Seed Con

There is an artificiality to representative government that doesn't make it the worst, because of all systems of government the potential of representative government to responsibly steward the public trust is realizable,

more so than autocracies characterized by oligarchic governments.  

But.

Not being the worst is a low bar for potential. Notwithstanding, not being the worst is not an acceptable justification for leaning into broadly autocratic posturing in defense of increasingly oligarchic positions loudly and proudly welcomed by every branch of a representative government.

Seed Con

The 'seeds of the ruin of representative governments' are neither the idea of representative government itself nor the vulnerability of 'the people' to widespread manipulative programming nor the fragility of institutions that are 'stress-tested'.

Please.

It is far simpler than that.

The so-called 'seeds of the ruin of representative governments' are individuals (a) who either aspire to ruin representative governments or (b) whose aspirations tolerate the ruin of representative governments as acceptable collateral damage.

I

Such that there's much ado about 'the idea' of representative government. 

Is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people serving us? Would an absolute sovereign serve us better? If we elect a public servant whose campaign boldly promises a reign that rules by decree, does this not prove the public's popular approval of a dictator-elect?

But this ado is a conceit.

That confuses an individual's aspiration with a public's false choice. If this choice is a public's only legitimate choice, then any vote for such choice cannot be understood as a wholesale approval for every campaign promise issued by such individual and nothing less.

I mean, really?

*

Likewise, there's much ado about the vulnerability of 'the people' to widespread manipulative programming.

Where are people getting their information? How many purveyors of information lean into engagement and virality at the expense of robust fidelity to a factual reality? What if a de-facto state-media amplifies half-truths, lies-by-omission, unfounded-conspiracies, and baseless-alternate-facts?

But this ado is arrogant.

That assumes a people's credible interest in a factual-reality-based worldview. Such that if a people welcomes a fictional-narrative-based prism of experience, this cannot be understood as a meaningful 'middle ground' for information disseminating.

Seriously?

*

Moreover, there's much ado about the fragility of institutions that are 'stress-tested'.

When a branch of representative government - condones explicitly criminal actions or revokes constitutional safeguards or issues dictatorial orders, for example - these are not acts of God. 

These are acts of mortal public servants answerable to the people they serve.

While this ado demands a citizenry not fall asleep at the wheel,

with respect to the 'seeds of the ruin of representative governments', this ado invokes panic the way bulls are motivated to go along with a planned plot, without being in on their planned self-sacrifice. 

In other words, when stress-tested institutions are criticized, this cannot be understood as a provocation that unleashes suffocating illiberal inflexibility.

I mean, come on.

II

A representative government does not need to be a paragon of democracy or the ideal republic, to mindfully preside over a flourishing nation.

It does not need to grimly quash unseen cabals, vicious algorithms, or lost causes of dominating purpose, for a people to appreciate the difference between being reasonably informed and being sold a hill to die on behind a line in the sand.

No more than it needs to harden institutions in order to safeguard them from us. 

*

Because the 'seeds of the ruin of representative governments', 

which is to say, the problem

is not whether a government is not serving us, or how misinformation influences an electorate, or who or what institutions enrich and empower at the expense of a democracy or a republic.

*

The problem is individuals who wreck representative governments when they would rather a representative government be corrupted - or hog-tied to the whims of powerful interested parties - or exploded into smoking rubble -

than steward the public trust.

Because individuals whose aspirations tolerate the ruin of representative governments as acceptable collateral damage - do not care 

that the price, the cost, and the consequences of what they believe and who they follow -

harm

III

It is easy to know you are right and everybody else be damned. To harbor screeds of sanctimonious rage against diabolical fools. To be confident in the unqualified conviction that to the venal and mercenary, go the victories and spoils.

*

It is inconceivable to know you are wrong.

*

When a representative government becomes corrupted - when a democracy is hog-tied to the whims of powerful interested parties - when a republic is exploded into smoking rubble - this is not the will of a citizenry.

Instead, this is the will of individuals emboldened by the knowledge that their theft of the public trust is met by cooperation and appeasement by those for whom victories and spoils are for the taking.

One and all, these individuals dissemble and deceive and distort and disinform, so as to clothe themselves in a narrative of being the will of the people represented fairly and obediently. Never mind the transparent fiction of pretense and imposture.

*

When pretense and imposture are - through amplified half-truths, lies-by-omission, unfounded-conspiracies, and baseless-alternate-facts - championed as decisively popular - this is not the voice of an electorate.

Instead, this is the voice of individuals emboldened by the knowledge that their theft of the public trust is predictably met by silence, performative inaction, indifference, and exhausted overwhelm.

Because who would dare challenge the will and voice of the people?

*

Who?

The people

from whom is exacted the price, the cost, and the consequences of what such individuals believe and who such individuals follow.

Because the welcoming of broadly autocratic posturing in defense of increasingly oligarchic positions by every branch of a representative government

is no more harmless to real people living real lives in the real world than it safeguards democracies and republics from seeds that birth the poisonous fruit of ruin in the name of the will of the people.

 

More or Being Better Angels

Sure. It's a little weird. To choose somebody.

To 'run' a representative government of people, by people, for people.

I mean.

How many of you really know what it takes to 'run' such a representative government. So actual few of you that many of you think millionaires and billionaires are 'exceptionally' and 'inherently' qualified to do the job.

As if having millions and billions of dollars to 'show' for themselves, means they have 'what it takes'.

Jesus.

*

It's more than a little weird. To trust somebody.

Not only to be your voice and your will - but also to be their voice and their will.

I mean.

A representative government of all, by all, for all is not of few, by few, for few.

But. A few is who decides a lot. Case in point, 'political parties' or 'partisan factions', from the tickets to the platforms to the allocation of funds for down ballot races to the public appearances at traditional and nontraditional circuses, here, there, but not everywhere.

Never mind that everywhere is where all of us are.

*

So, there is an artificiality, a being better angels, to the potential of representative government to responsibly steward the public trust being realizable.

But autocracies characterized by oligarchic governments that responsibly steward the public trust?

That is not weird.

That is a con.

M

*

Annotation and Further Reading

To the extent that this topic is impossible to thoroughly address, I've included a few notable, but not exhaustive, annotations, below.

M

*

(i) "unseen cabals", "vicious algorithms", "lost causes of dominating purposes"

are not without influence but when any influence is "grimly [quashed]" per "provocation that unleashes suffocating illiberal inflexibility"

this is less to do with "being the will of the people represented fairy and obediently" than with control;

etc.

see ex. Annotation (vi) from Imaginary Guardrails (December 4, 2024, tvfs);

(ii) "whether a government is not serving us, or how misinformation influences an electorate, or who or what institutions enrich and empower at the expense of a democracy or a republic"

are often what are grandiosely decried: "the problem"

such that "[corrupting]" government, "[hog-tying it] to the whims of powerful interested parties", "[exploding it] into smoking rubble" are "loudly and proudly welcomed"

as solutions;

via and as if "amplified half-truths, lies-by-omission, unfounded-conspiracies, and baseless-alternate-facts - championed as decisively popular" are not concomitantly "[invoked]"

"the way bulls are motivated to go along with a planned plot, without being in on their planned self-sacrifice";

etc.

see Dear Reader, A Word (April 20, 2024, tvfs);

(iii) "what they believe and who they follow"

as to "what they believe",

see ex. The Keys to the Kingdom and Other Nonsense (September 27, 2024, tvfs), etc.;

as to "who they follow",

see ex. The Hypothetical Parrot King (April 20, 2020, tvfs), etc.;

etc.  

(iv) "by cooperation and appeasement by those for whom victories and spoils are for the taking" and "by silence, performative inaction, indifference, and exhausted overwhelm"

in the end, "individuals who wreck representative governments" do not do so alone; they do so with the "cooperation and appeasement" of the "you are right and everybody else be damned";

see ex. When Democracy for Coin (November 11, 2020, tvfs);

with the "confident in the unqualified conviction that to the venal and mercenary, go the victories and spoils";

see ex. The Quiet Part Aloud (September 29, 2023, tvfs);

with "a citizenry... asleep at the wheel";

see ex. Addendum from Whose Deciding Opinion Is Just (January 4, 2022, tca);

with "much ado"; 

etc.

(v) "Who? The People"

as to "who would dare challenge the will and voice of the people?"

see The Backbone Estate (November 24, 2024, tvfs);

etc.

M

Clarifying a 'Right' to Life

Everybody thinks everybody should know what a 'right' to life means as defined by opinions espoused by everybody who opines.

Clarifying a 'Right' to Life

Preface

To be clear, I don't subscribe to any assumption that all opinions are 'equally right' regardless of the content of such opinions or because of the platform of such opinions or blah blathering blah. 

Rather, I subscribe to a rational discourse as a participant in governed society.

*

I. Existing Life

The first thing to know is: ova-bearers are born with ova. Yet to equivalize ova-bearers and ova, especially with respect to a 'right' to life, reduces ova-bearers to ova-bearers.

Such that it bears iterating: a 'right' to live is neither secondary to ova bearing nor is superseded by ova existing.

To proclaim otherwise, is to nullify the personal agency and independence of girls and women. To proclaim otherwise, is to mandate reproduction at the expense of the personhood of daughters and mothers.

*

II. The 'Piety' Façade

The second thing to know is: who decides what is 'precious'. That is, what is 'sacred'.

To equivalize a right to personally define 'sanctity' and a law that institutes compulsory obedience to evangelized 'truths' - which is to say, to equivalize a personal exercise of 'faith' and a submission to theocracy prominently codified - is

to unequivocally reject democracy.

For all that loyalists to ideology define this as a freedom guaranteed by democracy, this is an infringement on girls and women and a shackle on daughters and mothers.

To wit: robbing ova-bearers of their autonomy and inviolate dignity is not an entitlement safeguarded by democracy professedly because an undemocratic principle adopts a façade of 'piety'. 

*

III. The 'Justice' Twofer

The third thing to know is: the 'status' of personhood is fabulated to retribute and vainglory. In other words, to exact vengeance and satisfy ego, jurisprudence has validated a 'status' for unborn cells.

Such cells, no bigger than dust and ash, lacking intentional and competent devotion to a moral belief system, upon achieving 'legal personhood', have become 'lives' lost. Such cells, no more substantial than a few centimeters or ounces, fabulated into fully formed persons, have become 'victims' that demand pounds of flesh from their accused.

Finally, adversaries have become avengers who notch the unborn among the avenged for ambition. Never mind a dictate for justice from such cells being thoroughly imaginary

fiction.

*

 

IV. The 'Care' Charade

The fourth thing to know is: care is tangible. Words alone are not evidence of actual care.

Proof of care is free accessible medical services for ova-bearers; child care for ova-bearers' dependents; and financial assistance for food and housing for ova-bearers and their dependents. Because bona fide care is paramount, measurable, and consequential.

Such that a question begs to be asked: why is actual care, ostensibly heartfelt yet passionately denied, by speakers of wall to wall words, unambiguously abhorrent?

*

V. Real Life

The fifth thing to know is: real life is neither an outlier nor hypothetical. Which is to say, real world aftermaths of calculable magnitude are neither irrelevant nor unknowable.

After all, the risk of injury and violence towards girls and women is quantifiably higher when girls and women are ova-bearing. And there are few conditions more matter of factly lethal to daughters and mothers, than ova-bearing.

To restrict a public dialogue on abortion, to villainous caricatures and fantastical improbabilities, is to conspicuously ignore:

that minimally gainful employment rarely accommodates pre-natal and post-natal ova-bearers; that parenthood materially alters lives charged with child-bearing, child-rearing, and child-supporting; that families in poverty disproportionally bear the brunt of policies that restrict, limit, and/or ban family planning; and much more. 

Participants in a representative democracy who elect whether or not to ova-bear, as an entitlement part and parcel to being free, are neither deserving of condemnation nor invisibility.

*

Postface

To be clear, I don't subscribe to any expectation that one's platform, be it lectern or broadcast or blog; or one's opines, be they reasoned or believed or pretended; or blah blathering blah, dictates or informs.

Rather, I subscribe to upholding real persons with real experiences, in the real world.

I don't live in a kingdom or paradise, that indwells as a feature or condition of a system of belief. Nor am I judged by an absolute deity or all-forgiving all-father, that delivers damnation or salvation, per a practice or observation of a system of belief.

Rather, I live in the real world, where I am subject to real laws divined by real persons, that impact everybody. Here, I subscribe to upholding what's real.

Addendum

Let's talk about COVID-19 for a minute.

*

In the first twelve months that a novel coronavirus plagued so many, there were a sizeable many that insisted: the pandemic was 'fake' and nothing should change for a 'fake pandemic'. They declared: 'I don't care you, do you?' They bellyached: their hardships were 'indisputably extraordinary' and mitigation measures were 'irrefutably to blame'. They caviled: this alternate 'reality' was 'their truth'.

Never mind in staggering sum, bodies were interred and loved ones mourned. Fever, diarrhea, fatigue, and so on, debilitated swaths of the unwell across transport and transit hubs, residential care homes, prisons and jails, and so on. Because a novel coronavirus circulated everywhere everybody wasn't 'sheltering in place'.

To wit: intentional and competent devotion to a moral belief system, inspired a sizeable many to live by a 'truth' that was a fiction.

*

You see, how COVID-19 is an object lesson...

in condemnation and invisibility?

*

There are many good reasons good people seek safe health care that includes abortions. Such that 'rape and incest' are hardly the only 'legitimate conditions' for such care. Notwithstanding, such 'exceptions' stipulate evidentiary justification to safeguard the liability of care providers and their eligibility for insurance coverage 'for exceptions'. Which is to say, to state the obvious,

exceptions are never rules.

Case in point: 'exceptions' on the basis of 'conscience', for example, professed by care providers who imperiously oppose care that includes abortions, nullify 'exceptions' affirmed by care seekers, every day of the week everywhere care seekers seek care. Including 'exceptions' on the basis of saving a life. 

Because maternal mortality is an acceptable outcome for a sizeable many who practice or observe a system of belief that reduces ova-bearers to ova-bearers.

*

Tell me I'm wrong.

Tell me

that nullifying the personal agency and independence of girls and women and mandating reproduction at the expense of the personhood of daughters and mothers, is not

a cavalier and hostile indifference to the autonomy and inviolate dignity of ova-bearers.

M

*

Author's Note

Should I speak on the topic of abortion... only to cede a 'right' to my voice

to everybody who opines? including a sizeable many whose personal exercise of 'conscience' imprisons 'we the ova-bearers'... to reproductive potential?

Should I speak on the topic of abortion... only with permission? And

not at all if I decline to beatify the florid self-induced rage that miscarriage, infertility, surrogacy, and adoption smugly self-indulges... because abortion?

Should I speak on the topic of abortion... only if, say,

I'm a mother who's endured an indescribably miserable expectancy that culminated in a life-saving C-section? Or I've suffered the issue of a secret severed by legal disposition and profiteering inhumanity? Or divested of bodily autonomy, I've performed... child-bearing?

Should I speak on the topic of abortion... if the gift of health care that includes abortion was never my portion?

*

A 'right' to life is

to be a clinical resident at a hospital, waiting until the requirements of an exceptional medical education are undoubtedly past, to thoughtfully grow a family... or to be on a critical mission on foreign soil, unconcerned that an expectancy shall derail a meaningful dedication to duty... or to be a widow, plunged into unexpected single parenthood, considerately terminating an unviable future...

A 'right' to life is to be, a parent or not, per self-determined election. Thus it isn't me in the end; it isn't you or your personal exercise of 'conscience'; it isn't everybody who opines that decides the last opinion on the topic of abortion

for everybody.

M

Whose Deciding Opinion Is Just

 Why do we think it's a terrible idea to reform justice?

*

Is it because it's working as intended?

Really?

For whom?

*

Is it because no one is qualified to criticize justice except justice's own?

As if, institutions that police their own, (i) by charter, never serve and protect their own, (ii) through oversight, never guarantee their own immunity, (iii) by deed, never ignore their own manifest dishonesty and corruption. Not a single board. Not a single association. Not a single organization or body or authority.

Because amateurs are unfit at best and incompetent at worst, but

professionals are above reproach?

*

Is it because it's as it should be?

For "receivers" of justice:

The imprisoned should be dispossessed of liberty, forever? Because the "right" of victims, principal or incidental, is the "right" of vengeance?

The formerly incarcerated should be denied dignified employment, forever? Because the "right" of communities, of the decent and good, is the "right" of retribution? 

The adjudicated should be disenfranchised of the right to vote, forever? Because the "right" of the people, (yours or mine or theirs?), is the "right" of reprisal?

As for "functionaries" of justice:

Prosecutors should be bloodthirsty? Because the law exacts retaliation?

Judges should be callous? Because the law promises indifference?

Surrogates should be pitiless? Because the law suffers clemency never?

*

Is it because no one is as faultless as justice's own?

As if, (i) there has never existed a surrogate who erred, (ii) there has never existed a judge who abandoned neutrality, (iii) there has never existed a prosecutor who misrepresented. Not a single fact. Not a single truth.

Because sympathetic interests are illiterate at best and delusional at worst, but

functionaries of justice are honorable to a fault?

 *

What if this isn't about opposition or reform?

What if this is about loyalties?

And self-preservation?

And winning?

*

Because, in the end, what if this isn't about justice at all?

What if this is about narratives?

About:

the decency and goodness of the loyal? the constant threat of treachery by the policed? the indispensable courage that wins the war for peace? and

what's right and what's wrong?

*

Moreover, what if opposition to reform justice, is therefore, a proxy?

Like so:

(i) an imminent existential danger by reform and its proponents, is publicly pitched as the brave heart of opposition,

(ii) while such heart's shadow campaign executes with purpose, a laundry list of objectives that secure loyalties and indulge narratives

(iii) advantageous to hiring, electing, and appointing its own functionaries of justice

(iv) whose power to decide what's right and what's wrong, every decade past, present, and future, 

(v) is what opposition to reform is the proxy for.

*

Thus, opposition is a proxy for control.

From narratives to laws.

Such that a message the public believes about winning the war for peace, for example, is nothing more than a tool of tools.

Venal and mercenary.

To pave paths without obstacles.

To be the law.

*

Until every functionary who opposes judicial reform, law reform, police reform, prison reform, leniency reform, and so on,

is the law.

From the bench, book, badge, and so on,

every servant of the people.

As if,

after all is said and done, to be hired, elected, or appointed to serve,

is to self-serve.

Because it is so and so it is. And never mind any and every opposing opinion on the matter. Because the deciding opinion

is the law of the land.

 

More

Because the deciding opinion is the law,

let's acknowledge:

(i) judges are hired, elected, or appointed to be deciding opinions;

(ii) and insofar as supreme courts choose the cases that appear before them, these too are deciding opinions;

(iii) likewise, offices of prosecution choose the cases they present, the charges they file, the cases they drop, the convictions they review, and so on;

(iv) and insofar as sheriffs and police chiefs, whether hired, elected, or appointed, lead their institutions, they also exercise deciding opinions; 

(v) and insofar as each and every cog in the justice system, performs a role as a functionary of justice, each and every cog in the justice system, exercises deciding opinions, too;

(vi) including elected officials who pardon wrongdoers of wrongdoing, as a matter of prerogative and opinion, that is, divine right cum partisan conviction.

- M.

*

Addendum

When a citizenry falls asleep at the wheel, with respect to civic participation in civic discourse, the course that is championed and reinforced, is, too often, neither "decent" nor "good."

Such that when "a noble cause" or "a just war" sucks all the oxygen from civic discourse, the "conversation" that ensues is a sham. 

In other words:

when we're oblivious and we couldn't give less of a shit; or when we're overwhelmed by sufferance and disillusion; or when we're howlers of absurdities, idle and incoherent; or so forth,

what fills the void in the absence of a citizenry's whole and hale engagement, is a discourse calculated to further that which is venal and mercenary.

Such that the "conversation" that follows isn't that of a real cause or a real war, so much as a created fiction.

Because amplifying and echoing calculated discourse is part and parcel to a laundry list of objectives that secure loyalties and indulge narratives advantageous to exercising power without opposition.

For to the asleep at the wheel, go neither what's decent nor what's good.

- M.

*

Note

When a whiff of maybe there's room for fairness here, begets death threats, what excites such rage?

Likewise, when a whiff of maybe there's room for scrutiny here too, evokes ireful pique, what excites such performative hostility?

Whether the audience flame-soaking is for, is "in on the joke" or not,

it's not decency or goodness.

Please.

Furthermore, when, for example, originalists for divine right, endlessly campaign for justice to be both aped with a wink and enforced with an unyielding inhumanity,

it's not decency or goodness whose deciding opinion has been, is, and would be the law.

As if, "what's right" and moreover "what's just," is the created fiction that a vote for pique and an act of partisan conviction, has been, is, and would be a vote for "dignity" and an act of "grace."

*

Case in point:

The recent use of one phrase to represent another, from an explicit revelry at a sporting event, to a lit representation of a Christmas spirit, to a parting salvo on a Christmas Eve, for example.

Insofar as what's obvious must be decrypted: decency and goodness are not what, say, flame-soaking is for. 

When a citizenry asleep at the wheel, roars and applauds

conduct defended as "acts of free speech" that "should not only be condoned, but honored" in a free and fair democracy, such that any criticism of, say, flame-soaking and its concomitant revelation of "unimpeachable heroism," "should not only be shamed, but reviled" as a hypocrisy,

none the wiser that tools make tools of a citizenry, 

what's lionized isn't what's right and what's just.

Please.

- M.

*

A brief annotation

(i) "Because amateurs are unfit at best and incompetent at worst, but professionals are above reproach?" is not my opinion, per se,

so much as a rationalization, popularly circulated in opposition to reform, that anyone who criticizes is an "amateur," "unfit at best and incompetent at worst."

Likewise, "Because sympathetic interests are illiterate at best and delusional at worst, but functionaries of justice are honorable to a fault?" is not my opinion, per se,

so much as a mockery, popularly circulated in opposition to reform, that to find fault signifies a "sympathetic interest," "illiterate at best and delusional at worst."

(ii) "Because the law exacts retaliation," "Because the law promises indifference," "Because the law suffers clemency never."

are not only meant to convey "it is what it is" and "therefore it is done;"

these are also meant to convey that the law is a person, who is "objectivity personified," instead of a tool, crafted to be "interpreted" by deciding opinions, including, divine right.

(iii) "the decency and goodness of the loyal? the constant threat of treachery by the policed? the indispensable courage that wins the war for peace? and what's right and what's wrong."

Obviously, these are examples of "narratives," as aforementioned by "What if this is about narratives?" and not my opinion, per se.

Likewise, "an imminent existential danger by reform and its proponents, is publicly pitched as the brave heart of opposition" is not my opinion, per se,

so much as an objective of objectives executed with purpose that secures loyalties and indulges narratives.

(iv) "decent," "good," "a noble cause," "a just war," and "conversation" from Addendum (above)

are further examples of aforementioned "narratives," coded with meaning beyond literal, including created fiction, and executed with purpose, including as tools that make tools of a citizenry;

see also Note (above).

(v) "The recent use of one phrase to represent another, from an explicit revelry at a sporting event, to a lit representation of a Christmas spirit, to a parting salvo on a Christmas Eve, for example."

refer to conduct not limited to a backdrop of audible spectators to an interview with an auto race winner, a theme of a lighted boat parade entrant, an amended holiday greeting during a Santa tracking livestream, and so on;

etc.

- M.

The Turn of the Blind Eye

I

(i) A proxy for a God

Is justice just if it is a proxy for a God?

Alas, who on Earth knows the will of a God? To further still, speak for a God? To say with irrefutable conviction: this is the will of a God and that is not?

Notwithstanding as mortals of a mortal world: why submit to order beyond a mortal rule of law ever? Because a God says so? Whose God? Yours? Or mine? Or theirs?

(ii) A proxy for a power

Is justice just because you say your justice is just?

Because proclamation is proof? 

If your justice is just by your say so, is your proclamation not a proxy for a power? After all, your disparagements and discredits and dismissals are your say so of justice not yours. Therefore what say you:

is my justice? Or theirs?

(iii) A proxy for a human

Or is justice just because you are just? For you are above what? Mere mortals? Unto whom you render judgment? For mere mortals are "partial" while you are "blind"?

Pray tell me:

what are arrogance and conceit above?

II

No proof other than the history of civilization is necessary to acknowledge:

justice is unjust

in the hands of those who hark themselves instruments of God; in the hands of those who rattle the might of arms; and in the hands of those who see themselves above lesser flesh and bone.

Such that ceremonies of fairness that anoint such unjustness are as ignoble as lies. For oaths sworn to uphold precedential human endeavor are not guarantees of justness.

III

In other words:

justice in hands that pretend to be superhuman is a fiction, an anachronism in an age of reality wherein neither belief nor prerogative nor consent, neither of a God nor for a power nor by a human, decides what is just.

Therefore the eye of a proxy that adopts pretend blindness to behold justice like a glorious marble superhero is not the eye that sees what is just; that eye is the eye of all.

More

The greatest "check and balance" of every branch of government is not an other branch of government; it is the eye of all; it is the wherewithal of all of us to see something, to say something, to do something. Which is not to say that "checks and balances" are "in the eye of the beholder"; it is instead to say:

if the only eyes that are "checking and balancing" are the eye of proxies, we the all are fools to throw away our shot to be the people by whom our government is by, for whom our government is for, and of whom our government is of.

For what? For what entertains us? Then this reveal is for us:

a government so ordinary and boring - without the eye of all - is an illusion of original democracy - a canary that pretends to be a pledge canary - a trick - played on the deceived by deceivers.

Needless to say, such a confidence game that rouses our applause makes a fool of we the all and our nerveless surrender to deceivers. After all:

prestige canaries are no more miraculous than a lie.

- M. 

*

Addendum

Who are our arbiters and who decides?

You? Me? Them?

What are we judging and what is fair?

What you see? What I say? What they do?

*

As of yore, we appoint ourselves as arbiters of what is seen, of what is said, and of what is done. Further still, we roar aggrieved when we are challenged by a reality not as our eyes behold it. As if how valid our grievances and how legitimate our positions are measured in decibels and amplitudes.

Especially with respect to platforms that host us; that is, social media. Such that our mission to see something, to say something, to do something is our campaign to make social media ours qua arbiters anointed with immunity; that is, ours to whip into froths for our pet causes and ours to punish relentlessly for our pet complaints.

This performed on a world wide stage is the answer to who are our arbiters and who decides and what are we judging and what is fair.

*

Meanwhile, platforms that host us, also host champions of what is just. Individuals and groups and organizations and institutions whose seen, whose said, and whose done are truths that are attacked everywhere it is unlawful to publicize truths; where the imprisonment, torture, assassination, and execution of champions is.

Such that our crusade against social media is our war against the greatest "check and balance" of every branch of government everywhere: the eye of all.

For what? For the turn of the blind eye?

When the blind eye is the eye that sees what is just, I do not doubt that pigs will fly at the same decibel and amplitude as pigs will walk on two legs.

- M. 

*

Note

"the pledge", "the turn", and "the prestige" from The Prestige (Christopher Priest) and "The Prestige" (Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan), etc.

- M. 

Greatness Worth Striving For

Supremacy pretending to be equality is not justice. Which is to say, white supremacy pretending to be for "all lives matter" is not equality.

It is, instead, "identity politics" perversed.

A if-they-can-do-it-I-can-do-it-too politics. To right wrongs with wrongs. To might-makes-right because might-says-so. To anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-one-better.

*

Needless to say, supremacy on any premise that pretends otherwise, is a fraud. But monolithizing supremacy has its limits.

While every supremacy is equally unjust, the consequences of supremacy beg for not one size fits all solutions.

Because a supremacist whose most egregious act of supremacy is to, say, not employ a woman, should not be monolithized with a supremacist whose least egregious act of supremacy is to, say, execute a policy of rejecting applicants for asylum who believe not in Jesus Christ.

Notwithstanding, supremacy is both obvious and not. While the supremacist who refuses to hire a woman for a "man's work" and a "man's pay" is often obvious, the supremacist who executes a policy that preferentially privileges believers in Christianity is often not.

Hence, supremacy that fakes otherwise, is rife when fakery gets the job done.

*

Which isn't to say that supremacy isn't also loud and proud. But the in-your-face supremacist cock walking Don't Tread On Me license plates and flipping birds at College Mom bumper stickers isn't the groomed and heeled supremacist whose mission to salvage descendants of the Atlantic slave trade are poster children for white saviors blessed with colorblindness.

When pretending to be just is a seraphic halo more convincing than a bona fide, supremacy hides in plain sight.

While rude gesturers squeeze their public infamy to monetize their relevance as venal campaign trail props, inclined adopters of black and brown children comfortably perverse "identity politics".

Because supremacy pretending to be blind is supremacy engineered to survive to full throatedly oppose equality and justice.

*

Fueling hatred feigning peaceful advocacy and engineering cover for closet supremacy is neither justice nor equality.

Therefore, I am for neither.

Rather, I am for:

the courage to say:

we are the problem

and

without us

there is no solution;

and the courage not to fail to act.

*

Justice and equality isn't taking supremacy pretending to be for freedom at face value; justice and equality isn't taking unilateral judgment pretending to safeguard democracy at face value. 

Justice and equality isn't a pretense of itself.

Justice and equality is the spine to see the corrosive power of supremacy to sabotage and dismantle real peace; justice and equality is the spine to say real peace is a greatness worth striving for; justice and equality is the spine to do more than nothing.

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Whether we face slick brittle veneers that are manifestly unconvincing or exceptionally convincing, supremacists are with us and our own.

Thus not dialoging with supremacists at all cannot be the greatness towards which we strive for.

Though the well from which supremacy draws to desolate and deface every step towards justice and equality is steadfast, justice and equality is buoyed by that which is resolute and ceaseless:

faith in the possible.

For a greatness worth striving for isn't in our past, it's in the possible; whether or not the possible will be realized is wholly a matter of courage.

- M.

Addendum

Militias, mothers, and movements are not the enemy. To wit, being for justice and equality is not being anti militias, mothers, and movements. Rather:

Activists for supremacy are activists for supremacy. 

Activists for supremacy who adopt the identityism of "identity politics" in order to advance that which are counterfeits of real efforts towards justice and equality are frauds.

Even when such identityism bullhorns its advocacy as fights for patriotism, freedom, and liberty. For without qualification there's nothing heroic about standing for unjust and unequal treatment of human beings based on their so-called "identity" on the basis of [fill in the blank: race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc.]. Much less because you are militias, mothers, and movements.

Notwithstanding, your patriotism, freedom, and liberty are not at the pleasure and mercy of you and your own. They're at the wherewithal of all of us to preserve that which is worth preserving.

Surely that's not supremacy? Or is that which is self-evident and endowed by our creator: injustice and inequality for all?

- M.

Social Justice and Equality: The Crippling Bias of Label Privilege

What if what we're after isn't social justice and equality for all -- but social justice and equality for some? Moreover, what if how we examine the phenomena that drive our understanding of social justice and equality -- steers us in a direction diametrically opposed to justice and equality?

Verily, when the lens of label privilege is applied to the phenomena that drive our understanding of social justice and equality -- it unequivocally narrows our scope of examination to specific injustices and specific inequalities that further specific label agendas at the unqualified expense of justice for all and equality for all.

For how do we identify social injustices and inequalities? By label. How do we classify victims of social injustice and inequality? By label. How do we institute policies that remedy social injustices and inequalities? By label.

What if...

We remove labels from the lens by which we examine these phenomena?

Verily, what if we identify social injustices and inequalities without labels? What if we classify victims of social injustices and inequalities without labels? What if we institute policies that remedy social injustices and inequalities without labels?

Then...

What would constitute a social injustice or inequality? Would social injustices and inequalities... change? Would victims of social injustice and inequality... change? Would the policies that we implement to remedy social injustices and inequalities... change?

Indeed, the crippling bias of label privilege is so vehemently defended, so vastly entrenched, and so ardently sanctified, that the mere idea of exploring social justice and equality without labels... is extraordinarily preposterous.

Is it not?

Frankly, it's absurd because our understanding of social justice and equality is wholly predicated on labels. (Not to mention, that our understanding of social justice and equality is also wholly polluted by the rampantly deleterious exercise of label privilege.)

However -- if social injustices and inequalities really matter -- if we are truly committed to scaffolding a milieu that enhances the lives of all of us -- don't we deserve an examination of social justice and equality sans privilege? For hasn't the history of humankind across time immemorial substantiated time and time again that bias and privilege of any kind unequivocally impairs the pursuit of justice for all and equality for all?

More

As long as we ignore -- the intended and unintended, personal and global, inconsequential and unremittingly significant -- consequences of label privilege in pursuit of social justice and equality -- we will fail to examine social injustices and inequalities with meaningful verisimilitude -- opting instead for the pursuit of disproportionate considerations and preferential advantages to the incontrovertible demise of all of us.

For the exercise of label privilege in order to further specific label agendas via the examination of specific label injustices and specific label inequalities -- while aggrandizing us through our label privileges, concurrently exploits us through our label privileges -- to legitimize, sanction, and uphold ideologies of justice and equality that are unambiguously unjust at best and objectionably immoral at worst.

- M.

Addendum

Who are we fighting for?

Ourselves? Our label compatriots?

Who are we fighting against?

Others? Our label antagonists?

When we take sides -- we fight each other. When we fight each other -- we justify injustices and rationalize inequalities in the name of righteousness -- for our interests supercede all others, because our interests are more just and more moral than all others. When our interests are more just and more moral than all others -- we do more than fight. We propagandize our selves and each other in order to justify our injustices and rationalize our inequalities in the name of our superior morality. And when we propagandize our selves and each other -- we renounce that which makes us inviolably equal -- by transposing our humanness for labels that unequivocally actuate intolerable differences that perpetuate injustices and inequalities upon our selves and each other in the name of [fill in the blank: #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.], ad infinitum.

Thus, side-taking, in and of itself, is the realization of injustice and inequality. Hence, when we take sides in pursuit of social justice and equality, we chose the side of injustice and inequality no matter which side we're ostensibly on or for.

Which begs the question...

Is this what we're fighting for? Injustice and inequality by our hands? The indefensible defense of the unbridled exercise of label privilege in relentless pursuit of unearned entitlements and unearned advantages, including but not limited to, disproportionate considerations and preferential treatment?

- M.

Note

Case in point:

Why do we see Islam's immurement in the Middle Ages as a pathological refusal to let go and progress forward... whereas the similarly pathological refusal to let go and progress forward from the dark period in American history characterized by slavery and rampant white supremacy... is virulently sanctioned as righteous and obdurately upheld as just...? (Notwithstanding that other vilely dark periods in American history are largely invisible within the public consciousness and subsequently absent from public discourse.)

Shadow of a bloody past: For centuries, Islam and Christianity were locked in a brutal conflict most have forgotten. The horror, a top historian argues, is that for jihadis it's as real today as it was in the Middle Ages (by Tom Holland for The Daily Mail 11/20/15)

Is our label privilege so crippling... that the mere possibility that label zealots may, in fact, be jihadis for labelism... is categorically inconceivable? Furthermore... is it any wonder that label zealots the world over, are warriors and martyrs for crusades and wars in the name of [fill in the blank: #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.]?

When justice and equality are nothing more than empty props for label driven agendas... we fight for tyranny masquerading as freedom, absolutism masquerading as virtue, and privilege masquerading as authenticity:

Let's stop pretending that America is the land of liberty (by Ryan Cooper at The Week 12/4/15)

So:

What vanquishes tyranny, what tempers absolutism, and what unmasks privilege?

And if not what... who? And if not now... when?

- M.

Welcome to the Era of Label Centrism and Label Privilege

If the bonsai is told by its pruner... that its tortured form nestled in a shallow pot is exquisite and beautiful... does it appreciate that its roots thirst to weave tapestries in the earth, its branches yearn to dance merrily within the heavens?

Indeed... if the aesthetic delight of a living organism can only be thoroughly relished when it is fastidiously delimited... what does that say about us and our meticulous delimitation of our selves and each other?

Verily... if labels fetter us as resolutely as they aggrandize us... are any of us any more free to weave tapestries in the earth, dance merrily within the heavens... than the bonsai?

--*--*--*--

While challenging the unassailable privilege of labels seems impossible... at the time, contemporaries of Copernicus couldn't imagine an era of popular acceptance of heliocentrism. Like label privilege, the visible and invisible forces that held heliocentrism at bay seemed indomitable.

Yet, here we are, in an era of heliocentrism.

Thus, isn't it possible, that in the future, the preeminence of our races, our socioeconomic statuses, our ages, our genders, our national origins, our religions, our marital statuses, our educational attainments, our sexual orientations, etc. -- will disintegrate under the stultifying dust of anachronism?

For label privilege to the human spirit is bonsai to trees. Callously occlusive and incalculably cruel.

Are labels real -- if the basis of such attestation is wholly of our devising?

Our labels are arbitrary delineations that bear no intrinsic meaning or value. Indeed, the meaning and value with which we imbue our labels is wholly determined by our selves and each other.

Thus, no label intrinsically brings us together and no label intrinsically tears us apart. In other words, our willingness to come together by label and our willingness to tear each other apart by label -- doesn't derive from our labels. Our willingness to come together by label and our willingness to tear each other apart by label -- derives from us.

We have no one to blame for our crusades in the name of [fill in the blank: #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.] -- than our selves.

Are label agendas, crusades, and wars justifiable -- if the cornerstone of such justification is privilege?

The sheer innocuity of arbitrary delineations renders labels inherently impotent. Therefore, we do more than simply determine the meaning of labels; we imbue them with extraordinarily intense emotional currency that magnifies their value. This valuation, wholly elevated and augmented by our selves and each other, fuels the transformation of harmless spectra into invisible knapsacks of unearned entitlements wholly determined by our selves and each other.

And, so?

By infusing mere categories with omnipotent privileges amplified by dogmatic valuations, we erect frameworks for idolatries of ignorance and intolerance that propel fanaticism and extremism with inexorable fervor.

Isn't this how we legitimize, champion, and sanction -- by nothing more credible than labels alone -- everything we are, everything we believe, and everything we do -- by label? Regardless of the incontrovertible reality that by doing so, we're concurrently legitimizing, championing, and sanctioning -- by nothing more substantive than labels alone -- the categorical oppression of everything we are, everything we believe, and everything we do -- vis a vis label?

Verily, when we acquiesce to label privilege -- of every label over every label -- we devolve into insular communities of authoritarian avidity blinded by ideological myopia. Consequently, we come together by complicit collusion and we tear each other apart by complicit collusion, in acquiescence to every ambition that -- advances our selves and each other and subjugates our selves and each other -- by label.

Needless to say: if the very ideologies that immure us are cultivated by none other than -- us -- who's responsible for our immurement masquerading as enlightened freedom?

Of despots and tyrants of every shape and stripe, is one shape or one stripe, superior to another? In fact, isn't despotism and tyranny of every shape and stripe, unconscionable in a society of the free?

Thus, totalitarian absolutism in the name of one #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc. is no more superior, legitimate, or defensible than totalitarian absolutism in the name of another #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc. -- regardless of #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc. or ideology of bigotry avowed by #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.

Period.

Yet, here we are, in an era of label centrism and rampant label privilege.

Where the preeminence of our races, our socioeconomic statuses, our ages, our genders, our national origins, our religions, our marital statuses, our educational attainments, our sexual orientations, etc. are so vaingloriously defended and so devotedly exulted, that we enthusiastically occlude and delimit our selves and each other by label, so that we may contrive a freedom that is but a farce of liberty.

More

Until we acknowledge the hero, the villain, and the victim in all of us, we will never face the truth of our oppression of our selves and each other.

For we are the pruner and the bonsai.

We are the villains that oppress us and the victims of our oppression.

But above all, we are the heroes of our freedom.

We can set aside our pruning shears; for our meticulous foliage doesn't make us beautiful; our unbridled hearts make us beautiful. We can break free of our shallow pots; for our tortuous containment doesn't make us exquisite; our unfettered souls make us exquisite.

The choice to relinquish label centrism and label privilege and flourish within the intangible ether of human hearts and human souls is wholly within our power. For the courage to be free is as inviolable as the dignity of life itself.

- M.

Addendum

We cannot have label cake and eat it too.

We cannot delimit others by label, while decrying the delimitation of ourselves by label. (e.g. If we're sick and tired of being condemned to caricatures of who we are by the ridiculously delimiting presumptions of 'race' -- why do we continue to agglomerate others by 'race'?! Are we not condemning each other to caricatures of who we are by the ridiculously delimiting presumptions of 'race' -- every time we agglomerate each other by 'race'?)

We cannot vilify, persecute, and maltreat others by label, while decrying the vilification, persecution, and maltreatment of ourselves by label. (e.g. If we're sick and tired of arbitrary maltreatment on the basis of nothing more credible than 'gender' -- why do we continue to agglomerate others by 'gender'?! Are we not ruthlessly disempowering each other on the basis of nothing more credible than 'gender' -- every time we agglomerate each other by 'gender'?)

No more than we can demand disproportionate considerations and preferential advantages for ourselves by label, while decrying disproportionate considerations and preferential advantages for others by label. (e.g. If we're sick and tired of cavalier cronyism that benefit those from specific 'socioeconomic classes' -- why do we continue to agglomerate each other by 'socioeconomic class'?! Are we not exercising the patently patronizing classification of each other by 'socioeconomic class' -- every time we agglomerate each other by 'socioeconomic class'?)

Much less excuse, rationalize, and justify our behavior by label, while decrying the excusal, rationalization, and justification of behavior of others by label. (e.g. If we're sick and tired of being subjected to bigotry by particular 'religions' and 'nationalists' on the basis of our 'religion' and 'national origin and/or affiliation' alone -- why do we continue to agglomerate each other by 'religion' and 'national origin and/or affiliation'?! Are we not upholding and perpetuating ignorance and intolerance towards our selves and each other on the basis of 'religion' and 'national origin and/or affiliation' alone -- every time we agglomerate our selves and each other by 'religion' and 'national origin and/or affiliation'?)

For when we appropriate for ourselves, for our agendas, crusades, and wars -- what we disallow for others, for their agendas, crusades, and wars: we become despots and tyrants who are no more noble nor more righteous than every despot and tyrant of every shape and stripe.

- M.

Note

Case in point: Woman Sentenced to 80 Years for 'Pure Evil', Acts of Enslaving, Stealing From the Disabled (from ABC News 11/5/2015).

Oh the irony of the charges to which she plead guilty:

"...racketeering conspiracy, kidnapping resulting in the death of the victim, forced human labor, involuntary servitude, multiple counts of murder in aid of racketeering, hate crime, violent crime in aid of racketeering, sex trafficking, kidnapping, theft of government funds, wire fraud, mail fraud, use of a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime and false statements." (select charges emboldened for emphasis)

How many of us, upon reading an account such as this one, assume that this one person represents everyone of the same #race, #gender, #age, #nationality, #educational attainment, #mental health status, etc.? More than a few of us do.

Moreover, how many of us, in everyday life, assume any one person embodies vital traits that are the same across everyone of the same presumed [fill in the blank: #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.]? Certainly, a lot of us do.

Isn't this why the Syrian refugee crisis is addressed differently now, after the recent acts of terrorism committed in Paris?

Yet, how many of us, in everyday life, resent the ignorance and intolerance to which we're relentlessly subjected, on the basis of nothing more credible than [fill in the blank: #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.]? Not to mention, our dumbfounded disbelief that others assume that we possess the same vital traits as someone or anyone or everyone with the same presumed [fill in the blank: #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.] on the basis of nothing more substantive than [fill in the blank: #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.]?

Seriously?

When we have label cake and eat it too -- we fatten ourselves -- at the expense of peace.

Case in point:

'F*** you, you filthy white f****!' Black Lives Matter protesters scream epithets at white students studying at Dartmouth Library (from The Daily Mail 11/16/2015). More: Dartmouth Admin APOLOGIZES To Protesters Who Menaced Students (from The Daily Caller 11/17/2015).

'Every one of you are terrorists': Virginia man disrupts public meeting about a Mosque and launches a 25-second tirade of hate denouncing all Muslims (from The Daily Mail 11/20/2015). More: Tension escalates at meeting on proposed spot for mosque in Spotsylvania (from Fredericksburg.com 11/17/2015).

- M.

Exposing the Invisible Knapsack: The Invisible Privilege of Labels

The power with which we imbue our labels is so extraordinarily pernicious, that our use of labels to align, identify, and categorize our selves and each other extends well beyond arbitrary delineations -- to overt and covert delimitations of who and how our selves and each other are.

Whosiwhatsit?

We erect communities solely on the basis of label ownership; we decree authoritarian norms of conformity solely on the basis of label ownership that we subsequently enforce through draconian censorship and expulsion solely on the basis of label ownership; and we espouse rancorous -isms that fuel ignorance, bigotry, and separatism solely on the basis of label ownership -- all in the name of #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.

Do we not?

Otherwise, why does Rachel Dolezal's lack of label ownership preclude her membership to a label community on the basis of her ownership of a self-appointed label -- or delegitimize her deliberate conformity to label norms on the basis of her ownership of a self-appointed label -- or invalidate her unflinching espousal of rancorous label -isms on the basis of her ownership of a self-appointed label?

Needless to say, who among us is a deity of anyone, to omnipotently decree what is and isn't within the limits of permissibility and legitimacy vis a vis #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc. for our selves and each other?

Which begs the question: aren't declarations of permissibility and legitimacy, i.e. what emphatically belongs to whom, what is incontrovertibly prohibited for whom, etc. -- by virtue of labels alone -- the very apotheoses of privilege?

Indeed, the power with which we imbue our labels is so extraordinarily pernicious, that we mask the malice of labels behind shameless pretensions of self-empowerment, self-righteousness, etc. In reality, labels are without exception privilege by another name. An invisible knapsack that label owners unequivocally avow grants totalitarian dominion over that which cannot be fettered in a conscionable society of the free: who and how our selves and each other are.

Verily, 'cultural appropriation' and 'cultural competence' are actuations of privilege:

Needless to say, the former is an unearned entitlement that grants unearned authority, on the basis of labels alone. While the latter is an unearned advantage that confers unearned authority, on the basis of labels alone.

And are not unearned entitlements and advantages -- exemplifications of privilege?

How many of us circumscribe where we go, who we associate with, and what we experience, on the basis of labels alone? Do we not acquiesce to social and behavioral norms of conformity or risk censorship and reprisal, on the basis of labels alone? Moreover, are we not prohibited from places, people, and experiences, on the basis of labels alone, especially when such prohibitions are grounded by attestations of 'cultural appropriation' (as well as overt and covert threats of sanction and retaliation for breaching authoritarian norms, on the basis of labels alone)?

Concurrently, how many of us assume where others go, who others associate with, and what others experience, on the basis of labels alone? Do we not presume that we and each other possess special expertise, by virtue of nothing more credible than labels alone, especially when such knowledge is grounded by attestations of 'cultural competence' (as well as overt and covert vociferance of ignorance masquerading as competence defended by unearned superiority, on the basis of labels alone)?

As long as we wield 'cultural appropriation', 'cultural competence', and other actuations of privilege as weapons of oppression that deprive our selves and each other of access to places, people, and experiences -- on the basis of labels alone -- our society will never achieve conscionable peace, freedom, and equality for all.

Ultimately, advocacy for labels and labels alone devolves into label oppression: 

Because the deafening laudation for labels comes at a price.

For labels are nothing more than vacuous attributions of meaningless authenticity that fuel label tyranny through the categorical circumscription of who and how our selves and each other are, through the blithe exercise of label privilege, whereby we imbue arbitrary delineations with limitless totalitarianism over our selves and each other, solely on the basis of labels.

When despotism is ubiquitous and has been subsequently internalized, our prevailing doctrine for empowering the disempowered is labels and labels alone. In our misguided zeal to reverse the alignment, identification, and categorization of our selves by others who seek to disenfranchise, segregate, and subjugate us -- we misappropriate the tactics of tyrants for our own self-empowerment, self-righteousness, self-advocacy, and self-aggrandizement vis a vis labels alone.

What else is our alignment, identification, and categorization of our selves and each other by label -- than the oppression of our selves and each other by label? Moreover, what else is our overt and covert delimitations of who and how our selves and each other are vis a vis label -- than the actuation of unearned label entitlements and privileges? And is not the actuation of unearned label entitlements and privileges nothing less than label tyranny?

By any other name:

What's in the invisible knapsack? The appalling arrogance with which we defend our employment of every spectrum of our devisement, to delimit and oppress our selves and each other, on the basis of nothing more credible than labels alone.

When we arbitrarily deny access -- when we unmistakably suppress self-expression -- when we disproportionately coerce and enforce delimitation of who and how our selves and each other are -- all in the name of #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc. --

are any of us free?

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The color/gender of privilege is not the answer to the tyranny of oppression of our selves and each other.

Why not?

Because our unabashed zeal to remedy suffering by label -- leads to the passionate identification of antagonists -- by label.

This insidious bias -- that catastrophically saturates our ideological framework for 'the invisible knapsack' -- frees no one.

For the tyranny of label centrism indiscriminately imprisons every race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc., while the ideological framework of 'the invisible knapsack' fuels the mercilessly rampant persecution of our selves and each other on the basis of nothing more substantive than race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc.

Which begs the question: is the path to peace, freedom, and equality for all -- paved with label privilege? Or is label privilege -- tyranny masquerading as enlightened freedom?

- M.

Addendum

Peggy McIntosh articulated the ideology of 'the invisible knapsack' (more: Wiki) to address the marginalization of others via the unearned advantages of invisible privileges, namely 'white' and 'white male' privileges.

Hence, the proponents who espouse this ideology, do so under the presumption that this device exposes invisible privileges that disenfranchise everyone who is not a 'white male' or 'white' for the overt and covert benefit of 'white males' and 'whites'.

However, label privilege disenfranchises non label holders -- as well as noncompliant label brethren -- for the overt and covert benefit of label holders, of every race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc. -- over every race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc.

Thus, regardless of the explicit intent of such a device, in the end, the ideology of 'the invisible knapsack' perpetuates label privilege as unequivocally as any -ism, which ultimately dilutes any residual value gained from the lingering exposition of the invisible privilege of one color/one gender (which are hardly the only color/only gender who exercise invisible privilege).

Nevertheless, the deleterious potency of -isms within our society, is a repugnant reality. For -isms do exist, from the mildest careless stereotypes to the most vicious calculated savageries.

However, when we divest our selves and each other of our humanity, by ruthlessly reducing our currency as humans qua humans to that of labels and labels alone -- we wittingly deprive our selves and each other of our wherewithal to revel within the vast unbridled universe of the infinitude of truths of humans qua humans.

For our power -- our humanity -- resides within the infinitude of our truths -- not the delimitations of our labels.

- M.

Note

Label privilege is everywhere. Indeed, it's so omnipresent across popular social and mass media, that it suffocates our wherewithal to actively engage each other as humans qua humans:

Ex. The One Thing That Liberal White Folks Need To Stop Doing (by Aaron Barksdale from the Huffington Post 11/6/2015)

Sadly, personal experiences and sympathies invariably propel our crusades for the abolition of -isms, which habitually limit the scope and puissance of our best efforts.

Notwithstanding that even our best efforts unfailingly espouse -isms in order to oppose -isms:

Ex. How a Whites-Excluding Yoga Class Exposes the Absurdity of Identity Politics (by Lizzie Crocker from The Daily Beast 10/23/2015)

Needless to say, in our stalwart fervor to dismantle the intractable institutions that buttress our enduring legacy of -isms... we're astonishingly oblivious to the -isms and -ists that are vanquishing us all.

- M.

The Reign of -Isms: Having Label Cake and Eating It Too

Labels confer nothing meaningful.

That we assume they do -- does not make them so.

Does the fact that I've supped on barbecued chicken wings and corn on the cob infer a race? Does the fact that I've pored over racks at local thrift stores to stretch my budget infer a socioeconomic status? Does the fact that I prefer to wear as little as possible when I'm sweltering in the summer heat or at the beach infer an age? Does the fact that I'm as keen on fpss and mobas as mmorpgs infer a gender? Does the fact that I wouldn't trade my American citizenship for any other infer a national origin? Does the fact that I value the espousal of compassion for all human suffering by many religions infer a religion? Does the fact that I don't wear any symbols of marital union infer a marital status? Does the lack of prestige my day job is consistently accorded infer an educational attainment? Does my predilection for wearing men's clothing infer a sexual orientation?

Yet, without fail, we assume that race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc. confer vital facts that we need to know about each other sans interactions in vivo.

However, if I were to disclose my race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc. -- would you think more of me -- or less? If neither -- then what relevance do my labels retain? For labels reveal less than we would otherwise discover via real interactions sans label-centrism.

For what is label-centrism but an umbrella for -isms? When we align, identify, and categorize our selves and each other on the basis of labels alone -- are we not perpetuating -isms and constructing communities of -ists? For aren't communities self-established on the basis of labels alone -- communities of -ists?

If you and I share a gender and align ourselves with a gender-based label-centric cause -- are we not disseminating sexism within a self-established community of sexists? If you and I share a race and align ourselves with a race-based label-centric cause -- are we not disseminating racism within a self-established community of racists?

Likewise when we propel our label-centric agendas -- do we not also identify our antagonists by label alone? Thus, as sexists we perpetuate sexism by treating others as adversaries on the basis of gender alone; while, as racists we perpetuate racism by treating others as adversaries on the basis of race alone.

So: when -ists use -isms to denigrate our selves and each other as -ists -- at what point do we collectively rescind all defenses of -isms -- irrespective of label-centric moralizing and zealous extolment? For the reign of -isms is nothing more than having label cake and eating it too.

More

Until we resolve that the value and merit of our selves and each other rests within the intangible ether of human hearts and human souls -- we will cling to the vacuous authenticity of labels, label-centrism, and all label -isms with desperate sanctimony.

- M.

Addendum

The problem with labels is treacherously more insidious than their conferral of nothing meaningful: we imbue them with such intensely emotional social currency, that we mindlessly use them without challenging their accuracy, validity, or utility -- all the time.

How often do we presume factual truths about each other -- erroneously and deleteriously -- by virtue of nothing more substantive than [fill in the blank: race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc.]?

How often do we surprise each other -- by being, expressing, or demonstrating -- feelings, thoughts, or actions -- incongruent with our entrenched expectations of each other vis a vis [fill in the blank: race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc.]?

Isn't it possible that rather than ease and facilitate our interrelational interactions -- labels interfere with our eschewal of -isms?

Indeed: when we disguise our most pertinacious bigotries under the beguiling sacrosanctity of labels -- we're simply trading the ugliness of -isms for the hollow pretense of authenticity.

- M.

Note

We use labels to align, identify, and categorize our selves as much as we use labels to align, identify, and categorize each other. Hence, even those who aspire to live among us label-free, fail to escape the toxicity of label -isms from within label groups:

Ex. Raven-Symone Has Lost Her Damn Mind (by Stereo Williams from The Daily Beast 10/29/15)

While others fail to recognize label -isms directed mercilessly towards self-established label-brethren:

Ex. Why I will never work for a woman: After the Apprentice catfight, one very opinionated writer reveals she loathes 'cliquey, bullying' all-female offices (by Kelly Bradford from The Daily Mail 10/28/15)

Needless to say, if we struggle to muffle our own label -isms towards our own label-compatriots -- is it any wonder that we struggle to muffle the raucous interference of innumerable label -isms every time that we interact with any one?

- M.