Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

THE CRISIS OF AFFIRMATION AND COMMUNITY, FOOD, may be a result of joy as…

- - - - requires community
        
        For something to be joyed it must be shared as though you've been immersed in something bigger than yourself. It no longer runs in you and through you but it's out there to be shared. It's the spectacle of other people sharing in that joy that becomes joyful in itself. By seeing other sharing in joy it, makes joy feel real and concrete and allows us to better understand the feeling within ourselves.
        
        collectivism doesn't just require obligation but is required to properly feel joy among other
        
        ex.
        
        sporting events, concerts, watching a movie (watching the minecraft movie - the whole trend with the minecraft movie and the occasional movie trends ex. spiderman no way home)
      - proceeds suffering
        
        The fundamental character of joy which differentiates it from other emotions is that it must come after a time of suffering, waiting or darkness - it's not something that can be pursued, or willed into. Thus if the elation felt doesn't come after this struggle it likely isn't joy. Joy is also proportional to the struggle. The greater the struggle the greater the joy even if the source of joy was considered normal (like emerging from a lockdown)
    - - Critical language has become easy to us, We are often congratulated for finding fault in something. In fact it's often easier to make a case for why something is bad. It's almost like if we decide to articulate that we love something so much, we become too credulous or gullible.
        
        results in lack of affirmation
        
        The result of this is that our communicative environment has become so saturated with hate and expressing what it is we hate and what it is that has fallen short that we no longer have within us the eloquence and the capacity to express what it is we love and why it is we love something. We are increasingly incapable of affirmation.
        
        results in a lack of celebrated culture
        
        This becomes a problem because, we lack to capacity to affirm, culture becomes impossible. in order for culture or anything to be celebrated, it must be affirmed. If it isn't cultures corrode into passive chores or meaningless objects.
  - - - Taste is a sense of what it is we like and the ability to articulate why it is we like it. It is not an internal or inherent thing but rather one that is in constant dialogue with the standards or criteria of tastefulness in the prevailing culture.
        ex. taste intersects with class - having a refined palate means you will enjoy this particular thing and that you likely belong in a higher class. If you don't enjoy this particular thing then there is something wrong with you and you likely don't belong within this social class.
        
        The problem is the intersection of social media with taste. The abundance of content or culture means that taste is no longer personalised. That is to say that we no longer think about what we want to consume and why we want to consume something. We passively consume content as a way to cope or as a way to distract from the rushing world around us. Thus we no longer make active and careful decisions to choose the content we wish to consume as a result of the curation of personal taste.
        
        SOCIAL MEDIA and CULTURAL ABUNDANCE = corrosion of taste (lack of selectivity) and more effortless recommendation or more individualistic recommendation (ie. less effort into making a reccomendation and more focus on the teleology of the recomendation ie. the film being watched rather than how it's being watched )
        
        social media's effect on reccomendation
        
        1 more item...
    - - We rely on tangibles to define ourselves, interpret our society and give our lives coherence. We don't want to purchase a car but a ferrari. Not a bag but an Hermes, not a suit but an Armani suit. It is through these tangibles that we give ourselves access to the intangibles ie. class, social status, respect, confidence, purpose, prestige.
        
        The idea of depending on concrete objects to give our lives meaning may be credited to the deviation from the inherent belief in God or secularism. Underlying this shift is the human desire for certainty in a growingly uncertain world. Where faith is invisible and God is abstract, objects and materials give humans instant gratification and security. In the capitalist world we are conditioned to embody the idea that buying and consuming is the key to happiness, implying that happiness must be bought.
        
        caused by
        
        SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
        
        caused by
        
        SECULARISM
        
        influenced by
        
        CAPITALISM
        
        tangibles as a tool of moral superiority
        
        food has become like our tangibles - consumed as a way to identify ourselves and interpret our surroundings
        
        ex. artisanal loaf, organic food
      - We formulate the identity through consumption. The American people now share a common creed of consumption. Our material possession; mass produced and mass-marketed, nevertheless become a symbol of our individuality (ironically)
    - - individualism of morality
        
        The understanding of morality has become individualised (focused more on the self) so that to describe oneself as moral has become looped into the language of distinction (me vs them)
        
        The individualisation of morality is turning morality from an inherent debt owed to someone for being part of a community to a badge of honour or a lifestyle choice. Morality shifts to the inner self rather than to the outer surrounding, that is it becomes a tool to serve the self. Where someone who is moral distinguishes themselves from a person who is not moral, thus they are better than the other and they belong in a group of people who are of higher moral status. This is the capitalism of morality which turns it into a competition.
        
        food as an ethical marker
        
        If food is ethically determined in a certain way, then a group of people become subject to socially sanctioned ridicule and contempt.
        
        the danger of categorising foods into good or bad is the socially sanctioned ridicule towards a group of people
        
        ex.
        
        calling food "junk",
        
        expensive ingredients being a mark for its benefit
        
        placing labels on food: "guilty pleasure", "naughty food", "nice food" etc. attributes indulgence to moral failure
        
        It is a natural human tendency to categorise foods into good and bad. It is a natural human tendency to categorise anything into good or bad. But it's black and white thinking and it oversimplifies the complexity of human choice.
      - communal morality
        
        Morality should not be something earned by someone or a lifestyle that is chosen to be adhered to. It is one of the ways in which we think about the spaces between us and what we owe each other by virtue of sharing the same space and being members together in a community. Thus it is something that doesn't need to be captured and aired to gain its value, but something that can be done quietly and still have value. In this way morality is centered around the subject (and how it can benefit them) rather than the self *and how it can benefit me).
        
        people use gossip to assert a relative morality - creating an us vs them dichotomy
- - - - Disdainful laughter can also be discrimantory as it produces an "us vs them" dichotomy, where one group is morally superior to the other. Thus those who are laughed at are othered and the pass to be accepted is to laugh at your own values.
        
        link to morality and moral superiority
        
        Links to the idea of someone's morality being earned rather than inherently deserved. ie. you must have the same values to be worthy of receiving someone's morality.
    - - We are not just angry with one another, but we have elevated it to a level of contempt for one another, where disagreement connotes a kind of moral judgement against the person who disagrees with me. Say for example, you disagree with me on a topic I care about, I can use that to read into your whole character and I can now dismiss you as a person. I stop listening after i realise you disagree. Thus, the world I live in is one in which you don't exist.
        
        contempt threatens fundamental disagreement in democracy
        
        Democracy is a government that concerns itself with the means of achieving its outcome as well as the outcome itself. It relies heavily on the continuity of disagreements (interminable disagreements), where the issue is the centre of discussion. Contempt transforms interminable disagreements into incommensurable disagreements where the discussion is no longer about the issue but about the person with whom one disagrees. Such disagreements become a battle of moral superioirity and have no space for reaching synthesis.
        
        contempt transforms disagreements into chatter or noise
    - - Chatter causes people to live an age of communication without community. Where volume and intensity is mistaken for moral seriousness.
    - - Gossiping is an imposition of the self on the world and a means of attaining higher relative status. One of the reason we gossip is to lower the estimation of the person we gossip about in the eyes of the person we gossip to in turn increasing the estimation of ourselves. In this way, gossiping is a means to my end - that is in order to increase my estimation and elevate my status (my end), it must happen at the expense of another's reputation, their capacity to be taken seriously in retrospect and people's perception of them.
      - Gossip is habituating the tongue to saying bad things.
    - - The definition of community has changed. It no longer connotes something richer, deeper and more meaningful in that it requires some form of obligation. It is now defined by any collection of people who share some common trait or do some common thing from time to time. It has been made fleeting. No sooner are they together than they are dispersed. Community has now transformed into something individualistic and claim-making ex. I am in lord of the rings community because I love lord of the rings.
        
        lack of community = lack of obligation = individualism (people not willing to helpby virtue of being human)
        
        causes morality to be individualistic and not a debt owed to people
        
        Morality should not be something earned by someone or a lifestyle that is chosen to be adhered to. It is one of the ways in which we think about the spaces between us and what we owe each other by virtue of sharing the same space and being members together in a community. Thus it is something that doesn't need to be captured and aired to gain its value, but something that can be done quietly and still have value. In this way morality is centered around the subject (and how it can benefit them) rather than the self *and how it can benefit me).
        
        Individualisation of morality has made welfare conditional
        
        The preoccupation with merit has destroyed our sense of community and replaced mutual obligation with individualistic competition.
        
        morality as an obligation to others leads to collectivism
        
        ex.
        
        mutual aid during disasters
        
        true collectivism requires obligation not just shared traits ex. filial piety
        
        COLLECTIVISM
        
        collective joy must come after a time of collective struggle - collective joy can't be manufactures and thus, collectives and communities need to be genuine and deeply felt
        
        EX.
        
        In Animal Farm the animals are connected by their deeper and richer commonality of oppression at the hands of the farmer. They are interdependent on one another for their survival. Their community is not one of similar traits, but by obligation for one another. The end of the novel demonstrates how the notion of community can transform into an individualistic one - consisting only of the pigs. If an animal isn't a pig or cannot directly benefit the pig (all animals excecpt the dogs) then they are not part of that community.
        
        EX
        
        Neighbourhoods used to be rich intertwined communities of people willing to look out for one another. They used to connote an obligation for one another by virtue of sharing the same neighbourhood. Today a neighbourhood is a 4 number zip-code placed on important documents. It identifies where we live but not who we live among. This is especially true in more urban city areas. Its ironic that the most populated parts of a city are the most isolated. An apartment complex, filled with 100s of residents, yet noone knows who sleeps next door. The lack of personal intercations we have among each other creates a lack of obligation for the people we live among
        
        EX.
        
        confuscian culture emphasises filial piety (deep respect for parents and elders - like in Kung Fu Panda)
        
        COVID-19 was a demonstration of what collectivism can achieve ie. having moral obligation of protection toward each other. It also emphasised the importance of collectivism in an increasingly individualistic West where one-bedroom apartments are more popular than ever
        
        family was the original community of obligation but this has become increasingly individualistic in the West
        
        FAMILY
        
        ex.
        
        Confucious
    - - Satire gathers people in a state of collective mockery against a particular object or person. If this person or object objects the satire that is being directed towards them, they are accused not getting the joke, having a glass jaw, being too serious, not understanding the difference between political and comedic speech or not being able to take criticism. It can shut down the possibility of responsiveness by the subject of satire as they are reduced to caricatures and defence can only fuel the satire even more.
  - - - There is a kind of joy that goes with laughter at people, upward or downward that is not meant to heap disdain on them but rather invite them to see something else (a new perspective on a situation). It is a way to remind someone of their shared humanity regardless of their heirarchical position. A reminder to someone that situations are not always as serious as they seem and that failures aren't the be all end all.
    - - There is a kind of laughter that heaps disdain on people. It's a way to find people who garner a degree of respect, ridiculous. A means to humble those in higher power.
        
        This can be a weapon for the weaponless against sources of oppression ex. a dictator or a king. It is essentially the use of what we already have as a weapon against those who have access to so much more. Disdainful laughter can bind because it reinforces the values of a group of people against the those who violate those values (ex. trump being a pedo and trevor noah making fun of him)
    - - Recommendation is a form of the common. It encompasses being so overwhelmed by beauty that we desperately want to put it in the hands of someone else.
        
        the effect of accessibility and cultural abundance
        
        Today however, it has turned into an individualistic endevour, where recommending is now simply asking someone to watch a movie you liked and then report back to you whenever to tell you what they thought. There is so effort that goes into recommendation anymore; mixtapes don't need to be made when spotify exists, vhs tapes don't need to be made when netflix and disneyplus and youtube exists. Everything is so accessible that the success of recommendation relies on the end (watching the movie, listening to the song) rather than the means (making the mixtape or the vhs tape)
    - - When people are locked into networks of interdependence they become invested in each other's welfare.
        
        the element of interdependence that unbinds
        
        At the same time, too much dependence can be perceived as opportunism, making it harder for the helper to help. This can suffuse social interactions.
        
        interdependence and investment in each other's welfare corrodes the stigmas involved with welfare
        
        WELFARE
- - - - Truly successful technology insinuates itself so well into our lives that it makes us forget what it may be doing to us in the process of us picking it up and using it. Using technology is convenient and convenience lulls us into a state of unthinkingness. The use of technology becomes passive and habitual
        
        unthinkingness and convenience can lead to a lack of hesitation and thus a lack of moral encounter
        
        Maintaining hesitation is vital for moral encounter. There is an interval that exists between desire and action, a space which is filled with uncertainty, which can only be overcome through action. If we collapse that interval we risk losing its capability of changing us. We consume unthinkingly, an idea, an experience or a person before it can reveal itself to us. Thus we foreclose the possibility of being changed, challenged and morally addressed by what is before us.
        
        fomo as a feeling towards virality bridges the interval between desire and action much quicker so that when it comes to buying into an idea that is viral we may not have enough time to hesitate and be challenged by the idea in front of us, and thus we have less of an opportunity for moral encounter
    - - There is an abundance of culture and content today as a consequence of social media. When everything becomes easily accessible nothing needs to have worth for individuals to decide that this is the content they'd like to consume in this moment (ie. lack of active consumption)
        
        makes us agnostic to quality
        
        The aesthetic and quality of content and how long it took to make no longer matter because content gets produced to fill the sole criterion held by producers which is the virality and circulability of the content. This sharebaility allows the selling of a product. When this is the only motivation for producing content then producers become agnostic to quality and anything can become content/art
        ex. banana taped to a wall
        
        corrodes taste
        
        Taste is the sense of what we like and why it is we like what we like. It is not inherent but in constant dialogue with the criteria and standards of tastefulness in the prevailing culture.
        When there is an abundance of culture and content we face what's called the paradox of choice or decision fatigue, where the more content there is, the harder it is to choose what is it we want to consume in this moment. As a result we default to the standard (ex. spotify's top 100, netflix top 10 movies etc.). Social media also creates echo chambers of content we are comfortable with - content that we know will bring us instant gratification. In this way we are unable to challenge our tastes and expand our horizons. Thus, taste has become montonous and less personal.
    - - consumption is the new religion
        
        The language of brands, products and services offers today what religion once did which is a common structure. However, this structure is more democratic and equitable in that we decide what sells and what doesn't and what's in and what's out. In this way consumers are not passive recipients of dogmas taught by a priesthood. Every person is their own priest. Consumers know what they want and they are getting it.
        
        leads to prioritisation of brands and tangibles to define our identities
        
        Through the purchase of things, we define ourselves, interpret our society and give our lives more coherence. The key to consumerism is the ownership of intangibles (confidence, respect, class etc.) through their tangible vehicles (designer).
  - - - plastic words = passive acceptance (if you don't agree your immediately evil) -> less challenging = less public discourse
        
        Plastic words are used with a sense of authority which mandates their acceptance and their necessity. They imply the need for expertise to implement their connotations which dissuades us from challenging the appropriateness of their use contextually and dissuades us too from the search for more meaningful and precise synonyms. In this way, plastic words allow for people in power - authority, corporations and political agencies - to define their meanings.
      - labelling disagreements
        
        We have tended to use fascism as a way to assign the base motives and goals for people whos opinions differ enormously from our own. In this way, during discourse, we don't tackle the argument but the person. Usually the use of the word fascist is generalised against states that accrue overbearing power. In this way, the ubiquity of the use of the word fascism has a long-term effect of denuding it of any kind of historical significance and power, so that in retrospect if we were to experience a political event resembling that of fascism, the word needed to describe would've been stripped of its power already.
        
        We have tended to use fascism as a word assigned to people whose opinions disagree with ours significantly. In this way, during discourse, we don't tackle the issue but the person. Our discourse becomes riddled with contempt which transforms interminable disagreements into incommensurable ones. Facism is often also used in the context of overwrought or overbearing power within political structures. The ubiquity of the use of the word fascism and its misconceived contexts denudes it of any kind of power or historical significance, so that if in retrospect we were faced with a situation resembling that of fascism, we wouldn't have a word powerful enough to describe or we wouldn't even recognise the situation as being one to resemble fascism as well. Fascism becomes subject to semantic satiation.
    - - The aesthetic and quality of the content and how long it took to produce doesn't really matter anymore because the purpose of content is to fit into the standards and criteria set by the platforms producing the content. That is the criteria of virality as a means to sell a product. In this way anything can become content as long as it meets that criteria and with this platforms become agnostic to quality. The limitless of content means that the truth doesn't matter much anymore because truth is not required to sell a product or in this case an idea. As long as something is viral, people will buy into the virality before questioning ts authenticity - the hesitattion required for moral encounter dissipates.
- - - - Democracy distinguishes itself by not just being a politics of outcome but a politics of means that is a branch of politics whose success depends on interminable disagreements where the issue is the subject being tackled.
  - - - corrodes disagreements
        
        We are not just angry at one another but we have elevated it to a level of contempt for one another where one's disagreement on a topic I deeply care about is a welcome for my judgement of their whole caharcter, dismissing them as a person. In this way, interminable disagreements turn into incommensurable disagreements where the focus shifts from dicussing the issue to vilifying and targetting the individual with whom we disagree. The world in which I live is one in which you don't exist.
        
        As a result of this, communication becomes chatter and noise, because when contempt overrides our ability to exist within a space of hesitation where we are able to properly control our actions and thoughts towards a person we disgaree with, we become emotionally driven creatures. In this way, we stop listening to opposing opinions in fear of them plaguing our own. We become wrapped up in the fantasy of an ideal world where the other opinion doesn't coexist with our own. We prevent ourselves from engaging in disagreement and challenging our thoughts. Democracy in this regard begins to collapse, for it cannot exist when people are not willing to be wrong.
        
        contempt creates biases in the implementation of law and justice
        
        law and justice requires listening and engagement, humanisation and equality. Lady Justice is often depicted with a blindfold on. Bias, thus has no place in the just implementation of law.
        
        EXAMPLE
        
        Dahmer and the laotian boy were reported by the police for suspicion of violence, however due to their perceived homosexual situation, the police regarded the situation as less than their moral standing, hence not requiring any justice. The laotion boy died and the police who allowed this was
        
        REDDIT - a white woman was stealing a black man's bag but the bystander punched the black man in the face without having any context - inherent bias
    - - Sovereign power strips certain people of their natural and political lives through labelling (“enemy combatant,” “terrorist,” or “threat”), producing bare life (homo sacer): bodies that are alive yet excluded from legal protection, privacy, and political participation. In this way, human rights become dependent on politics rather than being human, suspended in a state of exception that can be justified by war, security, or public health.
        
        causes people to be exempt from law and justice
        
        LAW AND JUSTICE
        
        ex. Abughruayb prison where neither iraqi nor us laws applied to the treatment of iraqi detainees (they became homo sacer). Their torture was justified through the use of words like "enhanced interrogation" to describe it. This replaces the precise nature of torture with modular and hollow terms (they become plastic words). These words often carry an aura of political coreectness which limits public dissent and gives authority figures the freedom to reframe reality into their own image. They also often mandate acceptance causing their dissent to be taboo.
        This is how soverign power can create exceptions for justice and how plastic words can be used in their favour to shift justice from favouring humans to favouring the political cause (war).
        
        ex. Animal farm
        All animals are equal but some are more equal than others; a modification of the original rules which accomodated to all animals equally. This is an allegory for the freedom that soverign powers have in modifying laws to favour their affairs. In this case the ambiguity of the 7 commandments, being changed throughout book to favour some groups over others. The contempt held by the pigs against animals who didn't agree with them leading to their execution. Propoganda used, symbolic of the effect of plastic words in mandating their acceptance and necessity and limiting public dissent. The use of extreme words like traitor to label those who's opinions differ from the pig's, minimising their power in mobilising legal reform. The result of all of this is the malleability of law and justice and the capability of soverign powers to be corrupt.
        
        labels and plastic words are both used by authority figures
    - - We have tended to use words like fascism to describe those whose underlying views and opinions differ from our own. The ubiquity of words like injustice and fascism denude them of their meaning which limits their power to mobilise genine legal reform. This limits opportunities for justice
        
        semantic satiation limits opportunities for justice
        
        However on a personal level this is a worthy sacrifice if it means that we can prove ourselves to be morally superior.
      - Plastic words mandate acceptance
        
        Plastic words are used with a sense of authority which mandates their acceptance and necessity. They imply the need for experstise to implement the connotation of their meaning, dissuading people from challenging them or finding a synonym with a deeper meaning or one that is more contextually appropriate. In this way, power is in the hands of authority figures, political agents and coporations to define their meanings.
        
        colours unjust actions and reframes them as just
        
        EX.,
        
        Police brutality in Sydney during protests against Herzog was framed as protective - it colours and reduces the brutality that they exercised on the protestors (pushing muslims out of their prayer, kneeling and punching innocent people repeatedly, attacking rather than defedning innocents)
        
        ex. torture -> enhanced interrogation