How Dangerous is Postmodern Cultural Relativism?

[Carl-Richard]

46 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

Green isn't just "Orange, but better!", it's a swing to the other extreme.

It's the next stage of development. In a sense, it literally is Orange but better.

 

49 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

Hmm, you make a compelling argument..

I'm reflecting the level of engagement that you've provided.

[lmfao]

@UDT With your own personal conduct, express your freedom there. Regardless of what the politics or current trends are. Perhaps be sensible about not getting in trouble with the law or going to jail though, if jail's possible. 

As far as thoughts about what this means about broader society, I couldn't tell ya. Interact with people in dialogue about this and you'll learn what you need to know.

You'll find all sorts of NPC reasoning on this topic. Folk who reference spiral dynamics as a crutch for their positions are perhaps worse. For not only have they given up using first principles, but they have a sweet and enticing model to take over their thinking. If a model is too good, it's an even bigger trap.


But besides all that, I have plenty of criticisms for the model itself. I actually think it's a joke to treat the different stages as if they're identical qualitatively or in essence. 

In response to criticisms I give spiral dynamics, people will proclaim they agree with me that models are limited. But those are mere words; they'll continue to use spiral dynamics to judge everything anyway. 

_ _ _ _ _ 
The matter of free speech is clear to me. I find the concerns SJW's have about speech to mostly be retarded.

I saw someone write this line of reasoning, which gives just one perspective or angle at the problem with PC reasoning. Lets take the word "nig***" for example [yes, "hard r"].

Quote

By making "nig***" a universal taboo, many people have lost the distinction between niggers and blacks.

And this was one of the tools that culture used to judge and elevate itself.
Now, almost gone.

We're not allowed to judge niggers for being niggers, we must allocate that culpability to the environment.

White people are still allowed the luxury of judging their own subpeoples.
Racists, hicks, drug addicts, etc.
But blacks aren't.
Or rather, they are, and they do but the wider cultural gatekeeps, keep us from seeing what goes on indoors in black neighborhoods.

Which is a ton of: "fuck these god damn niggers"
 

Language itself is being shifted to deny measurements.
bizarre

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by lmfao

[thisintegrated]

47 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's the next stage of development. In a sense, it literally is Orange but better.

 

I'm reflecting the level of engagement that you've provided.

--__--

Are you unfamiliar with the model?  Its most basic idea is that people alternate between being self-focused and collective-focused.  You think there isn't a single disadvantage to losing one?

Turquoise is the goal.  To have reached Turquoise means to have found balance, among other things.  No position within tier 1 is balanced.  Orange to Green isn't just "up".  It's up and to the side.

 

And if you're gonna reply, I'd appreciate it if you dropped the attitude.

Edited July 9, 2021 by thisintegrated

[Emerald]

11 hours ago, UDT said:

In George Orwell´s 1984 - the leading party "rewrites" history, cuts unwelcome words out of the dictionary and in so remains its power. It "rewrites" history to conform with its narrative.

We see this stuff happening here in the U.S and Canada today!

Now I´ve heard from a german colleague - they banned the word for riding the train without a ticket as it is called "riding black" in German. 
The origin of the word for black comes from jewish for poor though. It is a little bit similar to censor saying "I like black coffee" bcs it is racist.

It seems quite obvious to me that the new censorship, the "I have to be careful what I say because I can get imprisoned" kind of danger comes from rainbow flag waving "leftists" or non binary offended people. 

Is this the case? Wtf is going on ?

It isn't the case. There's a lot of fear-mongering about the left and how they take everything to mean something racist, sexist, etc. 

But no one is freaking out about calling coffee black. And if you believe they are, I have some nice commercial swampland in Florida to sell you.  

Also, acceptance of the non-gender-conforming and the LGBTQ community is instrumental in the shift towards Yellow and Turquoise. And any attempt to dial that acceptance back is most surely rooted in Blue or before. Don't kid yourself otherwise. 

And the acceptance of the LGBTQ community is quite important even for heterosexual people, as it breaks them out of the boxes of the gender norms and getting more in touch with their deeper masculine and feminine energies. This is not possible without the acceptance of the LGBTQ community.

My advice is to do your best to transcend Blue and go into Orange at least with regard to your acceptance of the LGBTQ community. That way you can start to see that it's something that regards the individual and thus is not a problem for you or anyone else.

From Orange, acceptance of the LGBTQ community is all about seeing it as personal choice to stay out of. 

Then, once you transcend Orange, you can move to Green, where you can begin to break down your own adherence to rigid gender norms and to see the conditioned aspects of your own gendered expressions.

Then, once you transcend to Yellow, you can then find your deeper core Masculine/Feminine signature and express from that.

Then, once you transcend to Turquoise, you can once again discover that what you are is truly genderless and that the masculine and feminine are just two sides to your coin. 

You can learn a lot from the LGBTQ community in terms of breaking out of your boxes.  

[Arcangelo]

@Bojan V  Calling @UDT  a homophobe is THE perfect example of cancel culture.

I am with you @UDT  this shit is getting ridiculous. These greenies wake up offended, now they are even banning words, this is 100% Orwellian

 

[Emerald]

7 minutes ago, Arcangelo said:

@Bojan V  Calling @UDT  a homophobe is THE perfect example of cancel culture.

I am with you @UDT  this shit is getting ridiculous. These greenies wake up offended, now they are even banning words, this is 100% Orwellian

 

Do you honestly not see his question as homophobic?

I think it's fair to call a duck and duck if it quacks like one and waddles like one.

We don't have to go into any mental gymnastics or reality denying tactics. We can just call something what it is. 

[Arcangelo]

21 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Do you honestly not see his question as homophobic?

Honestly, I see his question as 5% to 10% homophobic. To be quite honest with you.

I used to work (wage slave myself) with a real homophobe, and I can tell you guys that UDT is definitely not one of them.

[Bojan V]

@Arcangelo It has nothing to do with the "cancel culture", which is btw the american "thing" and i don't accept that, like i don't accept many things from the american empire.

It is about me being gay and about blaming and demonizing us, the LGBT people.

I live in Slovenia, in rural area, and all i can see is heteros judging and blaming us,telling us we are sick, dangerous and that we should either stay between the four walls, to get "help", or to die. 

So when we, LGBT people, try to live our lives free and openly, "sudenly" we are somehow dangerous to heteros. Well, to hell with that!

I will always, as much as possible and safe, stand up for myself and LGBT people, and also i will always call a homophobe a homophobe. And i will not apologize and explain myself for that!

And for all the homophobes out there-we, the LGBT people, want to live free and safe just like the heterosexual people. No more, but also no less then that!

And another thing... Since i came on this forum last year there were homophobic people here and they were very upset when i disagreed with them. To be honest i didn't came here to deal with homophobes, but to learn some new informations about spirituality. 

More and more i am thinking to just leave this forum and to ask some moderator to ban or delet my account, becose i have enough of this.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Bojan V

[Eph75]

I'd say this is a phase of sometimes grossly misdirected energy to "do good" that shouldn't be wasted too much energy on resisting. 

Sweden has been through such a phase a number of years ago, it got a lot of focus, but then it seemed to go away, shifting to the "next Green buzz".

There have been similar "themes" that have been moved through, not really connected in other ways than being the attractor for some groups wanting to identify some sort of injustice and make some noise and difference, focus eventully moving on to some new "theme". 

Today's focus is noticeable shifting towards a more practical direction. 

This is the system testing itself through such somewhat misdirected energies and attempts to push the boundaries of the cognitive development of the one stretching, as well as stress-testing of the system to make it stretch. 

Much like they way a toddler tests the boundaries of the parents to see what and where those boundaries are, and to what degree they tolerate stretching. In some cases that testing is warranted and positive, in other cases that testing result in dysfunctional child-parent relationships that create long-going negative effects on one, and often both parties. The managing of this is to facilitate a healthy manifestation while still allowing for stepping into that which is "uncomfortable". 

I'd label it a dysfunctional by-product of a somewhat wider emergence of Green vMeme in a society, whereas such phenomena are inevitable growing pains that is a requirement for a society to grow, and applying that stress to the system that is needed to process some of the collective shadows that are holding the society back, as a whole, from further development. 

While needing to resist at least some of it, fighting it also gives fuel to the cause. Without traction focus shifts. With traction the fight might become a cause in and of its own, looking for increasingly trivial or far-fetched manifestations with the only desired outcome to rattle the cage. 

Some of the resulting changes have been warranted, would not be tolerated today, and resistence is more of an ideological stance against the change or against "rewriting or denying history", e.g. literature, or children's literature in particular, or brand product names that easily can be misinterpreted, or even was blantently strange. It's hard to imagine that someone would actually miss that which was removed, other than lost awkward moments of "that's funny in a odd sense" kind of reactions. New consumers certainly are oblivious to there being something lost. 

Word games and gross misinterpretations in such cases as mentioned "black coffee" (even though this was not a real life example, there have been very close examples) becomes collateral damage to the cause as focus and boundaries become increasingly blurred out.

Growth pains, different to different people, in different ways. 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Eph75

[StarfoxEpiphany]

5 hours ago, Emerald said:

And if you believe they are, I have some nice commercial swampland in Florida to sell you.  

One thing that always perplexes me about progressives is how much they like to stereotype and show open hatred toward rural people.  I'm sure you think you have good reasons for not liking them.  Primarily, that it gives you an excuse to behave poorly. Bad behavior is fun, right?

Well guess what, there's also lots of reasons to stereotype and dislike all sorts of groups.  You see why people like you are a problem?

 

[UDT]

4 hours ago, Bojan V said:

It is about me being gay and about blaming and demonizing us, the LGBT people.

I live in Slovenia, in rural area, and all i can see is heteros judging and blaming us,telling us we are sick, dangerous and that we should either stay between the four walls, to get "help", or to die. 

@Bojan V Im sorry to hear that. You must hardcore collide with the orthodox people there.
But I can assure you that I am not phobic (fearing) of any sex, gender, religion, color, or other box, people are put in.

To the topic:
Ive repeated this 3x times already but this threat is not about gender, sex, religion, or freedom of expression.  (again these are great things.)
-> Its about the censorship and dictation of which words are being allowed to use, the deplatforming of scientists in the name of "anti-hate speech, mis-information, fake news" which bears a lot of similarity to what is described in George Orwell 1984 (see my prev. post about newspeak.)

 

5 hours ago, Emerald said:

Do you honestly not see his question as homophobic?

@Emerald Talking about censorship and cancel culture has no touchpoint with this! Its ridiculous!
Ive repeated multiple times. 
You see you call me a homophobe (defamation) so anything I´ve written about the actual topic (which is censorship and freedom speech) is now forgotten. I am the enemy who is not to be listened to. 

This is exactly the problem. 

5 hours ago, Arcangelo said:

@Bojan V  Calling @UDT  a homophobe is THE perfect example of cancel culture.

Yes it is. Because now I have to defend myself from these serious accusations and I cant just discuss censorship and freedom of speech anymore. 

What happens now is, the inventor of the mRNA technology says something about vaccine concerns, and is immediately pulled from social media because he is "violating community guidelines about mis-information and hate speech". 
 

"Well if he mis informed and hated, good he went!" - you might say, but in fact he did not. Its a straw-man position. 
 

6 hours ago, Emerald said:

But no one is freaking out about calling coffee black. And if you believe they are,

I´ve literally shared a story about how riding black is being banned, which is the exact same usage of "black" as in black coffee, (in german there is also black bread, yellow trashcan etc.) 

 

7 hours ago, lmfao said:

I saw someone write this line of reasoning, which gives just one perspective or angle at the problem with PC reasoning. Lets take the word "nig***" for example [yes, "hard r"].

@lmfao Exactly this is described by George Orwell as well.


 

9 hours ago, cookiemonster said:

You're still missing the broader point, that this has nothing to do with LGBTQ.

Media censorship and cancel culture is a problem, yes, but that's a systemic problem not a subjective one

@cookiemonster Of course it has nothing to do with the rights of LGBTQ - that is what I am saying -  media censorship is being undertaken under the veil of it being for LGBTQ as a justification.  You understand what I am saying here?


This whole thread is exactly what is so concerning.
Instead of talking about the issues with cancel culture, no discussion is possible, because people make it about rights for diversity, attacking people, etc.


In George Orwell terms if you're opposing the ruling party you are not loving enough so you have to go to the ministry of love to get "educated". But whats really happening is you oppose party ideology so you get sentenced to death - but since the wording is different, they changed its meaning. 

Now If I say Im worried for the freedom of speech and about censorship, I am a "homophobe" "racist" so I need to be censored and go to jail. 

Even though I didnt say anything about race or gender.

You get this? 

See even the title "how dangerous is lgbtq" is by most people translated with "how dangerous is freedom for all genders and diversity"

So of course it is not dangerous!
But the topic is about censorship of scientists and many more under the veil they are violating lgbtq rights. Which they are clearly not.

And this is EXACTLY what George Orwell describes in 1984, which is why I made this thread.

By just giving an ideology, a practice, a party etc. a universally good name such as "the party of freedom and diversity" , the "ministry of truth and love"  you can get away with doing exactly the opposite of enabling freedom and diversity.









 

[UDT]

4 hours ago, Eph75 said:

While needing to resist at least some of it, fighting it also gives fuel to the cause. Without traction focus shifts. With traction the fight might become a cause in and of its own, looking for increasingly trivial or far-fetched manifestations that with the only desired outcome rattle the cage. 

@Eph75 You are exactly the reason why I am on this forum. Thanks for the post this is quality material - answering my question. Appreciate it.







 

[Opo]

39 minutes ago, UDT said:

I´ve literally shared a story about how riding black is being banned, which is the exact same usage of "black" as in black coffee

Why didn't they then ban the word black coffee? 

[Carl-Richard]

10 hours ago, thisintegrated said:

Are you unfamiliar with the model?  Its most basic idea is that people alternate between being self-focused and collective-focused.  You think there isn't a single disadvantage to losing one?

Each stage is not dichotomously collectivist or individualist. That's a bit simplistic. The distinctions become less obvious at the higher stages. This is because the higher stages do in fact take lessons from the lower stages. That is why it's called a developmental model. It's like puberty: you gain some size, sexual maturity and cognitive functioning, but you keep your youthfulness and your body parts. You develop your pre-existing faculties.

The transition from Orange to Green isn't an amnesic extraction of Orange individualism. It's rather the enhancement and augmentation of that individualism. Collectivism at the end of the day is a strategy for the survival of individuals, and healthy Green recognizes this fact and how it relates to the importance of individual rights in the modern world (Orange). Green hasn't forgotten about the benefits of the Enlightenment. In fact, Green was actually founded upon those values.

The most dogmatic and problematic forms of collectivism are seen in Purple and Blue: racism, xenophobia, tribalism, authoritarian theocracy etc. Here, Green has taken the lessons from Orange, namely democracy and individual rights, and tries to battle these anti-individualist injustices in the collective arena. Therefore, in a sense, it's a step towards collectivism but not so much a step away from individualism. 

Green also recognizes that some individuals are worse off than others and that people deserve a base minimum of humanity. Why? Because again, like Orange, they believe that the individual has inherent value. It's much easier to see the dichotomy between say Purple and Orange, where the former may practice ritualistic human sacrifice to a spirit (or an ideal), and the latter reacts in horror. But then you have to wonder if Orange isn't also guilty of this sacrificial tendency when it comes to their purist approach to individualism. For example, are you willing to sacrifice human life to uphold a sacred ideal, e.g. capitalism? Can capitalism be questioned? These are the questions that Green is willing to tackle.

[Carl-Richard]

12 hours ago, Arcangelo said:

Calling @UDT  a homophobe is THE perfect example of cancel culture.

This is exactly why much of Green brush off the idea of cancel culture being a particularily new phenomena. People have always been disagreeing, condemning and calling eachother names. This isn't something new. Green calling people homophobes is like Blue calling people sinners, or Orange calling people SJWs, collectivists or neo-marxists.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Stomatopod]

2 hours ago, UDT said:

-> Its about the censorship and dictation of which words are being allowed to use, the deplatforming of scientists in the name of "anti-hate speech, mis-information, fake news" which bears a lot of similarity to what is described in George Orwell 1984 (see my prev. post about newspeak.)

In George Orwell terms if you're opposing the ruling party you are not loving enough so you have to go to the ministry of love to get "educated". But whats really happening is you oppose party ideology so you get sentenced to death - but since the wording is different, they changed its meaning.

And this is EXACTLY what George Orwell describes in 1984, which is why I made this thread.

First some friendly advice. If you really want to use 1984 comparisons, maybe say something like "this strikes me as vaguely reminiscent of 1984" and not "this is EXACTLY like 1984". If you want to avoid being instantly dismissed and ridiculed. This comes across like Marjorie Taylor Greene comparing wearing a mask to the Holocaust.

To answer the question. Political correctness is dangerous in the way that it causes some people the minor inconvenience of having to show a little more sensitivity when speaking publicly. But even that of course is enough for some people to break into tantrums. Nobody is being tortured and killed for misgendering. It is true however in the current climate, that some people who repeatedly step way outside the bounds of common decency may risk losing their job or being de-platformed, if they refuse to follow company policy or terms of service. That is it.

But the biggest reason why it is not even remotely comparable to 1984, is because today's "political correctness" is mostly a bottom up phenomenon. It is simply the natural outcome of more and more people having evolved their consciousness to become sensitive to the experience of minorities. To the small extent that government policies accommodate the rising inclusiveness in society, it is because they will lose support if they don't. In that sense it is actually the opposite of what is described in 1984. The top down censorship in 1984 exclusively serves to protect the authority of the state and to maintain the strict social hierarchy. Where as what you are describing is institutions and corporations reluctantly having to placate the inclusive sentiments of the population, the outcome of which is a softening of the social hierarchy. But of course you won't be able to see this if your perspective is from below (coming from Stage Blue).  

[UDT]

24 minutes ago, Stomatopod said:

To answer the question. Political correctness is dangerous in the way that it causes some people the minor inconvenience of having to show a little more sensitivity when speaking publicly.

@Stomatopod  Ok I am not repeating myself for the X time because you´re unable to read more than two sentences of a post, its hell annoying. 

It is NOT, for the final time, >>NOT<< about political correctness or "showing sensitivity speaking in public".

I am comparing it to 1984 because, as in 1984, the straw-man of political correctness, mis-information, and hate speech is used to censor scientific debate, or non-mainstream discussions AWAY FROM ANY GENER, or LGBTQ TOPIC. 

(E.g. last month the founder of mRNA vaccine being banned from linkedin for sharing a pubmed article unter the veil of "mis-information and hate speech")

I am comparing it to 1984 because, as in 1984, the ruling party is changing the vocabulary of its citizens to influence their behavior. 
 

Why is this so hard to understand, read the damn book.




 

[SaWaSaurus]

32 minutes ago, UDT said:

@Stomatopod  I am comparing it to 1984 because, as in 1984, the ruling party is changing the vocabulary of its citizens to influence their behavior. 
 

Why is this so hard to understand, read the damn book.




 

Newspeak does not just mean 'changing vocabulary', that would be a very limited understanding on what Orwell meant by newspeak. In 1984, newspeak was meant to establish a simplified vocabulary that would limit people's ability to think and express themselves. With modern language we have all sorts of words and ways to express ourselves and our ideas. Fantastic, excellent, great, amazing, astounding, stunning, breathtaking, staggering, etc... In newspeak, you'd have: good, plus good, double plus good.

[Stomatopod]

7 minutes ago, UDT said:

@Stomatopod
I am comparing it to 1984 because, as in 1984, the ruling party is changing the vocabulary of its citizens to influence their behavior. 
 

But that isn't happening in the US and Canada.

Besides it would be completely irresponsible not to attempt to regulate misinformation, fake news, and hate speech in today's media landscape. The Jan 6. storming of the capitol is proof that in the information age, you can not have absolute freedom of speech if you also want to maintain a functioning society. Sometimes it's hard to tell when the line is crossed, but it's obvious that someone like Alex Jones should not be allowed unrestricted access to media platforms.

[UDT]

9 minutes ago, SaWaSaurus said:

Newspeak does not just mean 'changing vocabulary', that would be a very limited understanding on what Orwell meant by newspeak. In 1984, newspeak was meant to establish a simplified vocabulary that would limit people's ability to think and express themselves. With modern language we have all sorts of words and ways to express ourselves and our ideas. Fantastic, excellent, great, amazing, astounding, stunning, breathtaking, staggering, etc... In newspeak, you'd have: good, plus good, double plus good.

@SaWaSaurus  Yes I know - but Im staying away from writing more than a paragraph to make it more digestible for some here

Edited July 9, 2021 by UDT