What about X, Y and Z ... again? - the Bottom Line

Oof, well ... today has been one of those days where a lot of different shit went through my mind - and also I had my first real confrontation with a transphobe today, which is ... like ... weird. I mean, I'm not sure if I'm dealing with it correctly - while all the cogs of my mind busy dealing with it have vengeance written on them; But they don't really do anything and so I'm in a bit of a ... state of mind ... of sorts ... .

I mean - I'm feeling fine. I mean, technically I won the argument - if you could call it that - and if it's fair to qualify such in that way. Like, you know, it's like a thing with these types ... . Austin Archer made a great video on the matter as he got into a bit of hot water on a matter of perhaps questionable decision-making but ... it did kinda pay off. I mean ... it's not that there's a lot of surprise on my side to it, but ... I suppose there's value in crossing the divide between theory and practical reality.
And 1000 bucks ... yea, might be on the cheaper end of getting that done.

But yea, I didn't have to address this - technically - as, the stuff on my mind would somehow fall into that same~ish ballpark. But I suppose the thing does now add a little bit of cohesion to it. Like sure, perhaps it bothers me more than I'd like to admit. Which might be to say, that while I myself don't have the capacity to properly judge my state of mind, the state itself will become visible by other means. More or less.


Now, before any of it happened I noted down a term (Cultural Elitism), thought about using the N-word; And as the day progressed forgot more and more about the other, Gnosis related thing I wanted to write about. There's only some faint echo of there being something. THe substance of it was gone before I left my place this morning. Which, technically isn't my place by friday anymore - as since the first I have a new place also but ... different story.

But so, let's start with ... oh, OK. Cooperation. I don't know what it is or why it is ... hmm ... . Well, it is a bit annoying when old trails of thought return. Like, I figure there's now a thing I might write about ... Cooperation per chance ... though my mind takes me way back - so via the ramblings (inner monologues/debates) that occur - to the grander concern over the illusion of reality that our minds produce in these scenarios; Or further: How a spiritual/believing mind should handle that.
I mean, there's that story with the hammer, where a person thinks of borrowing a hammer, but then rambles themself down a spiral of pessimism so they get angry at their neighbour before even approaching them.

Anyhow - with some awareness of what caution there is to be had - I at occasion come to play out these debates in my head; Where I'll lean on some idea of what the "other side" is going to be like. Or perhaps it's more that it starts with a vibe I'm getting - of what might be coming at me - in the hypothetical, and then I'm somehow stuck debating it out. And thus eventually it becomes a thing I feel is valid to write about.
So, with cooperation in the way I've written of it just recently, I'd suspect "them" to come in with a list of demands, basically, for us to 'acquire' their support. And I suppose, that that might be a topic of its own, but it's also not what I wanted to write about here. But the short of it of course is, that coming in with a list of demands is like ... the whole problem. But yea, it gets more complicated than that if we want to be that technical about it - and that somehow takes us into what I thought would actually make for a good topic.

And yea, by pure happenstance we today also had a workshop of sorts on conflict prevention. Which ... may be the topic for today. But uhm - so, the situation in my mind - as per these debates - is that a certain impass is being ... like ... excessively center stage. Something akin to how I wrote of the war between good and evil in my first book. We might also call it the heart of conflict - if that isn't taken already. Or is it the crux?
I mean, I don't know about you, but ... the realization that debates aren't really solution oriented came as an epiphany that revealed to me that I have been somewhat naive about it prior. And yea, it's like the gut reaction that makes us want to speak up. Right? We're like ... ironically perhaps ... solution oriented beings. In a way at least. Something in us goes like "I know this" and "I want to help" - and boom, we're in the middle of a conflict per chance. But sure, the alternative ... . It's not speaking up that is the problem - it is how debates are like ... something between professional wrestling and UFC in that regard. Not necessarily staged - but ... people come to see the fight, not as much the "solution". And yea, not sure if it matters - but I was a huge Goldberg fan while he was doing his whole "fights won in a row" thing - just to then get betrayed by KEVIN NASH OF ALL PEOPLE! And after that I was done with watching Wrestling for a while because quite frankly - the solution sucked! I get why the showrunners thought they had to do it - but, that's beside the point. And yea, I mean, the fact that he had this number he wanted to reach might have given it away ... but my mind sure wasn't operating in these categories back then.
But uhm - so - yea, debates are intellectually on par with mud-wrestling. Sort of. And from watching Vaush I understand that there's a difference between like ... amateurs and professionals. Amateurs get dragged through the mud and we get to see what they got, but professionals will like ... try to avoid getting dirt on them. Which means that I also have a well informed model of what this hypothetical "debate lord" might be, that's then like ... I guess we might say: stalling my mental processes.

There are like two critical aspects to it: 1) They'll try to hold the high ground ("keeping the discussion civil", as perhaps by saying that as a way to not answer a particular question they could frame as disingenuous, or to deflect criticism by insinuating how unreasonable the left is - that sort of stuff) and 2) Expecting nothing but personal Victory (or in other words: Expecting a concession from the other side, not merely on a single point but more like wholesale surrender; Maintained by perhaps leaning on some perceived or exploitable flaw to frame the other person as having an agenda and ignoring what they have to say in response to those accusations as a way to prop up their own dominance).
And so - the concept of the debate has become a bit of a puzzle to me. And there are lots of little pieces to it that make it a bit of a ... mess. Like in the video shared earlier - there's this other perplexing bit, which is: A black person playing defense for an overtly racist song. Like ... a good little house-n***a. I mean, if ... what these weird black folk jump in to defend doesn't count as racism - then what is? And yea, sure - it's maybe not the first fiddle in their orchestra, but it's there somewhere - to do the whole "conservatives are far more accepting towards gay people than liberals are" shtick - which takes us on the one side to how the second point mentioned earlier plays out. To say, well, if you don't bitch about it - there's nothing to bitch about. You just have to suck it up. But on the other hand ... we might - at least while we have the opportunity to not be caught of guard by it - entertain the idea. So, we're supposed to believe that overt racism is not actually the way modern fascism operates. Well, maybe they wouldn't word it this way, but I do.
Which is how we get to 'Cultural Elitism'.

A.k.a.: The new Fascism.

And it ties back into the topic by being strongly built on the concept of bullying.

Now - due to the excited verbosity of a collegue attending that same workshop today, my attention was drawn onto the matter of the 'group dynamics' involved in bullying. And squared against my own experiences and observations - I realize that it are in fact the dynamics, whereby the aggressive behavior of an individual is to inspire a kind of group think, where the individuals present that are unaware of who their allies are get to experience some kind of second hand intimidation as emanating from everyone else (but the victim) because the 'might' side with the bully for the same reason.
Like so I've learned, that studies have shown that the more people are present during a conflict, the less likely people are to help. As perhaps by a mix of expecting someone else to stand up first - and being afraid of too becoming victimized by the bystanding group.

And sure, it mixes really well with Capitalism - at the very least as a line, a trench perhaps, between ... well ... we might as well say: The proletariat and the bourgeoisie. And that's definitely one possible way to read what's been going on in the USA for the last ... decade or two. And yea, then some. I mean, didn't MLK speak of a "socialism for the rich" already?


But OK. With all that being said now ... what ... follows?

I don't know - but maybe I should close with this: The way I have solved the "debate dilemma" for myself so far, err ... puzzle, so - for you to maybe imagine or simulate how this might go so I don't have to - it's as follows: On the premise that the debate to be had is effectively just a platform for self-promotion, where individuals who speak as avatars of some abstract collective idea of sorts have a kind of abstract self-interest in swaying individuals to join that collective thinking (with "who can't be swayed" being like the amout of available bonus points), I - at least for now I am - will take the step and declare myself to play the unreasonable part, openly, to challenge them to come up with a solution to that problem because the way I see it, that's the bottom line of the argument.