Enough of All That!

August 5, 2022

I often find myself reading books that have nothing to do with me. These books are intent on creating theoretical frameworks to explain problems I don’t have and have never seen. Their authors develop ways to change the world that make perfect sense to them in their particular historical and social moment, but are utterly meaningless to someone like me. And yet I read them anyway, and am left at the end wondering why I bother, or what these people are even talking about.

There is really no use to theory that does not correspond to your experience of the world. We read non-fiction books in order to learn about our world, and why it works the way we see that it does. We read books about birds because we see birds and want to know what they are up to. We read books about the economy because we want to know why our job sucks, or why we don't have a job. We read books about philosophy or psychology to try to understand how we think, or why we think the way we do. But if you never asked the question that the book wants to answer, or don't have the particular wonder that prompted the author to begin their investigations, then your only reaction will be a contrary question, or an inverse wonder, which goes something like, "What's the point of all this?"

This is a fairly self-explanatory and obvious point that I'm making here. It is one of those self-explanatory and obvious points that are so easy to continuously forget and re-remember throughout one's lifetime, like the fact that you really like toast and jam, or that your complicated procedure for cooking hashbrowns could be easily simplified, or the fact that your friends actually do like you. It is easy to find oneself reading from a list of books compiled during years of writing down every book anyone ever mentions, and realize that you haven't been interested in anything you've read in the last three weeks, and that you're only reading it out of some misplaced sense of obligation.

Of course, you were interested in it at some point, which is why it went on the list. Or at least you were curious as to why people talked about it. But that interest has since faded, or perhaps only ever existed in a potential, theoretical sense. It might be that you thought you would be interested in it someday, and then forgot for that day to come before you picked it off the library shelves. Whatever the case, the book is of no interest or relevance, and reading it is a waste of time.

In a similar way, the author of such works must somehow figure out the ways in which what they're talking about can be related to the experiences of the people reading. The reason posts on this website show up as infrequently as they do is that I often struggle with this problem. I have many ideas floating around in my head, but very few of them are easy to objectify into a concrete piece of writing. They don't have a point, or a structure, and are therefore incommunicable in the essay format. They float this way and that, getting involved in contradictions, even nullifying and negating themselves, and yet perniciously loitering in my mind nonetheless. When I sit at my desk to write them down, they come out either as obvious tautologies or bizarre and meandering flights of fancy. They are not anchored to any concrete thing.

This is why so many of my essays end up structured around opposing interlocutors who do not exist. It is a trick one learns from spending enough time on the internet (or reading Plato). Simply find a person who disagrees with you (or make them up) and direct your energy at viciously cutting down their argument and reinforcing your own. Furious invective toward no one in particular is the prevailing mode of discussion on the internet, and for good reason. If you write as if you're talking to people who already agree with you, then it's hard to feel that it's worth doing. Then again, if you write as if you're speaking to a general audience, you start to wonder why they should care. You need a particular person in mind, and the person that springs to mind is often an enemy you want to convince.

Especially when I've had a big cup of coffee, I more often than not default to this attitude of contentious rabble-rousing, particularly when it comes to certain pet topics such as science and economics. I find it hard to hide my indignation and rage at the "vulgar economists" of the day, or the overly-rational computer-minded scientists, or especially the amoral Nietzschean-will-to-power types whose conception of human dignity is equivalent to the dignity of a silver-back gorilla. And yet I don't actually know any of these people, and only ever see them during my infrequent forays into the wild forests of Twitter, a place containing no real people at all.

Although he is often ridiculed for it, Yoda was mostly right when he said that "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Maybe he muddled up the order a little bit, but at the very least, he is correct to say that fear is the origin point of it all. I live in fear of these strange individuals and their ridicule, their arguments, and their declamations. I fear that I will get something "wrong," or write something that people will disagree with strongly enough that they call me a fool and an idiot and begin to hate me. And it is this fear that makes me hate them in return, and grow angry, and begin on my heated tirades, tirades which explain my point of view much less persuasively than a more calm, level-headed analysis ever could.

So I believe it is incumbent upon me to banish these wild strawmen from my vegetable patch, and instead focus on sharing the produce I have tilled from the soil with the well-intentioned individuals of my local farmer's market. What I mean is that while railing against your enemies is often good fun, there is another, more healthy way that I have found, and that is writing with the intent of educating a particular friend. When I wrote my introductory essay about Kant, my goal was to tell one particular person about Kant, because I knew they would never actually read him, and I thought they might want to know what he's all about. When I'm working on my Youtube videos, the audience I imagine is people who want to know more about the books being discussed, either because they've read them, or because they want to know why people read them, or because they want to know what other people are talking about when they talk about them. This friendly atmosphere is what people online mean when they talk about "wholesomeness" or "coziness" in online spaces. Not that there are no arguments, but that all the arguments are guided by mutual education or a sharing of ideas, instead of adversarial competition.

My goal is to contribute in some way to the furtherance of human knowledge and thriving. I care not for political power, clout, wealth, or fame. You may disbelieve or psychologize me all you wish. You may choose to chalk my continual presence on the internet up to will-to-power, or ego-boosting, or advertising, or any other such ulterior motive. But I like to think that I know myself, and I like to think that a man can know his own goals, without having to be told by others what he is really doing. And I say that I want to help people, and I say that I want to spread knowledge, and I say that I want to encourage the type of thinking that makes the human experience such a wonderful state of being.

There I go again! I am writing to those who disbelieve me! I am writing for those who refuse to take me at my word, and cynically analyze my every word! Who are these people!? Where are they!? Do they truly exist at all!? You believe me, don't you? You understand what I am trying to say. So why do I spend so much time trying to placate these ghouls and phantoms that occupy my nightmares? What a joke!

What a waste of time!

Enough of all that!

Balckwell Rising!