Sunday, April 22, 2012

A New Leaf

I can no longer expend effort in being critical of others.  While I believe in many ways that my critiques of people like CHS are of value, I cannot overcome the cognitive biases of even the most free of "free thinkers" through reason alone.  A shock to the system is necessary.

A founding principle of the proposed shock is the acceptance of the fact that history, philosophy and economics all must be introduced by the word "political."  History is "political history."  Philosophy is "political philosophy."  And economics is "political economics."    Not one of these disciplines is a science, nor is it interested in truth.  Each exists to consolidate and exert power, something that the vast majority of the practitioners of each discipline remains ignorant of by design.  As Aristotle reassured Alexander, what is taught to the masses is not what is taught to the elites.  Indeed, I'd argue that what is taught to the masses is what allows the elites to be elite, to control the masses.  Aristotle invited the subservience of the masses even as those he personally tutored became despots that were the antithesis of Aristotle's professed conception of virtue.   Whether you term this as Mirkowski's "Double Truth" or Nietzsche's "Double Lie," the systems of control present one reality to the masses and its opposite to the elites.