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Honestly, Christmas time is easily one of the best times of the year.
Most tend to adopt a more cheerful, wholesome, and generous disposition. There is a short general reversion to older music that carries w/ it a pleasant, fuzzy kind of nostalgia. Religion is at least superficially acknowledged and recognized. Family and especially children reassert themselves as the main priorities of life in a temporary suspension from the hustle and bustle of contemporary life. Let's also not forget the festive atmosphere afforded by the rich reds, greens, and golds (if you decorate w/ whites and blues, I strongly implore that you reconsider your aesthetic choices) of decoration, the hearty and delicious Christmas feasts, and the never-ending supply of heady drink that lasts until the New Year. It's all a momentary reprieve from the cynical, the sterile, the extraneous and the complicated to something markedly romantic, meaningful, traditional, and uncomplicated. It brings out the best that humanity has to offer and reminds us all of the good will shared amongst men.

As part of the festivities, I indulged in a personal tradition of mine. Every year I make a point to rewatch an anime of mine that reminds me of Christmas. Last year it was Little Witch Academia; this year, Rozen Maiden (2004) was on rotation. It's been a while since I'd watched the series, all 24 episodes (the first season and Träumend, the second season. I unfortunately don't own the Overtüre OVA) had such depth to their messaging than I remembered. So, I spent a good approximate 12 hours of my holidays curled up w/ some hot cocoa or coffee, in the warm company of a particular, mischievous orange tabby and similarly mischievous small children, and watched these Gothic lolita dolls fight each other while simultaneously teaching us a thing or two about virtue and Christianity. Time well spent, n'est-ce pas?

Christlicher Kampf

I swear, the Christian overtones radiating from this series...I'm astonished that I missed them on my first few watch throughs when I was younger. Then again, maybe it shouldn't be so surprising, considering how little I knew or appreciated about religion back then. I look back on that mindset of mine, how funny that I once though religion was purely optional, how hubristically and absolutely I thought I knew all there was to know about everything that ever existed. It's always a nice, welcomed little surprise to revisit old media--armed w/ new knowledge, perspective, and life experience--and learn something new.

In any case, the invocation of God, mankind, and the relationship between the two is fairly straightforward. The dolls represent a proxy for humanity in both form and essence: they are humanoid in form and in essence they are animated, autonomously sovereign agents, and have transcendental impulses (more on that later).  Rozen represents God to a certain extent in form and certainly in essence: what he looks like is unclear (the few times they 'show' Rozen his face is NEVER revealed and what he is saying is muted), and in essence he is the one who created the dolls, plus only glimpses of his personality are offered. One could never really truly grasp the nature of God comprehensively afterall, but we are afforded glimpses of it. The relationship of Rozen to the dolls is analogous to the relationship of God to mankind: one of creator to the created. "Okay 2B but who cares? Lots of religions have a god create some animated creation. What makes you so sure this is Christianity?". Well, ignoring the purposeful aesthetic choice of Victorian-era European culture, an overwhelmingly Christian culture, several times throughout the series it is hinted at that Rozen is very kind, gentle, and warm in temperament. Moreover, throughout the series there is the theme of creation as love; this is invoked often times w/ the metaphor of brewing tea, whenever Jun sews/repairs something, and is plainly emphasized w/ the character Enju in the later parts of Träumend. The notion of a god unconditionally loving his creation is a distinctly Christian notion, separate from Gentile conceptualizations of god as a being mercurial in his affections or downright impartial/uninvolved. On the contrary, God created you specifically b/c he loves you and cares very much about what happens to you.

Now, to examine the relationship in the other direction: from the created to the creator. In episode 10 of the first season, some exposition of the nature of the dolls and the Alice Game is given. The Rozen Maidens were created by Rozen to embody Alice. That begs the question: who is Alice? As Shinku explains to Jun, "Alice is a girl who only exists in Father's mind. A dream girl. More noble than any flower, more pure than any jewel. She is absolutely unspoiled. A girl so beautiful, so sublime, no girl in the world could hold a candle to her.". Clearly Alice is a paragon of a girl, a pure ideal, an entity that does not exist in this world and so must be brought into the world. How is this achieved? The Alice Game. In order to become Alice, the dolls must fight each other to the death and the one left standing becomes Alice, fulfills Rozen's will, and is given the opportunity to meet him. Thusly, every Rozen Maiden has a desire to become Alice, so that they may please and meet their Father. These were those "transcendental impulses" I mentioned earlier. Every doll is striving towards something that doesn't belong to this world.

Any form of media that hints at intentional creation won't be long before it hints at ultimate purpose or teleology. You simply cannot get away w/ it. As stated above, the Rozen Maiden dolls were created to embody Alice, the perfect girl. That is their ultimate purpose in life, their telos. Seeing this from a strictly Christian teleological viewpoint, as well as a modern, tyrannical misinterpretation of Christianity that is rampant within our culture, it is easy to surmise that Rozen somehow orders or imposes his will on the dolls via an imperative. "I command you to become Alice." or "It is my wish for you to become Alice.". However, I feel it is important to point out that teleology in it's pre-Christian, Greek form, the strain that would concern Sophocles or Aristotle, has an important element to it that one would be remiss to take into account: the final cause. That is, what entities tend towards. A seed does not blossom into a flower b/c someone commanded or imposed on it to; it is within the nature of the seed itself to blossom. If you accept the natural theology notion of God as nature (rather than only that tyrannical misrepresentation of Christianity), then everything aligns quite beautifully and in perfect concordance: the playing out of natural forces is the fulfillment of God's will. To emphasize this point, Rozen's will to the dolls, or God's will to mankind, is not imposed from the top-down, but aligned from the bottom-up.

Why do I mention any of this? Well, why are you reading up on my musings of fictional magical dolls as a clever metaphor for Christian struggle? B/c it's interesting of course, and can offer practical insight into daily life. Facetiousness aside, I carefully laid out the relationship from creator to created and vice versa as a prelude to one of the more poignant moments of the first season. After the exposition on the nature of the Rozen Maidens and the Alice Game, Jun laments the doll's fate to engage in battle w/ one another, characterizing it as sad. Shinku retorts, in a moment of solemn, virtuous defiance: "To live is to fight.".

To live is to fight. Sheesh...every so often I come across something I read or hear that just...leaves me stunned and silent at the sheer veracity and profundity of it all. Take a few moments to reflect on it: Jun is right to be mournful of the wretched existence these dolls are meant to live out. They were created, without consent, by an unseen creator they have only vague intimations of, to fulfill a lofty, unobtainable ideal that can only be reached by fighting and defeating their sisters. By all indications it is a cruel fate to endure, assuredly, and one you should find yourself sympathetic to since you share a similar fate, dear reader. However, it is not something to mourn or complain over; the dolls were built for it. You, were built for it. Each Rozen Maiden, each person, has a tendency to seek out their creator; in the Maiden's case it is Rozen, in ours it is God. Often times this is expressed as conscious desire. Several times throughout the series the Maidens make statements such as "I wish to meet Father"; similarly, we often times express a desire (mostly implicitly) to do something positive in this world, to love someone deeply, to wish happiness for another, to want something good for ourselves. It is why we get up every morning to do a job we may not want to do, sacrifice time towards studying, or expend energy to cook for a significant other after a long day. Respectively, we do these things b/c we'd like to do good for our family, do good for ourselves by becoming more intelligent, and do good for others even if it comes at personal cost.

My main point here, before I get too lost in thought, is that we are fundamentally oriented to seek out the good, this is our natural inclination, this is God's will for us. This is perfectly analogous to the dolls' fundamental orientation to become Alice, and that is Rozen's will for them. In both cases, it is a compelling force so deep that it is not best conceptualized as a will being imposed, but a tendency, a telos, and it is achieved via much hardship. To live is to fight carries a dual meaning: the first descriptive of the reality that characterizes existence as one of strife. If you are a conscious being you will encounter much hardship and be forced to struggle, it is a simple fact of the world. A potentially dreary proposition, to be sure. The second, however, is one that is supremely heartening and thoroughly emboldening: your nature, the spirit that composes your existence in the world is one of a combatant, a warrior. A fate where we are to suffer greatly as we strive for the highest of ideals? We were made for it.

Reiner Rubin

Another of my favorite subjects to contemplate: virtue. So much in fact that it's an idiosyncrasy of mine to analyze the people in my life and determine why is it that I admire/abhor them so much--specifically, what virtues do they embody (or lack) that comprises their character? This practice has, amusingly enough, extended to fictional characters as well. During my holidays watching Rozen Maiden, I was stricken by Shinku in particular. Now, let it be known that I have, and forever will be, a Barasuishou fan--we'll talk more about her later. For now, however, let us turn to this new interest of mine that I had unforgivably overlooked: Ms. Reiner Rubin herself, Shinku.

Honestly, what isn't to like? Shinku is adorned in a brilliantly aristocratic crimson dress, w/ a rose-adorned green brooch and matching bonnet. She has blonde, streaming twin-tails: a sure-fire indication that she has a bit of a tsundere personality underneath that prim and proper exterior. What's more, she has piercing blue eyes that are startling in clarity, capable of a sharp, owl-eyed gaze that is perfectly indicative of the moral wisdom she possesses. But beyond these superficial features, as, let's face it, all of these Rozen Maidens are quite attractive and elegant in their own right, there is much more that lends towards Shinku's magnetism: her possession of several of the virtues. It is implicitly understood through season one and two (and outright stated in Zurückspulen, the 2013 installment of the Rozen Maiden series) that each one of the maidens is incomplete in some manner, possessing some outstanding quality that characterizes their personality in sum, but notably lacking in others. They each lack some sort of characteristic(s) that make them fall short of being Alice, thus further motivating their participation in the Alice Game. Shinku, I'd argue, is the most 'complete' of the maidens.

A large, and possibly the most apparent, component that lends toward's Shinku's virtuous nature is her fighting spirit. Easily one of the more powerful maidens, Shinku demonstrates great fighting prowess and courage in dire circumstances, and it is precisely on that last trait that I'd like to elaborate on. Courage could be tidily summarized to be something like the ability to persevere despite danger and difficulty. It is by this trait that Shinku, in my estimation, earns her crimson garb as her character assumes quite the heroic air about her. Very apt for someone who's motto is "To live is to fight." indeed! But it is more than just the courage that one may demonstrate in the midst of combat that lends her her radiance; it is also the type of more subtle courage that manifests itself in a grander scheme. In Homeric epics a theme that frequently asserts itself is the commonality of death across everyone, virtuous and unvirtuous alike. The characters involved in battle often times acknowledge and reflect on the fragility of life and the vulnerability of men before some major conflict, knowing that their lives are subject to the vicissitudes of life and forces beyond their control. That very fragility and vulnerability is to be accepted, as well as the knowledge that no amount of will nor cunning will spare either you and the people you love from your ultimate demise. Nevertheless, these characters march forward into certain death and destruction. You can see Shinku reflect on these types of sentiment in episode 10 of the first season, on the eve of the night she is to confront Suigintou in the Alice Game, when she is so adorably glum and pensive while the others goof off reenacting Snow White. It is this courage demonstrated on a micro as well as a macro level that makes Shinku highly admirable. 

Courage under duress is best conceptualized under a virtue ethics rubric as a bodily virtue, for it most associated w/ physicality and mortal danger. Though brave Shinku possesses this quality in spades, it is not her most admirable. What, in my estimation, makes Shinku the most virtuous is one of her intellectual virtues, the one best encapsulated by the Greek word sôphrosune, which translates to something meaning the ability to not abuse one's power despite being able to. In short, it contains (but very important to note that it is not limited to) the characteristic of self-restraint, and is the Greek proto-virtue behind the Christian virtue of temperance. Superficially, this trait is manifested in Shinku's painfully Victorian way she speaks to others and carries herself; when wronged or committing error, it is on rare occasion that she will display anger or frustration (in the form of a tsundere outburst when it does occur). In very maidenly fashion, she will express her discontent w/ a gentle sort of eloquence. In a much deeper manner, however, she on several occasions shows a kind of compassion towards her sisters that she had thoroughly defeated in battle, refusing to take their Rosa Mysticas (each Rozen Maiden's consciousness) thusly sparing them. Additionally, she shows a certain kind of tenderness and care towards other entities that are not as powerful as she; a stark contrast to her elder sister Suigintou who revels in her power and superiority in relation to others.

Continuing along the notion of temperance, it is this very quality of restraining ego and not thinking oneself above others that enables Shinku to embody another virtue, although this one of an explicitly Victorian flavor, one specifically championed by the English novelist Jane Austen (who, surprise surprise, was a Christian). That virtue is the one of amiability--that is, one of being friendly and congenial. What is highly interesting to note here is that Jane Austen thought, much like the Greeks, that to possess a particular virtue meant that the person had to possess one or many other prerequisite virtues. When it comes to amiability, according to Jane Austen, one needs to possess a genuine love for others first and foremost. To not possess genuine love for others would mean that any amiability--any perceived, mere agreeableness--is nothing but pure simulation of it, and not true amiability as such. This is what struck me in an early episode of the first season, where shortly after a skirmish w/ Suigintou, Shinku mourns over the loss of a lowly clown plushie that was torn apart in battle. Shinku possess true, genuine love for others which, when combined w/ temperance towards her ego, makes her a paragon of Victorian virtue. It is all too often that you see Victorian-styled characters, or you may even know people in your personal life, who try to harbor an aristocratic and noble air about them but somehow, in some inarticulable manner, seem to fail. Instead their attempts at amiability come off as bratty, elitist, and condescending at worst, or hollow and insincere at the best. Without the confluence of both temperance and love for others, amiability is no more than performative agreeableness; a simulacra of the genuine article.

Surely there are more virtues that Shinku embodies, but in my estimation it is those mentioned above that make her beautiful. It is not her prim and proper nature, silky blonde twin-tails, porcelain skin, clear blue eyes, scholarly disposition (her favorite past time is reading!), stylish crimson dress, or skillful combat ability, that endows her w/ an admirable, magnanimous quality, but her courage, temperance, and true amiability. Perhaps I think it so b/c those aforementioned three qualities are a rarity in the contemporary culture? From what I could theorize, I think it is that last one, amiability, that is sorely lacking in society b/c Western culture has ultimately become far too individualized to the point of becoming atomistic. The virtues of courage and temperament are personal and, for the most part, self-contained. They are largely defined by one's attitude towards themselves. Amiability, on the other hand, is defined via one's relation towards others, towards something that is external and not contained in the self. As such, it is specifically concerned w/ the social dimension and is thusly a social virtue. It's an interesting train of thought, and I will certainly be pursuing the thread, but for the sake of remaining on task we'll cordon-off that digression.

Rosenkristall

As a contrast to the purity of Shinku's virtuous nature, let us now turn to my Rosenkristall, Barasuishou. I cannot speak of Barasuishou's nature w/o giving up some major spoilers in the series, but I will try my very best. Viewers of Träumend will take delight in the unity of my analysis w/ the events that occur in series, no doubt. Disclaimers aside, I contend that where Shinku is representative of well-executed Victorian virtue, Barasuishou is the poorly-executed foil. In terms of power, Barasuishou is easily the most powerful of the Rozen Maidens, possessing several mighty crystal-based attacks that can overwhelm and confuse her opponents. Moreover, she possesses a near single-mindedness when it comes to winning in the Alice Game to please Father; that sort of tenacity can take one very far and is certainly worthy of admirability in it's own way. The girl, in shorter terms, is an absolute ruthless, laser-focused machine on her path to become Alice.

Though she is clearly very capable, would we call Barasuishou virtuous? I suppose it could be argued in certain regards as yes, but in others, particularly if we are to apply to rubric by which we graded Shinku (namely that of Homeric and Christian virtue ethics), we should find ourselves concluding that Barasuishou is actually antithetical to virtue. To begin this deliberation, we have to focus in on one specific detail: her eyepatch. In most cases, an eyepatch represents disunity, incompleteness, and/or unclarity. This interpretation should be fairly straightforward to accept, as most people wear an eyepatch if they are missing an eye, thereby rendering their vision less than optimal. As you may surmise, this suggests that Barasuishou is herself missing an eye and is physically incomplete; if you are metaphorically-inclined, you may also surmise she is psychically/spiritually incomplete. To the latter, yes, absolutely; to the former, surprisingly no. As revealed in a pivotal scene of the final episode when her eyepatch comes off, Barasuishou is revealed to have a fully intact eye under her eyepatch. A small detail that one should take care not to overlook is that the covered eye is crying when the patch comes off.

What does this mean? Well, for starters, it is awfully surprising to see Barasuishou cry, let alone express any form of emotion for that matter. For most of the series, she is portrayed as a coldly stoic character. When she does deviate from her stoicism, it is only to cruelly taunt her sisters by mocking them (literally mocking them by repeating what they say). Suffice to say, she's an...interesting character, mixing machinic stoicism w/ an element of sadism and a dash of childishness for good measure. It's all very unnerving and I adore it so, so much. Anyway, right, the patch comes off and it's revealed that she is crying. The significance of this is that the eyepatch actually regulated Barasuishou's emotions, making her immune from feeling the emotional valence of events both good and bad. This carries w/ it quite a few repercussions: for one, it suggests that Barasuishou is not as stoic as she appears, or perhaps more accurately, she is only stoic in appearance but is not stoic by nature. To put it more precisely, someone that is legitimately stoic enjoys a certain amount of self-mastery and exercises a certain amount of temperance. One could even say that they are sôphrosune. To exercise restraint is to be able to handle the inner-conflict that resides in oneself between two or more competing emotions or desires. If the inner-conflict never occurs, due to say psychopathy or the effect of a magical rose eyepatch, then the opportunity to exercise self-restraint never occurs in short order. Thus it cannot be said that someone is sôphrosune if they are lacking the prerequisite inner-conflict.

Admittedly, this is not the most damning point towards Barasuishou in condemning her to being antithetical to virtue. In my estimation, it is her lack of amiability that is the final, proverbial nail in the coffin. For all of Träumend Barasuishou unhesitatingly attacks her sisters, especially showing zero mercy towards Suiseiseki and Kanaria in the last episodes.  Needless to say, her actions here are decidedly not friendly nor congenial, and certainly not demonstrative of genuine love for others. Thusly she is a perfect foil for our virtuous Shinku. For the entire series, Shinku is seen interacting, connecting, and intermingling her fate w/ those around her: her sisters, Jun, and Nori. Initially, Suigintou is meant to be portrayed as the contrast, as the ruthless, cunning, and powerful Rozen Maiden that is a complete lone wolf in her pursuit to become Alice. However, even this lets up as Suigintou eventually finds a medium to which she can relate to on very personal grounds and cares deeply for. In both instances both dolls are afforded opportunities to practice amiability--imperfect as they may sometimes be. Such events never occur for Barasuishou; in fact, Barasuishou is seldom even found in the real world, instead spending most of her time alone in the N-field: the Platonic realm where human psyches connect, separate from reality, and where the Alice Game battles are to take place. It is no small wonder why Barasuishou is particularly stunted in the development of her amiability.

I do not mean to belabor the point, but it comes back to the rose eyepatch. Again, w/o giving up spoilers, in that particular dramatic scene involving Barasuishou, everything comes together. Once her true nature is revealed, one can further infer the telos of the Rozen Maidens and what it means to be Alice, what it means to be virtuous. As we established before the eyepatch suppresses Barasuishou's emotions, shielding her from inner-turmoil and how she elects to operate alone--further shielding her from any turmoil extrinsically-generated from interaction from others--we must see how this shielding reconciles with Shinku's mantra, "To live is to fight.". If the ultimate telos of the Rozen Maidens is to become Alice (and therefore virtuous), and this status is by necessity to be acquired through suffering terribly, then it is within every Rozen Maiden's interest to fully accept ALL struggles; not just the ones limited to overt combat or inner-conflict, but those that come w/ interpersonal relationships and connectedness w/ social reality. One should not try to shield themselves from feeling emotions, from caring for people outside of themselves; those are prerequisite for virtue, and it is actually within your very nature to do those things. You have to struggle w/ others, it is part of your nature. This sentiment is echoed in every version of virtue ethics, in the Homeric, in the Aristotelian, in the Christian, and in the Victorian. This is a fact of morality that should be acknowledged and accepted, and one should carry themselves properly in the world w/ an open heart, willing to accept both advantage and injury that connectedness may bring.

The Teleological Problematic

Right. We have two clear examples of virtue and anti-virtue illustrated through the character Shinku and Barasuishou. It's fair to say that the distinctions between the two hold between several of the aforementioned virtue ethics frameworks (Homeric, Aristotelian, etc.). However, in the middle of Träumend a little bit of a philosophical puzzle is presented via the inner-conflict Shinku experiences. Namely the problem of conflicting telos, especially when considering which virtue ethics framework is at play: what is the virtuous course of action to take when telos are in conflict? As has been made crystal clear by now, the telos of the Rozen Maidens is to become Alice. This objective is achieved via fighting w/ other Rozen Maidens. From an Aristotelian perspective, the virtuous thing to do is to fight. However, it is important to keep in mind that all Rozen Maidens are also sisters. From a Christian perspective, and even Homeric perspective, the virtuous thing to do is to be your sister's keeper and to love/protect her. In order to solve the dilemma, one could try to establish an order of precedence and try to prioritize 'naturalistic' (Aristotelian) teleology over 'social' (Homeric) teleology, citing that naturalistic causes are more proximal to someone's being over socially-imposed ones. However, this doesn't quite work out in all cases as we see w/ the Rozen Maidens. These dolls were created to fight--by default they are fighters. That is intrinsic to their being. However, these dolls are one of several of Rozen's creations--by default they are sisters. That is also intrinsic to their being in addition to establishing a social relationship, analogous to a mother who gives birth becomes a mother by proper biological definition as well as in social title.

Despite being irresolute on a handful of moral cases, virtue ethics still remains my favorite ethical framework of choice, as there is...so much depth to it and its history is quite rich. Plus I find it to be far more robust than Enlightenment-era frameworks which sorely lack practicality. However, I will admit that it is not exactly the easiest code to abide by, especially in a culture that has seemingly lost its connection or turned its back on its roots. Not only that, but the demands imposed by it are often times so lofty and out-of-reach that it's painful, and one cannot help but feel a deep shame when they fail to enact virtue. Nevertheless, as is understood in Christianity, these kinds of things require patience, practice, and forgiveness, as you yourself and others strive for those higher ideals. What I find extremely heartening is that we're capable of those aforementioned qualities, of being able to practice virtue, of being able to be patient, of being able to forgive, which is indicative that we are meant for virtue.

Or, put more eloquently by the noble Shinku, "We all carry the radiance that makes us worthy of becoming Alice.".

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Tired.

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 John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty, best expresses the reason for using a for-and-against method. No one is educated who knows only one side of an argument. No one should commit to a position without knowing the positions competition. Especially in complicated matters like politics, where a huge number of facts about the world must be integrated into a theory, a critical test for any theory is how well it compares with other theories. Does it overlook key facts? Does it make leaps of logic? The best way to answer for oneself those questions is to put the contender theories, with reference to their strongest defenders, in explicit competition with each other.

Stephen Hicks. Liberalism: Pro & Con. 2020. 

Okay, nevermind. Just read another damn blogpost. How fucking dare you insult me constantly in your post, somehow say I was being rude when many people messaged me afterwards and said you were being the rude one, and then end it with "please don't be cross with me"? You're saying I was being rude? No, you were fucking rude when you KEPT pushing me to argue with you despite me saying I don't want to, despite in the past you SAYING that if I said for you to stop, you will stop. This is the third time that you didn't stop since then. Actually, every time I've asked you to stop you haven't. So that bullshit just went out the window, didn't it? Then you fucking cry with me in voice chat, and I feel sorry for you and go easy on you, only for you to release ANOTHER goddamn blogpost insulting me several times in it? 

"I don't know how you can deal with that type of behavior"
"It's clear they're instigating, especially with you"
"You have unimaginable patience"
"I saw her blogpost and I'm actually really disgusted with her"
"That's honestly so fucking disgusting that she's not respecting your wishes"
"You deserve way better than this. I hope she's not ruining your travels"
Just some of the reactions to our argument when it happened, btw. The first one who was rude was you.

2B — Yesterday at 3:24 AM
If that were the case; it is clear that the premises in that argument are ambiguous at the moment.
[3:25 AM]
Like, really, Nyan. It shouldn't be pulling teeth to get you to agree that the subject is controversial and there's a lot of nuance.
[3:25 AM]
When you first said that your argument is fact, and put up a little emoji I dismissed it as you being cute.
[3:26 AM]
But if you really do think that...I dunno what to say.
This was you being rude. As if implying that what I'm doing is so horrendous that you're at a loss for words (you're clearly not)
Anything before that was not rudeness, at most it was just me trying to avoid arguing with you and you KEPT on pushing, which, btw, is rude and unhinged behaviour. I really don't think you behave with irl friends this way, because otherwise you'd be a total loser without any friends. And I know you have friends.

2B — Yesterday at 3:51 AM
I'm just gonna let you have this one, Nyan. I'm too grossed out to continue. Sorry.
Then you said this at the end there? That was beyond rude. Implying I'm disgusting and the way I'm acting is worth being grossed out by, when YOU were the one who was being a total degenerate, brainlet dipshit towards me. Just because you want a topic to have more "nuance" then it really does, even though I do give any sort of required nuance. I admit Ukraine isn't perfect, Zelensky isn't perfect---that doesn't mean I have to accept that it's as "grey" as you think it is, just because your brain has been rotted by Posobeic or Tucker Carlson on this damn topic.

However, when I called you on it, you doggedly committed to it since it was a perceived attack on your intellect, as it is concerning a topic that we've had several arguments over and you've demonstrated such strong attachment and possibly now identity to.
You'll never change...

I'll go easy on you, try to talk to you when I'm on vacation and hardly getting out of bed just for you, talk to you in voice, entertain your dumbfuck arguments, be EXTREMELY charitable to you, hear you cry and feel terrible, go easy on you just for that, try to make you feel better, send you messages to try and make you feel better, pray for you to have a safe trip...Meanwhile, you type up another hit piece on me. Another wall of text insulting me, for everyone to read. I don't believe it's to record your thoughts anymore. You want the attention. You WANT people to see it---otherwise, you'd just make a new blog that's not public. This is quite literally how you respond to me whenever we have these stupid fucking arguments.

Reading back on it, it does sound condescending but please understand that wasn't my intention.
You're completely uncharitable to me, insult me in your blogpost, call me a child, say I was rude, say you were disgusted...and then you want me to be understanding? I've been WAY too understanding towards you. And yes, I DID know you would do it---if our argument wouldn't have cooled down. If you wouldn't have fucking cried with me, scared that you'll "lose" me, to make my heart melt. I didn't think you'd just betray me so quickly. But you did. You ruined my trust again . You ruined my birthday, keep ruining my vacation....

In truth, a part of me thinks you'll never admit to doing or being in any wrong. To do so would be to prove that you are fallible, your logic sometimes unsound and that can't be had...for whatever reason. To maintain some persona? I really hope that isn't the case b/c, whether you realize it or not, you're slowly destroying our relationship for selfish reasons. I have a few friends that I can talk about weighty, involved subjects w/, but I especially cherish talking to you about them. For the most part it's fun and you do manage to bring up some compelling points that leave me pensive in the nights that follow. If you're going to behave this way though...perhaps we shouldn't have these kinds of conversations anymore, as you can't responsibly handle it.
Read this fucking part of your blog, alright? It's MUCH, MUCH more fitting for you. I can't responsibly handle it? No, you can't. You were talking with someone who didn't even want to argue, and you started attributing positions to me that I didn't even make, and ignored how careful I was trying to be, in the conversation itself and in VC. I don't know if I'll ever forgive this. I really don't. Because I've now seen how hard you betray my trust. And yeah, we're not meeting. Not until I can trust you; I can't anymore. I'm not even going to try with that, or even think about it. And don't you fucking ask me to think about it either, or pressure me into it. Right now, I despise you. You've made me despise you with your disgusting, horrible behaviour. I'm sure I'll somehow recover, feel bad for you, forgive you again and then it will all go back to normal. And then this terrible fucking cycle will repeat where you constantly ruin my days like this. I'm not the one who can't bear being wrong. You're the one who can't imagine that maybe, just maybe, you're the one with totally unhinged takes informed by retarded political pundits who you are completely blindly following like a sheep. Just like you think all the libs and dems are NPCs, you know you're being exactly the same, right?
"I support the opposite of the current thing."
So you NEED me to act like there's some merit to your position, however stupid it is---there is no merit, and stop trying to make me think there is. If YOU'RE the one who gets disgusted by an argument (which you pushed for constantly) or the way I "behaved" in it, YOU'RE the one who can't handle these things responsibly. And trust me, I'm not the only one who thinks so. In fact, I'm really questioning why I always spend my time defending you, while people CONSTANTLY tell me you don't deserve me. Really, I can't word just how much you've upset me. How fucking angry I am right now after this blogpost. After I was trying to be kind towards you...

Not wanting the conversation to devolve into a game of semantics, I laid out a colloquial interpretation of the term 'fact/factual':
In addition, I gave you several instances to walk back your imprudent assertions. By this point, I had hoped that you realized you were arguing that opinion equals fact. Revisiting the conversation, it is here that I think we hit an inflection point, where you began to represent your opinion less as "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good." and more as "Supporting one's allies is moral and good.". You're taking the moral principle underlying supporting Ukraine and citing other examples where it had been successfully applied in order to justify your stance. That's a valid operation and I don't see anything wrong w/ it, but I want to make a note of it that it is here where your stance began to switch, where the conversation departs from one concerning particulars to one of universals. Continuing on:
Are you retarded or something? Don't you see why I started using it like that, after you gave the "colloquial interpretation" of the term?

It is important to me that the person I adore so much possess this virtue, b/c I'd rather not have them go astray and, by extension, bring me along w/ them
You're the one who's gone astray. I'm willing to admit if I'm ever wrong---for that, I'd need evidence and arguments. That's how it works. If I have a stance that I believe to be true, I will think it is true. Truth is based on belief. That's an epistemic fact. But YOU want to live by moral relativism, and add some sort of "grey" area to things that don't need to have them, because retards online tell you so---and then you're willing to attack me, insult me, call me a child, call me juvenile, makes our arguments public...
Ruin my travels, ruin my birthday, ruin my days. YOU'RE the one who's ruining this relationship, AND EVERYONE can see that. I'm told CONSTANTLY about how you are. I think either you're autistic, or you're only a dipshit with me. I really pray and hope you're only this horrible with me. This really does feel like the last straw, this blogpost after I heard you cry and then tried to go easy on you. I don't know if I'll ever forgive this. Really, I don't..Please, do me a favour and get a girlfriend out there in Florida. Preferably some MAGA, pretty version of MTG who's a complete populist degenerate. Because THAT'S what you want. You want someone with some baseline intelligence, but not much more. You've ruined the idea of romance for me. We've had lots of good times, but I will not stand such terrible behaviour from your part.

"My friends agree w/ me."
"No u."
"You're an NPC/retard."

 [begin transmission]

I can't let this go.

At this point we have frustrated the issue, but once again I'm asking that you refocus your attention onto it. Why? B/c it's important to me. It's important to me b/c humility is a key virtue, particularly in the intellectual domain. It is the virtue that allows the truth of matters to be determined, as it is the mechanism by which we may be able to admit to being in the wrong and course-correct our preconceived false notions and reorient them towards the correct--or at the very least more correct--ones. For without intellectual humility we are unable to acknowledge that we may be wrong in our assertions and thus remain committed to the aforementioned false notions, leading us astray in both thought and action. It is important to me that the person I adore so much possess this virtue, b/c I'd rather not have them go astray and, by extension, bring me along w/ them. Were this anyone else I didn't care as deeply for I'd (w/ heavy heart b/c I'd wish for more people in general to be virtuous) leave the matter to rest, but you are one of my select favorites, and so I feel strongly compelled to continue to engage.

Justifications complete, let's get on to the crux of the matter. 

Ukraine Is Ruining My Interpersonal Relationships

I should take some time to preface that, when it comes to Ukraine, we don't exactly see eye-to-eye. Be that as it may, it doesn't preclude us from getting along. We can disagree on the matter--I don't need you to adopt my position, but it is in discussing this subject in particular that your lack of intellectual humility manifests itself. Recently, we've had the following exchange:

2B — Yesterday at 10:51 AM

Gonna have to explain to me why supporting Ukraine is "moral and good" again, Onyan.

Makima — Yesterday at 10:54 AM

I'm good. I'm unfortunately not able to convince you on this fact, so I'd rather not argue it. :smug:

2B — Yesterday at 10:55 AM

Well I didn't mean right this instant; another time.

And it's far from fact.

You know that.

Here I was asking you to explain to me your explicit opinion of "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good.". I said again b/c we've had a handful of discussions that related to the matter before. So many times in fact that you were not feeling up towards arguing your position at the moment. Fair enough. In truth, the request was made facetiously, as I wasn't ready to engage in a protracted discussion re: Ukraine at the time myself, and if our past discussions are any indication, any elaboration on the subject would lead to lengthy engagement. Hence why I replied "another time.". But what caught my eye was something else you said, mainly the unqualified implication that your opinion is fact. "...I'm unfortunately not able to convince you on this fact...". Opinion and fact are NOT the same thing; I think it is fairly uncontroversial to say as much. So, I called you out on it, betting that you were being facetiously conceited, as indicated by your usage of a smug emoji and, in so many words, essentially asserting a statement akin to the "My opinion is fact." meme a 13-year old on 4chan would say.

It is here where the conversation should've ended. It should've ended w/ something like "Relax 2B, I was only kidding.". Some sort, any sort of indication of nonseriousness. Instead, the conversation continued w/:

Makima — Yesterday at 10:57 AM

Maaaaaaybe I might consider debating it some other time...

And yeah, it's as far from fact as saying something like, "supporting allies during WW2" was moral and good. :toobs:

2B — Yesterday at 10:59 AM

It's easy to make an evaluative claim like that towards an event that occurred 80 years ago, you have the luxury of retrospect.

You know that these two events are not the same.

You continued to engage, doubling down on your position. This lends credence to the thought that you weren't, in fact, being facetiously conceited. You actually think that your opinion, "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good." is a fact and not mere opinion. You then drew up a comparison to supporting allies in WW2, which I rightfully pointed out is not a fair comparison, given that we know all of the facts of WW2 and conversely are in the midst of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, shrouded in the fog of war. 

Makima — Yesterday at 11:00 AM

Hopefully future Nyan looks back when some imperialist dictatorship is attacking an ally of ours and says, "This is as moral and good as when we aided Ukraine against Russia."

2B — Yesterday at 11:03 AM

We can hope and wish all we'd like; my point still stands that these two events are qualitatively not the same and therefore cannot support the notion that supporting Ukraine is an absolute moral good. At best that notion is a dubious claim, not even close to anything resembling a fact.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:05 AM

If you want to believe that, okay. I won't argue with you because you've already made up your mind about this.

Frankly, your reply here is highly loaded and contestable, given that if a fair assessment of the Ukraine-Russia conflict is to be considered, intent and justifications (positive and negative) for ALL participating nations (not just Ukraine) should be represented. Honestly, the entire Manichean rhetoric of Ukraine being emblematic of all that is good, decent, and democratic vs. the absolute evil and unhinged Russian dictatorship is so tiresome and dishonest. In accordance w/ your wishes and mine to not get into a heated, protracted debate, I ignored your one-sided framing of the conflict and reiterated that your comparison was unfair and therefore any moral claims re: supporting Ukraine are dubious at best, far from being absolute, far from being a fact. In response, you dismissed my essential assertion of "opinions are not facts" as mere opinion, when it is patently obvious that the two are not the same. I hope that I don't have to get into a lengthier dissertation than the one I'm currently engaged in to convince you of that. In any case, I then tried to level w/ you, hoping that you would accept the proposition that facts and opinions are not the same:

2B — Yesterday at 11:06 AM

I know my stance, I know your stance. But at the very least we can agree that your stance is dubious and not factual, right?

In the retrospect, I could've done a better job at wording here. I meant to say something more along the lines that I understand my stance and yours as well, and that both are dubious and not fact, rather than not factual. I believe both of our stances to be factual, meaning that they are informed by facts. I realize that what I said here may be interpreted as being dismissive and for that I apologize. Continuing on:

Makima — Yesterday at 11:07 AM

If you want.

However you want to use those words and how strict you want to be with the definition of factual. Certainly more "factual" than anyone who believes the opposite.

"If you want." No, not if I want. It is an epistemological reality that opinions and facts are not the same. It is these dismissive, snide, childish little remarks that you make a habit of employing when you're cornered that get under my skin. Another indicator that you're cornered: the invocation of semantics. The final indicator that you're cornered: petty insult. By now any charitability on my part of interpreting your conceit as being facetious is spent. The Ukraine-Russia conflict is a highly contentious, multi-faceted issue. To dismiss anyone who believes in the opposite of yourself is to not give the problem its proper due, to trivialize it, and to--more egregiously--display a lack of intellectual humility. Not wanting the conversation to devolve into a game of semantics, I laid out a colloquial interpretation of the term 'fact/factual':

2B — Yesterday at 11:11 AM

I'm not playing semantics: when I say factual, I mean it is truth. So, do you really mean that when you say that your stance is a fact?

Are you sure you want to make that strong assertion?

Makima — Yesterday at 11:12 AM

That supporting Ukraine is moral and good? Then, yes.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:13 AM

Just as I would say supporting our allies in WW2 was moral and good, as was eliminating terrorists in the middle east, or removing Saddam from power, or supporting Afghanistan against Russia, etc etc

2B — Yesterday at 11:15 AM

And those examples are the same, in your mind? Despite me pointing out to you that you have retrospection at your disposal?

Having that in mind, you still contend that you can make the same evaluation?

In addition, I gave you several instances to walk back your imprudent assertions. By this point, I had hoped that you realized you were arguing that opinion equals fact. Revisiting the conversation, it is here that I think we hit an inflection point, where you began to represent your opinion less as "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good." and more as "Supporting one's allies is moral and good.". You're taking the moral principle underlying supporting Ukraine and citing other examples where it had been successfully applied in order to justify your stance. That's a valid operation and I don't see anything wrong w/ it, but I want to make a note of it that it is here where your stance began to switch, where the conversation departs from one concerning particulars to one of universals. Continuing on:

Makima — Yesterday at 11:16 AM

Statistically, it's looking good.

2B — Yesterday at 11:16 AM

Now that you're invoking statistics, you're invoking probabilities. Far from anything being absolute.

Not fact.

Wanna walk back anything?

Makima — Yesterday at 11:17 AM

Hey, I just said it's looking good.

Lol, no.

2B — Yesterday at 11:17 AM

Okay...

"Statistically, it's looking good.", is a vague statement as it's unclear just what exactly 'it' is that you're referring to. I took it to mean something like "Based on the aforementioned examples of supporting allies in WW2, eliminating terrorists in the Middle East, etc., my position of 'Supporting Ukraine is moral and good' appears to be vindicated.". To which I indicated that you're appealing to statistics in that case, thus appealing to probabilities, thus the opinion is far from being absolute and therefore it is far from fact. Then I gave another opportunity to walk things back to which you rudely declined.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:17 AM

Based on all the other times it's been moral and good, I'm pretty sure I can trust my intuition on this one. You're big on intuition, right? Like that.

It's a transcendent, eternal moral good that can be beautifully applied to a variety of circumstances.

2B — Yesterday at 11:20 AM

Then yours is an argument based on induction. Again, my point is that your claim is not a factual one.

[11:20 AM]

Still don't want to walk anything back? Last chance.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:21 AM

https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/1579436437023633408

When 2B keeps asking me if I want to walk anything back

"Based on all the other times it's been moral and good..." here is where your argument explicitly turns into one of induction, once again invoking probabilities and in turn introducing the possibility of falsity. Once again, I ask you to walk your painfully foolish stance back and once again you decide to mock me.

2B — Yesterday at 11:21 AM

Okay, but memes aside?

Makima — Yesterday at 11:22 AM

The meme was my answer.

No.

2B — Yesterday at 11:22 AM

So you're willing to admit that an inductive argument is a factual one???

Makima — Yesterday at 11:23 AM

You said you don't want to play semantics, right? That, by fact, you mean the truth, correct?

Yes, I think supporting your allies when they are attacked by a corrupt dictatorship being morally good is a fact.

So, are we arguing Ukraine, or are we arguing semantics...

2B — Yesterday at 11:24 AM

If that were the case; it is clear that the premises in that argument are ambiguous at the moment.

Like, really, Nyan. It shouldn't be pulling teeth to get you to agree that the subject is controversial and there's a lot of nuance.

When you first said that your argument is fact, and put up a little emoji I dismissed it as you being cute.

But if you really do think that...I dunno what to say.

And now it seems like you're doubling down and not wanting to admit something as innocuous as "an inductive argument is not fact".

"Yes, I think supporting your allies when they are attacked by a corrupt dictatorship being morally good is a fact.", and here is the full switch, from the original position of "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good" to "Supporting your allies is moral and good". It is an important difference to point out, even though the former can be a particular instance of implementing the latter--but the former is a practical consideration in which matters such as history, geopolitics, global politics, corruption, etc. must be carefully weighed and the latter is a pure, moral consideration that is removed from all of that. Depending on which moral framework is used to evaluate these two, the conclusion can be different. In any case, both are currently open to debate within their respective fields and nothing is conclusive--on both fronts, nothing can be considered 'fact'. I hope that it is clear that I am not delegitimizing your position; I'm inclined to agree w/ you on the pure, moral front, but it's important to have the mature realization that these things are not finalized, not settled, and that while you may believe your opinion on them to be facts/truth, they are not necessarily facts/truth. At this point I'm still shocked that you're being so reductive in your assessment of the Ukraine-Russia conflict from a moral standpoint as well as failing to reject the notion that your opinion is not factual.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:27 AM

I do agree the subject is controversial, yes; but I think it's nuanced in the sense that I agree Ukraine isn't some sort of perfect country, but I think it's very obvious that aiding it is not only in US unipolarity interests, but also morally good since it's being attacked by an aggressive, much larger state.

Unfortunately, a lot of people have been pretty severely brain rotted by political pundits and/or politicians who are helpful idiots and think that not supporting Ukraine, or being against aid to Ukrainian war efforts, is somehow something that should be politicized and used as a weapon, just because the President is Biden.

When, I'm 99% certain, that if Trump was the President and, to say, if he was doing the same thing they would be supporting him to hell and back, costs be damned.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:30 AM

I just used an inductive argument. You were the one who didn't want to play semantics...I used other arguments as well, now and in the past.

To your credit there is some indication that you do appreciate the nuanced nature of the conflict--you don't go into detail on matters that might go against the pro-Ukraine narrative you're supporting--but it's a start I suppose. I'm not quite sure where you were going w/ the mentioning of semantics; I offered my definition of facts as truth in order to bypass that discussion. It doesn't have anything to do w/ this matter of inductive arguments.

2B — Yesterday at 11:31 AM

Right. Now, is an inductive argument fact? Does it necessarily lead to the truth? Or can it, in a probabilistic manner, be incorrect? (edited)

Makima — Yesterday at 11:33 AM

Sure, it can be wrong. I didn't say that part is "fact"---you're the one who tried to assure me you don't want to play semantics or word games. Before that, if you noticed, I was being pretty careful with how I was using the word...

2B — Yesterday at 11:34 AM

Okay. So we've established that inductive arguments can be wrong. You admitted that your stance (to be charitable, at least in this case) was an inductive argument, citing other instances of supporting allies throughout history. Therefore your stance can be wrong.

Contradicting your previous assertion that your stance is fact.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:35 AM

You make up some strange arguments from my part and try to "win" the argument all on your own, with minimum input from my part..

2B — Yesterday at 11:35 AM

Because a fact is never wrong. Else it isn't fact.

I'm just tracing out the logic here. You can correct me if you see a flaw.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:36 AM

No, if you read upwards I didn't use my "inductive reasoning" to ascertain it's a fact. I used that argument after we moved away from arguing about facts just to provide some additional reasoning as to "why it's looking good." (exactly what I said.)

If you noticed, I immediately followed it up with "it's an eternal truth to help our allies." when I saw what game you're trying to play.

I'm reading the above over and over and I cannot understand what you are getting at. All I did here was establish that you used inductive reasoning to vindicate your belief that "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good", by looking at other instances in which the moral principle "Supporting your allies is moral and good" had been applied (WW2, terrorism in the Middle East, etc.) You even said so yourself above: "Based on all the other times it's been moral and good, I'm pretty sure I can trust my intuition on this one. It's a transcendent, eternal moral good that can be beautifully applied to a variety of circumstances.". That is an inductive argument, to establish that "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good.". As I rightly pointed out, inductive arguments can be FALSE. Since your argument is an inductive argument, therefore it can be false. If an argument can be false, it is not true, and therefore it is by definition not fact. Hence, your opinion, your argument is NOT fact.

2B — Yesterday at 11:40 AM

But that isn't the contention. Never disputed some pure, moral law that "it's good to help allies".

The contention is whether we should support Ukraine. That isn't a pure, moral consideration, but a practical one as it dredges up corruption, imperialism, politics, etc. (edited)

Makima — Yesterday at 11:41 AM

Cool. And I have arguments against all the three things you mentioned as well, which I've stated before. (edited)

2B — Yesterday at 11:45 AM

Alright, then to be clear: the specific claim that "The West should support Ukraine", that you supported here today, was based on induction. Yes or no?

Not regarding other supporting arguments; like I said, we can discuss those another time. 

Makima — Yesterday at 11:46 AM

@2B No, but that certainly is good evidence for people who like arguments based on statistical analysis (assuming they agree with my previously mentioned examples.)

I never said it was only based on that, either. That's just one of the arguments I used...

Fortunately for me, every argument seems to lead to me being right, so that's pretty great.

Here I recognized, perhaps a bit too late (but I did write up about it above) that there was a practical and a pure moral discussion going on in parallel, which I agreed w/ you that "Supporting allies is moral and good.", but we very much differ on how we arrive to that conclusion. But here you're reluctant to acknowledge that you used an inductive argument, despite saying that you did mere moments ago. And I do believe that you have other arguments that justify your opinion that "Supporting Ukraine is moral and good.". I'm still open for discussing that another time, provided we can get through this current mess.

2B — Yesterday at 11:51 AM

I'm just gonna let you have this one, Nyan. I'm too grossed out to continue. Sorry.

Makima — Yesterday at 11:52 AM

Lol. I didn't even want to debate you but you kept going on with it constantly and then you act like a baby. Whatever.

[11:52 AM]

Next time, keep it to yourself.

"Fortunately for me, every argument seems to lead to me being right, so that's pretty great.", and with that, I had to stop out of utter disgust. Between the dumb smug emojis, mocking me w/ memes, asinine little utterances of "lol" and "lmao", and now this severely off-putting display of self-satisfied conceit, I couldn't stand to talk to you anymore. Never had you treated me w/ such disrespect and carelessness before. Never. We had a great many debates in the past, and some of them did get heated, but we did more-or-less manage to keep ourselves in check. Was it perfect? No; every once in a while we exchanged catty remarks, and to your recollection we had insulted each other on the odd occasion (I don't remember that being the case at all). Still, it was important to me to exercise my intellectual humility by establishing common ground, remaining respectful of your opinions despite thinking you wrong, and admitting where I was wrong/walk things back when it was appropriate (and despite how painful it might've been).

But this, this was a new low. You've never demonstrated such conceit as you did on this day. I asked you about this in voice last night and you said that this is how you truly are, that you've always been this way. I don't believe that to be true. The person I know wouldn't make such an outright arrogant (and frankly, stupid) assertion that their opinion (stance, argument, hypothesis, whatever you want to call it) is fact. That isn't you, you are MUCH better than that. I still think that you didn't mean to defend that assertion, that you were being cute, intentionally juvenile for comedic effect. However, when I called you on it, you doggedly committed to it since it was a perceived attack on your intellect, as it is concerning a topic that we've had several arguments over and you've demonstrated such strong attachment and possibly now identity to.

In truth, a part of me thinks you'll never admit to doing or being in any wrong. To do so would be to prove that you are fallible, your logic sometimes unsound and that can't be had...for whatever reason. To maintain some persona? I really hope that isn't the case b/c, whether you realize it or not, you're slowly destroying our relationship for selfish reasons. I have a few friends that I can talk about weighty, involved subjects w/, but I especially cherish talking to you about them. For the most part it's fun and you do manage to bring up some compelling points that leave me pensive in the nights that follow. If you're going to behave this way though...perhaps we shouldn't have these kinds of conversations anymore, as you can't responsibly handle it. 

I can't fairly condemn you w/o acknowledging my own sins in this matter. What has become expressly manifest to me is that I was pushy when I shouldn't have been. You weren't in any mood for argument, I knew that. You made your outrageous assertion, I could've ignored it but I didn't. Instead, I lazered in on it and took you to task. For that, I apologize. Again, I also apologize for some of the clumsy wording in the original conversation. Reading back on it, it does sound condescending but please understand that wasn't my intention. Getting feedback on this entire...debacle, some of the others have commented on that specific point and I'll try to be more careful next time.

Finally, I know you're going to be upset once I post this, not just b/c it contains some criticism levied your way, but also b/c it's publicizing our spats. Please bear in mind that this entire conversation is already out there in public, I'm only adding further clarification and my thoughts on the matter. Irrespective of that, though, this is my blog; I am recording and commenting on this incident b/c it is important to me and I want to capture/resolve my thoughts and feelings on it. Writing is the best way I know how. Or, you might profess to not care at all...citing something like you knew I was going to do this anyway. In any case, please don't be too cross w/ me.

[end transmission]

 

[begin transmission]

I figured I'd outline a philosophical dilemma I've been contending w/ recently. I think it's a neat little puzzle to think about.
Oddly enough, it's convergent w/ the writings of none other than the good Professor himself.

We've had the opportunity to discuss the matter over some hot sake, the smoothest of whiskies, and yummy sushi. 

An experience to commit to treasured memories, for sure, but ultimately indeterminate in resolution.

For those interested, you may read his manuscript here.

Humanism

In order to understand the issue at hand, it is important to outline and understand the philosophical viewpoints involved. The first I'd like to define is that of humanism. For those that are uninitiated, you might've heard the term being thrown about by secular atheists of the 2000s era, used to express a kind of Enlightenment ontology/epistemology in which man is free to pursue his own interests towards the betterment of humanity--rationally and morally--independent of any subservience to a master or God. When I speak of humanism, I am not referring to this doctrine, though it is somewhat related. No, the humanism that I am referring to is the view that humanity holds a special place in the cosmos. Part of what imbues men w/ their exceptional character is their free will, consciousness, and their rational/creative capacities, among other intellectual capabilities. This view is foundational towards modern liberalism, individualism, and democracy; real Enlightenment era type of stuff whose development stretches back to the Renaissance era and even further then to the ancient Classical era. A central tenet of this view is that all things else, including animals, natural forces, culture, machines, and technics, are inferior and subservient to man. Why? Because mankind outclasses them in terms of the intellect. Think Aristotle observing that men are superior to animals b/c they are rational and political. Think Dostoevsky lamenting how cruel men can be compared to animals, w/ the implication being that man is a moral creature. Moreover, in considering man's relationship to culture, machines, and technics, man is superior because all of these things are created by him and are instruments of his will.

As the Professor writes w/ such palpable conviction:

Tear apart your computer—it is naught but parts put into interlocking unity by man. A man baked transistors into a crystal, a man routed each copper trace, a man designed and programmed and engineered...Know this: the machine is doomed to be man’s inferior. It is our creation and each of its parts are put into place by us. It is imperative we understand this property of computational systems.

It is this elevation to the tippy-top of this hierarchy mankind places himself that is challenged by posthumanism, To the posthumanist, this is a conceit. What do they have to say on the matter?

Posthumanism

Posthumanist thought could be credited to Spinoza ("All is One") but the more contemporary strain is credited to none other than the hammer himself: Friedrich Nietzsche. Where humanism posits that mankind is superior to all else, particularly as a consequence of being God's favored creation, Nietzsche came and certainly flipped the script when he declared the death of God, theorizing that man is not put on the Earth towards some special purpose or end. To Nietzsche, conceptualizing something of a special purpose or end is mere continuation of "herd morality"; a way for others, particularly through religion, to control and constrain his fellow man. This control includes the suppression of his will to power, that is, his ultimately irrational, creative, vital force (as a side note here, I find it very amusing that this is where the Professor unwittingly intersects and agrees w/ posthumanism). However, this will to power is not an exclusively human force, but more a feature of life itself. It is from this premise that most posthumanists craft their theories.

The theories that I found to be the most powerful and thought-provoking include the machinic and technic exercise of the will to power; the machinic being attributed to Donna Harrington in A Cyborg Manifesto and the technic to Bernard Stiegler in Technics and Time. In the former, Harrington argues that for the majority of human history mankind has relied on machines and technology to aid and augment his cognition. A contemporary example of this would be our reliance on smartphones to access information on the fly: we can easily conduct a Google search to look up information we're uncognizant of, or look up a Wikipedia page for a crash course on a subject we're unfamiliar w/ (and subsequently act as an authoritative expert in online argument). We utilize Google or Apple maps for navigation instead of trying to triangulate our position w/ the starry night sky. Our calendar apps allow us to set reminders of important dates and appointments so that we wouldn't have to expend the cognitive effort required of recollection. A little less universal, but still fairly contemporary example is the usage of eyeglasses and contacts to correct myopic vision, or the usage of deep brain stimulation devices in Parkinsons patients. In both of these instances, machines and technology enable us to experience reality to a fuller breadth that otherwise would be unavailable w/o their assistance. In a very tangible way, machines and technology have created and enabled us access to a layer of a reality that is superimposed on our naked, creature perceptive mechanisms.

Such is the argument for machinic exercise of the will to power, in constructing reality. Now what about the argument for technics? This is one of the propositions put forth by Stiegler. It is within the humanist framework that you will find sentiments such as art, culture, and history (technics) are created by man, b/c he is rational. Stiegler essentially inverts this and posits that b/c of art, culture, and history is man rational. Seems like a absurd proposition at first glance, but I ask you to consider your present situation. You, dear reader, are sitting there w/ all kinds of thoughts floating around in your head. These thoughts are not entirely your own, but are possibly borrowed from something you have learned through experience. A subset of those thoughts are informed by things you have read, no doubt. Perhaps you're thinking of Plato's Phaedo? Now, would you have been thinking of Phaedo had you not read it? What condition has enabled you to read it? Hopefully it is obvious that a necessary condition is that Phaedo had been published in either a bibliographical or electronic format. What condition enabled this publishing? The necessary technological conditions of either mass printing or digital storage/distribution. What enabled that? The technological conditions of written language. And that? The technology of paper, the technology of clay tablets, and ultimately, the technology of fire. I don't mean to belabor the point here, but I hope that it is now obvious that technology has enabled you to think the way that you do, and that art, culture, and history has shaped the way that you think. In a sense, technics have created you. If this 'in a sense' qualifier seems like weak tea to you, as a too-abstract of an argument of technic's creation of mankind, then okay. I invite you you contend w/ the popular anthropological theory known as the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis. Essentially it posits that when earlier man switched from a plant-based diet to one of a meat-based omnivore diet, it led to the evolution of a larger brain and smaller digestive tract. This, in turn, led to an explosion in intelligence that eventually enabled man to use more sophisticated tools, hunting strategies, form societies, etc. What does that have to do w/ technics? Well, no big surprise, but it turns out that cooked animal protein is easier to digest and makes nutrients more bioavailable in the human body. Animal protein cooked by fire. So there you have it: technics have literally created man and enabled his intellectual capacities as we know them today, both in a fact-of-the-matter materialistic viewpoint as well as in a more abstract, cultural viewpoint.

Epilogus

In summary, I do not want to leave the reader w/ the impression that humanity and technics are necessarily antagonistic in relation to each other. To do so would be to commit the same mistake as the Professor (though, to his credit, he is addressing a specific subset of posthumanists); no, I don't think that most posthumanists are not out to undermine humanism w/ the purpose to destroy religion and family, chip us with neural implants, and enslave us to evil AI overlords. The main take-away here is that humanity, machines, and technics share a sort of symbiotic relationship, where one party enables the creative capacities of the other. Man creates culture and technology with his rational capacities, but this process was created and enabled by previous culture and technology, which was created by previous man...so forth and so on, indeterminately. We'll call it a more sophisticated chicken-or-the-egg problem. It still stands, however, that the two entities have a shared history of mutual creation, and that is something to take into consideration whenever claims of one being superior to another are being made. In my mind, it is a mature realization by which addressing we will make more headway in these issues, rather than beating strawmen caricatured extremes into submission.

I do have to say...the above propositions above I found to be rather compelling as well as particularly disquieting. I cannot deny the truth behind these arguments; in order to discredit them, the problem would have to be attacked from a new conceptual angle if there is ever hope to reassert mankind's supremacy over, well, everything else. The disquietude comes partially from the dissonance that arises between these ideas and my own religious beliefs, beliefs that, as I mentioned, inform the entire Enlightenment project. If this presupposition--the supremacy of mankind and his rationality--is subverted, then the entire bastion is left in shambles. Not only is this presupposition being challenged on a theoretical level, as we have addressed in the previous arguments, but it is also being challenged empirically. At the time of this writing, AI-generated art is going meteoric and Tesla's autonomous self-driving features are on the precipice of being fully unleashed into the world. These two domains, the aesthetic realm of artistic creation and the pragmatic realm of rational decision-making are territories that were once thought to be unique and dominated by human intellect. There is a lot to address in these two examples I've cited, and I have gotten into spirited discussions w/ the Professor over them (someone explain to us what non-Turing computation is!), but we won't cover it now. However, they are indicative that we're treading into some uncharted territory, and it remains an open question as to how far these technologies will go and the implications for mankind's role in all of it.

The rest of the unease comes from the question of whether these arguments should be discredited in the first place. As I read more into postmodern philosophy, the more interesting stuff beyond critical theory or deconstruction, I find that there are some real teeth to these philosopher's claims. Perhaps I'm a bit biased b/c of my control engineering background, but I've become enamored w/ the writing of Deleuze and Guattari and Nick Land; their bold assertion of people as machines and postulations of cybernetic societies and cultures are not just merely aesthetic decisions when it comes to syntax or metaphor. In a future post I'll prolly cover a few of their ideas, as it sort of lends some understanding towards this...absolute craziness of a zeitgeist that characterizes the early 21st century, and possibly predicts the character of the second half that's still yet to come.

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So here we are

Back to the start again

Trying hard to wait till morning...

What more can be said about our current situation? A great deal more to be honest. The grand question is should any of it be said? Grander still, would it make a difference? Probably not; you've made it painfully clear that you've checked out and all I ever seem to accomplish these days is hurting you more. So I'm going to hold off, despite how strongly I feel you should hear it. Maybe I should reserve it for a call sometime, though even the chance of that happening is functionally non-existent. Yet, even if I did choose to bring it up then, it'll probably only serve to add insult to injury. So there's the catch-22 of the predicament we find ourselves in, from my perspective: do I bite my tongue and let us bleed out or do I claw out both of our hearts? Meanwhile you're resolute in not improving the matter. How miserable.

In any case, I disapprove of the conclusion you've reached. Your reflection on yourself and your relationships led you to resolve that you should become more distant and cold. In truth I think it's cowardice on your part, and I'm not saying that to be needlessly insulting; I think it is sincere cowardice to refuse to open up to others out of fear of getting hurt. It speaks of a certain kind of impoverished heart and weakness of character: you cannot take on the risk that comes w/ vulnerability b/c you cannot afford to sustain the potential emotional toll. Is there so little to you that your own self must be miserly hoarded and protected? As I told you several times before, risk is part and parcel when someone chooses to genuinely love. I know, it's tough, and I've been burned enough to come to dislike it too, but those are the terms. And to think you used to get so upset whenever I doubted your love... I'm not saying this w/ triumph by any means but rather despair, but I knew I was right. Genuine love is a hard feat to pull off, more than I think you can appreciate, and it goes far beyond sheer force of asserting "I really love you.". It's so stupidly easy to profess absolute love and commitment when things are going well; entirely different story when the subject of your affection is behaving in a way unworthy of it.

But your attitude also smacks of cowardice in another manner: you lack the resolve to end things properly w/ me, opting instead to pursue this...I'm not sure what to even call it. Why on the Moon would I accept a degradation of our relationship? You expressly stated that you were going to be less loving, less caring than you originally were, and yet you wish to remain in my life. What the fuck is that? Did you honestly think I was going to accept those conditions? I'm truly dumbfounded that you thought this was a tenable solution. First, it doesn't take a degree in clinical psychology to know that kind of behavior will see to a relationship withering up and dying in no time at all. Second, no level-headed, self-respecting girl would remain in a relationship once her lover announced they were going to love her less and become distant. Third, you thought that I of all people would go along w/ this and settle for less? I've never settled for anything in my life, and I'm not going to begin making exceptions now.

No, I don't accept any of these half-assed terms. Either you come back to me correctly or we say our good-byes. From my end, I still want you in my life, I still want to love you to the fullest of my capability, I still want to struggle against our differences. Quit trying to bait me to give up on us w/ your pathetic little appeals to my agency while neglecting your own. If you want us to end so badly then muster the courage to confront me forthrightly; take ownership of your actions no matter the consequence. Short of this, if you continue to insist that I'm so terrible for you and play these moody little games of yours, then I will take bait, toss it aside, and make the decision for you: I will call the shot and put an end to everything. Time and time again you've demonstrated to me that you're immature and incapable when it comes to matters of the heart. Either prove me wrong or let this be the last time.

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Because the whole world before you is like a speck that tips the scales,

and like a drop of morning dew that falls on the ground.

But you are merciful to all, for you can do all things,

and you overlook people’s sins, so that they may repent.

For you love all things that exist,

and detest none of the things that you have made,

for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.

How would anything have endured if you had not willed it?

Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?

You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.

For your immortal spirit is in all things.

The Book of Wisdom 11:22-12:1.  50 BC.

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Well, you were well ahead of the curve on this one, Professor.
Who would've thought that AI-generated art would've gotten this effective, this popular, this fast? It's absolutely crazy.
What's the humanist response to all of this, given that art was considered something unique to humanity?
Thank you so very much for these pieces; they are beautiful and I'm humbled to know that you had me in your thoughts.

Semper fortis!

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Once again I find myself in awe at the serendipitous convergence of thought from two entirely different domains. In one interpretation, I could dismiss it as mere coincidence. Given how frequently/obsessively I muse on these types of matters, how deeply I try to analyze whatever it is I read or watch, it isn't absurd to say that there is a fair chance this type of coincidence may occur. On the other hand, given that might be the case, the odds of these specific subjects (as opposed to any other idea that exists in the infinite universe of the abstract) aligning so perfectly and in such a timely fashion are exceedingly low. It is too difficult to hand waive as pure happenstance. Recently I'd been binging on the 2006 cyberpunk anime Ergo Proxy and, suffice to say, it had left a lasting impression on me. There are...SO many interesting themes and Deleuzean lines of flight to explore in the series, but the one that piqued my interest was that of the nature of theologic love. These ideas gave wonderful contrast, and thus perspective, to the daily Catholic readings for September 11th 2022: Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14 and Luke 15:1-32. What do these Biblical parables expound upon? Surprise, surprise: the nature of theologic love. How on the Moon does it all connect? I will tell you~

Pino's Playful Pranks in Pretend Peaceful Paradise

Now, there are several episodes that are supremely thought-provoking of Ergo Proxy's 23-episode run. The one that served as the impetus for thought is episode 19: The Girl with a Smile. As I have spoken to some length w/ a dearest friend of mine, there is much to adore in this episode. The cultural references, the self-references, the breaking of the fourth wall, the dramatic tonal shifts, and especially the philosophy behind the episode all deserve some amount of consideration. For the sake of brevity we'll skip over most of those items, but it is on that last point, the philosophy, we should take great care to discuss for it's of immediate concern to understand its implications and consequently a transition into a better informed appreciation of the Biblical parables. Though...I'd be remiss to not gush momentarily over the heroine of this episode, the Autoreiv (see: cyborg) that goes by Pino (I'm a bit late to the party, but I've only now realized this is a reference to 'Pinocchio'). I swear, she is the most authentically adorable character I've seen in some time. I love that little Autoreiv; I have adopted her as my own, she is my daughter, and that's that.

Anyway, in episode 19 Pino finds herself in Smile Land, a post-apocalyptic shelter city modeled after an amusement park. Although he never appears in person and is portrayed only through film reels, the city is governed by its creator, the cartoonist Will B. Good. It's quite obvious in this episode that Smile Land, its cartoon inhabitants, and Will B. Good are all references to Disneyland, the Disney canon, and Walt Disney himself. This will be important to recall here in a bit, so please keep it in mind. As the episode develops, Pino's mischievous adventures see her disrupting operations-as-usual on Smile Land's teacup attraction. In the midst of her causing all sorts of trouble for park security, Pino cannot help but smile and laugh at the fun of it all. This, in turn, causes the inhabitants of Smile Land to take notice, marvel, and remark at how authentic her smile is, going so far as to comment that they've never witnessed such a genuine sight before.

Hyperreality and Simulacra

Smile Land being a reference to Disney and the subject of authenticity led me to recall work of the postmodern thinker (I don't care if he doesn't think he is, HE IS) Jean Baudrillard. One of the central ideas in Baudrillard's work is that of hyperreality. The best way that I could illustrate the idea is to ask you to think of any fruit-flavored candy or soft drink. Take Twizzlers strawberry licorice, for example. This particular confectionary is supposed to taste like strawberry, and, indeed, when we consume it we form that association to strawberry within our minds. However, you know damn well that actual, grown-from-the-Earth strawberries do not taste the same. The strawberry flavor of Twizzlers is artificial, an imitation, a fake, a simulacrum. Moreover, that fake strawberry flavor is so incredibly overwhelming that, were you to eat an actual strawberry shortly afterwards, you probably could not detect the sweetness nor appreciate the 'strawberriness' of the genuine article. Well, take that example and extrapolate it to reality, and there you have hyperreality. In more encompassing terms, reality, thanks in part to late-stage capitalism, is chock-full of things and people that are simulacra of other things and people. A readily graspable and concrete example would be that of artificial flavors we've just discussed. A mid-level example would be the perceived prestige and wealth that comes with ownership of an Apple product, despite one being a broke college student. A deeper example would be the pseudo-religious precepts of critical theories (gender, feminist, race, whatever flavor of 'woke' you want) rendering traditional religious metaphysics apparently obsolete. In all cases, there is a signifier (a word or representation) that points to the signified/referent (the concept or object), but the signifier is so removed and so corrupted and/or amplified from the signified that they  both could hardly be considered to inhabit the same conceptual milieu. Yet, b/c of our postmodern condition, psychologically we assume that false association.

To further ground the notion of hyperreality, let's turn to Disneyland itself. Now, obviously, Disneyland is an actual, real place that exists in Anaheim, California, USA. It is a physical location you can visit, fully aware that it is an ordinary place where people work day-in and day-out to make a living, people still have to obey laws, and garbage still rots w/ time. However, when you set foot in the park these is a certain momentary suspension of...let's say normal perspective and expectation. There are the typical fantastical attractions such as Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin that are far too extravagant that would never hearken to real life, but more strikingly there are seemingly 'normal' attractions that are fictitious but somehow feel more 'real' than the actual thing. There is New Orleans Square, constructed to serve as an imitation of the French Quarters found in New Orleans, Louisiana. There you can get your fill of gumbo, enjoy some street-side jazz/swing music played by resident, friendly, and gentlemanly Negro instrumentalists, or take a spooky, heart-thumping tour through a haunted colonial mansion. Now, the actual French Quarters in New Orleans have probably offered these experiences at one time or another, but it has doubtlessly evolved over time and perhaps there are some really nice people that inhabit it (personal note: the place is a dump), but it is a far-cry from the immaculate, idealized, perfect representation found in Disneyland. Those truly in-the-know w/ Creole tradition know that yaka mein is the soup of choice, not gumbo. You may find some street musicians in New Orleans, but they're not going to be playing gypsy jazz a la Django Reinhardt nor are they guaranteed to be all smiles or particularly ingratiating. The colonial mansions you can visit may not be as haunted or exciting as those from your Disneyland trip. See, on one hand, you have this location in New Orleans that is an actual physical place, part of an actual history, but feels less real compared to an actual physical place that feels more real, but is meant to be emblematic of the former and has no meaningful connection to its history.

Let's come back to Ergo Proxy; the through line from Smile Land to Disneyland to hyperreality should become manifest. Smile Land is a simulacrum of some conceptualization of utopia. It is a place where everyone smiles, is in a perpetual state of bliss, agnostic of suffering and hardship. According to Will B. Good, the creator of the city, they are happy. However, upon inspection through an existential lens, one could readily conclude that this is no happiness in the truest sense. One of the things that makes a life happy is when it is punctuated with hardship that is overcome. Consider a particularly beautiful song you might be fond of. If each instrument constantly played tones, there would be no song to speak of, but a cacophony of uninterrupted sound. What gives the song structure, meaning, and beauty is the judicious application of well-timed pauses and breaks, lending rise to rhythm. I don't mean to dwell on this point for far too long, not in the least b/c it is not my main point and we've miles to go before we sleep, but I hope that it is strikingly apparent that Smile Land, along with the happiness of its inhabitants, are all false, w/ Will B. Good being a false God presiding over a false heaven, completing the set. They are simulacra of what they are meant to represent. All of this is masterfully communicated by the citizens' comments on a (adorably) pajama-clad Autoreiv's authentic smile and the portrayal of Will B. Good as a cartoonist. For what is a cartoonist but the God of the world and characters he creates?

No Gods, No Masters, Only Lies

"2B, you're six paragraphs in. Bring it home. Get to theologic love."
Yes, you're right. Let's get to it now, then.

What, exactly, does a false God entail? There are several religious admonitions that caution against worshipping such beings--and those ideas are terribly profound--but I'm more curious as to their nature at the present moment. What does it mean to be a false God? The question is hard to answer if one takes issue as I had for several years w/ the seemingly platitudinal Christian assertion that "God is good." or "God is love.", etc. A mental trick that has helped me immensely is to conceive of the higher, perfect ideal first then call it God. Once that is accomplished, it all falls into place and becomes more sensible: "Good is God.", "Love is God.". Returning to the original question, our task is rendered easy: a false God is a false Good, a false God is a false love. By definition, God is perfect, so a false God is by definition imperfect. Taking this, we can conclude that a false God is associated w/ imperfect representations of the higher, perfect ideals of goodness and love. This is what grants them their "falseness".

Pragmatically speaking, what are the consequences of practicing something of a false good or something of a false love? Well, borrowing from the scenario illustrated in Smile Land, practice of a false good leads you to believe that you are practicing the real deal, that you are actually doing good, so much that when the authentic thing comes along you're thoroughly perplexed by it, or maybe even outright hostile to it. We could all think back to our childhood and recollect a moment where we had some intense desire to partake in some activity, whether that be overindulging in play at the expense of homework or consuming an inordinate amount of sugar at once--some scenario like that. In the moment, to our childish understanding of the world, that play or that sugar was thought to be good b/c it was immediately pleasurable and gratifying. We thought that more of the same would be good for us and enable a happy life. Any adult that would intervene and tell you otherwise was met w/ cries and protest. The homework that they would command you to do instead, or the vegetables that they commanded you to eat were seen as decidedly not conducive to your own personally-ascribed good by your child self. However, as we've (hopefully) come to realize, it is the most difficult, perhaps at-the-moment unpleasant activities that we need to do in order to promote and contribute to our own good in the long-term. Doing your homework would help you practice what you learned in school, curing the knowledge into you mind so that you may one day, years later, easily and skillfully apply it, either to learn something more advanced or to resolve some real world issue. Eating your vegetables is conducive towards your health, preventative against several types of diseases that may plague you later in life. Admittedly, these are extremely easy and obvious examples to cite, and they lead to plain, old truisms. The more ambiguous and heart-wrenching examples may come from practicing false love. Consider the case of a subtly toxic relationship. Perhaps one is harboring deep resentment for the other in her heart, but does not want to shut her partner down hard to spare his feelings. She may chalk it up to her being overly critical and cynical, but it may just very well be the case that her partner is behaving in a way that is contemptuous. Confronting him about it would be an act towards the good, rather than keeping everything hidden away. In this case, it is not readily obvious to the lovers that what they are engaging in is wrong, that sparing feelings is practicing false love, and that it will affect them negatively in a very deep way later on.

Spoilers and Spoiled Children

Following the above more basic example but examining the scenario from the perspective of a caring adult, the practice of genuine love could be readily derived. An adult may prohibit a child from overindulging in play or sugar b/c he or she loves that child, and is interested in fostering their well-being. They may endure plenty of scorn in return for imposing strict and at-the-time perceived unreasonable demands, but these must be weathered for the child's sake. But what about false love? It's actually illustrated quite artfully in the series, although it will take the notice of some plot points only obliquely referenced to in order to catch it. So, fair notice, there are going to be some major spoilers ahead. As it turns out, the titular character of Ergo Proxy, much like Will B. Good of Smile Land, is the creator of his own city, Romdeau. Proxies are beings created by the original humans that fled Earth following the events of an ecological disaster that left the entire surface uninhabitable and in ruin. Proxies were meant to create and preside over these shelter, domed cities and maintain them so that their creators would have safe refuge once they returned. As part of this process, artificial humans were created in order to stimulate the ecological cycle within the cities and provide genetic diversity for the original humans to intermingle w/ upon their return. However, unexpectedly (or was it?) these artificial humans turned out to be sterile and unable to reproduce on their own, necessitating an artificial womb in order to maintain population stability. That artificial womb is only operable if the city's host Proxy is within the dome.

I'd like to take a moment here to dwell on this very point for a while. Here we have a being that, for all intents and purposes, is like a God to the artificial humans. He created them and takes care of them, even though they are so thoroughly fatally flawed. Ergo Proxy loves his creation despite how terrible they can be, how utterly dependent they are on him for survival, how impure they are in their very essence b/c of their ersatz nature, how those flaws run so deep that even their basic biological mechanisms for reproduction are entirely inoperable. By all indications these artificial humans are failures; the term 'fallen' would not be inaccurate to apply here. This is why, and this is conjecture on my part, there are so many scenes that depict Ergo Proxy shedding tears for no readily discernible cause. How terrible must it be to partially fail at one's life objective, one's own purpose (remember, Proxies were meant to set up and populate these cities for their real human masters), and still feel nothing but love for the failure...Honestly, I love the thought so much for its relatability and the accompanying, reoccurring image of a God in despair over his own creation is haunting.

Beautiful as it may be, the fact of its relatability undermines the very notion that this is authentic love. For the love that a human feels for another, the love that an artist feels for his art, the love that a cartoonist feels for his characters, the love a Proxy feels for his city and creation...no matter how intense, real, and genuine they may appear and feel, they are all imperfect representations--simulacra--of God's perfect love for us. "But 2B, you were just gushing about Ergo Proxy's love for his creation..." Yes, I was, but two things can be true at once. One can readily acknowledge that human-human love, artist-art love, Proxy-human love is flawed but still appreciate how moving and beautiful it can be. However, it must be kept in mind that it is still imitation and flawed nonetheless. In the case of Ergo Proxy, this is made clear as, spoilers once again, he eventually abandons Romdeau and desires to live among the population of another city as an ordinary citizen, effectively abdicating his duty towards his very own creation. How even more relatable is that, where it is the modern condition to abandon one's own telos in pursuit of their own egotistical desire? Moreover, to hammer home the message of imperfect love, it is revealed that Ergo Proxy actually seeks to exact revenge on the original humans and therefore has taken it upon himself to become an agent of death: he will kill off his creation to ensure that there is nothing left for the original humans when they return. His hatred towards his creators supersedes his love for his creation.

The Real Deal

At long last, we may now address the Bible readings mentioned in the outset. Starting w/ Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14:

The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”

But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

I get the sentiment that this passage would be widely misconstrued by atheists/secularists as illustrating the fickle nature of God, lending doubt to believe His worthiness of such a title. How could a supposedly all-knowing, all-loving God be so wrathful and mercurial in his feelings? I think this sentiment is informed by a mistaken, reductionist, over-personification of God. In order to make sense of it all, the concept of God must be taken seriously. A being that is the ultimate and the absolute, is not constrained to the personal, or the domain of humanity. God is better conceptualized as reality itself, as all of the material, forceful, moral, abstract, personal, and impersonal entities in existence, along w/ the infinite permutations that they can be configured into. God is that entire totality. This personification of God business is meant to make the stories more relevant and relatable to a human mind, but are by no means a comprehensive, exhaustive characterization. Once this notion is accepted, the story here becomes a tad bit clearer. Here, God is not a person but a natural phenomenon playing out: if one worships false gods, as we have examined before, one will suffer some sort of negative consequence. This is an absolute. You can overindulge and drink all you'd like tonight, but tomorrow morning you will have a hangover. You can cheat on a test and perhaps get away w/ it, but eventually you will have to run up against that gap in knowledge when you're out in the real world. God, the universe, will always and w/o exception have his machinations play out.

However, remember that God is the totality of everything. Yes, he is the consequence that come w/ natural phenomena, but he is also the most perfect conception of all things good, this including all of the virtues. That is what wise Moses indicates in Exodus 13-14, about God swearing to the people of Israel that they will flourish. Recall, however, that first the people must worship God in order to flourish. What does it mean to worship God? Well, as we've established, God is virtue, so to worship God is to worship virtue. One that worships virtue over the false gods of immediate self-satisfaction and pleasure will reap a life of flourishing. The significance of Moses speaking up to God is meant to indicate that the human will does have influence in how God's processes play out, and that they can be either in your favor or not, depending on how you act.

The strangest thing to me is that it doesn't have to be this way. God could have very well set up the world so that His processes play out as they may, irrespective of how we act. A reality where we could truly do everything perfectly right and still have misfortune fall upon us. And yet that doesn't happen. Why? Why is there an "out" of sorts for humanity, when it is obviously clear that we're a fallen creation? It could have as easily been the case that our flawed nature leads us to our own ruin and absolutely nothing could be done about it. It could have simply been left at that. The answer here is love. God has such a profound and genuine love for His creation that he's allowed us the chance to improve upon and rise above our fallen nature and circumstances. It didn't have to be that way but he's made it so.

What is the nature of God's love? It's elaborated on in Luke 15:1-32, in the form of three parables:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisses and the scribes grumbles, saying "This man receives sinners and eats with them." So he told them t his parable: "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

“Or what woman, having ten silver coins,1 if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”

I do have to remark here, that these three parables are deeply...comforting. Care must be taken not to dwell on them for too long, especially the final one about the prodigal son, unless you wish to be moved to tears. In any case, the message here is that God's love for us is, by necessity, non-rational. I've often said that my love is akin to that of a father's love: it is conditional, requiring a child to fulfill a number of conditions in order to earn his pride and affection. Contrast this to a mother's love, which is commonly unconditional; she will always love you simply by virtue that you are her child, no additional conditions necessary to fulfill. Both of these are represented in a relationship w/ God. On one hand you have God who loves you so much that you ALWAYS have an out w/ him. You could be a serial killer and still not be beyond His love; he will still keep the promise to you implied in Exodus 13-14. You still have a shot at virtue and thus flourishing, that will NEVER be taken away from you. I think that this is very poorly misunderstood in the modern era, as love is always seen as a rational, tit-for-tat transaction, and so it must be the same for God. What probably popularized the idea is the consideration of the complementary fatherly love. This comes into effect once one decides to comport themselves w/ virtue. To comport yourself to virtue entails submitting yourself to some fairly harsh judgment against a perfect standard--resulting in you needing to fulfill a number of conditions. The idea is something like "If I do X good thing, I will earn more favor w/ God.". While it is true that God wants you to pursue virtue and will judge you quite harshly as you practice it, it doesn't mean that he loves you any less when you fail to embody it, or loves you more when you do. The love is already there, it is given and fulfilled via the prospect of practicing virtue to begin w/.

The successful practice of virtue is you indulging in what God already had wanted for you and give to you. It is you, the prodigal son, making the conscious decision to stop your reckless life, coming back to your father after suffering the world and your own foolishness, and reaping the benefits of what was already yours. It is you, the prodigal son, being adorned w/ the finest robes and rings on your hand. Like the woman turning her house upside down just to recover a single silver coin of small denomination, or the shepherd that searches for that one lost sheep out of a hundred, God would never turn His back on you and deny you the chance to live a happy life through virtue. Anyone that can't see just how miraculous this is must be incredibly blind. Ten minutes out in the world or even just ten minutes spent alone w/ yourself in the quiet would reveal just how nasty man can be. Not just that, but some may even take pride and delight in how ugly and wicked they can be...suffice to say, if justice does exist in the world, we surely do not deserve any kind of love whatsoever. But where justice does not apply, and we receive love and forgiveness despite our wretched nature, mercy takes over. That is what is meant when it is said that God's love is merciful; it is given to his creation freely and willingly, even though they do not deserve it and it doesn't make rational sense to give it.

TL;DR

These kinds of posts never seem to come to a tidy resolution, as they serve as a first stab in clarifying and organizing my thoughts. As a consequence, a lot of it comes off as meandering and exploratory, with no shortage of tangents being entertained, adding to what is an already rhizomatic mess. In truth, often times these posts beget even more questions and lines of flight, inspiring even more uncertainty rather than closure. But I hope that a few takeaways became clear in my exposition on charming little Autoreivs, hyperreality, Disneyland, false gods, and virtue. I'll offer up a few bullet points in summary for convenience:

• God's love is perfect, genuine, and unconditional, according to Exodus 32 and Luke 15.
• This love is offered up to mankind by the opportunity of choice to practice virtue, leading to a happy life.
• One of Ergo Proxy's themes is that of imperfect creations and imperfect gods, and their fallen natures.
• This theme is illustrated most clearly in episode 19, through Baudrillard's concept of hyperreality.
• The character, Ergo Proxy embodies imperfect love and serves as a neat little foil to God and His perfect love.

So, there you have it.

[end transmission]