were pretty sharp, and got sometimes heated, witty, and no way was the tone always sugar coated and with rice.
Sometimes I'd get a zinger that would blow my argument to bits and make me angry overnight and yet I couldn't argue logically in return. The next day I would laugh and could admit they'd been right. I think that was an important thing to learn how to do, myself. I'm sure many people got that ability.
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