This world doesn't know what to do with its intelligence.

You keep using that word...

Ponderous parables for pivotal paraboles

Once upon a time, there was a human child who wanted to know the Good.  Being the insufferably inquisitive and rather philosophically minded youth they were, they figured that the problem wasn't so much identifying the Good, (there were already lots of suggested candidates), but rather determining a method by which to validate the Good.  Well, the kid did find a sort of litmus test, a rather radical one at that.

You see, this kid was raised Christian, and so they were already quite familiar with the traditional parables.  In fact, this kid would ultimately go on to endure most of their Confirmation before dropping out at the last moment.   This kid wondered whether they needed religion in order to live and be just, whether the Good was predicated on traditions and consensual wisdom, or whether it had any contingencies at all as alluded by some of its progenitors.

On the way home from elementary school one day, this kid was contemplating hell. You know.  The bad one.  Where one would burn.  Forever.  The kid was already skeptical of the existence of hell, especially since they had already studied how allegorizing hell became a tool of church compliance and coercion from the 15th to the 20th centuries historically and even earlier pre-historically.  As this kid approached the turn in the sidewalk that redirected to their home street, they stopped walking as their reflection shifted to a consideration of Jesus's divine sacrifice, especially the willingness to sacrifice mortal existence.  Within this space of reflection, this kid noted that a morality becomes transcendental in character, relative to Christian systems, the moment the agent has identified a conviction for which they would be willing to sacrifice beyond their mortal existence, assuming the verity of a transcendental existence.  Hell was conceived, or at the very least <used>, as a method of enforcing compliance to an alleged transcendental morality.  However, this threat and its invoked fear are consequential only when one's moral system is subject to and therefore determined (at least in part) by the threat of hell.  The moment you believe in a moral code self-righteously such that you would bear that code in any and all eternities in any and all transcendental existences, this coercive form of Christianity no longer has any power over you.  

Furthermore, this conviction that authentically survived an existential threat of eternal damnation likely comprises or can be characterized by the Good, if we're conceiving the Good as its progenitors did: as a universal, unchanging, and all-encompassing form.  For how could the substance of that imperative be naught but Good for someone to willingly suffer eternally?  If it did not comprise the sum total value of everything they believed and/or assumed to be right or good, would the willingness to suffer eternally be naught but insanity?

In the words that the kid used to articulate this insight at the time, the moment you become "willing to burn in hell for all eternity for what you believe", you become liberated from all preceding and subsequent moral systems.  It's a different kind of freedom.

Although this kid grew up to be relatively agnostic, exercising a reasonable measure of doubt with regards to any kind of afterlife, since that moment, that kid has been relatively fearless.

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A word has been frequently floating in and out of my reflections as of late: "subsumption."  It seems that every action, resistance, and aspiration to significance supports or is eventually constitutive of a subsumption, a subsuming of the intents and character of the action, resistance, or aspiration into a more general category—notably, in democracies a category generally acquiescing of what people call the "middle class".  Historically, people called this latter process gentrification; i.e. the process of changing the nature of actions and contexts such that they further satisfy the gentry, the traditional middle and upper classes (think "gentlemen" and "gentlewomen").  

I've often attributed this trend to tribalistic exigencies and the dominant classes' exclusive rights to delineate the parameters of signification.  Self-identifying groups of people are naturally inclined to defend and further their common interests.  The middle class emerges as the bulk of the normal distribution of their collective needs and subsequent demands.  Notably, this collective reserves control over signification: the identification, renewal, and creation of significance.  For evidence of this control, look no further than the burgeoning demands and sequitur supplies of popularized formulaic T.V. shows and movies.  Especially in democracies, this dominant group generally dictates which meanings have the most power.

Subsumption, then, presents the means by which the middle class renews its power.  As both the product and producer of subsumptions, the middle class regulates meaning-making and the power (read: significance) of meanings.

I've commented on this Blog before about the cyclical nature of dominance and resistance, especially how both sets of aspirations eventually normalize; i.e., that the status quo/societal homeostasis necessitates their constant renewal.  These days, I would characterize these Sisyphean (r)evolutions as yet other forms of subsumption.

Why does this happen?

Simply, they're engaged in the classical pursuit of meaning and purpose.

On my own permutation of this quest, I infrequently engage in the following thought experiment: if we're trying to identify the most meaningful and significant values—the usual source of purpose—and actions, then start from the opposite.  What is the most meaningless thing a person can believe or do?  I usually turn to expressions like "all tautologies are tautologies."  But even the categorization of expressions of A = A has meaning and significance, especially since the meaningfulness of other expressions of relations hinges on the alleged meaninglessness of simpler expressions.  Maybe it's the void?  It's telling that vacuousness draws from the same etymology as "vacuum."

Or, maybe it's more useful to consider meaninglessness according to its (in)significance.  However, this merely politicizes the question of meaning by evaluating meaning according to its power, as what does "significance" signify?

Logically, if the most meaningless choices, values, and actions were dichotomized, then the most meaningful choices, values, and actions could be characterized as the most exhaustive, unique, and powerful.

Yet, in the endless pursuit of purpose and meaning, a staggering proportion of people find themselves "settling down to start families."  Inhabiting the aforementioned logic of this post, this domestication follows from a subsumption of intents and purposes under a set of generalizable traditions.  But I remain perplexed as to the following: is it not suspect that so many individuals' pursuits of purpose and meaning have been resolved in starting families?  That after millenia of human development, the consistent stopgap for the problem of living with meaning is to furnish the next generation of people who will undoubtedly have the same problem?

Potential vacuousness notwithstanding, even monogamy raises the specter of a failure of the imagination to do something with one's intelligence before or after the status quo.  "Welp, I have run out of ideas.  Might as well chase tail."  

I realize that the more nihilist-leaning among my readers might counter with the axiomatic assumption that existence has only the meaning that we ascribe to it; i.e., there is no guarantee to any inherent purpose or meaning in anything.  But can we not do better?  

Especially when faced with an existential threat?

Obviously the species needs to reproduce itself at some point, but there's a threshold after which existence is merely existed for the sake of existence.

What does it mean to succeed in the midst of global turmoil?  Does it mean the same to you now as it did in September, 2019?

People tend to define success in numbers.  Equity, valuations, and margins.  There are people who I've encountered that I pity every day because the system is so absolutely rigged against them.  I have yet to encounter a "successful" company or personality cult that doesn't have at least 1-2 bodies mortaring its foundations.  I promised myself in the earliest days of my social justice and peace studies course work that I would never slit a single throat, metaphorically or otherwise, to get ahead; I'm increasingly convinced that many of my classmates didn't share that conviction.  The global pandemic just aggravates these moral and integrous discrepancies.

This world doesn't know what to do with its intelligence.  Our public schooling systems in Ontario are about to crumble wholesale because our administrations, among the ministry, school boards, and unions lack the organizational and creative capacity to imagine and to implement a new vision of schooling necessitated by one of the greatest threats of our lifetimes.  Smarts won't save us; they might give us a better way to mitigate the effects and infectivity of this virus, but this is just one relatively benign pathogen.  I predicted at about the age of 16 that antibiotic resistance alone could bring this world to its knees; you don't need to search too deeply into Google to ascertain with relative certainty that this is only the beginning.  

We've survived this long because we've adapted.  The most maladaptive systems will degrade and degenerate as we're witnessing on the daily.  Classists hate change, yet I'm not calling for a "Marxist (r)evolution."  Our systems, starting with our schools, need to refocus and reconstitute their operations in accordance with their long-standing mandates.  

And this stuff aerosols.  For the love of reason, don't pack elementary school students into enclosed spaces with no exit or contingency plan.

I worry that the problem is less about whether we have the collective intellect to survive this, than about whether we have the moral convictions and courage to think laterally and take risks.

Otherwise, private industry is going to take over every failing public system; it was already happening among pre-college schooling in Ontario; this crisis has been an invitation for private schools (especially those structured and equipped for online learning) and for privatized health care to build and to consolidate empires in Canada.  My own school is restructuring in anticipation that publicly schooled students could fall behind their private and home schooled peers by almost a year as of September, 2021.  Theodore Sizer is/would be churning in his grave.

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"Civilization" is a derivative Anglicization of its root, "cīvis", a rough Latin equivalent to our current word "citizen."  It's legal definition succeeds its essential and primordial meaning of "city-dweller".  Citizen-ship, or the rights and responsibilities inherent to constituting a city, implies higher duties than simply participating in the governance and perpetuity of the polis; thriving usually requires more of us than surviving.  We can still thrive under these conditions, as we should; but we need to commit to this end.  I know it's hard.  My own commitment wavered after March, partly due to my experiences with the bad faith of certain members of the graduate student community of UofT.

But we cannot give up.  Doomscrolling is a deontological necessity, in moderation of course.  Our appreciations for and exhaustive grasping of the significance and consequence of the Good and the right depend in part on our lucidity of the darkness.

This world cannot abide the unwillingness to speak the honest, good faith truth of our experiences, courageously in adversity.  Wisdom cannot be wasted on the wise unwilling or too dispassionate to act Justly when we're on the brink.

On Selflessness

Because Bale B-Movie Morality~ (Excerpted from Equilibrium, 2002)

There is no self-deprecating humour readily conceivable for a sufficiently humble introduction of this topic.  It must-needs be approached with the same sobriety by which it is practiced.  Of the many frames of approach⁠—as the question, as the problem, or as the object⁠—none seem as appropriate as an approach from the self.

Story time!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a moron decided to become involved in student politics.  From the beginning, this moron argued that they were only trying to get the job done.  The moron reasoned that not enough decent people had the stamina to persistently engage in decision-making with what the moron eventually identified as bad faith actors.  "You know the decisions that they'll make when you're not there," the moron insisted.  People wondered why the moron endured; the moron's supervisor even wondered out loud whether it was a waste of time altogether.  Then, the moron blogged about it:

There's a rizomata panton irony (or paradox) to be found within the reality that the most idealized moral telos, selflessness, is also the least practiced and/or understood.  Its value as a moral object transcends time, space, culture, and even morality; Nazis could be selfless.  Within a morally relative universe, something about selflessness elevates it into a class of its own in significance and consequence.

And yet, basically no one is actually selfless, at least, no one still with us.  Of course, it's impossible to be and persist selflessly.  A baseline of biopsychological being is necessary to bide.

What does it mean to nullify the self as much as one can abide?  Well, most consequentially for one's humanity and for traditional conceptions of human flourishing, without the self, there is no intimacy, or at least authentic intimacy.  Long-term, sustainable intimacy relies upon some form of co-dependency.  A great friend of mine once argued at length that sustainable intimacy or healthy relationships more broadly require that intimate partners fill voids in each other's lives.  The trick with selflessness is there is no one void to be filled in one's being or self.  Conceptually, it's all void—or all filled; the consequence is the same.  A selfless individual has denied even the possibility of a void, regardless of its potential verity.

Naturally, selflessness leaves little room for ego as its traditionally understood.  Just as the self cannot be nullified to void, ego will always linger as long as we remain sapient and finite.  The ego can be denied, but never truly destroyed.  A similar line of reasoning likely predisposed Eckhart Tolle to conclude that "to be wrong is to die." (The Power of Now, 1997)

Up until this point in my reasoning, selflessness may appear to be infallible as a moral means and object, but in many ways, to pursue selflessness to its extremity is also to dehumanize oneself, depending how one construes of "humanity."

What might not have been obvious is that selflessness is also a nullification or at least complete denial of sexuality, excepting the most base and sentient gratifications.  A selfless person, in forgoing intimacy, inevitably encounters the truth of humanity that intimacy and sexuality intersect so wholistically and exhaustively that it's impossible to embody or reify one without the other, unless one is biologically predisposed to extreme asexuality.  "Volcel" individuals could be among the most selfless, but if we presuppose intimacy and sexuality as constitutive of our humanity, then volcel individuals could also be classed among the most inhumane.

And as you might have guessed by now, embodied selflessness necessitates an inevitable denial of emotion.  The emotive would inevitably be repressed by the drive to deny the self any validation.  As alluded by the preambulatory video, the value of selflessness to the degree and intensity that it can be practiced by human beings depends on the fact of choice.  In many ways, one could construe embodied selflessness as one of the ultimate sacrifices that an individual can make for others, exemplifying one of the most obvious and explicit cases of a human sacrificing their humanity for others' humanity.

It's important to remember that to be anything other than selfless is a tremendous gift and privilege.  I've written at length about how the capacity to sacrifice is a privilege; to be selfless is to give up even that capacity.  You can only sacrifice what you have.

So then why might it be worth considering selflessness regardless?  Succinctly, selfishness won't save us.  There's other rabbit holes in this blog to wander into if you'd appreciate an elaboration on that particular point.  If "some very few of us" don't attempt to embody selflessness, I reckon we're on a one way train to hell.

So, for the sake of praxis, I created a useful check list for those go-getters.

Selflessness Checklist

1. Are you dead?
2. If you happen to have a phallus, have you endured blue balls deliberately more than once to the degree that you could no longer stand erect?
3. Do you believe that intimacy is an unnecessary part of your being?
4. Were you never a human baby?
5. Have you yet to consider your money your money?
6. Does your parental figure complain every major visit that you're not being selfish enough?
7. Do you routinely lie by omission about your self, anticipating that these details might provoke self-hatred among others?
8. Do you regularly feign emotion?

If you answered in the affirmative to any and all of the above, then you might be or have been selfless, but probably not.  Don't worry; people attempting this perfect self-destruction can also be proficient thespians.

On empathic projection

From the webcam of the laptop with which I edited most of this post when I should have been writing my comprehensive exam.  FYI, Einstein was defending Bertrand Russell.

What is social justice?  No. Seriously. What IS it?  Thousands of years of philosophizing and insightful reflection have yet to glean a satisfactory response to a simple yet eminently consequential question.

From the pre-Socratics to Socrates himself, the Western tradition passed down an, at best, provisional explication derivable from the first books of Plato's Republic.  Philosophers have long grappled with the gravity of the question and with the associated gravity of a proficient answer.

Lately, scholars of social justice have gravitated toward the discourses of empathic understanding when confronted with the question of the criteria and/or substance of social justice.  The problem in practice, as I've witnessed it, is that the respondents confronted with social injustices apply empathy undemocratically.  Under the guise of equity, these "social justice warriors" exercise a limited form of empathy that privileges empathizing with particular groups as opposed to a consciously and rigorously maintained, indiscriminate empathic disposition.  Almost daily, I encounter new politically selective applications of empathy that violate the presupposed humanistic ethics and morality of empathetic practice.

Just as Henry Giroux argued that a "democracy can never be democratic enough," empathy can never be empathized enough.  The schools of liberal democratic thought taken to their logical extremes necessitate a democratic empathy and an empathetic democracy in which people practice empathy as democratically and exhaustively as possible.

The idealized desire for the practice of democracy and empathy in their extremities echoes the philosopher's restless pursuit of timelessness and universality.  During a heated philosophical discussion that feels like yesterday but actually transpired about 8 years ago, a great friend and I were arguing about the possibility of objective morality: or in other words, a morality that could transcend time and space and that would be applicable for any human context.  The other discussant was a staunch Christian, while I was a less radically agnostic version of myself.  We couldn't agree on anything other than that if such morality were ascertainable, it could be determined only through an application of reason and empiricism and could only be validated through some leap of faith.

Upon that insight, I wrote one of the first Facebook notes that became one of the first posts in this blog; it attempted to begin elucidating a rationalistic morality.  My consistent contemplation of this construct anticipated my attempt to illustrate the highest moral imperative.  Only recently did I realize that these explorations betrayed a deeper goal of uncovering a (read: the) universal morality via what I now refer to as empathic projection.

In order to practice empathy as democratically and exhaustively as possible, arguably, one must embrace empathic projection.  The OED defines "projection" as "an estimate or forecast of a future situation based on a study of present trends" and as "a mental image viewed as reality."  Essentially, "empathic projection" depicts a practice of empathy through which one estimates or forecasts the situations of future human beings in order to generate a mental image of what might comprise these beings' lived realities.  This practice might enable one to "empathize with potentiality."

In other words, empathic projection can enable an inquiry approach with which one extends inferences beyond past and present circumstances.  An indiscriminately empathic democracy necessitates that the thoughts, wills, and actions of its citizens not only consider empathy with those whom exist and will exist within their lifelitimes but with those whom potentially will exist (to be as democratic, equitable, and non-egoistic as possible). It's a narrowly presentist assumption that one need only empathize with those whom exist in one's generation or with those of the immediately succeeding generation.

The most universal ethic would require that moral judgement be situated not only by empathizing with those whom exist and will exist soon, but with those whom will exist who will never interact with you directly: a morality of the substantive Other.  Caring about people exhaustively inevitably anticipates caring about the future because there are infinitely more potential people of the future than there could ever be living today.  Ask yourself what these timelessly succeeding Others would ask of their preceding Others; this abstraction's moral intimations could validate a trans-generational human morality.

At the very least, logically, these succeeding Others would desire the same degree of opportunity (potentiality) as those whom preceded them since anything less than at least that potentiality would constitute a perfect injustice.  Thinking historically, this justified continuancy of opportunity followed a timeless trend of taken-for-granted equivalency of potentiality which, until the past ~50 years, had remained more-or-less uncontested.

Thus, empathic projection might reveal semblances of an ultimate universal "moral high ground" through the application of empirical reasoning and logic.  If this form exists at all—a morality and/or value system that exists in spite of and simultaneously among and within us, timelessly—then it might be revealable through empathic projection.

In sum, if there is a social justice to be realized, then empathic projection could be pivotal.  These intellectual gymnastics might be essential to cobbling together the political will to do what is necessary to preserve the sentience and sapience of this planet.  Without it, we will undoubtedly continue to elect those antithetical to the future.

On greatness

Memes have supplanted captions.

I have decided to endeavor to dedicate time to write non-academically; [(un)ironically, this post mostly concerns professional academics].  This blog has nearly ceased to exist because every time I think to write, I am compelled to do so toward my PhD coursework and research.  Those of you whom have read this blog previously would likely surmise that I have a complicated relationship with doing things for myself.

The topic of this blog post has been brooding since I attended the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Regina, Saskatchewan, last May (2018).  It was a major milestone in my life as it was the first time that I engaged with the highest echelon of academics as relative equals in candid, authentic dialogue.  I attended at least five two-hour sessions per day for five days, which, if you've ever attended the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, might be considered... ambitious.

I absolutely loved the experience; I reflected that I'll likely make most of my name as a academic through conferencing.

More critically, the experience lended credence to a philosophical outlook that I had been incubating over the past several years.

I've observed that the more eminent the intellectuals in my presence, the more elucidated becomes the relative dichotomy among academics, between those whom embrace greatness as a means and those whom pursue greatness as an ends in itself.

To illustrate this relationship, I need to explicate what I mean by "greatness."  I'm not just referring to renown, but more primordially to power and influence; regretfully, my vision of this idealized quality probably roughly mirrors that of Trump and his infamous slogan.  If all human intentions and relations engage with power discourses as Nietzsche and others would have us believe, then "greatness" could be construed as prominence within these discursive power relationships.

Listening to other professional academics speak candidly among their equals, I became increasingly curious as to where they fell on this spectrum from "greatness" as ends to "greatness" as means.

Those engaged as scholars whom embrace greatness as a means have variously abstained from the seductive, self-affirming influences of egotism.  They pursue grants and tenure because they know that these resources and positions will enable them to do increased justice to their research and to the beneficiaries of their research.  They respect and appreciate their and their colleagues' reputations, not because they have a vested interest in representationalism, but, rather, because their reputability factors into their capacities to continue to build and to refine knowledge for civilization.  These academics are seemingly marginalized.

Indeed, the seeming majority are engaged as scholars whom pursue greatness as an ends in itself.  Each of the signifiers of those embracing greatness as means becomes self-serving: egotistically, materialistically, nepotistically, etc.  Research becomes a means to self-empowerment as opposed to a means to empowering others; (this genre of academic inquiry becomes especially alarming when said research ostensibly bears the banner of social justice and/or decolonization).  Collegiality, for this group, tends to be first and fore-most self-interested.  The development of knowledge is an after thought of careerism.  Unsurprisingly, the scholarship of this latter group tends to crack under the burden of instrumental CV stacking.

I'm sure social, psychological, cultural, and economic theorists have systemic and/or discursive explanations for this lived reality, but, arguably, this growing chasm between these two increasingly insulated and institutionalized groups of academics could be, at least partially, dispelled philosophically.

As the cliché admonishes, "absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Absolute power in academia is usually determined by reputation that immunizes individuals from governance, collegial, and student scrutiny.  Those of this caliber who have objectified greatness rarely risk their immunities for the sake of others, especially for the most marginalized.  Followers of this blog would probably guess that I would argue that the academics of this echelon have the greatest capacities and therefore duties to act.  However, my cursory exposure implies that these high capacity intellectuals rarely threaten and/or sacrifice their positionality if such actions might diminish their objectified greatness.

Succinctly, greatness should never be an ends in itself.  It should always be a means to empowering others.

Those whom have objectified greatness rarely authentically find it with integrity.  The fact that the preceding statement could be construed as sanctimonious speaks volumes as to the contemporary and growing institutionalization of objectified greatness.  They, and we, need to do better.

Notably, this philosophical insight may speak to the political movement down South.  Political actors often narrativize the pursuit of others' greatness, merely co-opting this narrative that portrays what they should be doing, increasingly serving themselves and/or their families.  It's a terrifying and damaging hypocrisy with higher consequences for the higher the stakes.

Moreover, it could be reasoned that the pursuit of greatness is antithetical to the condition's realization, given the associated egotism and disempowerment of others necessary to confer and to sustain "greatness."  Proselytizing "America First" concomitant with xenophobic racism and nativism for the "restoration" of American greatness invariably illustrates this trend.

The objectification of greatness nearly always anticipates its depreciation and eventual nullification. Historically, the "greats" immortalized their greatness through their empowerment of others: They supported others for others' support for yet others' greatness.

And so, I admonish the reader to chase their greatness and to find their place in the zeitgeist, but to channel that pursuit as a means toward an end for and with others.  It's a deontological necessity that academics vanguard your and our students' greatness.

The Fight at the End of the Tunnel: A Tale of Three Teloi

One of my many sources of inspiration

As I near the end of my yearly New Year's gaming staycation that follows my time with family and friends and get back into zero-sum work mode, I am lead to once again reflect on why I will re-invest myself into that lifestyle.  The last three years, I've spent the transition after Christmas into the New Year gaming as much as I can to get it out of my system while most people are partying and vacationing.

I began writing this blog post before the holidays as a reflection on some of my conversations with some of my closest friends and allies.  One of these allies is a professor with whom I confide with about some of the most topical issues globally.  When discussing the most recent tax bill in the United States which promises to negate the legacies of about half of the 20th century presidents while emboldening the historically deplorable, this professor concluded the discussion by insisting that "it will get worse."

As teachers, we both have the responsibilities to foster hope and the precedents for innovation for the future among our pupils.  However, the realities of our day require a degree and type of vigilance that has little historical precedent (with the possible exceptions of the contextual contingencies of the World Wars).  Furthermore, as I insisted in confidence with another friend and ally, we can't shelter these kids from these circumstances forever (although we'd prefer to).

Most educators seem to teach as though there's some sort of light at the end of the tunnel of institutionalized education, whether in new innovations for addressing old problems, new(er) mental models for conceptualizing existing systems, and/or in some sort of well-paying, secure job.  As a student of history, I'm inclined to argue that this may have been true of 1950s-60s (and even into the 1980s) but that this perspective would now plainly underestimate the gravity of modern circumstances.  Trump was elected, climate change is happening before our eyes, and we're at the greatest risk of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I could include an extended laundry list of issues that keep me up at night, but I'd admonish that you use your imagination.  

I'm inclined to challenge the assumption that we hold any privilege to certainty of any sort of utopian telos in or through education considering our collective situation.  Moreover, true humility lay in one of the first principles of existential philosophy: that our existences could be completely meaningless.  Naturally, a cognizance of this possibility has been the precursor of existential crises globally (mine included).  By extension, there's no means to certainty that there's a definitive light at the end of the educational tunnel in spite of adamant pursuit of education (Please note that I argue this as a practicing professional teacher who's taught across disciplines and as a full-time PhD student in the field of education; I don't make that claim lightly).

I'd remind the reader of one of the main ideas in astronomy: the Earth is a nigh impossible anomaly comprising a combination of factors conducive to the sufficient development of life into sentient beings.  As articulated by many authors and scholars before this writing, we are nearly negligible in the grand scheme of the observable universe.  Given our relative insignificance, it's a rare degree of arrogance to believe that the universe and/or its potential creator(s) care(s) about us.

No, we need to work with what's in front of us or else sociopaths and their sycophants will incorporate us into the front matter of their own narratives.

We can exercise a degree of free will, albeit heavily contextualized and coerced.  In my consistent reflections and discussions, I've narrowed our options into three general paths conducive to three different final ends (teloi) of education.  These options available to those who know enough to be responsible to those of the future represent three distinct responses to the question that I find myself asking recurrently, "to what end?"

1) Somewhere on the spectrum between exile and willful ignorance

In my experience, most of the people who bear the responsibility of knowledge of the potential consequences for posterity simply choose to ignore these very real threats to themselves and even to their own friends and families.  Others choose a self-imposed exile to try to put as much distance between themselves and the rest of human "civilization."  The remainder of those of this category of teloi fall somewhere on that spectrum, varying in degree of deliberate segregation and willful denial.  Who can blame them?  Well, I don't, but the people who will suffer through our legacies might.

2) Suicide/excessive drug addiction

Some people cannot accept reality for what it is.  Never forget that "O Captain! My Captain!", who played numerous roles as exceptional mentors and teachers, ended his own life battling with depression.  Suicide is one of the final consequences of our malaise.  I hear its echoes in social media and among my own graduate student communities in the gallows humour that keeps us sane.  I am faced with these questions myself, but, to this day, I still perceive it as the ultimate act of selfishness for someone in this position.  Which brings me to the logical option of

3) Fight

We all have parts in this narrative, and so we all have parts in how it ends.  Much of my re-investment in my daily commitment to service lay in my awareness of the reality that if the people with this knowledge have the capacity to choose not to fight, then all of us could choose not to do what needs to be done.  An existential philosopher might argue, needlessly fatalistically, that it could already be over.  I am simply unwilling to entertain that possibility.

And back to marking essays...

On the privilege of sacrifice

Earn this...

I suppose that it's inevitable that blogs contain autobiographical elements.
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Unbeknownst to most, I am actually a musician.  And I'm not just a musician but a song writer.  At least, I was.

Music still comprises the greater part of my life.  If I remember correctly, I was taking piano lessons when I was as young as 10 years old.  I didn't love it initially, but it grew on me.  I was extremely fortunate that my family could also put me through voice lessons.  By grade 11, I was writing songs monthly for the coffee houses held by the music program at my high school.  I always had to one-up myself, technically, melodically, rhythmically, and/or by refining my overall performance.  I became absolutely obsessed with writing music.  At one point in my life, I would spend over half of my waking hours trying to find underused chord formulas and rehashing traditional constructs.  I know that many people would kill to have my talent (at least that's what my mother always says).

And then I stopped.

It's a bit like ripping my own heart out, tossing it to the side, and knowing that it's still beating.

There has always been a part of me that just wanted to drop everything, join another band, write music, and perform live shows for the rest of my life.

But to this day, I have never regretted sacrificing that privilege.

The rest of this blog post will attempt to unpack that ^^^ statement.
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How was/is my capacity for music a privilege you might ask?

We usually talk about privilege in terms of skin colour, gender, class, wealth, and/or ability.  I'm referring to privilege in a much more wholistic and abstract sense.  I think that I would describe privilege as a certain kind of un/known capacity.

First, many, if not most, families cannot afford to put their kids through piano and voice lessons.  I am ever indebted to my parents for pushing me to attend lessons with an expert from the Royal Conservatory, let alone fund my classes.

Secondly, I know that I can contribute at least 10 fold more to others through schooling, research, and politics than I could ever contribute through a career in music.

Finally, and most importantly, it's possible that in sacrificing my capacity for music that I can bring myself closer to living a Good life.  Not everyone will have the chance to do that which Socrates and his pupils exalted within the Ancient Greek dialogues.

Although one of my greatest sacrifices, writing and playing music is now just one drop in the sacrificial bucket that has been my life.  And I'm not alone in this regard.  Some of my closest allies have forgone child bearing and even intimate relationships in order to treat others as they would have others treat them.  This lifestyle is not for everyone.  But I believe that for me, it is absolutely necessary.  Because my definition of "others" stretches off into the infinite.  My definition includes all potential sentient, feeling, life: all of those potential lives who might have acted differently if they were in my position with my known capacity.

If this capacity is privy to the agent wielding it,  then there are consequences.  For example, I have empirical evidence that I can work almost non-stop in the service of others; therefore, if I know that, then I have a responsibility to do it.  Put another way, someone in the future experiencing the brink of the total destruction of this planet would admonish me if he/she could.  It's a logical projection of our circumstances given the empirical evidence available.

Moreover, our individual responsibility for the future scales with our known capacity.  In this sense, known capacity refers to our knowledge of the causality that might impact the future combined with our knowledge of our ability to do something about it.

I don't expect everyone to adopt my moral universe and, to be honest, I never did.  I don't want my students to end up like me.  I don't want them to have to let go of parts of themselves in order to make this world decent.

But our context has no precedent in human history.  And if we empathize with potentiality, all of those potential lives, it's not an tremendous leap of faith to conclude that they would want, at least, the same chances that we had.  We have this responsibility as an extension of our awareness.  We have an obligation inherent in the universal values of the human species that have transcended time.

I'm only requesting that we try to be reasonable given the circumstances.  We have enormous power over the future of this planet.  And as the inevitable cliche suggests "With great power comes great responsibility."

Therefore, we can have the choice of whether to sacrifice our privileges for the sake of others.
I would earnestly request from my reader that, at the very least, we do that which we think would be reasonable.
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I didn't watch the entire movie, 'Saving Private Ryan,' until I was in China about a year ago.  The first time I watched the ending, I balled my eyes out.  I don't think I've ever cried that much in my entire life.  I want the people of the future to have Ryan's degree of appreciation for what we did.  (Un)fortunately, that means that we may need to sacrifice some of our privileges so that they might have, at least, the same opportunities that we had.
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My students once asked me "How do you define success?"  After some thought, I responded "If I can achieve a measure of decency, then that's enough.  If I can treat others the same way that I would have them treat me, then I've succeeded."

Do you really want to be popular?

In memory of those who said unpopular things.

Do YOU really want to be popular?

Well have I got the strategy for you!  It doesn't require money (although that would help), and physical beauty's not requisite.  All you need is the right approach.

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Storytime.  Last week I attended a Streetlight Manifesto concert with a good friend.  One of the opening acts involved a guy by the name of Dan P.  He's a well-known front-liner for Streetlight and he's great at warming up the crowd.  His strategy, which has occupied my mind since I attended the concert, involves pandering to the audience.  For the market of Toronto, his act involved telling us how nice we are.  People just ate it up.
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To say that we're terribly vain by nature probably doesn't surprise anyone anymore.  From advertising to live entertainment, people capitalize on this vanity constantly.  People have become so self-absorbed that bringing this to your attention might seem redundant.  But upon significant reflection, I've realized that the success reaped from pandering to people can involve much more than simply telling people what they like to hear.

If you really want to be popular, then give people exactly what they want to see, hear, think, and feel.  Moreover, give them what they need.

People have biases that can be traced to produced and to reproduced value orientations.  In my experience, our civilization is becoming ever more effective at satisfying your values.  To date, we've developed machine learning algorithms that shovel content to you in digital media for your consumption that has been tailored to your needs according to your exact digital footprint.  People are becoming ever more comfortable in their own skin, because companies capitalize on our desires for self-security.

Our world has become a bias confirmation engine with greater sophistication and efficiency every day.  I laughed when I saw this scene from Wall-E, but, the way things are going...

As I said in a caption for my last blog post, "I once told my entire school to never become comfortable."  The staff at my old school including myself were asked by our graduating class for some final advice.  Mine was that comfort sets a limit on your potential.

Growth, like change, is uncomfortable.  And when I say this, I'm not just concerned with the conservatives out there whom feel victimized.  I'm actually more concerned with the self-described radical leftists.  We are all capable of shutting people out if they don't satisfy our biases, whatever they may be.  I've lost friends on Facebook because of this reality in the past (ironically most of whom were social justice and peace studies students).

But I can't stress enough how important it is to maintain a level of uncomfort and the true danger of absolute self-satisfaction.  Absolute comfort creates an absolute stasis.  The internet and its current abuse has undoubtedly contributed to the normalizing of your thoughts and values.  And that's potentially dangerous, for everyone.

My spiritual mentor, one of the few people that I truly look up to, Socrates was famed for his self-affirmed "gadfly" approach to changing society.  He challenged people's conceptions by forcing them to think through their assumptions and beliefs.  He knew that moral education is uncomfortable.  As it should be; it concerns the most important aspects of our lives.  Moral education most often involves suffering ~ that's why we need to be careful as parents and teachers.  The things that we value most can destroy us, and so their deconstruction must be handled with the utmost care.

One of my favorite professors once said that we should "beware of the very notion of the popular teacher."  He had a pretty good argument considering that the most popular teachers tend to ask the least of their students and to do the most to make their students feel comfortable.

In sum, if you really want to be popular, then give people exactly that which satisfies their values.  Even if those values originate from or inculcate fear, hatred, ignorance, isolation, and/or insecurity.  It's that easy.

But considering this reality, and as a wannabe gadfly myself, I would ask you...

Do you REALLY want to be popular?