Part of the reason for the split into 'camps' is that there are two types of logic that can be used in inquiring into the same data-sets. There is nothing new here. Anyone can read about the logic of the excluded third and the logic of the included third, which Poincare associates with the difference between using Euclidian [linear space, dualist] reference-framing and non-Euclidian [curved space, non-dualist] reference framing.
An example could be formed using the issue you are raising; i.e. the splitting of 'Anarchists' into two camps. In the dualist logic-of-the-excluded-third view, each of these two camps is assumed to existent independently of the other.
In the non-dualist, logic-of-the-included-third view, these two camps are understood to be a 'unum-in-opposition'. In this view, there is still only 'one community' but it is 'relationally tensioned against itself', the community does not actually SPLIT into two separate, independent units. If the community can 'hold on to the tension of opposites', it may find a way to transcend its seemingly binary difference in a 'higher space'.
"Hodos ano kato (ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω), “the upward-downward path.” are simultaneous opposites, the source of “hidden harmony”. There is a harmony in the bending back (παλίντροπος palintropos) as in the case of the bow and the lyre. – from Heraclitus
If we don't want to talk about it, fine, ... but our cultural default is the logic of the excluded third which means that the logical elements in our logical propositions [as argued by two opposing camps] that make up our conversation will be assumed to be mutually exclusive [e.g. rich and poor, good and bad, male and female] rather than relationally tensioned.
There is lots that can be said of these two very different ways that people can split into opposing camps, but since the majority of Western culture-conditioned people see logical argument solely in terms of the dualist logic of the excluded third, there is nothing to talk about since, while the logic of the included third INCLUDES the logic of the excluded third as a 'special case', in the same manner that a straight line is a special case of a curve [Euclidian rectangular space is a special case of non-Euclidian curved space], if one starts with the straight line assumption, one view is all you get. How these two types of logic 'relate' has been mathematically formalized by Stephane Lupasco and others, as described, for example, in "Stéphane Lupasco et le tiers inclus. De la physique quantique à l’ontologie", by Basarab Nicolescu
Going back to the community divided against itself, one may assume that the community is still ONE but is relationally tensioned against itself, AND, ... one can also see the community in terms of two separate and opposing camps. That is, the simpler view of the community splitting into two separate camps 'doesn't go anywhere else', but the relational view can go a lot of different places [the tension of opposites can be resolved in many different ways]. The relation between the two types of logic is described as follows;
"To every phenomenon or element or logical event whatsoever, and accordingly to the judgment which thinks of it, the proposition which expresses it, to the sign which symbolizes it must always be associated, structurally and functionally, a logical antiphenomenon, or anti-element or anti-event and therefore a contradictory judgment, proposition or sign in such a fashion that the former can only be potentialized by the actualization of the latter, but not disappear such that either could be self-sufficient in an independent and therefore rigorous non-contradiction – as in all logic, classical or otherwise, that is based on an absoluteness of the principle of non-contradiction.”
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The point half-way between actualization and potentialization is a point of maximum antagonism or ‘contradiction’ from which, in the case of complex phenomena, a T-state (T for “tiers inclus”, included third term) emerges, which is capable of resolving the contradiction (or ‘counter-action‘), at another, higher level of reality. “ – Lupasco, Stéphane., Le principe d’antagonisme et la logique de l’énergie, 1951."
In the indigenous aboriginal culture and in their relational languages, disagreement is understood as ONE COMMUNITY tensioned against itself. There is no belief in the existence of 'truth' as a binary absolute so that 'one group is 'right' and the other group is 'wrong'. The 'talking circle' is NOT like the debating forum; i.e. it is not to argue so as to 'determine the truth', which commonly degenerates into a 'majority vote' determination of 'what the truth really is'. The talking circle is to listen to everyone sharing actual experiences within the community dynamic [not to share and debate opinions and rational models]. This exposes opportunities to transform relations so as to restore balance and harmony and thus resolve relational tensions without ever having to distinguish between 'truth' and 'falsehood' [the splitting into camps over whether Saddam had WMDs or not was resolved by majority vote. Such debates need have nothing to do with the physical reality of actual experience, and just because a majority believes in one of two opposing viewpoints has no impact whatsoever on the 'truth'.
"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.” ― Giordano Bruno [Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 AD, in the Campo-dei Fiori adjacent to the Vatican, for this attack on belief-based herd behaviour fostered by the Church].
tl;dr Whether or not the campers can break out of their ruts can depend on whether the two opposing ruts are seen as binary and mutually exclusive, or relational as in a unum-in-tensioned-opposition wherein resolution can avoid dogged insistence on establishing 'truth' or 'falsehood' and go for relational transformation oriented to the restoring, cultivating and sustaining of balance and harmony without having to establish 'truth' or 'falsehood'.
This comment was in response to the question;
"Can the campers break out of their ruts?"
It intends to raise questions as to the nature of 'disagreement' within a community and alternative ways of resolving differences without having to establish 'who is right' and 'who is wrong' [getting everyone moving, like a herd, in the same direction, is a degenerate approach to 'sustaining relational harmony'.].
since the question was asked by H
"I'm still trying to figure out what the hell the word epigenetic has to do anarchist discourse or any other kind of political discourse."
Answer:
As Emma Goldman well understood, in her disseminating of Nietzschean philosophy, Western culture uses the subject and attribute constructs of noun-and-verb Indo-European/scientific language-and-grammar to limit the interpretation of dynamics to the one-sided terms of inside-outward genetic expression in contradiction to the physical reality of our actual experience, wherein outside-inward inductive actualization [epigenetic influence] is primary in nature [i.e. in the physical reality of our actual experience].
For example, we use noun-and-verb language-and-grammar to speak in terms of the 'rise and fall of hurricane Katrina' or 'the rise and fall of the British/American/Roman Empire', as if the 'genetic expression' was the 'real thing', even though our experience-based intuition informs us that 'the world is given only once' as a transforming relational continuum that is inductively actualizing relational forms or 'genetic expressions' within itself. We employ noun-and-verb language to IDEALIZE relational forms as notional 'things-in-themselves that do stuff' as in Nietzsche's example 'lightning flashes'.
The point [Nietzsche's as picked up on by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and other anarchists] is that Western culture has been raised on the mistaken confusing of subject/attribute based 'idealizations'; i.e. notional reduction of relational dynamics to 'thing-in-themselves-that do stuff', as the basis for the world dynamic. This is not just the error [gross over-simplification] of Newtonian physics, it is commonplace error built into the 'semantic realities' we construct, such as 'the rise and fall of nation-states' and thus the notion that 'we can make America great again'. [As Whorf points out, the assumptions of Newtonian physics derive from the noun-and-verb architecture of Indo-European languages].
America never was great and neither was 'the Roman Empire' [these are just words]. 'America' is not a thing-in-itself that undergoes a rise and fall. Likewise, hurricane Katrina is not a thing-in-itself that undergoes a rise and fall. That is just a pragmatic IDEALIZATION used for its discursive convenience [it delivers economy of thought] by reifying 'genetic expression' that is actualized by epigenetic inductive influence immanent in the transforming relational continuum. In other words, the physical reality is the relational dynamic and it is the epigenetic inductive influence immanent in the relational dynamic that actualizes, orchestrates and shapes local, visible, tangible 'genetic expressions' such as hurricane Katrina or 'the American Empire'. The United States is, at the same time, a transmitter and receiver of people [for the receiver data (80 million immigrants from 1820-2013) see Two Centuries of US Immigration. Statistics are not kept on emigration].
Clearly, the US is not an independent thing that is the full and sole author of its own development and behaviour as in Western religious egotist portraits of 'the `human BEING`. It is far more like Emerson`s description of man as a 'vent'; i.e. as a transmitter of influence from the vast and universal to the point on which its genius can act.
The source of dysfunction and incoherence in Western society is its confusing of the egotist 'independent being' model of dynamics for 'reality'. This being-based depiction is just noun-and-verb constructed 'semantic reality', it is NOT the physical reality of our actual experience. That is, relational dynamics are the physical source of the world dynamic as in EPIGENETIC INDUCTIVE INFLUENCE ACTUALIZES, ORCHESTRATES AND SHAPES GENETIC EXPRESSION. It is only 'ego' that supports the idealizing of dynamics as 'what independent things-in-themselves do'.
This is the point that you can read in the writing of Nietzsche, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman; e.g;
“In its origin language belongs in the age of the most rudimentary form of psychology. We enter a realm of crude fetishism when we summon before consciousness the basic presuppositions of the metaphysics of language, in plain talk, the presuppositions of reason. Everywhere it sees a doer and doing; it believes in will as the cause; it believes in the ego, in the ego as being, in the ego as substance, and it projects this faith in the ego-substance upon all things — only thereby does it first create the concept of “thing.” Everywhere “being” is projected by thought, pushed underneath, as the cause; the concept of being follows, and is a derivative of, the concept of ego. In the beginning there is that great calamity of an error that the will is something which is effective, that will is a faculty. Today we know that it is only a word.” – Nietzsche, ‘Twilight of the Idols’
Nietzsche also used the terms 'endosmosis' for 'epigenesis' and 'exosmosis' for 'genetic expression', explaining that 'what we call things' are epigenetic-genetic non-dualities.
Hierarchical governance only works because people believe that the world dynamic is machine-like where everything is being driven in one direction, as if by a Supreme source of authorship.
Anarchism, for Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, comes by breaking down this ego-based belief that the world dynamic is authored by local, visible, independent things-in-themselves driven by their own internal components and processes. This is bullshit but it is at the same time the belief system of Western society.
'Epigenetic' is the word that points to the natural precedence of outside-inward inductive influence that actualizes inside-outward genetic expression. the relational flow-dynamic inductively actualizes the storm-cell and or the nation-state, they do not actualize themselves as in noun-and-verb language-and-grammar; e.g. 'the rise and fall of hurricane Katrina' or 'The British Empire' or 'The Roman Empire' or 'The American Empire'. These 'rise and fall' portrayals of self-authoring behaviour deny the natural physical precedence of epigenetic inductive influence responsible for their actualizing, that are occluded by the subject-attribute structures of noun-and-verb language.
The world dynamic forms from epigenetic influences that inductively actualize genetic expression, the former being purely relational and thus non-local, non-visible and non-material and the latter being 'local', 'visible' and 'material' as in the familiar inhabitant-habitat non-duality known by the persisting identity-giving words 'hurricane Katrina'.
As Paul Shepard says in 'Nature and Madness', 'epigenesis' is the indefinitely deferred outside-inward inductive influence that will actualize our development if the culture does not subvert it by infusion of cultural programs in us that forcibly constrain us to inside-outward development, taking us out of harmony with the transforming relational dynamics in which we are included;
The phases of such early experiences, or epigenesis, are the legacy of an evolutionary past in which human and nonhuman achieved a healthy rapport. Recent societies have contorted that sequence, have elicited and perpetuated immature and inappropriate responses. The societies are themselves the product of such amputations, and so are their uses and abuses of the Earth.
”The fact that less than a half dozen personalities completely dominate the comments on this website seems like evidence enough that it is not a space for good conversations.”
anarchist Robert Anton Wilson speaks of how people in our Western society tend to live in their own ‘subjective reality tunnels’. the allegation of a half dozen personalities ‘completely dominating the comments’ is a case in point.
Western moral judgement presumes that there is objective truth out there so that a person’s actions can be judged objectively as actions in-themselves and whether they are deserving of praise or blame, merit or reproach.
If there really were objective truth about the nature of an action, and no subjectivity on the part of the observer, we could establish, by concensus, whether a particular action was deserving of praise or blame, merit or reproach. However, in the real world of our actual experience, subjectivity is the norm and it is impossible to isolate the respective contributions of the subjectivity of the observer/experient and the objective influence of an act.
The question of a subjective component can creep in for a few reasons however; e.g. if a handsome young man driving a fancy car admires a girl’s cleavage, the act of admiring cleavage is completely inoffensive and may be interpreted as a polite gesture of acknowledging natural beauty. If it is a toothless old geezer in rags pushing a grocery cart with all his belongings in it, the very same act might not have the very same objective value.
Experiential conditioning of the observing subject seems to thwart the notion of there being an ‘objective reality’ out there. If a little girl playfully pops a party balloon, the war veteran with PTSD may not give the same objective value to this act as many other do. Women with PTSD from experiences of sexual abuse may not respond the same to a flirtatious comment as the great majority of women would.
When you hear people complaining about offensive comments in a forum, it could be akin to feminists subjectively finding certain male behaviours highly offensive while non-feminists find the very same male behaviours innocuous. The feminists need not provide objective arguments in these cases, there is simply agreement on the part of the feminist subgroup to subjectively define the male behaviour as offensive.
But how does this curious complaint of ‘dominating’ come into play in such subjective projections?
Imagine whites travelling on buses in the segregated south of the 1950s and experiencing, on one out of every five bus trips, the unpleasantness of having a black person get on the same bus. Supposing that things deteriorate and one out of every three trips brings an encounter with blacks getting on the bus, maybe even two or three of them. Imagine the deterioration getting even worse so almost every bus trip brings an encounter with this unpleasant situation. What will become ‘dominant’ here is certainly not the actions of the black people. What will become dominant is the subjectively unpleasant experience of the white commuter.
That is the nature of subjective judgements; i.e. the subjective experient assumes that his experience is of the objective truth of what is going on out there.
It is impossible to isolate the separate contributions of subjective experience and objective influence. [This is known as ‘the fundamental dilemma of causality’ (Rubin)]. Thus, people can argue as to whether to blame the disturbance on the ‘rogue participants’ or their own subjective experiencing, but without ever being able to isolate the respective contributions of each.
There is no question that the little girl popping her party balloon causes the war veteran with PTSD real emotional distress. For most people, but not for all, the balloon-popping is innocuous and not at all offensive. Our experiential conditioning and the influence of the action 'out there' are a non-duality.
what we have going on in regard to these complaints about rogue participants that 'dominate' the comments in the anarchistnews forum is the same runaway subjectivity that occurs in the case of the white commuter.
"That is the nature of subjective judgements; i.e. the subjective experient assumes that his experience is of the objective truth of what is going on out there. "
not how i see it. it is the subjective truth. ain't that the whole point, that it is NOT objective?
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