"the revolutionary energy of whatever it is Maoists believe"
It's communism, Frank.
I loved reading about this also. Still going to be thinking about this for awhile, but I think an interesting question is why this style of thought, critical theory, comes from a specifically Marxist tradition. You associate it here with the postmodernists, but it doesn't originate there, it was developed by regular ol' modernists (a lot of whom who actually found postmoderism 'pretty sus'). I'll grant you that looking at it from outside, as it's actually being used in debate circles, it is pretty postmodern, since it's within a ludic simulation where truth and representation are all a bit weird. But I mean, the arguments they're actually employing are much closer to classic Critical Theory with a Capital C (er, Kapital K?) of Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas, etc etc. One and all of these guys (they were all guys) are Marxists of various stripes.
What I think is funny, and worth thinking about, is why it might be that these ideas about verbs over nouns -that is, examining underlying structures as causative forces- should necessarily have such a strong leftwards pull? Why does examining the constructed systems of the world predispose one to human liberation and egalitarianism? Makes you think.
Yes, but presumably some Special Blend whose list of ingredients I can't be bothered to read. For example, what flavor of Hegelian magic beans did he use when brewing up his plan to kill millions of his own citizens? I don't know, what kind of push-ups did Jeffrey Dahmer do?
The reason so many otherwise reasonable and intelligent people are into this shit is related to the answer to your question about the leftward pull of critique in general - we live in a two party town. The language of "right" and "left" itself demonstrates this. For better or worse, Marx is the Pepsi to Milton Freedman's Coca Cola. When you call attention to the arbitrary, inefficient, and harmful aspects of the status quo, you necessarily imply support for the "other side". (Unless you are, explicitly, a Neo-Reactionary, a QAnon Truther, or some other type of kook.)
This is terrible, but also understandable. What could be more incomprehensibly complex than politics? It combines all of the infamously difficult problems of modeling and prediction, with all of the infamously difficult problems of values and judgment. It's not a huge surprise that, to have any leverage over it at all, we take the vast, multi-dimensional space of possible social structures, institutions, and mechanisms, and reduce it down into the cartoonishly crude binary spectrum of the current meta. What can we do? Life is hard. Cognitive resources are finite. The struggle is real. Often, on a practical level, one is faced with the choice of cynically shrugging and letting history pass you by, or trying, as best you can, to join the fight that's happening in the ring and make a positive contribution, no matter how absurdly reductionist the fight has become.
And then someone sticks an ice pick in your skull.
I feel in my heart, Alexander, that game design has something important to contribute to this overall problem. But I would be lying if I told you I knew what it was.
I think the problem you point to in that example is a legitimate issue that people criticize about utilitarianism. Are moral goods things you can do math with, adding them up, comparing the sizes of collections of them, and other quantitative operations? It's a good question. I will say that I really like Parfit's book Reasons and Persons, if you at all enjoy thinking about these kinds of puzzles I highly recommend it.
"the revolutionary energy of whatever it is Maoists believe"
It's communism, Frank.
I loved reading about this also. Still going to be thinking about this for awhile, but I think an interesting question is why this style of thought, critical theory, comes from a specifically Marxist tradition. You associate it here with the postmodernists, but it doesn't originate there, it was developed by regular ol' modernists (a lot of whom who actually found postmoderism 'pretty sus'). I'll grant you that looking at it from outside, as it's actually being used in debate circles, it is pretty postmodern, since it's within a ludic simulation where truth and representation are all a bit weird. But I mean, the arguments they're actually employing are much closer to classic Critical Theory with a Capital C (er, Kapital K?) of Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas, etc etc. One and all of these guys (they were all guys) are Marxists of various stripes.
What I think is funny, and worth thinking about, is why it might be that these ideas about verbs over nouns -that is, examining underlying structures as causative forces- should necessarily have such a strong leftwards pull? Why does examining the constructed systems of the world predispose one to human liberation and egalitarianism? Makes you think.
> It's communism, Frank.
Yes, but presumably some Special Blend whose list of ingredients I can't be bothered to read. For example, what flavor of Hegelian magic beans did he use when brewing up his plan to kill millions of his own citizens? I don't know, what kind of push-ups did Jeffrey Dahmer do?
The reason so many otherwise reasonable and intelligent people are into this shit is related to the answer to your question about the leftward pull of critique in general - we live in a two party town. The language of "right" and "left" itself demonstrates this. For better or worse, Marx is the Pepsi to Milton Freedman's Coca Cola. When you call attention to the arbitrary, inefficient, and harmful aspects of the status quo, you necessarily imply support for the "other side". (Unless you are, explicitly, a Neo-Reactionary, a QAnon Truther, or some other type of kook.)
This is terrible, but also understandable. What could be more incomprehensibly complex than politics? It combines all of the infamously difficult problems of modeling and prediction, with all of the infamously difficult problems of values and judgment. It's not a huge surprise that, to have any leverage over it at all, we take the vast, multi-dimensional space of possible social structures, institutions, and mechanisms, and reduce it down into the cartoonishly crude binary spectrum of the current meta. What can we do? Life is hard. Cognitive resources are finite. The struggle is real. Often, on a practical level, one is faced with the choice of cynically shrugging and letting history pass you by, or trying, as best you can, to join the fight that's happening in the ring and make a positive contribution, no matter how absurdly reductionist the fight has become.
And then someone sticks an ice pick in your skull.
I feel in my heart, Alexander, that game design has something important to contribute to this overall problem. But I would be lying if I told you I knew what it was.
I think the problem you point to in that example is a legitimate issue that people criticize about utilitarianism. Are moral goods things you can do math with, adding them up, comparing the sizes of collections of them, and other quantitative operations? It's a good question. I will say that I really like Parfit's book Reasons and Persons, if you at all enjoy thinking about these kinds of puzzles I highly recommend it.