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November 2, 2017
'SPLAININ'

AN UNNECESSARY BUT NECESSARY SIDEBAR PART 1

'splainin' what I'm 'splainin'

There’s been a looming crisis of national disunity for years. It’s getting real loud now. In some of these posts I carry on about the need for reality-based adjustments to ideological platforms. Or to be more jolly about it: I extol the energizing pastime of challenging our own biases. Poking at my biases is one of my favorite hobbies. It’s actually fun and opens up a much broader and complex view of the world. My best tracks, lyrics, images are built from accidents and errors or the old surrealist technique of automatica – a bit of nonsense enters your head and you take it all down with no interference from critical thinking. when the flow stops, drop it and try to figure it out then fill in the blanks. Complex doesn’t mean boring.

In some of these posts I suggest accepting that in the real world of human societies certain behaviors and notions, productive, destructive, rational, delusional – are hardwired into our DNA. As loathsome as some of them are, they exist in every human culture in every part of the globe and in every historical era. There is no political / economic / theological social system that will eliminate those inclinations. So when we meditate on and debate policy and movement strategy we have to accept a margin of dysfunction as a given. That doesn’t mean we don’t create laws and programs to push back against dysfunction. We use the ideal as a goal with the understanding that the ideal can’t be attained. That way we don’t trick ourselves into envisioning worldviews and policies that are humane, egalitarian and generous but don’t comport with the way humans actually function in the wild.

— Polar Levine, News Goo Dissection, November 2, 2017

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Polar Levine

working class college dropout who loves to learn, poke his biases and waste time looking around