[FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
Steven A Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Sat Jan 28 15:53:24 EST 2017
Gary -
I don't know if this is my own narcissistic self-indulgence, but as a
one-time conservative (libertarian?) I am now so very aligned with the
left *by* the rise of the right such that I feel deeply and
passionately offended by this right-wing populism that is sweeping us.
I feel more self-rightous about it than I ever have. Having them take
power so roughly and rudely and against their own self-interest has
triggered me in a way that reminds me of the way so many former smokers
become virulently intolerant of smoking.
I am trying to heed the warning of not losing to my enemy by becoming
him... by falling into the trap of thinking the only way to defend
against hate is with hate, the seduction of fighting fire with fire.
But I do feel a certain sanctimonious pleasure in stepping up nose to
nose with virtually every Trumpian in my circle and daring them to try
to do a victory dance on my head or the heads of those I care about or
identify with. I have never enjoyed the role of the underdog quite so
acutely before... it has a certain deliciousness to it. I am responding
with a very calm but firm NO to virtually every aspect of their agenda,
most especially xenophobia, misogyny, misecology, and
extractive/extortive capitalism.
I believe *we* can be an overwhelmingly powerful "silent majority" in
these times if we stand firm behind our beliefs (as varied in quality
and degree as they may be).
- Steve
PS. have you looked at the world of Mesh Potato for 3rd world
networking? I am vaguely set to bring that class of technology to my
colleagues in Panama and in Kenya when the time is ripe.
On 1/28/17 1:18 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
> I agree that we shouldn't have to feign interest in others' interests.
> I'm not ready to pretend to like country music, go to church, praise
> military adventures that I don't agree with, tell gays they are going
> to hell and that god will heal them. At the same time, I don't see how
> it is productive to make fun of peoples' faith and cultural tastes,
> although I've been plenty guilty of that myself, feeding my own ego.
> Liberals can be just as intolerant as conservatives, and we will only
> make progress when we start to respect other peoples' views. Sometimes
> that just means sitting quietly and not responding.
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com
> <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
>
> Well, I find this article depressing but plausible. Specifically,
>
> Andrés Miguel Rondón writes:
>
> “But it took opposition leaders 10 years to figure out that they
> needed to actually go to the slums and the countryside
> <https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2015/11/04/selfie/>. Not for a
> speech or a rally, but for a game of dominoes or to dance salsa —
> to show they were Venezuelans, too, that they weren’t just dour
> scolds and could hit a baseball, could tell a joke that landed.
> That they could break the tribal divide, come down off the
> billboards and show that they were real. This is not populism by
> other means. It is the only way of establishing your standing.
> It’s deciding not to live in an echo chamber. To press pause on
> the siren song of polarization.”
>
> Figuratively, I don’t want to play dominoes, dance salsa, or play
> baseball. I have different interests. I shouldn’t have to
> pretend. They won’t pretend to me, that’s for sure. This is not
> about polarization; this is about not wanting to get pulled into
> that attractor. We have different lives. That should be fine.
> This is the United States and individualism is kind of a big thing
> here.
>
> Now what politicians and opposition leaders do to manage this
> problem is a different matter. That is about appearances not reality.
>
> Marcus
>
> *From: *Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> on behalf of "Robert J.
> Cordingley" <robert at cirrillian.com <mailto:robert at cirrillian.com>>
> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> *Date: *Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM
>
>
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>
> The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on
> what to do and mostly what not to do.
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did>
>
> Robert C
>
> On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
> Ok Steve,
>
> The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.
>
> I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I
> can do with my limited set of skills: Write Apple and tell
> them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.” When
> are they going to release the WE-phone.
>
> You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
> *From:*Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>] *On Behalf Of *Steven A Smith
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>
>
>
>
> What can WE hobbits do?
>
> Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?
>
> Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that
> the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused)
> reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we
> tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the
> greater picture.
>
> - Candide
>
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
> *From:*Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>] *On Behalf Of *Jochen
> Fromm
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>; Friam
> <Friam at redfish.com> <mailto:Friam at redfish.com>
> *Cc:* penny thompson <penny.thompson at earthlink.net>
> <mailto:penny.thompson at earthlink.net>; 'Bruce Simon'
> <bjs108 at yahoo.com> <mailto:bjs108 at yahoo.com>; 'Dix
> McComas' <dixmccomas2 at gmail.com>
> <mailto:dixmccomas2 at gmail.com>; 'Grant Franks'
> <grantfranks at earthlink.net> <mailto:grantfranks at earthlink.net>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>
> Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win
> with is true.” And if he wins with what we call “a lie”,
> it is true for him. Exactly.
>
> If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would
> say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march
> was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media
> managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who
> would have thought that the national parks would strike
> back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.
>
> In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the
> house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's
> Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil
> enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the
> Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are
> adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his
> "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous
> along the way.
>
> People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump
> is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone
> throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following
> Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all
> stop following and listening him he loses his power. This
> includes the senior Republican politicians who do not
> speak up against him because they hope for a job in his
> administration.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jochen
>
> Sent from my Tricorder
>
> -------- Original message --------
>
> From: Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net
> <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net>>
>
> Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)
>
> To: Friam <Friam at redfish.com <mailto:Friam at redfish.com>>
>
> Cc: penny thompson <penny.thompson at earthlink.net
> <mailto:penny.thompson at earthlink.net>>, 'Bruce Simon'
> <bjs108 at yahoo.com <mailto:bjs108 at yahoo.com>>, 'Dix
> McComas' <dixmccomas2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:dixmccomas2 at gmail.com>>, 'Grant Franks'
> <grantfranks at earthlink.net
> <mailto:grantfranks at earthlink.net>>
>
> Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>
> Hi everybody,
>
> I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to
> keep coming back to this topic, even when we are talking
> about globalism.
>
> So. Let me just share one thought. I have said a hundred
> times that I think the great achievement of the Right in
> my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan
> consensus of the 1950’s One of the elements of that
> consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if
> we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study
> carefully, investigate rigorously, we will, together ,
> come to it. What was, at the time of my coming of age,
> the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50
> years, /a position in the argument. /The alternative to
> this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “/There
> is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of
> power. He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins
> the truth. Truth is not something that is arrived at; it
> is won.”/
>
> So. My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.
> On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse
> that makes lying a possibility. From Trump’s point of
> view, “Whatever I can win with is true.” Hence, if he
> wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true.
>
> I feel we are straying along the edge of some *Nietzschean
> *chasm here. Unfortunately I haven’t read any Nietzsche
> . A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of
> the Madman
> <http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/nietzsche-madman.asp>.
> And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Men>, about marketing
> execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind. In
> any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is
> that which wins, it would be marketing.
>
> So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by
> demonstrating that he lies. It has to be by demonstrating
> that liars don’t win.
>
> Heavy lift.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> Cirrillian
>
> Web Design & Development
>
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> http://cirrillian.com
>
> 281-989-6272 (cell)
>
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