Re: [FRIAM] agonism and policing the community with a keisaku?

[glen]

I intended to reply to Eric's local ("lower-level") criticism of Elliott's 
bullshit with this article:

https://theconversation.com/how-to-deal-with-visual-misinformation-circulating-in-the-israel-hamas-war-and-other-conflicts-216059

In particular: "... or merely continuing to watch images of war and atrocities tends to lead to additional encounters with such 
content." It makes some progress on agonism (perhaps against agonism?) because it raises Brandolini's Law to the foreground. 
ChatGPT was made "safe" by destroying the mental health of some very non-Presty people in the Global South. When is very 
local, tightly bound, debunking a good thing and when is it a bad thing? When I get an "image of war" in my inbox ... or on 
the front page of my favorite news medium, how much time do I spend on it? It strikes me that the "research" done by Flat 
Earthers and QAnon ... or even, say, Bellingcat , is too local. And that tightly bound locality is 
what makes them vulnerable to the Ur-narrative. Granted, *some* of us may be more robust to "mind viruses". But *how*? What's 
the mechanism for such robustness?

I'd argue that those of us who are narrative agonize between un-integrated 
narratives. But with that mechanism, you eventually get old and tired. You're 
finally overcome by the suction of 1 or a handful of narratives and either die 
that way, or have to get some shrooms from your drug dealer ... uh ... 
therapist to reach escape velocity. Those of us who have trouble maintaining 
*any* narratives, are privileged, lucky to be so stupid.

And FWIW, I suspect members of this list (and any other that suffers my presence) 
 my posts waay more than they do yours. My guess is some of yours, by 
virtue of their verbosity or targeted salutation, may languish unread. But I suspect 
mine are sent to /dev/null as soon as procmail hits the From: line. Don't forget to 
Like and Subscribe! https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/smash-the-like


On 10/25/23 15:16, Steve Smith wrote:

Glen -

As always I'm at least as intrigued as confounded by the layered language puzzles you lay here for us.  I was drawn through the looking 
glass (down the rabbit hole?) with your reference both to "Presty" and "Legibility" and "Zetetic" realizing I 
could not read your post for more than "emotional content" without reading at least the one main link/reference you offered up 
and I was nicely rewarded (kicking myself) with realizing "Presty" refers to "those who honor or defer to the prestige of an 
institution (such as an alma mater".   Zetetic were more technical and more familiar but useful to have to dig down into.

I feel also "honored" to be a participant in your "Associative Memory by Internet Forum" 
technique I feel as if getting to overhear your maunderings I am absorbing useful (to me, or my affinity group 
of some sort) perspective as well as maybe information.  I don't know if you get the  as much as I 
probably do, but I for one appreciate the depth and breadth of your reflections... maybe I have too much time and 
would be more well served if did duck out with a "TLDR" response... or not.

  I am not particularly a "Presty" although I think I *am* proud of my BS from 
a state (Northern AZ) university as opposed perhaps to a 4 year private diploma mill of 
some kind.  But only because I know that at least some of my professors were of high 
quality and dedication and their courses and the overal curricula showed it in many 
cases.  Perhaps a presumed third rate college would have equal or greater examples.

My daughter who pulled a PhD from UNM (Molecular Biology) struggles cyclically with the feeling 
that her proposals to various funding agencies are sorted by "Presties" and hers thereby 
get shuffled down the stack from ones submitted by Stanford or Berkeley (or many other prestigious 
universities) grads... I don't know how real that is or if it is a phigment of her imagination or 
something else.  In any case it interferes with her professional progression (either enforced from 
the outside or from the phantasm of her imagination)... she probably doesn't put as much effort 
into her proposals because of this real or imagined fact?  I think she would defer to your 
"legibility" argument.

I *do* agree with your/Dorst's "Legibility" argument and your anecdotal reflection on voting.  I helped Reagan run over 
the top of Carter "back in the day" and was so ashamed once I realized what I'd done (starting a few months into his 
term, but continuing well through the next two decades).   The shame of having been such a "tool" lead me to choose not 
to vote again for nearly 2 decades under the cynical cover "I don't want to encourage the bastards!" and the more 
rational "I should not vote unless I am (much) more informed on my candidates". I finally took my own challenge and 
began to inform myself as much as I could on my candidates, especially the local ones who were so close I couldn't see 

[FRIAM] agonism and policing the community with a keisaku?

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

As always I'm at least as intrigued as confounded by the layered 
language puzzles you lay here for us.  I was drawn through the looking 
glass (down the rabbit hole?) with your reference both to "Presty" and 
"Legibility" and "Zetetic" realizing I could not read your post for more 
than "emotional content" without reading at least the one main 
link/reference you offered up and I was nicely rewarded (kicking myself) 
with realizing "Presty" refers to "those who honor or defer to the 
prestige of an institution (such as an alma mater".   Zetetic were more 
technical and more familiar but useful to have to dig down into.


I feel also "honored" to be a participant in your "Associative Memory by 
Internet Forum" technique I feel as if getting to overhear your 
maunderings I am absorbing useful (to me, or my affinity group of some 
sort) perspective as well as maybe information.  I don't know if you get 
the  as much as I probably do, but I for one appreciate the 
depth and breadth of your reflections... maybe I have too much time and 
would be more well served if did duck out with a "TLDR" response... or not.


 I am not particularly a "Presty" although I think I *am* proud of my 
BS from a state (Northern AZ) university as opposed perhaps to a 4 year 
private diploma mill of some kind.  But only because I know that at 
least some of my professors were of high quality and dedication and 
their courses and the overal curricula showed it in many cases.  Perhaps 
a presumed third rate college would have equal or greater examples.


My daughter who pulled a PhD from UNM (Molecular Biology) struggles 
cyclically with the feeling that her proposals to various funding 
agencies are sorted by "Presties" and hers thereby get shuffled down the 
stack from ones submitted by Stanford or Berkeley (or many other 
prestigious universities) grads... I don't know how real that is or if 
it is a phigment of her imagination or something else.  In any case it 
interferes with her professional progression (either enforced from the 
outside or from the phantasm of her imagination)... she probably doesn't 
put as much effort into her proposals because of this real or imagined 
fact?  I think she would defer to your "legibility" argument.


I *do* agree with your/Dorst's "Legibility" argument and your anecdotal 
reflection on voting.  I helped Reagan run over the top of Carter "back 
in the day" and was so ashamed once I realized what I'd done (starting a 
few months into his term, but continuing well through the next two 
decades).   The shame of having been such a "tool" lead me to choose not 
to vote again for nearly 2 decades under the cynical cover "I don't want 
to encourage the bastards!" and the more rational "I should not vote 
unless I am (much) more informed on my candidates". I finally took 
my own challenge and began to inform myself as much as I could on my 
candidates, especially the local ones who were so close I couldn't see 
them often... a certain complement to myopia?


I began to use the League of Women's voters reviews of and interviews 
with candidates and checked (out of the corner of my eye) the Catholic 
publications with a list of candidates/topics to vote *against* as a 
hint I might well want to consider (positively) those candidates/topics 
if for no other reason than to apply my own kneejerk 
moderation/complement to kneejerk single-issue voters encouraged by the 
Catholic Church (and many other institutions).


I realize (because you pointed it out) that I missed the point in my 
last response on this thread by thinking you were emphasizing gender 
dichotomy rather than "community self-policing".   I won't try to give a 
proper response to that at this point but to acknowledge that 
reconsidering your post through that reflection was useful...   To the 
extent that "communities" are holarchical, I think I have observed (in 
my own experience) that I am prone to misunderstand how someone who is 
"policing" my speech/thought/expression is NOT part of my community when 
they are perhaps simply not as *obviously* part of my community or the 
communities which we share are not top of mind for me in that context.   
When adults who were trying to raise me (parents, neighbors, teachers, 
retail/service staff) I understood what/which-of "my community" they 
were and took their correction/policing/advice accordingly.   As an 
adult this was harder for me given that I wasn't sure who/when/how to 
moderate/admit other's "opinions" of my expressions/thoughts/ideas.   I 
could wax anecdotally on a few dozen instances where someone "got to me" 
and acutely bent my attitude and subsequent presentation with a well 
placed/apt observation which may have felt like an acute criticism in 
the moment but became a powerful "glimpse in a mirror".


Several here have "policed" my ideas/attitudes/presentation/speech in an 
appropriately professional and respectful manner (which in your case 
often includes a