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a more focused (and actionable?) set of articles of impeachment: Sedition vs Insurrection

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Steve Smith

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

Colleagues;

I want to recommend the dialogue below for all who read.

What is the probative value of a narrative? What is the probative value of a photo of demonstrator beating a policeman with a flag? Well, narrowly, if the narrative is accurate and the photo is not faked, they prove that such a thing COULD happen, because, you can plainly see, it has happened. What IS the probative value of a poem? Nothing? Then why are people sometimes convinced by them.

Nick -

I think you are doubling down on Glen's implication that a poem is intended to be persuasive ("convincing" in your term)? While an apt poem (or joke, or song, ) offered with good timing can be persuasive in the context of an argument, it can also/instead be *illuminating* in the context of a generative dialog.

I'm much more interested in a generative and synthetic dialog than in analytical and/or rhetorical one. In your pursuit of publishable results from all our rattling on here, I understand the need/value of doing very careful analysis and then build a rhetorical

EricS's recent invocation of the Albatross and Mariner images from Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" sent me back to that text which I chose to listen to, read to me (thank you Alexa) by a practiced reader. I was primarily interested in Eric's revised analysis of Trump as Mariner/Democracy as Albatross and whatever embodied wisdom/perspective this "told story" had to offer. I was drawn quickly to the image of "Rime" which I will leave the analysis to others here who might have dipped their beak (or earholes) into this bit of Coleridge. I wasn't inclined to be persuaded by Eric to any particular moral judgement, just to add (if I didn't already have it) the offered allegory to my quiver of perspectives on this big mess we are trying to find our way out of (deeper into?)

Not to miss the chance Nick, I *do* agree with you that the photos/clips of the insurrection/coup-attempt last week represent a "possibility by example" proof. Context matters (hugely) (sad how traditional media AND internet media have normalized everything to be taken out of context?) and with modern mediocre (well edited by a clever human) and "deep" fakes, I'm rarely inclined to take any image, video or sound recording as an absolute objective fact, even if it doesn't carry any obvious (even to careful technical analysis) evidence of spoofing/construction. But as with good fiction (storytelling), I don't have to believe that there were literally two naked modern humans named Adam and Eve in a Garden of Plenty who became the progenitors of all human kind to learn something useful from the story.

This leads us full circle back to the question of what is "really real"? And by correlation, can fictional narrative speak a qualitatively superior truth to factual narrative? I'm not nearly PoMo literate enough to know if this has all been Derrida'ed and Foucault'ed thoroughly. The competing narratives on the topic seem to be at an impasse, which I probably can't even characterize well. Others may feel they are making headway in coming to a better understanding of the question, or perhaps each faction (is there more than 2?) are stuck in the (IMO fruitless) exercise of trying to persuade the other. While I think I now recognize and appreciate Glen's use of the terms Strawman/Steelman, they seem to reflect the idiom recently (re)Popularized by the Poet-Philosopher Rudi Guilliani with "Trial by Combat!".

Joust on!

- Steve

PS(ssst!)... my more-aggressive-than-usual style here is probably just me sublimating my frustration with not being positioned well to "break up the bar-fight" that is our national politics today. I grant Marcus' strategy of "ducking out the back and let them kill one another" plenty merit when it is a "brawl" or another episode in a "gang war", but most bar/street fights I've been (even obliquely) aware of had an element of a bully and a victim, and I'm still proud of stepping between the two and facing down the bully while the (potential) victim gets a chance to collect themselves and either withdraw or wait for someone (bully's friends, bartender wielding a pool cue, or maybe the cops) to remove the bully from the equation. If I miss my cue and turned my back to the real bully, I risk getting blindsided by the faux-victim and having possibly just made things worse.

The Capitol insurrection/coup-attempt was some many thousands of bullies trying to intimidate our elected representatives who had to first bully a few hundred capitol police to get access. If I'd been on site (could anyone there have been truly an innocent bystander?) I'd have been more likely to throw myself on one of the grenades (metaphorical) than to "duck out the back"... I understand why many would "duck out the back" to (not?) "fight another day". I'm glad few if any of the Capitol Police chose that option, but then that was what they were (self?) selected (and paid) for.

Unsurprisingly, the Right (from hard-core Radical Extreme to more recentTrump-Radicalized) uses an obvious but still effective tactic that all bullies play from time to time which is pretending to be the victim: "what are YOU looking at, huh?" I really hope that those who are true (little c) conservatives can see how their crypto-cousin high-T, grievance-shouting radical-rabble are as dangerous to them and their idealized way of life (if not more) than their presumed complement of (little l) liberals. </ramble>

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gepr

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

In reply to this post by Merle Lefkoff-2

Very interesting connection! Thanks for the link.

I'm skeptical of the *schism* idea (including the recent bow shot by Steve equating steel/straw to trial by combat), though. I lump "talking past each other" in the same boat. The suggestion that point-counterpoint or talking past each other happens at all *disrespects* the community (of 2 in combat, as well as many in, say, neighborhood association meetings).

What gets beyond any narrative- or logic-based conception is the question "What should we DO?" That question will often weed out the bad faith participants right off the bat. Anyone who answers with "Nothing" is revealed to be bad faith immediately. But in that context, the risk of a long-term social dichotomy is that we'll normalize the answer "Nothing."

Luckily, neither side of this situation (from insurrection to populism) is saying "Do nothing." That call to action is a very stable foundation for consensus, scientific or social, regardless of the apparent (but not actual) contradiction between the proposed actions. As wrong as they are, those gun-toting insurrectionists agree with *me* that action is necessary. All we need do is engage them in "What actions should we take?"

On 1/12/21 11:00 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> I am re-reading an article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review (https://ssir.org/issue/fall_2012 <https://ssir.org/issue/fall_2012>) by Andrew Hoffman entitled "Climate Science as Culture War" that might inform this thread. The article is an interesting and still relevant dive into cultural processing and group cohesion dynamics. Hoffman points out the difference between a "scientific consensus" and a "social consensus", the latter possible only when sharing common ground on identity, worldview, and belief systems, reinforced by one's own reference group. Political affiliation is the strongest correlation with political positions, and Republicans see scientific consensus, for example, as giving in to "liberal" views.
>
> Using climate change as an example of an issue enmeshed in the "culture wars" of a decade ago, Hoffman writes about "the great danger of a protracted partisan divide", worrying that "the debate will take the form of what I call a 'logic schism'--a breakdown in debate in which opposing sides are talking about completely different cultural issues." The theory of "cultural cognition" is important here: strengthening our bonds to other groups as a way of strengthening our definition of self and staying consistent in our beliefs. Also, there are a series of positive feedback loops going on, affirming our information when it comes from sources inside our "cultural community" that support our existing positions

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

Glen writes:

< What gets beyond any narrative- or logic-based conception is the question "What should we DO?" That question will often weed out the bad faith participants right off the bat. Anyone who answers with "Nothing" is revealed to be bad faith immediately. But in that context, the risk of a long-term social dichotomy is that we'll normalize the answer "Nothing." >

Well, in some sense I _would_ say Nothing. The conflict is irreconcilable. The only thing to do is to hold on to power and to arrange the government to be as robust as possible in those periods when power is reduced. Nothing fundamentally has changed with Trump, it is just that the right has more obviously revealed their true nature.

Marcus
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Steve Smith

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

In reply to this post by gepr

Touche'...

Well riposted! (to remain within the metaphor) (EricC can probably help
us groom our metaphor, we might be mangling it, I haven't held a foil
for 40 years and don't read nor watch "swashbucklers" excepting
"Princess Bride" every decade or so).

I can't really quibble with anything you say here, though maybe I'm just
being lazy for not fine-toothing it enough...   or else we are in the
proverbial "violent agreement"?

Digging into your distinction between words (talk/type) and actions,
PoMo caricatures would suggest the everything humans do IS signalling,
right? Symbols all thew way down? I believe you to be PoMo literate
but not PoMo allegient, so maybe you can sort this for me a little
more. Similarly, I sit in front of a picture window most of the time
with an ad hoc array of elements that attract bird life (feeders,
birdbath, screen-of-branches, small cottonwood with lots of
"water-suckers", some rock-art piles, wooden bench, empty water
trough.   I call this bird-TV and it lives up to it with it's near
telenovella quality of a caste of more characters than I can keep track
of signalling a wide range of intentions I can barely guess at among one
another.

I trust that they actually eat what they eat, shit where they shit and
nest where they nest to respond to their most primary urges, but the
melodramas they play out at our "watering hole" also includes a great
deal of signalling.   The birds of a feather (e.g. flocks) do seem to be
co-mmunicating to establish and maintain their flockness, to share in
finding food and avoiding danger, but the ones with disparate appetites
and perching/roosting/nesting habits still seem to signal with
vocalization, posture, trajectory a great deal.   I wonder if you can
tease this experience/observation/milieu apart for me as well?

I did read (when first offered) and appreciated your link to
"Transportation Theory" and it aligns with much of my own experience.
I suspect that there is a weaker version of this in the less (obviously
or familiarly) domain of animal communication. I once watched my
(outdoor) cat grab a robin and almost immediately a small flock of Pinon
Jays dropped their Pinons and swarmed the cat who, alarmed, released the
Robin. I wonder if they would have done the same if had been a tiny
grey bird or a mouse instead? If birds have vocal languages (Nick,
EricS, ?) then I suspect there is a huge Pidgen/Creole overlap between
species and their body-language would seem to overlap well too,
especially if their gross morphology (robin and jay for example) is
similar.   I'm guessing that whatever the vocal/body language the robin
was emitting "Transported" the jays enough to make them "attack the
bully" out of some simple knee-jerk resonance (which is my inspiration
when an altercation erupts in public).   There is definitely some
fascinating inter-species mixing going on on my Bird TV and I often
wonder if the different species are "learning" anything from one another
as they "mix it up"... they definitely (my projection?) seem to be
enjoying the milieu.

Regarding "binding" vs "registration", you have corrected me on this
before and I acknowledge the utility of the difference (former being
primarily CS and the latter being Linguistic?) if there is a broader,
more useful explication of the difference in your usage?   This also
seems to be your primary criticism of metaphor, that it invites (or
metaphor-ophiles are prone to) premature registration?

I don't know if you addressed something I gesture at or write between
the lines often, which is my belief/assertion that the truly interesting
stuff is what is "between the lines", "in the white space", "in the
negative space", "in the gesture" which I think is the basis of your
criticism of Trump-as-Poet, that by leaving too much (everything) to the
receiver's imagination, nothing is achieved except (perhaps) a
superposition of delusions, tied only loosely by an emotion (grievance,
arrogance, self-righteousness)?   This evokes (for me anyway) an
estuarial metaphor where a great deal of richness of life occurs between
the salty and the pure waters?

- Steve

On 1/12/21 12:05 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

> En garde! 8^D I'm torn between interleaving and top-posted block. So I'll split the diff. I'm lifting 2 particular comments I want to target, but then block the rest.
>
> On 1/12/21 9:45 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> For the TL;DR crowd: I hear you claiming that "it is Rhetoric all the way down".
> Sorry if that's the impression. No. I would claim that all *thought* is rhetoric. But action (things one does with physical things like lips or hands) is not.
>
>> (or others more likely since I think you know I don't share this perspective and bare re-assertion of same does not persuasion yield)
> Ouch! You got me with that one ... straight to the heart.
>
> Now on to the rest of your post: Yes, you're right. I do share your conception of narrative as co-construction. And my reference to Tyson was an attempt to admit that narrative is crucial to co-constructing a belief system that is faithful to the truth. And I further posit that intersubjectivity is facilitated by communication. (How else to explain the shared delusion of Trump supporters?) I have some misgivings about your use of "premature binding" (which should be corrected to "premature registration", but it's reasonable either way). But I won't take that tangent in this post.
>
> All this, as I think you point out, we share. The trick, I think, is that communication, shared truth or shared delusion, comes from *action* not words. What binds co-QAnoners are the things they do, not the words they say. Of course, this is confusing because saying words is an action performed with the lips (or fingers). But what I'm looking at is the actual strings of letters, not words with (the ambiguity typical of English words) meanings. To gamify reality, you have to match the *concrete* patterns, regardless of semantics. Are you logged in at the right time? Did you "Like" the post? Are you compiling the threads the same way? Etc.
>
> One of the links in my "truth, reality, & narrative" post targeted this point directly:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_theory_(psychology)#Differences_between_analytical_and_narrative_persuasion
>
> Where "analytical" persuasion talks about particular details of the receiver. Something those who insist on writing a salutation naming the person they're talking to should understand well. (It's the same tactic used by evangelicals when trying to persuade you to believe in their god. They say your name COOONNNSSTTAANNTTLLYYYY. It's so annoying.) Here, narrative persuasion is distinguished by it's *lack* of concreteness. And without that concreteness, I claim there is no co-constructing, no co-mmunication.
>
> So, I actually agree with you that Trump and the cartoonist/poet Adams are not communicators at all. They're narrative builders, for sure, but not artisanal or scientific ... or anything actually useful ... co-constructors.
>
> Can one successfully co-construct using narrative? Of course. But more often than not, the narrative *interferes* with the communication, rather than facilitating it. An interesting example is experts' amnesia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect
>
> ... which segues nicely into your accusation that I would call engineering specs or clean code "communication". To the extent that such things (engineering specs or clean programs) are co-constructed by a team of people, then to an extent, they are fossilized communication. But, like Marcus' post on worse is better, I find *drafts* and repository histories better examples of communication. A marked up diagram is communication. An unmarked diagram is not. Similarly, a narrative that includes patterned "checking in against reality" is communication ... which is why I like hard scifi more than fantastical or character-driven scifi.
>
> But none of this really foils my final conclusion: Whether Trump is a Great Communicator or not depends on whether you consider poetry (or Twitter) communication. I do not. But I believe phrasing it in this way, allows me to see and argue the other side.
>
>
>>> What do we mean by "narrative" and "persuasion" if *not* confidence building?
>> I do believe that "persuasion" and it's hoitier-toitier aunt, "rhetoric" are about confidence building in the receiver, including when the receiver is also (or only) talking to themselves.     Narrative, on the other hand needn't be weaponized gibberish.   It can be an offering. "Here, let me tell you what I have seen/heard/smelled/tasted/touched" with an overlay of "and implicit in that is *my* judgement/opinion/belief about what that means to me" and "from what you know about me, from your past experience with me and with others I might remind you of, it is left to you to interpret what I've related to you here".
>>
>> This forum is one of the *very few* places I offer narrative with an attempt to "persuade" and I suspect if I reviewed the archives I would join you in your own self-effacing self-description for myself, as below: "I'm an idiot and failed utterly."
>>
>>> I thought that I tried to make this assertion in the "truth, reality, & narrative" post: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/truth-reality-amp-narrative-tc7600012.html But re-reading it shows that if that was my intention, I'm an idiot and failed utterly.
>>>
>>> The only purpose, EVER, to story telling is to *trick* the audience into believing something they wouldn't ordinarily believe ... to *pull* them along with your rhetoric.
>> I think this is a motivated, if cynical view.   If you only tell stories with this intention, then I can understand that might be why you believe that is all anyone else might intend.   The best stories, especially those laced with imagery, and built as an iterated game of storytelling around a campfire or pub table with a brew in every fist, and are ultimately a group exploration of either new territories, or familiar territories with a new perspectives.   I often believe that is what we are (trying to) doing here with our coffee mugs around the fading memory of a table at St John's.
>>
>>> This is why we're so susceptible to con-men like Trump (and Scott Adams). It's also why Neil deGrasse Tyson is so popular! ... and why actual engineers deliver such horrible presentations ... and why every engineer *hates* the marketing department.
>> A startup tech company decided to have a team-building exercise, so they rented a cabin up in the hills for a weekend of male bonding (this was before women really became well represented in tech), learning to play together, learning to solve problems (can you light a fire with only wet wood and no paper or gasoline?) in a group context.
>>
>> As they are unloading their vehicles, the salesman for the company says "hey, you guys finish unloading and get a fire started, I'll go rustle us up something to eat!"
>>
>> The company is pretty new but they were all a little familiar with one another already, and the tech guys give one another a silent nod of agreement that the salesman would "just get in the way" if he actually tried to help with any of the practical stuff.
>>
>> Just as everything gets put in a reasonable (worse is better?) if not ideal (right-thing?) place, the salesman comes running in the wide-open front door with a bear chasing him. As he dives out the back window, he shouts... "you guys kill this and skin it, and I'll go get another one!
>>
>>> Of course, it's plausible to distinguish between communication and story-telling. I do it all the time when I tell people how much I hate poetry. Poetry is anti-communication, but great story-telling. It relies heavily on the audience to collapse the poetic ambiguity down onto their own preferred meaning. And this is exactly what Trump does. Trump is a 1st class poet, never saying anything with any concreteness, which is why people call him a mobster and con-man. Allowing the audience to collapse whatever nonsense he said to their own meaning. This is poetry.
>> You offer a fair line of rhetoric here to persuade me (or others more likely since I think you know I don't share this perspective and bare re-assertion of same does not persuasion yield) that we should eschew imagistic poetry,and figurative storytelling because it is not precise and in fact is deliberately ambiguous and requires (allows) the receiver to bring their own experience to the process.
>>
>> This leads me to the point where I claim what you call "communication" is not that at all... that there is little if any "co" in the "mmunication" of this type. What you seem to want to call co-mmunication is more well described by quality engineering design documents or a clean computer program.   Yes, those are the best things to use when you are trying to build a bridge or program a computer to do something the designer actually understands well before she embarks on the process.
>>
>> What you often denigrate as "premature binding" seems to be what you promote here. I understand and agree that figurative and imagistic language which leaves a great deal to the receiver to bind to their own "greed and fear triggers" can be an incredibly dangerous rhetorical device, but that is not a reason to err on the side of "premature binding".
>>
>> Perhaps my preferred notion of "co-mmunication" is more like "co-creation" or "co-arising".   And it might also explain why I rattle on here from time to time in what apparently is taken by many to be rambling tangents (aka "dookey splatter").   I think that I am offering co-mmunication elements for something more co-creative than essentially acting as a roomful of "calculators" (in the sense of Feynman's "girls" working on the Manhattan Project" working together to implement compiler and emulator for Percean Logic.
>>
>>> So, where we stand on Trump as a Great Communicator hinges on whether we think poetry is communication or not! Ha! QED! >8^D
>> Well (enough) crafted rhetoric, but I guess I'd rather hear a co-creative story, maybe even in poetic form, that leads us all to co-discover future states of possibility in the implied Adjacent Possibles branching out from some actual "Reality" we are in at the moment, whether it is a precise Newtonian state space or some quantum superposition of (near) parallel realities.
>>
>> I feel I know you well enough to believe that nearly everything you write here (or rant about in your favorite outdoor pub in Olympia) is in good faith and most of your "provocative speech" is to provoke precisely the kind of co-creative co-arising that I also seek....
>>
>> Or maybe this is just a poetry slam for poetry and slamming sake?
>>
>> Speaking of ambiguity and late binding: When Doug muttered the infamous line "Glen, you can be such an a$$hole sometimes!" nearly a decade ago, I thought he was offering that up in praise.   I believe you actually *did* get his goat that time, but knowing Doug even better than I do you, I know *he* would have taken that as an underhanded compliment if/when it was offered to him!
>>
>> - steve the aggressive poet
>>
>>> On 1/11/21 7:03 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>>> Scott Adams might have been speaking ironically? I don't have his original text.
>>>>
>>>> "an effective persuader in a world where facts don't matter" does not "a great communicator" make... it makes something rather different...
>>>>
>>>> <TR;dbttR>
>>>>
>>>> Being able to read a room (or individual), identify their greed and fear triggers, and then play them deftly... that is a manipulative con man, not a communicator. One who can play 74M people and incite a violent attack by many thousands of them on the seat of our government (insurrection) might have cult-leader qualities, but I'd not call them a "great communicator", I'd call it something else entirely.
>>>>
>>>> It isn't clear that what our "glorious leader" has done with the rest of the world leaders over the last 4 years qualifies as "great communication" either, though maybe he did effectively communicate *his* lack of respect for former allies and *his* authoritarian envy for the "success" of the likes of Putin, Erdoğan, Bolsonaro, Duterte, bin Salman, maybe even Kim Jong Un?
>>>>
>>>> To be clear, I don't think much about how many of Trump's followers are "deplorables" because I think of most of them as simply deluded and in his thrall, naturally the deplorable among them are merely the "ragged edged poison tip" of his spear.
>>>>
>>>> I'd be interested to hear what you believe Trump has been communicating to his supporters, his non-supporters, our (former) allies around the world, and our (former) all this time?   And is what he's been communicating been honest in fact and in heart?
>>>>
>>>>> DaveW did not claim Trump was a great communicator — he did (attempt to) cite Scott Adams' book, /Win Bigly,/ where Adams, who considers himself a great communicator, argued that Trump was the same and that was why he was going to win the election against Hillary — which he did.
>>>>>
>>>>> Steve adds: /"I believe it is duplicitous and divisive to claim he is "a great communicator" That implies both depth and breadth, that he is listening to a broad swath of the country and he is speaking to a broad swath."/
>>>>>
>>>>> Adams argues, and I completely agree, that this is exactly what Trump did in 2016, does today, and will continue to do in the future. A broad enough swath to win in 2016 and attract 40 million votes in 2020.
>>>>>
>>>>> I said in 2016 (when I was also predicting Trump's win) that it was a huge mistake for Democrats and the Media then, to focus on the 1-10 percent of Trump supporters who were certifiably wacko and card carrying members of the "Basket of Deplorables," and pretending the 90-99% did not exist and did not have legitimate and perhaps even reasonable reasons for supporting someone — for policy and philosophical reasons — that they found to be despicable as a person.
>>>>>
>>>>> In this post, I believe SteveS is perpetuating that mistake.
>>>>>
>>>>> While ranting, may I remark that the social media and tech platforms essentially removed themselves from rule 230 protection (when it gets to the courts) by banning Trump and Parler. Modifying 230 is a bipartisan objective, but it will be real interesting to watch the rhetorical contortions the Dems will have to perform when considering actual legislation.
>>>>>
>>>>> davew
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2021, at 10:57 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>>>>> I didn't take the bait on Friday's vFriam when DaveW (as I remember)
>>>>>> claimed that Donald J Trump was "a great communicator".   (same as
>>>>>> Reagan was credited by his fans and perhaps more reluctantly his
>>>>>> detractors?)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I suppose Trump is very effective at one mode of transmission of his
>>>>>> ugliest sentiments, which I find to be at best a very degenerate form of
>>>>>> CO mmunication.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Whatever skills he has for "reading a crowd" and reflecting back that
>>>>>> which serves his purposes feels more like Neurolinguistic Programming
>>>>>> (NLP) than "communication".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I believe it is duplicitous and divisive to claim he is "a great
>>>>>> communicator" That implies both depth and breadth, that he is listening
>>>>>> to a broad swath of the country and he is speaking to a broad swath.
>>>>>> Perhaps by a twist of interpretation, you *can* claim that he has his
>>>>>> finger on the pulse of those he whips into a seditious and
>>>>>> insurrectional frenzy as well as those he cannot so instead whips into
>>>>>> what has been called "Trump Derangement Syndrome" (TDS). His apparent
>>>>>> ability to instigate TDS in virtually everyone (type A or type B) is
>>>>>> somewhat unique... though authoritarian figures around the world have
>>>>>> done it for millennia?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One (DaveW?) could also argue his sublime ability to give clear
>>>>>> direction/orders to his underlings (e.g. Michael Cohen, et al) without
>>>>>> ever actually saying anything indictable. This is the stuff of Crime
>>>>>> bosses, right?   Very effective communicators within a very narrow (and
>>>>>> useful to them) context.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> DaveW's assertion on Friday provided me the perspective and motivation
>>>>>> to look a little deeper into the question of just what makes Trump's
>>>>>> style of communication so dangerous. The previous post with the
>>>>>> Politico article about Sedition vs Insurrection came to me from that
>>>>>> unconsciously I think.
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jon zingale

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels

Is it the Right showing their *true nature* or is it a media-suckled *vino
veritas*? I also gather that there isn't much more than power dynamics at
play (if I read you correctly in saying, "The only thing to do is to hold on
to power and to arrange the government to be as robust as possible...").
Still, I keep wondering, besides the direct solution of taking the knife
from the baby's hands is there something more to ethics than power?

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

I'm not much of a drinker, but I think the drinking me and the non-drinking me are just two different modes. The former is no more true than the latter. Like most people not prone to bar fights, either mode will tolerate a person that doesn't share my values if I have a reason. There are models one builds from the totality of evidence that are useful to understand and influence events. Ethical thinking can inform these models. These models should not simply be put aside in the name of peace or transparency.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2021 1:28 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

Is it the Right showing their *true nature* or is it a media-suckled *vino veritas*? I also gather that there isn't much more than power dynamics at play (if I read you correctly in saying, "The only thing to do is to hold on to power and to arrange the government to be as robust as possible...").
Still, I keep wondering, besides the direct solution of taking the knife from the baby's hands is there something more to ethics than power?

--
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gepr

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

We agree well enough. But I'm pretty sure I agree more with Dave's suggestion that Adams and Trump are similar, or at least that Adams thinks so. And, as long as we fudge the meaning of "Great Communicator" to mean something Adams might like (poet?), then we might get closer to understanding (and agreeing with) the position. So, if we disagree, it's only in that.

Re: signalling -- I'm not at all well-read in PoMo. My guess is that everyone on this list has read more than I have. The only reason my name might come up is because I make an effort to *defend* it when I see the dogpile/groupthink against it. It's so tiresome to see dogpiles on anything. (If you've never been dogpiled, I highly recommend it. It fscking sucks, especially for weirdos who don't like to be touched. I was dogpiled a handful of times back at aTm. They soon learned that I wasn't into that kind of homoerotic bonding and stopped.)

Having waxed about my ignorance, I'll say that I don't think signalling plays any larger role in PoMo reasoning than it does in Mo (or even scientific) reasoning. Peirce's semiotics is a grand example. But *what* is being signaled does play a role in PoMo. The allowance of purely manufactured reality and stigmergy are, to me, the PoMo triggers. A pasty stick boy might wear a trucker hat because he likes hats or he might wear it as an ironic signal to his hipster friends. PoMo leans toward that power/status relationship, whereas Mo leans toward the former. I think its similar with your birds.

Re: registration -- Registration, in my ignorance, means something like classification or binning. But it's classification *without* pre-programmed categories. So more like clustering, I guess. You simply "look" out into the milieu and if you see a cluster, you register it. The process can take time, which then leads to the timing of one's registration. Let's say you walk into a snake handling Pentecostal ceremony and you immediately think "Batsh¡t" and walk out. Well, that's *premature* registration. You should give it a little more time, time to appreciate who's into it for the snakes and who's into it for the religion. 8^D If the Catholics handled snakes, I might *still* be going to church ... because ... snakes!

But premature binding might be a good description of the process where your categories are (mostly) well-pre-defined, especially if you have multiple categorizations. And there's a good argument to be made that *none* of us could ever have a clean slate, without pre-programmed categories. So, binding vs registration becomes a bit of a useless distinction.

Re: negative space -- I *think* my perspective is different from yours. I think in terms of duals, the negative space is exactly as representative as the positive space. It seems to me you think of the negative space as having more openness/unboundedness to it than the positive space. So a manipulator like Trump actually wields the closed/bounded negative space purposefully. It's not that he allows for *any* binding. He whistles so that the number of interpretations are MOST LIKELY to be drawn from a small set. If we were talking about something other than Trump, someone like Walt Whitman or whoever, *they* use negative space more like the way you seem to.

On 1/12/21 1:09 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

> Touche'...
>
> Well riposted! (to remain within the metaphor) (EricC can probably help
> us groom our metaphor, we might be mangling it, I haven't held a foil
> for 40 years and don't read nor watch "swashbucklers" excepting
> "Princess Bride" every decade or so).
>
> I can't really quibble with anything you say here, though maybe I'm just
> being lazy for not fine-toothing it enough...   or else we are in the
> proverbial "violent agreement"?
>
> Digging into your distinction between words (talk/type) and actions,
> PoMo caricatures would suggest the everything humans do IS signalling,
> right? Symbols all thew way down? I believe you to be PoMo literate
> but not PoMo allegient, so maybe you can sort this for me a little
> more. Similarly, I sit in front of a picture window most of the time
> with an ad hoc array of elements that attract bird life (feeders,
> birdbath, screen-of-branches, small cottonwood with lots of
> "water-suckers", some rock-art piles, wooden bench, empty water
> trough.   I call this bird-TV and it lives up to it with it's near
> telenovella quality of a caste of more characters than I can keep track
> of signalling a wide range of intentions I can barely guess at among one
> another.
>
> I trust that they actually eat what they eat, shit where they shit and
> nest where they nest to respond to their most primary urges, but the
> melodramas they play out at our "watering hole" also includes a great
> deal of signalling.   The birds of a feather (e.g. flocks) do seem to be
> co-mmunicating to establish and maintain their flockness, to share in
> finding food and avoiding danger, but the ones with disparate appetites
> and perching/roosting/nesting habits still seem to signal with
> vocalization, posture, trajectory a great deal.   I wonder if you can
> tease this experience/observation/milieu apart for me as well?
>
> I did read (when first offered) and appreciated your link to
> "Transportation Theory" and it aligns with much of my own experience.
> I suspect that there is a weaker version of this in the less (obviously
> or familiarly) domain of animal communication. I once watched my
> (outdoor) cat grab a robin and almost immediately a small flock of Pinon
> Jays dropped their Pinons and swarmed the cat who, alarmed, released the
> Robin. I wonder if they would have done the same if had been a tiny
> grey bird or a mouse instead? If birds have vocal languages (Nick,
> EricS, ?) then I suspect there is a huge Pidgen/Creole overlap between
> species and their body-language would seem to overlap well too,
> especially if their gross morphology (robin and jay for example) is
> similar.   I'm guessing that whatever the vocal/body language the robin
> was emitting "Transported" the jays enough to make them "attack the
> bully" out of some simple knee-jerk resonance (which is my inspiration
> when an altercation erupts in public).   There is definitely some
> fascinating inter-species mixing going on on my Bird TV and I often
> wonder if the different species are "learning" anything from one another
> as they "mix it up"... they definitely (my projection?) seem to be
> enjoying the milieu.
>
> Regarding "binding" vs "registration", you have corrected me on this
> before and I acknowledge the utility of the difference (former being
> primarily CS and the latter being Linguistic?) if there is a broader,
> more useful explication of the difference in your usage?   This also
> seems to be your primary criticism of metaphor, that it invites (or
> metaphor-ophiles are prone to) premature registration?
>
> I don't know if you addressed something I gesture at or write between
> the lines often, which is my belief/assertion that the truly interesting
> stuff is what is "between the lines", "in the white space", "in the
> negative space", "in the gesture" which I think is the basis of your
> criticism of Trump-as-Poet, that by leaving too much (everything) to the
> receiver's imagination, nothing is achieved except (perhaps) a
> superposition of delusions, tied only loosely by an emotion (grievance,
> arrogance, self-righteousness)?   This evokes (for me anyway) an
> estuarial metaphor where a great deal of richness of life occurs between
> the salty and the pure waters?

--
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

thompnickson2

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Nah! No, you are doubling down on the idea that some communication is not persuasive because it is to our emotions. Remember. I believe that all emotions are rational. (Just based on low probability data.) “Pfffft!” as Glen has taught me to say. I love to say it. “Pfffft!” “Pfffft!” “Pfffft!”

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2021 1:53 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

Colleagues;

I want to recommend the dialogue below for all who read.

What is the probative value of a narrative? What is the probative value of a photo of demonstrator beating a policeman with a flag? Well, narrowly, if the narrative is accurate and the photo is not faked, they prove that such a thing COULD happen, because, you can plainly see, it has happened. What IS the probative value of a poem? Nothing? Then why are people sometimes convinced by them.

Nick -

Joust on!

- Steve

thompnickson2

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

In reply to this post by jon zingale

Peirce argued that convergence by any means, even the wrack and the
thumbscrew, is convergence, but only convergence by science will endure
indefinitely/ Or perhaps, the other way around: Only that convergence that
endures indefinitely is the product of science.

n

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2021 3:28 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

Is it the Right showing their *true nature* or is it a media-suckled *vino
veritas*? I also gather that there isn't much more than power dynamics at
play (if I read you correctly in saying, "The only thing to do is to hold on
to power and to arrange the government to be as robust as possible...").
Still, I keep wondering, besides the direct solution of taking the knife
from the baby's hands is there something more to ethics than power?

--
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Steve Smith

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

In reply to this post by gepr

glen -

Just to let the thread fray down to nothing here, I do agree that we mostly agree... the big difference between Adams and Trump might be about self-awareness and openly "owning" this style of "communication" and what the utility/implication of it might be.

I appreciate your perspective on PoMo as being more (all?) about the qualities of the signalling focusing on power relations. To tie it back into the original topic, I think you are saying the spoken/written word is less authentic than actions, but might agree that in some view all of it is signalling? Or not.

Your (re)schooling of me on registration/binding and Clustering/Classification/Categorization... is a good reminder of what I should have known. I think the only remaining disparity is that I thought you imputed more semantics into "registration" than perhaps you do.

As it is with all duals, each one is an alternate but full encoding of the other. The Utility, however, seems to be that shifting from one to the other helps to break our preconceived notions and expose some of our blind spots. A fully enlightened/astut observer might not need this distinction... foreground as background as foreground?

- steve

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Steve Smith

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Nick -

I suppose my "Pffft!" intended point is that "intention matters". I know we have argued about my use of the term "inform" in some contexts, but do you insist that I *never* say or do something to "merely" inform you, but rather all utterances/actons have a persuasive intent? If I look at my indoor/outdoor thermometer and tell you "it is 22F outside right now" I might be doing it to convince you not to go outside without a coat, or I might do it to persuade you that I am a data/scientific oriented kinda guy, or I might do it because you indicated that you had an interest even if I don't have much if any idea what your plan for using that knowledge might be. If it so happens your own plan was to go outside and my telling you the thermometer reading persuaded you to wear a coat, then you could claim I had "persuaded" you when in fact, the most you could claim is that you "were persuaded by the data"?

On the same token if you visited me and I asked you to tell me what you thought my resident Raven's were going on about, you would tell me your "story" about Raven communication and if I didn't believe some aspect of it, you would be inclined to try to "persuade" me, but if I simply insisted I "didn't understand" some point, I don't think you would try to persuade me, you would more likely try to understand what aspect of this I didn't understand and repeat or restate it to help me come in alignment with your understanding. Is this latter soem soft form of persuasion?

I dunno, persuade me? Pfffft!

- Steve

Nah! No, you are doubling down on the idea that some communication is not persuasive because it is to our emotions. Remember. I believe that all emotions are rational. (Just based on low probability data.)   “Pfffft!” as Glen has taught me to say. I love to say it. “Pfffft!” “Pfffft!” “Pfffft!”

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2021 1:53 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

Colleagues;

I want to recommend the dialogue below for all who read.

What is the probative value of a narrative? What is the probative value of a photo of demonstrator beating a policeman with a flag? Well, narrowly, if the narrative is accurate and the photo is not faked, they prove that such a thing COULD happen, because, you can plainly see, it has happened. What IS the probative value of a poem? Nothing? Then why are people sometimes convinced by them.

Nick -

I think you are doubling down on Glen's implication that a poem is intended to be persuasive ("convincing" in your term)? While an apt poem (or joke, or song, ) offered with good timing can be persuasive in the context of an argument, it can also/instead be *illuminating* in the context of a generative dialog.

I'm much more interested in a generative and synthetic dialog than in analytical and/or rhetorical one. In your pursuit of publishable results from all our rattling on here, I understand the need/value of doing very careful analysis and then build a rhetorical

EricS's recent invocation of the Albatross and Mariner images from Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" sent me back to that text which I chose to listen to, read to me (thank you Alexa) by a practiced reader.   I was primarily interested in Eric's revised analysis of Trump as Mariner/Democracy as Albatross and whatever embodied wisdom/perspective this "told story" had to offer.   I was drawn quickly to the image of "Rime" which I will leave the analysis to others here who might have dipped their beak (or earholes) into this bit of Coleridge. I wasn't inclined to be persuaded by Eric to any particular moral judgement, just to add (if I didn't already have it) the offered allegory to my quiver of perspectives on this big mess we are trying to find our way out of (deeper into?)

Not to miss the chance Nick, I *do* agree with you that the photos/clips of the insurrection/coup-attempt last week represent a "possibility by example" proof. Context matters (hugely) (sad how traditional media AND internet media have normalized everything to be taken out of context?) and with modern mediocre (well edited by a clever human) and "deep" fakes, I'm rarely inclined to take any image, video or sound recording as an absolute objective fact, even if it doesn't carry any obvious (even to careful technical analysis) evidence of spoofing/construction.   But as with good fiction (storytelling), I don't have to believe that there were literally two naked modern humans named Adam and Eve in a Garden of Plenty who became the progenitors of all human kind to learn something useful from the story.

This leads us full circle back to the question of what is "really real"?   And by correlation, can fictional narrative speak a qualitatively superior truth to factual narrative?   I'm not nearly PoMo literate enough to know if this has all been Derrida'ed and Foucault'ed thoroughly.    The competing narratives on the topic seem to be at an impasse, which I probably can't even characterize well.   Others may feel they are making headway in coming to a better understanding of the question, or perhaps each faction (is there more than 2?) are stuck in the (IMO fruitless) exercise of trying to persuade the other.   While I think I now recognize and appreciate Glen's use of the terms Strawman/Steelman, they seem to reflect the idiom recently (re)Popularized by the Poet-Philosopher Rudi Guilliani with "Trial by Combat!".

Joust on!

- Steve

PS(ssst!)... my more-aggressive-than-usual style here is probably just me sublimating my frustration with not being positioned well to "break up the bar-fight" that is our national politics today.   I grant Marcus' strategy of "ducking out the back and let them kill one another" plenty merit when it is a "brawl" or another episode in a "gang war", but most bar/street fights I've been (even obliquely) aware of had an element of a bully and a victim, and I'm still proud of stepping between the two and facing down the bully while the (potential) victim gets a chance to collect themselves and either withdraw or wait for someone (bully's friends, bartender wielding a pool cue, or maybe the cops) to remove the bully from the equation. If I miss my cue and turned my back to the real bully, I risk getting blindsided by the faux-victim and having possibly just made things worse.

The Capitol insurrection/coup-attempt was some many thousands of bullies trying to intimidate our elected representatives who had to first bully a few hundred capitol police to get access.   If I'd been on site (could anyone there have been truly an innocent bystander?) I'd have been more likely to throw myself on one of the grenades (metaphorical) than to "duck out the back"... I understand why many would "duck out the back" to (not?) "fight another day".   I'm glad few if any of the Capitol Police chose that option, but then that was what they were (self?) selected (and paid) for.

Unsurprisingly, the Right (from hard-core Radical Extreme to more recentTrump-Radicalized) uses an obvious but still effective tactic that all bullies play from time to time which is pretending to be the victim: "what are YOU looking at, huh?" I really hope that those who are true (little c) conservatives can see how their crypto-cousin high-T, grievance-shouting radical-rabble are as dangerous to them and their idealized way of life (if not more) than their presumed complement of (little l) liberals.    </ramble>
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thompnickson2

Re: Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

Thanks for getting back to me.

I hope you didn’t take offence at my Pfffft!! It’s just such a lovely sound to make. “Pfffft!”

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2021 8:30 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

Nick -

[NST===>This is a lovely example because it may reveal that we just have a word problem. Surely you agree that to inform me is to convince me of something, no? That the temperature is 22oF, for instance. But for you, the meaning of convince is not invoked until you have some ulterior motive for convince me that the temperature is 22oF. So, convincing, on your account, does not occur until some fact is used to get me to change my behavior, and does not apply to the fact itself. It reminds me about an old argument about the danger TV commercials pose. I have always insisted that the worst consequence of the “wing awound the cowah” commercials was not that they convinced one to buy Tide, but that they convinced one that “wing awound the cowah” was something we all should worry about. (I have never understood why they used an actress with a speech impediment, but it must have been effective, because they ran it for YEARS!) If I accepted your definition of “convince” I would have to agree with you, but I think that definition carves nature in a very odd place.<===nst]

[NST===>Well, first I would send you out to buy all of Berndt Heinrich’s books on Ravens. Neither of these answers your questions, but they are interesting reads, all the same, and give you a sense of what, if the ravens are talking about something, they might be talking about. I have thought for years, and done some research on the similar calls of the American crow and the best I can come up with is those rhymical, repeated, numerical calls that both species make have something to do with announcing who belongs to whom for territorial purposes.

But I digress. I think there are places in the country where it is bad manners to convince somebody to do something but ok to provide them with information to make their own decision. Both, to me, are instances of persuasion, and the distinction is in service of some odd notion of the privacy of the mind. The distinction breaks down if I try to convince you of a fact that has an obvious implication. If I try to convince a Trumper that the temperature is 57, they might take me as merely informing them; if I try to convince that same person that Trump’s I.Q is 57, they would surely see me as persuading them. [nst]

I dunno, persuade me? Pfffft!

[NST===>YEH. Pffffft! Indeed. <===nst]

- Steve

[NST===>Nick<===nst]

Nah! No, you are doubling down on the idea that some communication is not persuasive because it is to our emotions. Remember. I believe that all emotions are rational. (Just based on low probability data.)   “Pfffft!” as Glen has taught me to say. I love to say it. “Pfffft!” “Pfffft!” “Pfffft!”

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2021 1:53 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Poetry Slams vs biologic Percean Logic Machine Emulator

Colleagues;

I want to recommend the dialogue below for all who read.

What is the probative value of a narrative? What is the probative value of a photo of demonstrator beating a policeman with a flag? Well, narrowly, if the narrative is accurate and the photo is not faked, they prove that such a thing COULD happen, because, you can plainly see, it has happened. What IS the probative value of a poem? Nothing? Then why are people sometimes convinced by them.
Nick -
I think you are doubling down on Glen's implication that a poem is intended to be persuasive ("convincing" in your term)? While an apt poem (or joke, or song, ) offered with good timing can be persuasive in the context of an argument, it can also/instead be *illuminating* in the context of a generative dialog.
I'm much more interested in a generative and synthetic dialog than in analytical and/or rhetorical one. In your pursuit of publishable results from all our rattling on here, I understand the need/value of doing very careful analysis and then build a rhetorical
EricS's recent invocation of the Albatross and Mariner images from Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" sent me back to that text which I chose to listen to, read to me (thank you Alexa) by a practiced reader.   I was primarily interested in Eric's revised analysis of Trump as Mariner/Democracy as Albatross and whatever embodied wisdom/perspective this "told story" had to offer.   I was drawn quickly to the image of "Rime" which I will leave the analysis to others here who might have dipped their beak (or earholes) into this bit of Coleridge. I wasn't inclined to be persuaded by Eric to any particular moral judgement, just to add (if I didn't already have it) the offered allegory to my quiver of perspectives on this big mess we are trying to find our way out of (deeper into?)
Not to miss the chance Nick, I *do* agree with you that the photos/clips of the insurrection/coup-attempt last week represent a "possibility by example" proof. Context matters (hugely) (sad how traditional media AND internet media have normalized everything to be taken out of context?) and with modern mediocre (well edited by a clever human) and "deep" fakes, I'm rarely inclined to take any image, video or sound recording as an absolute objective fact, even if it doesn't carry any obvious (even to careful technical analysis) evidence of spoofing/construction.   But as with good fiction (storytelling), I don't have to believe that there were literally two naked modern humans named Adam and Eve in a Garden of Plenty who became the progenitors of all human kind to learn something useful from the story.
This leads us full circle back to the question of what is "really real"?   And by correlation, can fictional narrative speak a qualitatively superior truth to factual narrative?   I'm not nearly PoMo literate enough to know if this has all been Derrida'ed and Foucault'ed thoroughly.    The competing narratives on the topic seem to be at an impasse, which I probably can't even characterize well.   Others may feel they are making headway in coming to a better understanding of the question, or perhaps each faction (is there more than 2?) are stuck in the (IMO fruitless) exercise of trying to persuade the other.   While I think I now recognize and appreciate Glen's use of the terms Strawman/Steelman, they seem to reflect the idiom recently (re)Popularized by the Poet-Philosopher Rudi Guilliani with "Trial by Combat!".
Joust on!
- Steve
PS(ssst!)... my more-aggressive-than-usual style here is probably just me sublimating my frustration with not being positioned well to "break up the bar-fight" that is our national politics today.   I grant Marcus' strategy of "ducking out the back and let them kill one another" plenty merit when it is a "brawl" or another episode in a "gang war", but most bar/street fights I've been (even obliquely) aware of had an element of a bully and a victim, and I'm still proud of stepping between the two and facing down the bully while the (potential) victim gets a chance to collect themselves and either withdraw or wait for someone (bully's friends, bartender wielding a pool cue, or maybe the cops) to remove the bully from the equation. If I miss my cue and turned my back to the real bully, I risk getting blindsided by the faux-victim and having possibly just made things worse.
The Capitol insurrection/coup-attempt was some many thousands of bullies trying to intimidate our elected representatives who had to first bully a few hundred capitol police to get access.   If I'd been on site (could anyone there have been truly an innocent bystander?) I'd have been more likely to throw myself on one of the grenades (metaphorical) than to "duck out the back"... I understand why many would "duck out the back" to (not?) "fight another day".   I'm glad few if any of the Capitol Police chose that option, but then that was what they were (self?) selected (and paid) for.
Unsurprisingly, the Right (from hard-core Radical Extreme to more recentTrump-Radicalized) uses an obvious but still effective tactic that all bullies play from time to time which is pretending to be the victim: "what are YOU looking at, huh?" I really hope that those who are true (little c) conservatives can see how their crypto-cousin high-T, grievance-shouting radical-rabble are as dangerous to them and their idealized way of life (if not more) than their presumed complement of (little l) liberals.    </ramble>
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