Regarding other people's "principles", including those of BO: [View all]

Just because I/you don't perceive something (e.g. a "principle", whatever that is*), that does not mean that it isn't there.

That means either it isn't there or I/you lack the perceptual faculties to identify it (which include, amongst other things, data), or I/you are making a mistake, or lying, about it, or some combination of the these; in any case it's a null set, indeterminate.

Honesty compels me to admit this is the truth about me/you and, because it is true, I, personally, am also compelled to hypothesize about those who do claim the ability to read my mind, and/or those of others, including BO's, so well as to characterize what is there in judgemental terms, that is, so well as to go as far as telling others what is or isn't in someone's mind in absolutist and, most often, negative terms. Beware of those who tell you what other people think, I don't like that experience, no matter whom is the object of that kind of gossip; that's a reaction I acquired as a born and bred Tweener and from teaching. Such persons either:

1. have data-->information that they are not sharing for agendas that they are also not sharing;
2. don't know and/or don't know and/or care that they don't know;
3. are biased in what they do claim to "know";
4. are something that would meet some people's definition of "God".

Not that I expect it to really matter to anyone but me, but all I need to deal with 1-4 above is the honest recognition that these are the probabilities that inher in y/our situation.

TO ME, refusal to recognize those probabilities sets off ALL of the alarms for ALL that those who call themselves "the Left" claim to be struggling against and abusive language, directed at ANYONE, only makes those alarms, and one or the other of their associated probabilities sketched in 1-4 above, STRONGER, especially in the face of doctrinaire authority of ANY kind that tries to tell me things are simpler than I know, in factual experience, that they are.

Perhaps you recognize this reaction to what amounts to de facto coercion? or, at least at minimum, what could be hypocrisy?

Just as I do not answer questions when I feel bias will not result in an honest hearing of what I am trying to say, I do not expect you to answer my questions either, so, by all means, ignore this post if you FREELY choose to do so. If I/you are not free, that is my motive in writing this. Freedom is too precious to make blind assumptions about it, especially around ANY kind of "authority", so . . .

I do think it is a valuable thing to at least get the questions out there, for anyone who is trying to discover some truth of their own, not just whatever we are handed by others, because this particular dynamic and all that is associated with it, such as, *self-fulfilling prophecy and correspondence bias (a.k.a. fundamental attribution error), to name just a couple of relatively valid and reliable dimensions of social psychology, IS part of what oppresses us ALL **, so if I/you don't recognize my/our own slavery, we're only going to repeat the SAME OLD MISTAKES until it's too late, if it isn't already.

** for philosophical (i.e. principles that are the result of the love of wisdom) background on this statement, please refer to Paolo Freire, especially his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, wherein he cautions ALL of us about how the way we live has caused each of us to internalize the oppressor. Anyone who refuses to recognize that probability is either mistaken, or something else is going on. This is why authentic revolution, begins and ends for everyone with what Freire calls the "praxis" of honest self-critique. I am willing to go there. Are you? That's YOUR choice, but, whatever YOU (not someone else) decide, do not expect me to not do what I honestly think I need to do to free myself and, hence, possibly, others.

..........................

FOUR fingers!!!!