Collaborative community

Continuing the last post, I'm reminded of something Wilber wrote about the topic. It takes a certain level of development to treat everyone equally, what he calls a worldcentric perspective. And that level, compared to lower ones, is an elite performance. Hence that's why I qualified that everyone could decide for themselves "given opportunities and education" to achieve at least a stable, formal rational perspective.

Which is, btw, the goal of pubic education, the informed and reasonable citizen necessary to enact democracy. So in that sense it is not elite compared to a graduate education, or advanced training in a particular skill, which indeed does merit acknowledgment. But that sort of elitism is not necessary to the goal of Enlightenment public education, a requisite for democracy.

Also requisite for effective democracy is living a life that requires people to work together to achieve financial and social goals, aka the working class. Those elites so privileged as to never have to collaborate with others, that always get their own way due to inherited wealth and power, are disconnected from that necessity. We see this time and again in the likes of the Presidunce and the upper economic classes who feel superior to the working class, that they deserve to be in charge. It is no surprise that they despise democracy and corrupt the system to enrich themselves more while the rest of us get less.

So it is that sort of elitism, which Dump himself campaigned against but was ironically part of, that must be overcome if we are to have a functional democracy. And it is exactly the sort of progressive populism that is needed as remedy to provide educational, social and financial opportunities to all to achieve the goal of a good public education in order to become relatively autonomous, yet connected and concerned, public citizens that can think and decide for themselves in collaborative community.

Elitism and populism

See this instructive psychology wiki on the meaning of elitism. It applies to many varieties. One example is the authoritarian populist response of the Dumpsters, in that the liberal elite are the problem. Another is the liberal populist response against the elite oligarchy, who buy off government to do their bidding. But then there are the more subtle cases, like the various and sundry well-meaning academics and the so-called evolutionary movements, who see themselves as the only ones capable of truly understanding what's good for us and hence should be leaders in charge.

Whereas the most practical and efficient political response is the progressive populism of Bernie Sanders. He recognizes that he is a public servant of we so-called ordinary people, and he trusts that we, when given opportunities and education, will do what's best for all of us. We too trust neither the elite oligarchs, the authoritarian fascists, the elite establishment Dems, nor the well-meaning evolutionaries to decide for us. We have the capacity to decide for ourselves and we will when given the opportunity.

Why Soleimani and not Putin?

Oh, I forgot for a second that Putin is the real leader of the US via his puppet Dump, that's why.

Mike and Satu waltz

The 2020 UCWDC Masters World Champions.

TYT on Bernie going after Joe

Continuing this post, TYT listens to Bernie's comments on Joe's record and then rejoices it's about time. This is what a primary is about, and the snowflake rationalization that Bernie is just providing ammo for Repugs does not cover over the truth of the comparison. If we want a real transformation to a government of, for and by we the people then Bernie is our candidate. If we want the status quo that maintains social inequality and oligarchy, then Joe is your candidate.

Indigo Girls - Cold Beer and Remote Control

This one came up today, a social statement on our common predicament.

Who Bernie is for and against

For the people against a corrupt system that has left them behind.

The youth vote has the power

We need to give them a candidate they can trust, that excites them that they indeed can induce change. And who might that be? Bernie of course.  

Enactive Becoming

Article by Ezequiel Di Paolo in Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences (2020). The abstract:

"The enactive approach provides a perspective on human bodies in their organic, sensorimotor, social, and linguistic dimensions, but many fundamental issues still remain unaddressed. A crucial desideratum for a theory of human bodies is that it be able to account for concrete human becoming. In this article I show that enactive theory possesses resources to achieve this goal. Being an existential structure, human becoming is best approached by a series of progressive formal indications. I discuss three standpoints on human becoming as open, indeterminate, and therefore historical using the voices of Pico della Mirandola, Gordon W. Allport, and Paulo Freire. Drawing on Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation we move from an existential to an ontological register in looking at modes of embodied becoming. His scheme of interpretation of the relation between modes of individuation allows us to understand human becoming in terms of a tendency to neotenization. I compare this ontology with an enactive theoretical account of the dimensions of embodiment, finding several compatibilities and complementarities. Various forms of bodily unfinishedness in enaction fit the Simondonian ontology and the existential analysis, where transindividuality corresponds to participatory sense-making and Freire’s joint becoming of individuals and communities correlates with the open tensions in linguistic bodies between incorporation and incarnation of linguistic acts. I test some of this ideas by considering the plausibility of artificial bodies and personal becoming from an enactive perspective, using the case of replicants in the film Blade Runner. The conclusion is that any kind of personhood, replicants included, requires living through an actual history of concrete becoming."

Bernie's new ad

What's different this time? We're going to win.