THE VITAL ILLUSION

vershy versh

Well-known member
@sus recently mentioned that thing that happens from time to time when several threads start to converge on a single territory and I think it's been happening again across the Elm Street, Dunning Kruger, and Liberalism threads. All three are at least partly dealing with the necessity of illusion to functioning, whether it be the illusion of control in one's private and social life, or the illusion of a neutral society governed by reason.
 

Murphy

cat malogen
It’s akin to working alongside A&E/ER staff, everything is contingent on products of history, systems analysis and human beings doing the work

When I started an almost sacred covenant between wisdom and evolving situations existed in my mind, when the reality is someone was kept alive by suctioning blood out of lungs, suctioning conducted by someone with no sleep winging it at times

The sheer amount of close shaves to death incidents, the finest margins/flukes of luck. If people had such incidents listed and presented daily, you’d go insane. Walking the dog down a road with traffic hammering past, one slip and you’re mulch but we carry on like it ain’t no thing
 

vershy versh

Well-known member
The sheer amount of close shaves to death incidents, the finest margins/flukes of luck. If people had such incidents listed and presented daily, you’d go insane. Walking the dog down a road with traffic hammering past, one slip and you’re mulch but we carry on like it ain’t no thing

Yeah, you just default to the illusion. There's some inbuilt mechanism that keeps you there to keep you functioning, like a magnet to metal.
 

vershy versh

Well-known member
The puncturing of certain illusions is one of the things which seems most offensive to some when it comes to Trump and the other populist leaders. The complete lack of regard for these unspoken things which were taken for granted. It's as though he waltzed through unlocked doors we didn't know were unlocked because it was assumed nobody would ever try them.
 

vershy versh

Well-known member
How important is a national mythology to the functioning of a country? I'm skeptical of any narrative like that as they're frequently bollocks and used for nefarious purposes, but there are a lot of people who really seem to need it and there's clearly a certain power to something like Churchill's myth of England. It's one of the big divides, really. That split between those who believe the myth and those who don't. One of the oft repeated knocks against the Remain campaign, and now Starmer's Labour, is the lack of a rousing story to compete with the one told by Farage and co.
 

catalog

Well-known member
This graeber/wengrow book I'm reading atm seems to argue for local tribalism over anything national. The important thing seems to be "schizmogenesis" ie that whatever you get into has a strong and identifiable opposition that you can differentiate from
 
This graeber/wengrow book I'm reading atm seems to argue for local tribalism over anything national. The important thing seems to be "schizmogenesis" ie that whatever you get into has a strong and identifiable opposition that you can differentiate from

Local tribes are easily quelled and eliminated. Doesn't sound very mythmaking
 

catalog

Well-known member
Yeah not really tribes, theyre talking about these huge cities really, like 10s of 1000s of people, and pre-agriculture, or rather they challenge the whole agricultural revolution idea in the first place.
 

catalog

Well-known member
I've not got to the end yet, but my assumption is the whole point of them finding loads of examples contrary to thd received opinion on this sort of thing is, if it was possible then, why should it not be possible now. Eg the bit I'm on rn, they are talking about a city in modern day Pakistan, mohejo daro, something like that, and they say it was huge, but very little obvious evidence of class distinctions, or rulers
 

catalog

Well-known member
So I mean they are arguing that ppl took on a specific mythology, that was thought through and almost chosen as contrary to other, contemporary, examples of totally different ways of doing things. Eg native Americans on Pacific northwest coast, who kept slaves and did potlatch, vs californian tribes, who did neither of those things, at exact same time.
 

vershy versh

Well-known member
This graeber/wengrow book I'm reading atm seems to argue for local tribalism over anything national. The important thing seems to be "schizmogenesis" ie that whatever you get into has a strong and identifiable opposition that you can differentiate from

Sounds like Schmitt's thing of boiling politics down to the friend/enemy distinction again. That model goes some way to explaining why so much national mythology ends up being to do with violence and conquest too. It's the most direct confrontation with an enemy.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Yeah it's also the core of levi-strauss.

Their thesis is a bit more nuanced, they are arguing for a human agency version ie "we can do things in a number ofways, let's choose this way, partly cos we don't wanna be like the others" but the other thing they keep emphasising is how loose and open to interpretation it all is.. They are slapping down a load of anthropologists, philosophers etc
 

vershy versh

Well-known member
Yeah it's also the core of levi-strauss.

Their thesis is a bit more nuanced, they are arguing for a human agency version ie "we can do things in a number ofways, let's choose this way, partly cos we don't wanna be like the others" but the other thing they keep emphasising is how loose and open to interpretation it all is.. They are slapping down a load of anthropologists, philosophers etc

There's that line of Graeber's that gets quoted a lot...

“The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”​
 

catalog

Well-known member
Yeah that seems to be the spirit this book is moving in. It's like this massive, footnoted thing, I never expected to read it all. But they are just gently dismantling a lot of stuff, with recourse to as much up to date evidence as possible. It's pretty readable, plus very short and focused chapters, with a lot of recapping.

And the overarching tone seems to be about how it's important to credit people from 1000s of years ago with the intelligence to actively choose certain ways of being over others, based on a sophisticated reading of all the possible realities that could be had.
 

vershy versh

Well-known member
And the overarching tone seems to be about how it's important to credit people from 1000s of years ago with the intelligence to actively choose certain ways of being over others, based on a sophisticated reading of all the possible realities that could be had.

I find the more history I come into contact with, the more blatant it becomes that there never was some golden age or period of authenticity. You keep going back and everyone's still LARPing and cobbling stories together based on the bits of the past that appeal to them. People's heroes were just copying their own heroes.
 

luka

Well-known member
I love seeing it on the youtubes comments. Squabbling over who are the heirs to the daisns or illyrians or whatever the fuck
 
Top