Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Omnis humanum eīs alienum est
I've said this before from a different angle.
Good fiction writers and good journalists formerly followed the Latin motto Nihil humanum mihi alienum est. In plain English, they had empathy. First of all they understood that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. Then they tried to understand the motives of each DIFFERENT character they invented or encountered, without jamming everyone into one mode of thinking. They didn't lose their own values, but they knew that other people functioned with a different set of values and taboos.
Modern writers have lost this talent. They operate on an unexamined pseudologic: (1) All people are identical; (2) Therefore all people are identical to ME.
They are trapped in a solidly uniform echo chamber of extroverted, humorless, infinitely status-seeking personalities. A character who falls outside the model is incomprehensible. This absolute incomprehension manifests itself in two ways.
Sometimes the incomprehensible human is "transparentized", as shown by the perfectly echo-chambered Anna Rose here.
No cat ever did a better job of looking through an unwanted object!
Sometimes the incomprehensible human is killed figuratively or literally. Best example of this is the neocon mentality, as manifested by nearly all commentators and politicians in both "parties". The only set of values is the Gramscian set, which is basically the permanent value system of decadent inbred aristocrats everywhere. Highly social, maximally greedy, sexually promiscuous in all possible directions. Your basic 6-month-old galactic ego. Other values are not just impermissible, they are impossible because EVERY SQUARE INCH OF MY GLORIOUS NAKED INFINITE SELF encompasses the merely finite universe. Noncompliant types (introverts, seriously religious people, humble people) do not exist, and whenever their presence becomes known they can be killed with impunity.
Yet these infinitely narrow elites manage to perceive themselves as wide-ranging explorers of human possibilities, and they do have an impulse to seek variety. How do they square the circle? On the trivial level, by confusing human clothing and equipment with human variation. They certainly explore a wide range of clothing, accessories, tattoos, and hairstyles. On a more serious level, by exploring geography and space. This impulse seems to be exceedingly strong among the journalist species. They love to jet around to various spots, organize expeditions to the Arctic, and support space flight. (Again they assume that everyone shares their own peculiar desires, thus justifying huge taxpayer-funded exploration projects.)
When they encounter those different locations, they often apply the same rule that an old-fashioned journalist would apply to different humans. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.
For these monsters, nihil alienum applies to strange places but omnis alienum applies to strange people.
= = = = =
Later: Huxley saw this coming, didn't he? The modern Bernard and Lenina, with their brains jammed full of bad Gramscian theories and bad pseudologic, travel to strange New Mexico. They appreciate and respect the strangeness of the place, until they run into John The Savage whose mindset is beyond their comprehension. John doesn't seek status or money, he observes and experiences the world directly, he doesn't have pneumatic sex with everyone he meets, and he conforms his behavior to an absolute standard. ¶ 3:49 AM
Good fiction writers and good journalists formerly followed the Latin motto Nihil humanum mihi alienum est. In plain English, they had empathy. First of all they understood that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. Then they tried to understand the motives of each DIFFERENT character they invented or encountered, without jamming everyone into one mode of thinking. They didn't lose their own values, but they knew that other people functioned with a different set of values and taboos.
Modern writers have lost this talent. They operate on an unexamined pseudologic: (1) All people are identical; (2) Therefore all people are identical to ME.
They are trapped in a solidly uniform echo chamber of extroverted, humorless, infinitely status-seeking personalities. A character who falls outside the model is incomprehensible. This absolute incomprehension manifests itself in two ways.
Sometimes the incomprehensible human is "transparentized", as shown by the perfectly echo-chambered Anna Rose here.
No cat ever did a better job of looking through an unwanted object!
Sometimes the incomprehensible human is killed figuratively or literally. Best example of this is the neocon mentality, as manifested by nearly all commentators and politicians in both "parties". The only set of values is the Gramscian set, which is basically the permanent value system of decadent inbred aristocrats everywhere. Highly social, maximally greedy, sexually promiscuous in all possible directions. Your basic 6-month-old galactic ego. Other values are not just impermissible, they are impossible because EVERY SQUARE INCH OF MY GLORIOUS NAKED INFINITE SELF encompasses the merely finite universe. Noncompliant types (introverts, seriously religious people, humble people) do not exist, and whenever their presence becomes known they can be killed with impunity.
Yet these infinitely narrow elites manage to perceive themselves as wide-ranging explorers of human possibilities, and they do have an impulse to seek variety. How do they square the circle? On the trivial level, by confusing human clothing and equipment with human variation. They certainly explore a wide range of clothing, accessories, tattoos, and hairstyles. On a more serious level, by exploring geography and space. This impulse seems to be exceedingly strong among the journalist species. They love to jet around to various spots, organize expeditions to the Arctic, and support space flight. (Again they assume that everyone shares their own peculiar desires, thus justifying huge taxpayer-funded exploration projects.)
When they encounter those different locations, they often apply the same rule that an old-fashioned journalist would apply to different humans. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.
For these monsters, nihil alienum applies to strange places but omnis alienum applies to strange people.
= = = = =
Later: Huxley saw this coming, didn't he? The modern Bernard and Lenina, with their brains jammed full of bad Gramscian theories and bad pseudologic, travel to strange New Mexico. They appreciate and respect the strangeness of the place, until they run into John The Savage whose mindset is beyond their comprehension. John doesn't seek status or money, he observes and experiences the world directly, he doesn't have pneumatic sex with everyone he meets, and he conforms his behavior to an absolute standard. ¶ 3:49 AM
