2015-04-13

The Gist Of It

I've arrived at a conclusion about things and such.

After years and years of reading books upon periodicals upon essays upon blog posts upon newspaper clippings upon commercial ads upon stories behind cereal boxes upon highway signs upon manifestos, edicts and pamphlets upon post-its upon parables upon fables upon myths upon index cards for school projects upon magazines upon poems upon haiku upon cave pictures upon comics, it's my contention we really do know jack shit.

My blog proves this point.

Fine. There are some things we know as we see in science and technology but for the most part, the things we stress and argue about - like global warming, racism, economics, and so on - are almost impossible to ever substantiate. We're so busy trying to find points of origins to check mate our opponents we end up vulnerable to all sorts of nonsense. We operate in individualized cubicles presenting horribly constructed ideas and theories and pass them off as 'facts'. And because they are 'open-ended' exercises of vapidity we've allowed ourselves to permit feelings into the equation. We 'just know' ergo TRUTH!

The battle ground of this so-called 'culture war' is really about seeing who owns 'history' and those who do, perhaps, own the narrative.

Even then, you don't even need history to just invent a narrative. For that, you just need a set of ideas rooted in a false premise and away you go. You can even make shit up or interpret data as you wish.

That's how it is with human nature. Since humans are pretty much impossible to peg - as economics dismally prove time and time again - how can we really be sure history is accurate?

Fine. It's accurish.

Plenty of great minds have explored human nature and have left us with interesting notes leaving us to understand and digest all of it in its totality. 

Vico, for his part, valiantly attempt to apply a scientific approach to history. But what he accomplished was not anything definitive in as much as he laid a reasoned framework for understanding human history.

Sort of a 'get the gist' of it master work the way I see it. Trying to gather information about humans is a little like attempting to herd fish into one part of the bowl.

And that's what it all comes down to. Understanding history enough so as to avoid falling into the traps of contemporary demagogues, charlatans and shysters. Navigating through life, in addition to the usual basic fact of raising a family, working etc., is to spot bull shit.

You know the list of names. Hitler, Auguste Comte, Paul Erlich, Cola di Rienzo and whomever you wish to add.

Etc.

As those people have shown, it's very easy to fool us. The more polished, the more phrases they use to 'pigeon hole' humans, the more charismatic in rhetoric the more they sound enticing. After all, no one who sounds that smart can't be bad, right? I mean, they're the experts and they have our interests at heart, right? I mean, like, we're ignorant and they're not so let me glaze my eyes over.

Next thing we know - poof - we erroneously believe in all sorts of things.

Because we're not getting the gist of it.

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