An Alphabet of Bullshit

[Cain]

A is for Answers.

I answer the questions; but have no answer for me.  – Jingo de Lunch, Peace of Mind

Answers; (noun) a useful way of having to avoid thinking about a question.

A defining characteristic of our existing civilization is its obsessional avoidance of the unknown and unpredictable.   Like so many mental pathologies, the need to have answers to everything takes what is otherwise a sensible, healthy and even laudable curiosity about the existing world, and turns it into something fundamentally unhealthy for the individual in question.

A society obsessed with having an answer is a society that is obsessed with a very superficial kind of education – the sort that is measured entirely by a kind of instrumentality which cannot permit ambiguity, or the possibility that they may be many answers – or even worse, none at all.

Curiously enough, the least problematic thing for such a viewpoint is the issue of having the wrong answer – FACTS are easily enough to find, and if an answer is found to be wrong, slipping a new fact into the old one's place and asserting it with all the absoluteness and certainty of the previous answer is very easy indeed.

One of the great advantages of having all the answers is that it allows one to delegitimise any other argument that may be offered from the very start, regardless of actual context or merit.  Not only that, you are a naïve and silly fool for not having done the appropriate research and work beforehand to realise this.  Hahaha, children, eh?  Some may mistake this for a kind of academic snobbery and condescension, but such people are clearly anti-intellectuals.

[Cain]

B is for Business Schools.

Business School Student: How far has your Herfindahl Index declined since the merger?
Michael Scott: Nice try. How's your Polack-says-what Index?
Business School Student: What?
Michael Scott: Thanks, Kowalski.
- The Office

Business schools (noun); drag classes for managers who wish to pretend to be capitalists.

Business schools may not be the original oxymoron, but they are certainly one of its most banal manifestations.

It may just be a coincidence that the time at which business school alumni have come to control the mechanisms of financial power within the western world, that it has endured its most long-lived economic crisis.  But probably not.

What are called business schools are most often management schools.   Modern managerialism has at its heart the conceit that all systems are sufficiently similar that someone imbued with mastery of the correct skillset can manage them towards profit.  In other words, managers have all the ANSWERS.

Anyone who has watched the bumbling response to the most recent manifestation of the ongoing economic crisis can be forgiven for coming to rather different conclusions about managerial competence.  However, the greatest contribution to humanity of the business school is the creation of a system which is totally impervious to criticism, whether from others or from the failure of the method itself.

That BUSINESS SCHOOLS believe they have all the ANSWERS will come as no surprise to anyone who reviews that journal of mediocrity called the New York Bestsellers List.  Numerous books, even now, will purport to explain religion, terrorism, sex and why drug dealers live in their mother's basements by appeal to the managerialist-economist methodology.  That said methods have failed to even explain the behaviour of groups in businesses or propose workable solutions to our current economic condition is something that is rarely mentioned when the merits and weaknesses of such books are discussed.

It should therefore be no surprise to discover that managers, much like everyone who believe they have ANSWERS are intolerant of dissent and individualism and attempt to stamp out signs of creativity or public debate.

Also rarely discussed is whether the cost of managers to any organisation outweighs the economic benefits they supposedly bring.  Management is one of the largest growing employment sectors, even as industry falls apart and job creation stalls.  If business schools were in fact places one went to in order to learn about business, one would expect such an interesting correlation to be investigated.  Alas, they are not.

[Cain]

C is for Corporatism.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
― Benito Mussolini

Corporatism, (noun); the most popular method of political organization among modern, industrially developed societies.

Corporatism is a long-standing popular alternative to representative democracy, which has shown itself to be uniquely adapted to existing in purportedly fascist, communist and liberal-democratic states. 

Corporatism suggests that the best method of organizing society is not one based on proportional equality, regular voting and representation at the local, county/state and national level, but instead one where society is divided among certain professional and expertise-based groups, which reduce the role of the citizen to that of a secondary observer, as the groups and state consult amongst themselves, ostensibly on behalf of the citizen about how best to run the country.

Historically, this method was introduced by the Catholic Church and influenced the Italian city states – such as Venice, where guilds and merchant princes and consortiums.

It is a mistake, however, to think of corporatism as meaning corporations.  Hegel was rather revealing in the way he talked about them as "Estates", which brings to mind the Three French Estates of Aristocrats, Church and, well, everyone else.  Therefore groups such as academics, lobbyists political parties and unions can form part of the corporatist state and indeed corporatism is far more ideologically flexible than most corporations are capable of, flexibility requiring a certain amount of imagination that BUSINESS SCHOOLS tend to beat out of their alumni.

A key indicator of a corporatist bent is a group which proclaims to be more disinterested in political outcomes, and so more objective, and yet spends the vast majority of its time agitating (successfully or otherwise) for laws, regulations and deregulation which benefits the corporate group.  Other key indicators include an obsession with "efficiency" and decrying the emotional, ineffective and corrupt systems of representative government.  Mediation and contracts are of paramount importance to the corporatist entity.

Interestingly, corporatism has made strong use of populist sentiment, often by attacking the outcomes of democracy as described above and claiming some kind of mythical direct link with the citizenry (which is of course entirely rational).  This method is common to the likes of Ross Perot, Hugo Chavez, Silvio Berlusconi and Sarah Palin.  Such people tend to attack democracy on behalf of The People, then rule via special advisors and private interest groups, when they achieve political power.

World War II can be seen as a titanic struggle between authoritarian corporatism and liberal democracy.  It is not immediately clear who actually won.

[Cain]

D is for Direct Democracy

Occupy Denver’s General Assembly voted on a leader and chose a three-year-old border collie named Shelby to head the group.
- The Occupy Denver Media-PR Committee

Direct Democracy (noun); an attractive idea that, like Communism or Justin Bieber discovering he cannot sing, has consistently failed to be realised.

Direct democracy is the idea that everyone should participate in political debate and decisions directly, rather than through elected officials.  It is thus a favourite political position of groups whose fundamental political position is anti-democratic, but are intelligent enough to recognize they should not advertise this.

Proponents of direct democracy frequently point to classical Athens as proof the concept can work, overlooking that Athens had a population of less than 40,000 during this period, and that only about 6000 or so were regularly involved in the political life of the city.  It also overlooks that such levels of participation that Athens required would mean people would have to take politics as importantly as their careers and private lives – if not more so.

Curiously, most groups who promote direct democracy are distinctly disinterested in the kind of small towns where their ideas might be feasible – even if they claim otherwise.  A look at their manifestos will show they are obsessed by larger political issues – war, peace, immigration, financial corruption and race – which direct democracy will address…somehow.

Direct democracy is also a useful foil for various political groups who (rightly) point out that citizens are being excluded from the political process, but then use this to milk resentment, instead of proposing more workable alternatives. 

The marriage of technology with demands for direct democracy has, unsurprisingly, not resulted in more democracy in the political system, but instead the creation of large-scale devices for the expression of grievances and are used to foment emotional swings and political instability.

An especially clever reader may note that the particular technological systems being referred to above are online referenda, which typically reduce themselves to yes/no implement/halt decisions.  This especially linear system proffers questions, which are then ANSWERED by the population directly, and without the need for deliberation, debate or nuance.  Increased emphasis on the role of voting, to the exclusion of all other methods of political participation, is also part and parcel of the drive towards direct democracy and the linear arrangement of the political process, a simplification which would mightily please CORPORATIST elements in society.

[Cain]

E is for Elites

“I am a caster of nets.  Tyrants and emperors rise and fall.  Civilizations burgeon then die, but there are always casters of nets.  And tillers of the soil, and herders in the pastures.  We are where civilization begins, and when it ends, we are there to begin it again.”
- Steve Erikson, Midnight Tides

Elite (plural verb/noun); the most self-obsessed class within any given social structure.

Elites are a practically ubiquitous class when comparing societies across the world.  Almost no society in history has been without one.

It is amazing, therefore, how much ink is spilt in trying to justify, perpetuate and defend said elites.  And sometimes not just ink gets spilt, of course.  Given that elites are a natural outcome of living in any sophisticated social structure, the protection of any given elite is not really a valid concern, except to those elites themselves.  Should they fail, another will be along to replace them.

Elites typically perpetuate themselves via selective educational establishments, on which great emphasis is put.  Training one's successors is, of course, the best way to make sure they do things much the way they are being done now.  Due to the power of specialist groups who have all the ANSWERS, this training is typically tied to what is considered to have utility, such as BUSINESS SCHOOLS.

What is not considered useful is what has historically been referred to as education in the humanities, or pure science.  Basic intellectual training or reflection and inquiry are not considered to have great utility, which is why the social sciences (Political Science, Economics, MBAs etc.) are typically overrepresented within today's elites.

Of course, this elite interest in such topics has led to formerly independent centres of education reconfiguring themselves to teach these particular topics, in return for the funds which will invariably be administered in the future by their alumni.  This is known as Academic Independence.

The real issue with an elite is not whether it exists, but its fundamental relationship with the society in which it exists.  So long as an elite ensures the greater interests of the population at large are served, they can enjoy all sorts of benefits and prosperity.  What is really interesting is that, given this, how many elites are interested in only serving themselves, even to the point that the society they exists in self-destructs.

[Cain]

F is for Facts.

"Paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me.  Now that is scientific fact — there's no real evidence for it — but it is scientific fact".
- DJ Neil "Doctor" Fox

Facts (noun); easily manipulated statements which correspond very roughly to the world in which we live.

Facts are meant to be the proof of an assertion.  The unfortunate truth is that there are enough facts to allow for the justification of virtually any assertion, assuming one thinks giving a fact is an ANSWER to any kind of problem.

As such, facts are a tool of authority, the currency of power.  Fragments of knowledge, disjointed due to ELITE educational methods, are frequently a replacement for thinking, doubt or judgement.  It's a FACT that Islamic terrorism is the most violent sort, I have a study which proves it!  That the study in question samples violence on the basis of casualties, and the year chosen is 2001 is immaterial.  It's a FACT.  Be quiet now

This tendency was noted by Giambattista Vico, who said any system defined on finding FACT alone to prove assertions would ultimately misfire, unless it took into account the larger context and circumstances in which this FACT is situated.   However context has an unfortunate tendency to undermine the absolute conviction of ANSWERS, and thus is not very popular.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This is fantastic!   

[Cain]

I'm going to try and do it in four or five installments, so this is today's lot.  I don't want to burn people out with too much words.

Also, an Alphabet of Awesome may follow, depending on my ability to find 26 things I actually like.

[Eater of Clowns]

Thus far this is my favorite piece of yours since Interregnum, Cain. 

[M. Nigel Salt]

This is brilliant!

[stelz]

Needs to be stickied.

[Juana Go?]

Awesome, Cain!

[Freeky Queen of DERP]

 

[Murmur]

I love it, Cain! 

[Waffleman]

Fucking brilliant!