let's THiNK about it

Ryder Richards builds on thinkers like Kant, Rorty, and Baudrillard in this podcast to argue that reality can filter problematic abstractions. He proposes reality as a net separating transcendental truths and superficial advertising. Without reality's grounding, these abstractions reinforce each other's weaknesses.

Part 1 - Reality as a Net for Abstractions

Richards lays out the idea of reality as a net dividing two types of abstraction. On one side is a transcendental ideology or truth claim, such as religion or science. On the other is superficial simulacra like advertising. Usually, reality forces these to grapple with concrete pragmatism. But as reality's power fades, these abstractions intertwine dangerously.

Richards relates this to Plato's cave - the shadows are lies, but the light of the exterior, truth itself, can also be an abstraction. Modern thinkers like Rorty argued truth and reality are separate. So, going from cave to light just shifts one abstraction for another.

Part 2 - Disneyland as an Example

Richards uses Baudrillard's concrete example of Disneyland as an abstraction slipping into dangerous territory. Disneyland pretends to be fiction but reveals a desire for moral truth. However, this yearning abstracted into blind faith leads to fanaticism and policing "outsiders." The virtues represented become ways to enforce arbitrary hierarchies. In this case, the morality play of virtuousness, combined with fictional advertising, exemplifies Hofstader's 'hyper system," or tangled hierarchy, without referencing reality. 

Part 3 - Lowering Abstractions' Power

To counter abstraction's excesses, Richards offers two main methods:

Way 1 - Communicative Rationality

The first way is Isiah Berlin's communicative rationality - agreeing on language, intent, and logic tied to reality. This raises the "net" by grounding thought in the concrete.

Way 2 - Meditation

The second way is meditation, recognizing our physical body to quiet constant abstraction. This reduces reactivity and teaches us to filter manipulations.

Conclusion

In sum, abstraction untethered from reality breeds instability and vulnerability to facile beliefs. Reality anchors us against these excesses. In future episodes, Richards will continue exploring pragmatism, AI, and the limits of language.

https://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-78-the-parallax-view/

Ryder discusses the concept of Slavoj Zizek's "The Parallax View" in three parts.

Part 1: Ryder defines the parallax view as the convergence of seemingly parallel perspectives. He draws a connection to optical illusions of perspective and discusses how the parallax view involves looking beyond the central focus point. The author also touches on its use in astronomy.

Part 2: Ryder discusses Slavoj Žižek's use of the parallax view in his book and how it reconsiders the traditional Hegelian dialectic of synthesis or sublation. He explains how Žižek's approach doesn't seek to overcome oppositional positions but acknowledges their inherent contradictions as perspectival points. (This involves Lacan, Freud, Marxism, and Levi-Strauss's sociology, and more.)

Part 3: Ryder provides two examples of how the real-life parallax view works. First, he discusses faith and love as a parallax, emphasizing the need to change one's position to understand faith truly. Second, he references a scene from the movie "Guardians of the Galaxy" to illustrate how understanding can shift over time, emphasizing the importance of changing perspectives. He also shares the paralysis that multiple positions can invoke.

Welcome to the problematic realm of perspective framing. Ryder Richards will be your dubious guide through this profound exploration of self-awareness and understanding. Central to our journey is the parallax view, a powerful method of finding our place in the world by establishing reference points by Slavoj Zizek. But first, we must challenge hegemonic narratives and reconsider Hegel’s notion of negation, as breaking free from (or subsuming and overcoming) conventional beliefs allows us to envision new possibilities.

As we progress, we’ll examine how psychology analysis, meditation, and Buddhism provide tools to reshape our perspectives and alleviate societal discontent. Psychoanalysis will offer unique insights into the human psyche, highlighting the potential for multiple points of fixation as normalcy which creates markers to allow a fixed identity.

Moreover, we’ll consider all of these topics related to the “desiring self” and its role in identity. Most pointedly, we will look at Christianity’s perspective on sin related to desire, and how desire is necessary to align with God.

Stay tuned for the next post, where we will dive deep into the intricacies of the Parallax View, a possibly revolutionary approach to subjective positioning that allows understanding without always negating the negation, as deconstrcutionism does.

0:00 Introduction of the parallax view.

• Introducing ryder richards and the concept of the parallax view, which is a means to find a position by establishing points of reference.
• The next episode is all about the next episode.

2:19 Breaking the power of hegemonic narratives.

• Post structuralist or deconstructionist. All of their arguments today can arguably be post-structuralist or post-deconstructionist, where brains are trained to be creatively destructive.
• Hegel's notion of negation, the ability to negate impact or power of something.

4:28 We must retain the positions we've just cancelled.

• Hegel makes his point that cancellation preserves the positions that were just cancelled, but that there is a need for a visual goal to position ourselves in society.
• Hegel argues that every cancellation is a new position, so every cancellation adds more gravel to the pile.

6:44 Why we need to break traditional beliefs.

• How modernist thinkers broke traditional beliefs to avoid the totalitarian narrative and nationalistic mindset that was sweeping through Europe 100 years ago.
• Two dispositions in the rubble of the rubble.

8:47 How to choose a new perspective.

• Society is more unhappy, anxious and despairing than it was in the past, according to the studies.
• Psychology analysis and therapy are tools for relief from the society that we live in and what we feel we deserve, and help pull us out of instant reactions

11:23 Psychoanalysis is more about sizing the psychotic subject than the ego.

• Zizek, Lacanian psychoanalysis is more about hysteria sizing the psychotic subject. To be non-psychotic is either to have multiple points of fixation or never know exactly who you are.
• Buddhism and meditation.

13:41 How to become an individual subject without ego.

• CBT therapy and meditation help reframe how you fit into the world and how you see your position in the world. It allows you to prioritize your desires differently.
• Buddhism is ridding yourself of attempting to desire anything at all.

16:18 To sin is to miss the mark.

• To sin is to position yourself further away from god, to miss the mark, and to be aligned with god to grow near the object of desire.
• Christianity uses desire rather than negates it.

18:44 Reframing the problem into parallax.

• Walking us through the conundrum of the desiring self and the methods of reframing it and positioning in it.
• Instead of the negation that is a deconstructivist rubble that has created an apocalyptic landscape, there might actually be a solution that is apparent here.

🗑️ Garbage represents the concrete universal of waste.

🎨 Picasso's art exemplifies the concrete universal through different periods and works.

🌌 Failures and contradictions can lead to transcendence.

🎭 Art expresses both expression and concealment simultaneously.

🔀 Concrete universalism combines the concrete and the abstract into one concept.

💡 The concept of concrete universalism challenges fixed definitions and highlights the dynamic nature of objects, people, and ideas.

🔄 The concrete universal constantly expands, while the defining object fails to fully capture its totality.

---- TIMING/CHAPTERS----

0:00 Welcome back to the show.

• Fiction is bleeding into reality and confusing.

1:34 Relating to god through the son.

• How god was impossible to relate to.
• Concrete universalism and the food processor.

2:53 How can something be concrete but applicable to everything?

• Concrete universalism vs abstract universalism.
• Kantian antinomies or even Hegelian antagonisms.

5:04 The apex of the movement is the definition.

• Overcoming the other side, overcoming their limits.
• The movement has an extreme peak, which defines it.

7:20 A new more robust form of universalism.

• New universalism founded on a very real thing, trash.
• Example of concrete universalism, garbage.

9:02 Definition of the concrete universal.

• The concrete universal and the black sack of trash.
• How to use the concrete universal.

10:53 The central problem of art.

• The central problem of art, referencing Picasso.
• How art expresses the inability to clearly express.

12:33 The antagonisms in Guernica.

• Back to the concrete universal in the case of Pablo Picasso.
• The antagonisms in Guernica.

14:18 The problem with the object definition of the universal.

• Deification of objects, people and ideas.
• The parallax gap.

Christianity operates through a lack: we cannot know God, so a “gap” must be filled between God and Humans. Christ is God splitting from 1 into 2, allowing us to identify and get closer to the mystery of God, but in so doing, Christ was subjected to the filth of this world. (Zizek) 

The reversal of the one God splitting into two (only to mysteriously re-unify us) is the process of poop: taking all values and reducing them into one homogenous, non-mysterious pile. (Bataille) 

Growth can occur from this filth (otherwise known as manure), producing roses. Beauty from secular waste, rather than an excessive effort towards mysteries that only slip away as you approach them. (Hegel) 

{{This is a continuation of Step 74: Symbolic Victory}} 

https://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-75-holy-to-holy-s/

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0:00 Introduction to this episode.

• Introduction to the episode.
• How symbols create a mystery which drives us.

1:16 Limitations of the self and the symbolic unknowable.

• The gap between being human and achieving the transcendental.
• The symbolic unknowable and god's sacrifice.

3:41 How we identify with the filth and alienation. 3:41

• God forces himself to become a fragment of himself.
• The shape of conflict.

5:30 The fragmentation of the monolith.

• Division creates a distance in the one god.
• The holy nature of shit.

7:30 Moving the sacred to the secular.

• Moving the sacred to the secular in pop culture.
• Non-mysterious, non-motivation unification.

9:39 Solving the mystery leads to more mysteries.

• The attempt to resolve the mystery is the point of failure.
• Mimetic desire, scapegoating and sacrifice.

12:16 How mimetic desire works.

• Mimetic desire and the hedonic treadmill.
• The steam valve of society is sanctioned murder.

13:41 Moving from the real to the symbolic.

• Moving from the real to the symbolic for stability.
• The egyptians and their claims to permanence.

15:29 We shun the real shit and believe bullshit.

• We shun the real shit and believe the bullshit.
• The beauty of the poop pile.

0:00 The contradictory injunction of double binds.

• The contradictory injunction in double binds.

• The binary trap in cyberpunk.

2:15 The death drive of determinism.

• The death drive of determinism.

• How to transcend the binary.

4:44 How the capitalist system capitalizes on our stress.

• The capitalist system surprisingly capitalizes on stress.

• The anxious revolt is fuel for the bureaucratic nightmare.

6:33 Intro to the show.

• America and political symbolic winning, and camouflage.

• The wild west of America.

8:55 Virtue signaling to win elections.

• Virtue-signaling to win elections.

10:58 Trump's anointed tool.

• Trump as an anointed tool of the Christian right.

• Winning dignity is absurd.

12:54 How symbolic acts can function in reality.

• How the symbolic act can function in reality.

• Culture of honor, reputational honor.

14:30 Protecting your reputation through overreaction.

• Protection through overreaction

• The reversal of the reversal.

16:10 You become what you fight you become.

• The unseen aspect of antagonistic opposition in step 65.

• Respect for native americans over time.

17:47 How we grasp and use models.

• Mimetic desire to dissimulate thoughts into the real.

• Symbolism as a faulty translation.

• Symbols can become an affectation.

• The danger of the symbol that is mistaken

0:01 Why camouflage is like a rhizome.

• The complexity of camouflage and abstraction.
• Why camouflage is a better survival strategy.

2:44 The servant as master.

• How to become low like water and remain powerful.
• Master as servant - martyr. 

5:16 The boss who tries to also be your best friend.

• The parent who guilts you. 
• Undermined core self: camouflage needed for shame concealment. 

6:56 The ubiquity of repetition and mass media.

• The ubiquity of marilyn monroe as a sex symbol. (Andy Warhol)
• Society normalization disperses desire: at once object and landscape. 

9:18 Desire has become decentralized and dispersed

• Mimetic desire has become decentralized and mimetically dispersed. 
• The role of libido in camouflaging.

12:13 The decentralization of the self.

• Camouflage through subject, context, confusion or dispersal at scale.
• Decentralization of self: the self or desire as a rhizome.

14:45 Disguise is the facade that shelters the self, but also enables psychopathic killers. 

• The digital world lacks trust, artificial intelligence, and the travails of insecurity.
• Crowdsourcing wikipedia is a battleground.

16:57 We no longer trust the image.

• The attention economy and the loss of trust.
• The destabilization of America, 

19:28 Do you still have the power to focus or just act?

• Focus is the only thing that can determine who we are.
• Hunker down and live dangerously. 

Introduction  

- Recap of previous episodes on the mimetic desire.

- Rene Girard's model of scapegoating.

2:33 How do we prevent mimetic desire?

- One way to solve mimetic desire and scapegoating.

- The dispute plan to prevent future luxury.

4:42 What do you do after the revolution?

- Government ineptitude and bureaucracy is what the people actually want.

- What to do after the revolution, or after the orgy.

- The French army became the first to create a dedicated camouflage unit.

- Art as an artificial art.

8:54 Fiction is artifice that becomes truth.

- Imitation is natural to man from childhood.

- Art is the lie that makes us realize truth.

11:17 Three ways to hide; camouflage in nature, military and politics.

- The three main purposes of camouflage.

- Three ways to hide camouflage via nature.

- Blending or hiding in nature, military and politicians.

- Blending in politics.

16:02 Dazzle Camouflage.

- Dazzle in the animal kingdom.

- Trump is a dazzler like AOC.

18:53 Dissembling and dazzle.

- The third type of camouflage, obfuscation, is dissembling and dazzling simultaneously.

- Obscure and dazzle.

21:28 Mimicry of the actor.

- Mimicking a skunk to endear yourself with someone unlike you.

- Mimicry and mimicry.

- The pantomime of the mime, mimicry of the mimic.

- Art vs art.

26:15 Camo as a symbol of confusion.

- The role of camo in the city.

- How camo has evolved in the modern world.

28:40 Turning camouflage into a threat.

- The reversal of utility in camo and dazzle.

- A densely packed spiral of signals and motivations.

30:44 Simulating media into the real.

- The seduction by aesthetics and ideology.

- Camo as a tactic for minimal distance

0:00 How violence is provoked by fantasy.

2:31 The balcony and the revolution.

5:14 How far does mimetic desire go?

6:54 Most things happen twice: the story, then reality

9:41 Post-terrorist architecture.

12:40 Turning the desire into a blueprint (simulation to be de-simulated)  

14:37 Recognize that the world is f***ed.

16:43 The parable of Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.

18:55 The desire to be the simulacra of man. (oh, to be a machine)

21:43 The black mirror of capitalism. (Amazon and the state)  

Reversing inner pressure outward requires a scapegoat to sacrifice in order to stabilize society. By discovering the hidden models driving it reveals our motivations, but more importantly, Rene Girard‘s theory accounts for civilizations' cybernetic energies and release valves. Paired with Georges Bataille’s theory of sacrifice necessary due to excess (the general economy) we find explanations for seemingly irrational behavior. 

Drawing from Luke Burgis's "Wanting: Memetic Desire in Everyday Life" we look at the basics of memetic rivalry, hidden models, and mediators before jumping to scapegoating, then we move into Lacan's notion of the "objet petit a" to consider the subject as desiring, and the self as commodified. In the end, we turn to Bataille's "The Accursed Share, vol. 1" to intertwine scapegoating and sacrifice. 

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0:00 Intro:  Mimetic desire and the imitation loop.

2:37 We are programmed automatons who will never capture the flag.

5:00 Introduction of the desire by a mediator.

7:57 Intentional rationality vs instrumental rationality.

12:38 How to relieve the anger?

15:17 Happiness is created by condemning one: scapegoating.  

17:41 Old habits are hard to break.

22:57 Bataille: The general economy of the natural economy is excess.  

25:01 How do you deal with excesses? through sacrifice.

27:28 Violence comes from memetic desire.