/sa/ - Sāhitya & Itihāsa

Critique/Critiqueing, or: Rationality/Irrationality

Pseudonymous

ARYA

p4fg8q3roso.avif

These are generally my thoughts on critique, and critique done in 'good' and 'bad' taste/faith. >Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity Is, what Kant says in the essay *What is enlightenment*. He considered a more breaking-of-ones-chains, than a change in thinking. This meta-narrative would not stand the test of time, leaving the essay largely dated. But, in all of this, there are a few interesting observations made, which, when considered, make the essay worth going over: >[...]Thus, it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out of the immaturity that has all but become his nature. He has even become fond of this state and for the time being is actually incapable of using his own understanding, for no one has ever allowed him to attempt it. Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over the smallest ditch, since he is unaccustomed to this kind of free movement. Consequently, only a few have succeeded,by cultivating their own minds, in freeing themselves from immaturity and pursuing a secure course. 'Surrogate-thinking' is the term I will use for this. When one is really taking from someone else as basis and adding to it, one is simultaneously thinking, and not thinking as much as one could. You could, say, form knowledge from a self-created basis. Not considering the truth-values of your judgements, this would either way make you be more freer than you are, or, atleast your use of reason would be freer, you would be less *immature* . >[...]The public use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among mankind; the private use of reason may, however, often be very narrowly restricted, without otherwise hindering the progress of enlightenment. By the public use of one's own reason I understand the use that anyone as a scholar makes of reason before the entire literate world. I call the private use of reason that which a person may make in a civic post or office that has been entrusted to him. This is a key distinction: your duties and your obligations. Kant envisions a polite society where public use of free reason leads closer to harmony and truth. Later, he uses the example of tax collection to explain it: you may dislike taxes and criticise them(This is your duty to point out problems that you see in society to reach a better society), but you must pay them regardless(This is your obligation as a citizen). Enlightenment-era discourse generally concerns itself with freedom. Freedom to think, to act and do as such within a civil society. Freedom of speech is widely discussed here, but its rather important to know what essentially is meant by *freedom* and the use of reason: *reason will deliver us from irrationality, through reason shall we will eviscerate our animal natures, our irrational behaviours, and walk toward truth.* *Freedom of speech* No one really believes in this. There was never an existence of a town-square where ideas prevail by logic-rational, and society is better for it. People have different conceptions of freedom, more so freedom of speech, and really, it doesn't lead to good discourse. What is meant by 'freedom' is the will to enact your own beliefs without-consequence, for the most part. Why do you think people who hold beliefs that are being censored, simply deem themselves, believers of free-speech? They would do the same if they were in power, they would censor that speech of the opposites, condemn them to a fate similar to what was their own. Their freedom is the freedom to express their beliefs wthout-consequence(s.t it becomes societal dogma) and to limit those who believe otherwise, or opposite. The play here is to establish and orthodoxy. *freedom of speech doesn't inculcate good discourse* : This is true, you need to filter out all the retardation to get some alpha. Lolberal spaces will have some of the toughest and stringent moderation inspite of belief in free speech, why is that? It is because free speech is a meme, it doesn't lead to as good of outcomes as you'd expect it to. If you're gonna troll, brigade, act retarded, you get banned and rightfully so. Free speech simply is the multiplication of bad faith discourse. This is why hate-speech isn't considered free speech, this is why there are rules to talking. Everyone believes in laissez faire moderation given the members of a group are known to act within a certain range. You would take criticism from your in-group more seriously than your out-group, even if the criticism is the same, why is that? you can justifiably rely on the criticism being 'good-faith'. This is why khangress critiques of X issue aren't taken to be as well and Bhajipao critiques within bhajipao circles, its because bhajipao critique is sure to be well-meaning and good-faith. *Criticism of the government and of the nation* The government and the nation are separate entities, post-nationalism has made people think they're pretty much the same. This is an irrational belief, generally term it as *guilt from association*, this is why some people think critique of the government is subversive and call you 'anti-national' over it, everyone will subconsciously associate these two (gov and nation) together, no matter how reasonable you are. Your view of a government's actions will bleed into your view of the people and vice-versa.

Pseudonymous

ARYA

>>871 cont. *Good and bad faith* The irrational self is the key to this. Kant essentially describes good faith critique as a public use of reason. But generally, when he talks about public use of reason, he refers to his own group of enlightenment scholars with similar beliefs, 'yes critique by us, that is, good critique!' is the crux of this. He isn't referring to some malnourished peasant, but his class of intellectuals who subconsciously *only really consider themselves free* and not anyone else. Enlightened souls indeed! and this is the entire point.

Pseudonymous

ARYA

This is mostly to tell you that people are irrational beings first and foremost, and rationality really only serves to strengthen irrational beliefs(beliefs that would be irrational on their own), simply put: elaboration is secondary to belief. When you believe something you believe in instinctively, then you justify it by whatever reason you possess, but this reason is mostly for other people, not for you.

Pseudonymous

ARYA

cont *Exclusion* *Individualism* : true applied individualism doesn't really exist, atleast, one cannot inculcate within oneself a belief of others' individuality, wholly. You will think that your in-group has individuality and the out-group is reduced to crude-archetypes. Even if you assume them to have an individuality, this is not instinctive, and this is wholly forced. Your instincts either do not support you in this conclusion or fight against you. This is the entire reason why forms of discrimination based on arbitrary criteria (skin colour, looks,) exist inspite of all reinforcement against them. You are brought up with 'look past the colour' or 'don't judge a book by its cover', indeed, you are even given the criteria from which to judge a person(based on some vagueisms : *ethics*, *human rights*, *culture sensitivity* -- do any of these exist?) -- independent of colour or looks. Either way, you will feel a certain pity and/or disgust when you look at someone horribly mangled, as if they should be taken away from your eyes at this very instant and put down immediately. You will learn to hold silent contempt for all sorts of people in society, never show it of course, that would be rude -- the charade would be up. As much as you will, you simply cannot give everyone the same due dilligence that you give to your in-group, you are instinctively opposed to it, or it is too mentally taxing to do so. What would it even be like for you to shatter any conceptions of others that you held, if they weren't based in facts? even such a thing would meet a deep nausea and an evisceration of your world view. This is where the individualism-experiment ends.

Pseudonymous

ARYA

>>871 cont. *Transmissibility* An idea doesn't gain prominence through its truth-value(at least truth by any objective means). This much is easily seen in our age of dis/misinformation. How *memetic* an idea is is independent of its truth-value. Largely, a transmissible belief is in agreement with what *you* are brought up to believe in. You swallow somethings easier than others, this could be dependent on your background if you want it to, but perhaps its deeper than that. I don't really have much insight on this currently. *transfer-units* : there is another aspect that affects the transmission of ideas, its more so related to language -- complex ideas broken down to simple ones, while they lose nuance, become more readily edible. Its sort of like how the mother-bird feeds its kids, by making it easier to chew. This is useful, this is how education is, its not certainly the freest way to think but it is the most transmissible. Surrogate-thinking shines here, politicians reduce their ideas to slogans and they are relayed by propagandists and these things really inseminate your mind, authoritarian states' sayings and propaganda can affect you even if you're not the target(re: China).

Pseudonymous

ARYA

At any rate : Education isn't bad, what the state must do is create narratives in its favour while it still knows the truth and act to fix the cracks that might shine through the facade and maintain the psychosis. The worst thing you can do is to form distrust of state as a general belief through your action. The state needs to be effective to improve the material conditions of the people and must have a vision for the nation. The thing is that with too many actors in state, you cannot make a narrative, especially in a multicultural system. Multicultural states must be authoritarian and in long-term tend toward assimilation/monoculturism. This is why democracy is retarded, it bogs down all progress and reduces discourse to the base. The principals of state know the issues and certainly have a spirit to fix them, there is no dearth of smart people, but the masses cannot be a shareholder in their own progress, they don't understand themselves. The ideal state is generally what plato envisioned, *philosopher-king* or now *benevolent-dictator*. China is somewhat close to this. The party knows the reality of the nation and is generally involved in improving it and projecting a strong image.

Pseudonymous

ARYA

I do still think the old methods of knowing what is true or false are pretty useful, but expertise in this should lie with the ruling class. Should the masses be concerned with politics? no, post a certain substrate of belief (i.e. patriotism, general news about the economy) the masses should be more concerned with themselves and stuff around them. Politics oughta be the concern of the ruling class only. Japan does an apolitical society decently well, I think that should be the goal.

Pseudonymous

ARYA

>>938 Al Capone? I think he's pretty good Kant? He's very important and nevertheless compelling, even if he is wrong about everything except the-thing-in-itself. And even that is his work is one of a kind, something that could only be produced by a person who never left his hometown.