Belly Button Lint

Feeling Lint-y?

Tag: society

  • Theme:

    moving through judgement

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    1–2 minutes

    There is, in judgment, a resistance to forgiveness.

    We hold the judged outside of us, yet “the judged” persistently returns as a beleaguered challenger, demanding forgiveness.

    We do not forgive through an effort of will: that only masks and creates resentment. We must turn towards the pain and open ourselves in order to see beyond it: to merge with the other is forgiveness, not holding them away.

    In seeing through the pain we encounter understanding: we encounter an innate kindness on the other side of understanding.

    Open kindness exists outside of us (the same place we put the judged) and yet is also within us (as the other can be too).

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    rejected masculinity

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    1–2 minutes

    Many boys were taught masculinity by standing up for themselves and confronting the world’s difficulties: don’t complain, do.

    Today, as a man, you still don’t complain. But you are told to back down, apologize, and shut up: step aside.

    Many women see this as an apropos reversal: men being treated as women were treated.

    The reaction from men will be the same as that from women, except perhaps less social and more violent. Feeling alienated and incapable of providing value or worth, men form sub-societies and lean into the traits society was meant to civilize.

    How does “don’t complain, do” manifest for a man stripped of socialized, compassionate consideration?

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    Utopia of the body

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    1–2 minutes

    Utopia, definitionally, means “no place.”

    It is a place outside of us, which makes the body unwelcome, since it is indeed a place in which we reside.

    However, Michel Foucault says the body itself is unknowable, making it a place we cannot define, and thus a “no place” similar to the utopia.

    Our attempts to escape ourself into a mysterious better place are refuted, because our literal self (physically) is an unknown place, rich with mystery that denies escape.

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    Artificial intelligence: the return to being human

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    1–2 minutes

    Artificial intelligence, like any tool, reaffirms the difference between utility and humanity.

    The impulse is to flee or join: regress to a nostalgic, barbarian state, or merge into a techno-cybernetic future that will dissolve humanity.

    when we see ourselves as machines (tools), aligning our goals with their production, we forget that we are uniquely human.

    Being displaced by AI drives us to return to ourselves: dismantle our machinic adaptation and reveal what it is to being human.

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    Crazy is as

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    1–2 minutes

    An old idea, but a good one: being crazy (or psychotic) is based on looking at a point of normalcy outside yourself, reflecting upon an internal point, and discerning how well you align.
    The difficulty is, when you are a sane person in a sick world, you must perform sickness to appear sane.

    And to go further: "You aren’t thinking or really existing unless you’re willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.” Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

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    Collapsing distinction into flat affect

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    1–2 minutes

    Modernity collapses distinctions, where we *attempt* to be indifferent to presentation. (Our reaction to a car wreck, fancy toaster, or poster of sneakers becomes equivalent.)

    Andy Warhol did this through repetition, occasionally of the banal object but also of stars such as Monroe or Elvis, flattening and spreading their effect through excess.

    To expand “affect,” we inflate (blow up) and fetishize difference as sexy: we engorge a minimal distinction into profound appeal, but over time and distance, deflation inevitably leads back into commonplace.

    The result of overall flattened expansion is an impersonalized “affect” (or influence) that can be widely distributed when stripped of complex particulars. In an abstracted reductive state, modern images accelerate beyond emotion or psychology into an environmental milieu: a low-grade background hum of banality to which we learn never to react.

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    choosing replaces doing

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    1–2 minutes

    In our society, we don’t “do” things in a classical sense of taking action to “make something.”
    We “choose” things in order to become ourselves, we don’t “make” ourselves.

    We don’t discern, so much as decide and then have consumer regret. And then choose anew.

    {from Matthew Crawford}

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    Balancing for Weakness

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    1–2 minutes

    We are often defined by our weakness. However we put ourselves in frameworks that balance.

    Those with criminal instincts are attracted to the police academy, while obnoxious people attempt to become sales people, and those who do not understand themselves, and their family members, work to become a psychologist.

    Our deficiencies become the drivers to normalize ourselves.

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    Being Nice

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    1–2 minutes

    Be nice. In a utilitarian or economic sense, it pays off.
    Fighting or proving you are exemplary, consequential, or brilliant may feel good, but it incurs wrath in the form of vengeance, obstruction, and spite.

    The wise in ancient traditions are kind, if blunt. Don’t make your future harder for your ego in the present.

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    Luck: to celebrate or hide?

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    1–2 minutes

    we privilege, specific traits: being beautiful, smart, or athletic. Every society will value specific genetic traits. When being born with them, especially with two or more, it is like being a superhero.

    These traits should be celebrated, as the individual can be seen as a model for what’s possible, and equally, the gifted should be humbled by recognizing their luck.

    A problem develops when someone is born with a gift, and yet must subvert or hide it in order to avoid jealousy. It speaks of a twisted society that would allow such small-minded persecution.