"The protagony of vice villainizes virtue."

Excerpted from a cease and desist letter.

I presented my dissertation research at a national academic conference in May.  I had anticipated that injection into the marketplace of ideas since I started (obsessively) reading Nietzsche and the surviving Socratic dialogues in high school.  It's likely that those texts were the only reason that I reached university; as my mother could still probably attest, I almost dropped out in grade 11.  As I remarked to my current class of Writing 11-12 students the other day, my grade 11 and 12 Law teacher typically conducted all class time and assessments, including the exams, through fill-in-the-blank exercises that reiterated the courses' textbooks verbatim (every. single. class.).  My classmates and I were keen enough to know that this was dubious even as teenagers.  This teacher continued to teach at my public high school for years after I left, protected by the OSSTF no less.

Clichéd clichés, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  As a lower-middle class White male growing up with a single-parent mother in South-Western Ontario (with a genealogy of significant mental illness), I experienced oppression, but orders of magnitudes less than those of many of my current colleagues and friends.  This origin seems to have nurtured my empathy with those who have experienced or especially continue to experience absolute poverty—true desperation.  More than most of the people whom I've encountered in the academy, especially in its upper echelons, we often had to choose, deliberately and consistently from relatively young ages, to become the ways that we are now.  We didn't have the external pressures from our immediate communities (let alone families) to search for better lots in life; if anything, we faced opposite pressures.

However, I don't write this from self-pity.  This context is necessary to situate the subject of this post.

Why I—like those others—often confront the problem of protagony.  

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Sidebar.  I'm an English teacher.  Narrativization is an essential composite of both the learning and teaching processes of disciplinary English.  In some ways, we've never finished or transcended the Ancient Greeks' "agon".  The great contest continues unabated—among tragedians in fifth century BC Greece and among players of roles of all recreational, intellectual, and political stripes today.  However, arguably the self-consciousness of this role play and of the impulses to interpret, to retell, and to witness lived experiences through narrative has a history and developmental arc traceable to prehistory.  In other words, in some ways, the narrativization of these impulses to story can be traced to and reaffirming of the essentially human and therefore humanizing—ascriptions of prot-agon-y and antagony offering signs and signifiers of people attempting to interpret meaning from the human experience.  I don't know that we need Thomas King to confirm this, but he's still an awesome read.

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During a seminar at that academic conference, one of my department's professors contributed an interesting point regarding the liberation of inter-generationally oppressed peoples in systemically violent conflict zones.  The professor noted the importance of nurturing progatony among the oppressed.  On the surface, this object may seem rather benign and even benevolent.  However, like so many other tools of the human experience—empathy, charisma, sophistry, etc.—protagony is only as Good as the agent (self-)actualizing it.

I don't think I need to belabour societal obsession with heroes and heroism.  It's popcorn fare for the looking-glass self's validation.  These heroic narratives and narrativizations present elevated forms of protagony, appealing to their audiences' ideals.  As a gamer since toddlerhood, I grew up immersed in the protagonies of Japanese role-playing games.  It's terribly easy to inhabit these stories, since generally, people tend to find solace in the un(der)examined assumption that they may inhabit their own RPG.

But take two seconds to stare into the stars, and our collective cosmic insignificance is once again rendered obvious.  The universe probably doesn't care about us, falsifiably, and even if it did, we don't yet have the (observable) evidence necessary to validate thus.

Needless to say, we're probably not the heroes of our narratives; we might not even be Fifth Business.

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And yet, it's 2022, and people continue to heroize their choices and actions. But who among us are most predisposed to protagonization?  Our political leaders?  Sure.  Celebrities?  —I'm sure at least one or two people come to mind.  What do these folks have in common?  

Let me guess.  Do the germane characteristics validating their protagonistic candidacies involve (under-)philosophizing, a (lack of) truthfulness to their lived experiences, or a (repudiation of) the "conscientization" that this blog has alluded to since its inception?  Right.  As a virtue-ethicist, I make a point to avoid the skulljacking of virtue ethics, but the omnipresence of vice seeking validation (and most often exoneration) through protagonization has become comically conspicuous.  

Implicitly, an agent's protagonization of their actions requires an under-examination or self-deception.  Today, we endure the great irony that the people most inclined to narrativize themselves as protagonists tend to be the last to self-examine, if they ever bother to do so.  It's "those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness," as Sophie Scholl would say, who seem to be most predisposed to protagonize their actions and existences, if only as a last resort.

Crucially, this trend becomes especially worrisome among our intellectuals. After all, our "Doctors of Philosophy" have (allegedly) exhibited a threshold of love of wisdom, communicated a threshold of trustworthy truth value, and have (allegedly) habituated a threshold of consciousness and of conscientiousness critical of the former.  Intellectuals tend to be the most vulnerable to protagonizing their triumphs over adversity—as those among the most self-conscious of the gravity and magnitudes of their struggles and positionalities.

Make no mistake: A commitment to virtue can threaten the very existence of anyone protagonizing vice.  Those protagonizing vice will almost certainly experience harm in your presence, although necessarily self-inflicted. Virtue is the villainy of vice.  Moreover, the people aspiring to virtue tend to be the last people to self-identify as the protagonists of their own narratives.  Unadulterated self-examination tends to bar said individuals from the necessary myopia.

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When V for Vendetta reached theatrical release in Ontario, I paid to see it in theatres four times in just over a week (a substantial feat for a teenager pumping gas on weekends).  I knew nothing of the graphic novel at that time; I knew only that the Wachowski sisters had a hand in its production, and after ruminating over The Matrix for years, I knew that I needed to see this film—to attempt to understand it. After my first viewing, I would have rewatched it in its entirety on the spot.  The film's cultural legacy and co-opting aside, it still communicates the importance of fearlessness and of determination in the face of oppressors, of authoritarians, and of their contemporary iterations.

With few exceptions, we have almost no Disney-villain level antagonists today.  Most of the people who have been villainized have been ascribed such villainy for political purposes, usually through some collaborative gaslighting.  But this follows logically; if one has already protagonized vice, (let's call it an "hamartia" to keep my English colleagues satiated), the various varieties of prevarications tend to be one concentric circle deeper.

To conclude, the vile yet vociferous villains to virtue violate with vengeance the vocations of valor and veracity; yet, the virtuous vicars of vigorous vantage vacillate voicelessly, vetting varieties of ventures to venerably vanquish the vacuous villainy.  Voilà! The vanishing vanguard vie the vogue vignette: that the protagony of vice villainizes virtue.

Old thumbnail.

On appreciation

Christmas Truce of 1914

As the first round of holy-days draw to a close, I'm reminded of all those who could not for diverse trials and tribulations celebrate them with the same warmth and comfort as myself. 

I treasure holidays as an opportunity for reflection: an opportunity to reflect, yet again, on all that I, and my community, take for granted.  Just as consciousness is always becoming, growing, and fostering, so is our understanding of our privileges.  So many of us take for granted the reality that we'll never realize just how much we take for granted.  The wisdom that we know next to nothing will ironically never cease to serve as an impetus and agent in the fostering of new knowledge.

My reflection intensified as some members of my friends and family exchanged racist and homophobic remarks and jokes during one of our gatherings, as I'm sure some of my colleagues and peers may have witnessed with their own friends and families.  My siblings and I were fortunate enough to be gifted with a liberal education that inculcated a relatively greater respect for all human beings regardless of skin colour, ethnicity, gender, and sexual affinity.  An education that itself is often underestimated; one that often contributes to the formation of impossible expectations for those without such an education such as of those making the racist and homophobic comments.  I found myself in a situation where I had ample opportunity to unleash an indignant inclusivist self-righteous fury.  But I didn't.

Because an "indignant inclusivist self-righteous fury" is an oxymoron.  Militancy with regards to inclusivity can be both thoughtless and careless.  As I stated in the forerunner to this blog post

"just as it's easy for the conservative to turn inwards, it's easy for the liberal to turn their back on the conservative.  All you accomplish by turning your back on conservatives is to alienate, victimize, and thus, feed their conservatism even more.  It's easy to mock Tea Partiers, but much more difficult to empathize with them - to invite them to come together for the benefit of all."

All I would have fostered by going on an inclusive offensive was greater defensiveness, more justifications for feelings of victimization, more walls, and ultimately more exclusion.

I find myself cautioning my former classmates and all those involved in the movement for sustainable self-actualization.  We won't win converts to our cause by oppressing them, even if they are in fact ultimately in the wrong.  We'll win converts by fostering their appreciation. 

In one of my more abstract series of posts on this blog, I argued that unity is the way.  In the context of the current post, it's unity between the racists, the homophobes, and those they prejudge and fear, that is the good life for all.  Even the most oppressive human beings on the planet were, and still are, human beings.  Paulo Freire once argued that the oppressed must liberate their oppressors.  I can't imagine a situation in which unleashing a self-righteous fury could be liberating, unless it was truly directed towards unity. 

Education more often than not is simply a call to appreciation.  Whether it's an appreciation of processes, identities, events, ideas, or wisdom, one of our roles as learners and educators is to create appreciation where there was none before.  Just as we'll never realize just how much we take for granted, we'll never appreciate just how much we will never appreciate.  I embrace holidays as an opportunity to grow in appreciation and to slowly foster appreciation in others.

To quote the wisdom of Confucius a second time in this blog, “It is not the failure of others to appreciate your abilities that should trouble you, but rather your failure to appreciate theirs.”

Just another blog update

Hello everyone,

The lifestream.

I sincerely apologize for neglecting this blog.  In truth, this blog was pulled from the web for almost 2 months.  I recently started teacher's college. Given the constant haranguing my colleagues and I encounter in our professional programs in regards to maintaining a professional identity both in person and on the web, I ended up killing this blog.  It was heart-wrenching and, given the nature of some of the arguments put forth in this blog, even hypocritical. 

As such, in order to relaunch this blog, I needed to gut it in order to make it more reader friendly and politically correct.  Over the past 2 weeks in my scarce spare moments, I've reread and edited almost every post. 

For those of you who followed this blog in the past, you'll notice the domain name, the name of the blog, and the background have changed.  The blog's domain name, and actual name, used to be "just another blog on saving the world."  But like the blog, I myself have changed.  Specifically, my understanding of the cause (the self-actualization of all life and life not yet lived) has transformed greatly in the past couple months.

I've started asking myself, as someone dedicated to changing the world, "what would we be saving?"  Really.  Just what would anyone be saving right now?  If you look out your window, most of the time you'll just see bread and circuses.  We live in a world of shamelessly glorified hedonism.  When one attempts to save a world, they attempt to return a crisis situation to a former status quo.  I desire so much more than the status quo.

Hence the change in name.  "Just another blog for improving our world" is more accurate to my own vision and my vision for this blog.  The use of the word "for" rather than "on" in the title is intentional.  This platform is meant to be collaborative.  My teaching and pedagogy both informally and formally are dominated by dialogical collaboration.  These posts are simply conversation pieces: an opportunity to engage with one another.  Improvement isn't something one imposes on society.  It's something developed and fostered by a society from within itself collectively.

Further, I've changed the background from the classic matrix code to a new graphic more reflective of the blog's new mandate of improvement.  Rather than ending the war for people's minds, which the previous graphic symbolized, this new graphic is an artist's rendition of the lifestream, a brilliant metaphor from Final Fantasy VII.  I've alluded to the lifestream before.  The lifestream represents the collective souls of the planet.  I don't believe in souls or supernatural energy, but I do believe that all life is connected; that every thought and action we take creates ripples in our existences and all future existences born from our own.

So there you have it, the way forward.  I hope this blog will contribute to the improvement of our world.  Thanks for reading.  As always, comments welcome.

On Democracy

"At the earnest instigation of Plato and others of his friends [the judge] offered a fine which they would pay, but Socrates would give no undertaking to cease his 'corrupting' activities, on the grounds that to him they were more important than life itself" - W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle

As I find myself growing more and more political as of late, especially through my participation in democratic governance, I find myself growing more and more critical of democracy.

Basically anyone born in North America in the last half century has been raised as if democracy is the greatest, most benign and benevolent, political framework to ever have existed.  And many people accept it as such or lack the capacities and consciousness to even think otherwise.

For the TL;DR, the goodness of a democracy depends on the goodness of its majority.  Contrary to populist opinion, democracy is not rule by the people for the people.  It's actually rule by the majority of people for the people.

To illustrate, all motions in democratic governance delivered to deliberative assemblies are passed or rejected based on a majority of votes.  Sometimes a motion requires what's colloquially referred to in governance circles as a "simple majority."  A simple majority consists of 50% of the vote + 1.  In extraordinary circumstances, such as an addition to an agenda or a constitutional amendment, a motion may require a greater majority such as a 2/3s, 90%, or even unanimous consent.

Here's the problem.  The goodness of a decision of the deliberative body in the previous illustration depends entirely on the goodness of those who compose the majority of the vote.  In other words, if your majority is wrong, or worse: evil, you have a big problem.

Here's a couple examples of the former.  Hitler was elected.  Socrates's execution was determined by a democratic vote.  And this happened. 

Given the potential and actual problems of concentrating governmental power in the hands of the few, democracy is a kind of last best hope that the majority of a society will govern in the best interests of everyone.  There are many assumptions laid when one would argue that the majority of a society will govern well.  First, you're assuming the majority of that society is rational.  Secondly, you're assuming that the majority actually realizes what's in their best interest.  Finally, you're assuming that the majority has equal access to, and participation with, governance.

I don't know about you, but I've never in the whole history of humanity encountered a society in which the majority of people are rational, live good, and access and participate with governance equally and sufficiently.  Maybe that's too idealistic to ever become a reality.

Such was Plato's general opinion when he late in life wrote The Laws.  If you get the chance to wade through the book, you'll find an author completely disgusted and distrustful of democracy.  After all, his own democracy forced the suicide of his mentor and friend Socrates. 

Plato's solution to the potential problems of majority governance was the rule of law through a nearly unalterable set of laws shaped by the Nocturnal Council.  As the linked article demonstrates, there's a great deal of controversy surrounding the authority and actual function of the council.  However, it's almost certain that this council harbored the greatest quantities and qualities of wisdom.  They may not have been the philosopher kings of Plato's Republic, but they were to be the wisest: those with the greatest study and understanding of the good life.

In other words, Plato's solution to the potential threats of democratic rule was basically an oligarchy: rule by the few.  Lately I've become more and more attracted to this idea.

My attraction to oligarchy is based on the assumptions laid on the majority in a good democracy.  For an ideal, good, and effective democracy the majority needs to be rational.  Secondly, the majority has to have an informed understanding of what it means to live well; the qualities and virtues that compose a good life.  Finally, in order to have equal access to, and participation with, governance everyone must share and sustain procedural justice. 

In order to create such a majority of people in a society there needs to be systems in place that provide educations necessary to foster these qualities in its citizens.  North American societies today are well schooled, but hardly educated, especially when held to the standard of reason, goodness, and access to, and participation in, governance.

I'm of the opinion that the ultimate form of human governance is in fact a horizontal consensus democracy, vertically representative if only because of practical necessity.  Anarchists tend to forget that one of the main functions of the state is bureaucratic.  States first came into existence because there were a lot of people and a lot of resources to distribute.  Large groups of similar individuals came together to create institutions to handle large quantities of resources-both human and material.  Horizontal democracy is made a pipe dream by the practical realities of everyday life: the sheer number of people on the planet and the vast quantities of resources to distribute.

Although horizontal consensus governance remains the ideal form of human government, I believe oligarchy is a necessary, temporary, evil.  I believe that in order to create a sufficiently  educated, effective, good democracy, there needs to be a temporary rule by philosopher kings and queens.  A temporary oligarchy of philosophers because people can't grasp the value of an education that fosters reason, happiness, justice, and fairness, until they've actually got it. 

The question is, how could that ever possibly happen?

Oh wait... China.

(Admittedly China is not the ideal example but it's probably one of the best ones currently available)

"Unity is the Way" Part 3: Unity through Discourse; Discourse through Unity

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - MLK Jr.

I continuously learn while writing these posts; they, and I, constantly grow.  To demonstrate, this marks the second time I've rewritten this post from scratch, because I've refuted myself a second time as to the main impetus for unity.
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I discovered the greatest justification, yet, while reading Tasos Kazepides's Education as dialogue: Its prerequisites and its enemies, a book I stumbled upon while reading towards my Master's thesis. 

Like my proposed concept analysis, Kazepides sifts through the various potential requisites and obstacles to effective dialogue.  Although, as of what I've read so far, he has yet to mention the importance of unity.
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Succinctly, "unity is the way" because unity develops through discourse, and discourse develops through unity.

I've highlighted the importance of dialogue before, twice.  However, when I wrote those posts, I hadn't yet thought systematically about the criteria for effective dialogue.  While reading Kazepides, I had a small eureka when I considered the relationship between discourse and unity.

Simply stated, dialogue is a vehicle to unity, and unity: a vehicle to dialogue.   Unity develops as a result of the mutuality established in effective discourse, like that which I described in "OnMethods: How Dialogue will Change the World, Part 2." I provided an example in the former post of a dialogue on values in which participants develop and utilize empathy to understand and grasp the values of other participants.  I pragmatically labeled this development, and use, of empathy as "mutuality;" in quotations because I'm sure others have already used the term for such transactions or terms like it.  Mutuality consists of a harmony in which two or more individuals become more conscious of the degree to which their values shape their actions.  Mutuality terminates in a greater group consciousness: in collective insight and understanding.  In sum, the development of mutuality coincides with a greater harmony of the part(icipant)s.

Further, unity is a criteria for such dialogues.  As described in Part 2, unity is "the harmony of the parts that compose the whole."  Without the harmony of the parts, i.e. the absence of respect; active listening; and engagement of the the participants, dialogue will be ineffective.  As such, there is a requisite unity, or harmony, in order to create or establish a greater unity.  For example, effective dialogues have rules, conscious and unconscious, possibly including, but not limited to: respect, dignity, symbol systems, organizers, etc., all of which must be shared by participants for effective discourse.

Therefore, unity is both the means to, and ends of, an effective dialogue.  In order to tap into the transformative power of effective dialogue, unity must be the way.  And in order to create unity, there must be effective discourse.  The logic buttressing my argument is self-evidently circular.  But this circularity consists of a causal relationship.  To demonstrate, if you remove either, the other is limited: without effective discourse, unity is constrained. 

But importantly, as a causal circular relationship, unity and discourse function in a positive feed back loop.  (I.e., the more effective the discourse, the greater the unity and the greater the unity, the more effective the discourse.)

To consolidate and conclude several recent posts, to bring about real change and transformation of society: especially the good life for all, there must be discourse, and as such, there must be unity.  Neither is effective, or genuine, without the other.  Further, they are the vehicles to one another.  As such, one could equally argue that "discourse is the way," when arguing for the way of unity.  However, in general, in our society people are already discoursing: discussing, debating, deciding, etc., although most often ineffectively.  Because, in general, North American society has yet to do so truly, and genuinely, united.  At this juncture, most of us could benefit from unity more than discourse.  Ultimately, unity through discourse; discourse through unity; til my last breadth, "unity is the way."