Of Ego Trips & the Last Refuge - (Adolfz Result)

About: tagroom of items tagged with ambition

People say a lot of shit because of the illusion of an audience & the illusion that it's an adoring one. This is most prevalent in public figures like actors & actresses, popular rock stars & musicians, preachers & prophets, & of course politicians - especially those whose names are well known across the M$M. Facebook & Twitter have cultivated this meme into multi-billion dollar enterprises.

I ran into this item while chasing the ambition thingy in 1864 in our own blog FastBlogIt this morning; ready to apply the theme to one of our candidates in the next election.

quote from someone born on this day: ...

1889

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889
(German chancellor, leader of the Nazi party, 1889-1945)

"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it"

...

This one resonates for me as a description of the politics of the day. The M$M & social media provides the megaphone which makes it all bigger than life & repeated very often through laziness rather than coming up with something new & the poverty of minds thinking in unison (belief?). Politics is ambition painted with a different brush. Politics for me seems more of an Ego trip in which one expects that one has all the answers & an audience that wants to hear more from you about them.

Here, I have to reiterate my latest take on the "true sentence" meme attempting to spread itself in order not to whip out the other L-word "LIE". One possible other explanation is the meme is attempting to add some illusion of scientific & logical weight of truth to one's argument. Shifting context on what someone said, i.e. using a paintbrush of insinuation, partisan humor, assumptions of left-wing or right-wing choir etc is still a lie. For some strange reason, shifting context from words uttered by one another of political candidates usually ends up just like Adolf's result - spelled Adolfz in the title due to Bozo's apostrophe bug.

My zen master, in some of his fundamental courses often said: "There is nothing outside the way you hold it." (i.e. context) where context is the way you hold things. Context is a distinction such as objective reality, 5-senses are all we know, a baby originally may grok "other is for me" (mother), &/or many others including solipsism & Anthroposophy. Distinctions are what you make distinct in the background/foreground of your senses & experience (all of them!).

Context is important! You can turn a tree into a table or chair by shifting context; likewise a chair into firewood & animals into meat!

The illusion of an audience which wants to hear what you say (or I say) leads to crazy things often being said & lots of lies being propagated. I'm not sure Twitter, Facebook & the like are improving the truth quotient of this aspect of the mind of man. I am fairly sure that the M$M is not.

This is of course my humble opinion - your results may vary!

Comments

Mark de LA says

seth 2012-04-22 10:28:50 15948

source: M above
I really dislike actors & musicians who use their celebrity to bash one or another side in the political arena. Without their celebrity for another reason they would be very small.

Yeah me too.

It is one of the perks of earning attention. It is the new wealth.

Now i can't resist this one ... err ... Are you jealous?

Nope! The other side of fame is that you can't go out & do things anonymously like sit down in a restaurant & eat a decent meal without interruption on the spur of the moment. The president himself has to have an entourage of people, reporters & horny secret service men around him just to stay alive!

Mark de LA says

seth 2012-04-22 10:18:11 15948

M 2012-04-22 09:28:17 15948

The ontological approach to context is that context is a distinctinction. Distinctions are what resolve the internal/external chaos of impressions & awareness of the cosmic ooze into things. Steiner called the sensory soup percepts & the process perception. A distinction held within a distinction via generalization, specification & classification (previous similars) creates meaning. Not all of context is imprinted by biology & biography. I think that ultimately we all create our own context after a while.

The biggest problem i have with that definition is the "a". So then if you would change it to ...

context is distinctinctions.

... we would have no consequential disagreement. Better still might be "context is a network of distinctions".

There is plural or single context implied. It's like e pluribus unum of distinctions. Now what makes up a context distinction once you have one is like any distinction a multitude of properties. For example I have a context materialism. It may be different than yours. It's properties may be different from yours. OTOH, I know it when I grok it. It's like the distinction circle, while there are many examples & instances of circles, I still hold circle as a distinction.

Mark de LA says

seth 2012-04-22 10:01:22 15948

source: M above
One thing I noticed about myself is the my inner voice always acts as if a specific person is a target audience or perhaps a group on facebook etc. You, Seth, are probably trending .... followed by T & sometimes GW. ... there are quite a few others (God or the .'. HGA) as well.

Interesting observation ... i do that as well.

If i'm going to say something then i kind of calculate how the other will take it ... what will it feel like from my model of their mind ... i then modify my response to move along some agenda. Sometimes my own response is so strong and urgent that i forget the other and just blurt out my own view ... as you might imagine that almost always does no move along my agenda. Often i discover that my model of their mind was totally inaccurate. Other times i suppress negativity knowing it will just lead into the destruction of rapport ... or i choose positive feedback just to improve the relationship and make somebody feel good about themselves.

Sometimes I get the impression that you assume a view that is fixed to some truth that is independent of your history and is free of the demands of your current interactions.

In the bold statement what are you referrring to?

Mark de LA says

seth 2012-04-22 08:57:01 15948

M 2012-04-21 08:35:31 15948

I suppose I could have elaborated my first sentence: People say a lot of shit because of the illusion of an audience & the illusion that it's an adoring one.
... & most of it in the political arena is lies & distortion assisted by recontextualisation. Wherever the RWG is concerned, & most of the time it is, recontexting is almost always found.

Well i think that is a true sentence

.

We each talk from our own viewpoints and gather feedback from those who share that view. When talking to others of contradictory views you do tend to get into RWG especially when judgement is concerned.

I would have to say there are at least two true sentences since one is in the context of the other & the whole is in the context of this item.

Mark de LA says

seth 2012-04-22 09:23:48 15948

seth 2012-04-21 08:44:08 15948

M 2012-04-20 18:28:36 15948

Actually, try analyzing this one you can get help from all the comments which are neither yours nor mine & figure out who are the audiences for the posters being?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/TV-reporter-assaulted-live-691235

Very interesting ... no time to analyze it in the light of this Of Ego Trips & the Last Refuge - (Adolfz Result) as i have an accessibility steering meeting this morning ... but i'll start an item on fb and see where it leads me.

source: this would have been my comment
Media and human showmanship spike the the hum-drum of human affairs with sensationalism. In that context, grabbing a mike from a reporter and shouting "I am that nigger" was a brilliant performance piece by Justin Moore.

... but that is not where most commentators took it. Instead this opportunistic comment ..

by: Tim Fowler
If obama had a son he would look like Moore!

... garnered 673 replies and a lot of racial RWG.

Bitter Nation, indeed !

I would still need to ask which nigger was Justin referring to? Was Justin defining nigger by his actions & the way he was being? Was Justin contributing or abusing the components of racial harmony? Did Justin achieve with his street theatre something besides pissing off the reporter? What? Who was Justin being if not an asshole? Suppose Justin were Hispanic instead of black, what difference would that have made to your evaluation? White?

Seth says

Well i think you are talking about two different things:

    Audience, ego, and illusion (i call it delusion)
    Context and re-framing

I got confused. I still don't get how the one is coupled with the other in your idea.

I think i understand the first, it is part of my mixed media thinking ... but i look at it differently. I don't think audience is an illusion ... it is a measurable thing, you always know the number of your followers and you know when you get feedback.   Now surly some people are deluded into thinking they are more important in society than they actually are. When that happens it is more or a delusion than an illusion and i would call it narcissism or grandiosity or pretention, it is a diagnosable personality disorder. Me, i don't have that ... i am quite at peace with the extremely small audience that i do have. I realize that my effect is infinitesimal ... so I talk in society for my own internal self, and not for its infinitesimal external effect.

That said and digested we play in society. We small men move our image there as if we were celebrities, A-listers, or powerful people. Internet social media allow and encourage that. It is part of our new culture. You seem to disparage it ... i do not.

What is your problem with small men talking on the big screen as if they were just as as important as the big men there?

Mark de LA says

seth 2012-04-21 07:56:10 15948

Well i think you are talking about two different things:

Audience, ego, and illusion (i call it delusion)
Context and re-framing

I got confused. I still don't get how the one is coupled with the other in your idea.

I think i understand the first, it is part of my mixed media thinking ... but i look at it differently. I don't think audience is an illusion ... it is a measurable thing, you always know the number of your followers and you know when you get feedback. Now surly some people are deluded into thinking they are more important in society than they actually are. When that happens it is more or a delusion than an illusion and i would call it narcissism or grandiosity or pretentious , it is a diagnosable personality disorder. Me, i don't have that ... i am quite at peace with the extremely small audience that i do have. I realize that my effect is infinitesimal ... so I talk in society for my own internal self, and not for its infinitesimal external effect.

That said and digested we play in society. We small men move our image there as if we were celebrities, A-listers, or powerful people. Internet social media allow and encourage that. It is part of our new culture. You seem to disparage it ... i do not.

What is your problem with small men talking on the big screen as if they were just as as important as the big men there?

Nothing! ... if they know that that's what they are doing. I really dislike actors & musicians who use their celebrity to bash one or another side in the political arena. Without their celebrity for another reason they would be very small. Where possible, I selectively spend somewhere else (eyeballs & dollars).

This was an exploratory item which began with the Hitler quote which triggered this & that along the way.

One thing I noticed about myself is the my inner voice always acts as if a specific person is a target audience or perhaps a group on facebook etc. You, Seth, are probably trending .... followed by T & sometimes GW. ... there are quite a few others (God or the .'. HGA) as well.

Mark de LA says

& perhaps if you want to contemplate nothing remove all context everywhere & that's what's left.

Mark de LA says

MR 2012-04-20 12:16:18 15948

seth 2012-04-20 12:03:32 15948

source: in item
Context is important! You can turn a tree into a table or chair by shifting context; likewise a chair into firewood & animals into meat!

Absolutely!

I define context as a collection of statements and beliefs or assumptions. Add a statement or a belief to the collection, or take one away, and you have changed the context. Each of us are in our own context because each of us has collected different experiences, have read different articles, and have chosen different beliefs, and make different assumptions. Consequently when we write sentences which seem true to ourselves in our own context those sentences are not necessarily true in someone else's context. Communication happens when sentences are exchanged ... then a sentence from one person's collection is accepted into (or sometimes rejected from) another person's context. Usually when people are cooperating and amiable the more sentences that are exchanged the closer the two contexts become. I hope that none of that is controversial, as it is, at least for me, common knowledge ... but i think it is important to have that model of context and communication working in the mind when discussing the ideas you have presented here. Don't you?

It is certain that you have redefined context into or by your own experience. It is closer to solipsism than mine which is the way one holds a distinction in it's environments - i.e. a distinction of a larger or more general scope.

context

early 15c., from L. contextus "a joining together," originally pp. of contexere "to weave together," from com- "together" (see com-) + texere "to weave" (see texture).

Mark de LA says

M 2012-04-20 10:35:17 15948

Wikipedia: ...

Recontextualisation is a process that extracts text, signs or meaning from its original context (decontextualisation) in order to introduce it into another context. Since the meaning of texts and signs depend on their context, recontextualisation implies a change of meaning, and often of the communicative purpose too. The Linguist Per Linell defines recontextualisation as:

the dynamic transfer-and-transformation of something from one discourse/text-in-context ... to another. [1]

...

i.e. the raw jism of modern politics.

(Wikipedia definition added).

Mark de LA says

seth 2012-04-20 11:20:39 15948

Interesting

...

source: in item above
My zen master, in some of his fundamental courses often said: "There is nothing outside the way you hold it." (i.e. context) where context is the way you hold things. Context is a distinction such as objective reality, 5-senses are all we know, a baby originally may grok "other is for me" (mother), &/or many others including solipsism & Anthroposophy. Distinctions are what you make distinct in the background/foreground of your senses & experience (all of them!).

... I don't know what you are saying here or how it fits in with the rest of your item.

It defines context & adds the astounding statement "there is nothing outside of the way you hold it" - i.e. without context you have nothing. This statement has at least two meanings:

nothing exists outside of context - a venn diagram would have context as the whole universe - nothing outside it
without context there is meaninglessness (logical nothing ... chaos not yet become cosmos (G.W.))

Mark de LA says

I like the comment in the wikipedia on solipsism:

Solipsism (Wikipedia): ... As such it is the only epistemological position that, by its own postulate, is both irrefutable and yet indefensible in the same manner.

...

Seth says

MR 2012-04-20 12:28:35 15948

MR 2012-04-20 12:16:18 15948

seth 2012-04-20 12:03:32 15948

source: in item
Context is important! You can turn a tree into a table or chair by shifting context; likewise a chair into firewood & animals into meat!

context

early 15c., from L. contextus "a joining together," originally pp. of contexere "to weave together," from com- "together" (see com-) + texere "to weave" (see texture).

Note the only really important part of my definition was the idea that context is a collection. So, using your terms: context is a collection of distinctions joined or woven together (into a network). I do think we are talking about the same thing.

You always have some agent involved in collecting and weaving the distinctions together into a collection ... there is just no way for me to think about the subject and eliminate the agent from the picture. Hence there is your mind, and my mind; your collection and my collection; Romney's collection and Obama's collection; and each of those collections must needs be different from the others. That is not solipsism, imho, where, one believes that what is in one's mind is all there is. All i am saying, for purposes of discussion here, is that you awareness does not extend outside of your own mind and the experiences and assumptions which you have collected ... but obviously you can always take in new experiences, statements, and assumptions from your external environment.

I do think that is the model most modern day philosophers, scientists, linguists and computer programmers use ... it is not something that i have concocted here for the sake of arguing. I think that model would work well for the purposes of this discussion and would keep us out of any need to agree on assumptions about mysticism or absolutes which would be outside of that model.

If we agree to talk in that model we could progress to the more interesting aspects you have brought up ... like reframing, politics, propoganda, and lies.

Seth says

M 2012-04-20 11:46:53 15948

seth 2012-04-20 11:20:39 15948

Interesting

...

... I don't know what you are saying here or how it fits in with the rest of your item.

It defines context & adds the astounding statement "there is nothing outside of the way you hold it" - i.e. without context you have nothing. This statement has at least two meanings:

nothing exists outside of context - a venn diagram would have context as the whole universe - nothing outside it
without context there is meaninglessness (logical nothing ... chaos not yet become cosmos (G.W.))

Kewl

and agreed. That is pretty much the same thing i said when i said "your awareness does not extend outside of your own mind and the experiences and assumptions which you have collected".

Mark de LA says

In the end the only audience really is the Lucifer-Ahrimanic double being who enjoys the RWG. There is little truth to be had. Recontextualization is just one of it's tools. Re-ask your question with an example from the abundant target-rich environment to bash Obama with like: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/jon-corzine-still-bundling-obama_640493.html

& you might get my point. My intent was not to contextualize you as an asshole. You must have fallen into that one all on your own. I wanted to keep this item from RWG degeneration, ... but here we are.

CC says

seth 2012-04-20 14:53:48 15948

MR 2012-04-20 14:35:08 15948

Too much to requote & create the distinctions to separate the zen from the Seth. I will sum it up differently I have both my individual direct experiences & the context of Anthroposophy. What context of Rudolf Steiner do you & he share? ... & I also have the context of GW.

When you read a Steiner book or one of GW's books tapes or pronouncements, you end up collecting and weaving those thoughts into your mind ... then your thinking becomes within the context of that plus your own direct experiences. Of course it makes a big difference how you read ... if you accept everything a philosopher says as if it were absolutely true, you will end up with a different mind set than if you question it. I read Steiner books too, and studied with GW ... i didn't assume that i was being fed absolute truth and questioned just about everything. We both know that we have different mind sets when it comes to GW and Steiner. What are you really saying or asking?

Occasionally I get outside my mind with direct experiences. I don't accept a past which provides the ALL of context. I can take on any context. I don't think you got the whole of the context thingy as I have, but we don't have to sort it out here & now. This item started out with what people say when they think they have an audience (mostly ego trips) & worked itself into recontextualization via context (mostly politics). We don't have to go through the whole epistemology of context to continue such.

Seth says

M 2012-04-20 17:14:13 15948

seth 2012-04-20 17:01:51 15948

M 2012-04-20 16:56:55 15948

seth 2012-04-20 16:48:53 15948

Fine, whatever

.

For the purpose of teasing out what you mean by "the illusion of an audience", i penned a post of FB here. I'm guessing that you are refering to a politician's "base" ... those people he assumes are going to be his supporters ... no matter what. What i don't understand is why you presume it is an "illusion" ... why is that? What makes it an illusion and not a real audience?

As an example see this tweet ...

........................................... now why would he tweet to all of his 1,797 followers a sexist instult to a feminist? Could he not anticipate that they would retweet it to over 100,000 others? Why would "the illusion of an audience who wants to hear what he has to say" lead him to say something quite so hostile about a liberal feminist who is not in his base. Wouldn't that just propagate the idea that Romney is surrounding himself with people who are hostile to women? Or was it a mistake ... did he misjudge his audience?

This is a mix of RWG & recontextualization. I would prefer that you take this shit somewhere else on one of your own items. This item 15948, so far, is clean of the polarity which usually develops between us. I want to keep it that way. I won't answer your question as the RWG would bloom fully. Right now all I can do is reclassify it as MO' JISM.

Mark, i'm trying to tease out what you mean. So far i'm batting zero. Thanks for nothing. I'm out of here.

Your choice of material belies your question. You think you have an audience, albeit negative, from me to eat your romney-bashing (obviously you are the ultimate audience for that 'mo jizz). On facebook you think that you have a liberal audience that loves your continued romney-bashing. Prolly in the back of your mind you think the WH will love you for this or your firiends will think that you are helping their cause. Any likes yet? In the end it's the foolishness of thinking you really have an audience. In the end it's some kind of ego trip. We're now treading in RWG territory & what prompted me to make & title this item.

Enjoy. Bye!

It's sad that you assumed that i was in the plane of the fight rather than in the medium of your item just trying to teas it out clearly. Your assumption was false, that was just the first example i ran into.

Incidentally, just FYI, i have no illusion of a audience. That is another one of your presumptions.

If you take my carfully constructed comments on their face value reading into them only what *I* explicitidly say in them, then you will understand me. If you reframe them so that I end up being an ass-hole in your mind, then you will always just be carrying on a fantacy in your head.

Mark de LA says

Actually, try analyzing this one you can get help from all the comments which are neither yours nor mine & figure out who are the audiences for the posters being?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/TV-reporter-assaulted-live-691235

Mark de LA says

seth 2012-04-22 23:27:42 15948

M 2012-04-22 12:09:00 15948

seth 2012-04-22 10:01:22 15948

Interesting observation ... i do that as well.

Sometimes I get the impression that you assume a view that is fixed to some truth that is independent of your history and is free of the demands of your current interactions.

In the bold statement what are you referrring to?

Well it's what i said, not sure i ever refered to it before i said it above. What reference are you questioning?

That bold statement uses some of your terms that you used before ... i composed it like that to contrast it with my approach. If you want to over generalize you could say that i think you think truth is absolute and can be known apart from your own history ... whereas i believe that we all must believe relative to our own minds.

I'm unclear about using the word "absolute" but, its an old argument best handled somerwhere else. I think the domain of math handles my idea brilliantly. RS in the first paragraph of the 2nd lecture on light encapsulates some ideas which hold both pure thought & external experiment as 2 kinds of ways to get at truths. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/LightCrse/19191224p01.html

Mark de LA says

seth 2012-04-22 23:17:22 15948

it's interesting to watch these guys trash talk on the web and then try to erase it ... LOL

Yep, both sides do it. It is more interesting to see Obama roll back all his promises the last time he ran for president (with excuses). Might keep the shit out of this item if we're into a conversation on the topic.

Of Ego Trips & the Last Refuge - (Adolfz Result)

About: tagroom of items tagged with ambition

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