BK Doublethink and Harry Frankfurt's, “On Bullsh*t" essay

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ex-l

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BK Doublethink and Harry Frankfurt's, “On Bullsh*t" essay

Post03 Feb 2018

I am afraid George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' book is almost forgotten and in today's "Fake News" and 280-character limited Tweeting world, any ideas requiring such sufficient concentration just go over straight over most people's heads.

Was it ever widely read and considered in India?

Doublethink or, perhaps, what the BKs used to call "The Divine Art of Concealing and Revealing".
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word — doublethink — involved the use of doublethink.
The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Doublethink

Post04 Feb 2018

How is it possible to live without dualities?
It is possible when there is only the fact, and nothing else

- Jiddu Krishnamurti from ”Flight of the Eagle"
Fact (n.) 1530s, "action, anything done," from Latin factum "an event, occurrence, deed, achievement," in Medieval Latin also "state, condition, circumstance," literally "thing done" (source also of Old French fait, Italian fatto), noun use of neuter of factus, past participle of facere "to do" (from PIE root *dhe- "to set, put"). Main modern sense of "thing known to be true" is from 1630s, from notion of "something that has actually occurred.”

~ From https://www.etymonline.com

What am I getting at (you may ask)?

Simply this. Doublethink or any think for that matter, is all about the ephemeral, the intangible, the subjective. Just when you think you have a handle on it, something happens and you have to rethink it. The world can get confusing.

The reason people (including me) latch on to delusional thinking is because they get distracted by their own ”logic”, their own sequencing of thoughts and ideas to interpret the factual & actual, the done, the act, rather than letting the fact speak for itself, i.e. we talk ourselves into all sorts of beliefs, most of which are not really adding anything to our lives except some layer of artifice of ”meaning”. That leaves us vulnerable.

What is ”meaning”? Etymologically, it is what you have in mind or what comes to mind in reflexive response to physical or mental contact with a thing or event, tangible or intangible. Something ordinary can have ”sentimental” value, it means something to one person but nothing to another. Sentimental?
Sentiment: ORIGIN late Middle English (in the senses ‘personal experience’ and ‘physical feeling, sensation’): from Old French sentement, from medieval Latin sentimentum, from Latin sentire ‘feel’ via the sense of touch.

We are all ”sentient” and prone to ego-induced doublethink, much of that is fostered by our desires, possibly to be exploited by those who claim to be able to fulfil our desires - especially intangible desires. Religions, gurus, advertisers, political leaders, opinion makers appeal to us each day, manipulating and redirecting our logic.

Latest surveys show that seeking happiness in life is ephemeral, a state of mind that comes and goes, whereas most people find a meaningful life is more satisfying. And the meaningful life as described by those say they have one is not necessarily ”happy” in the popularly understood sense. It can even be one where little happiness is present. And it's not just any ”meaning” we happen to allocate to our life.

What people in the survey found meaningful and satisfying is doing, specifically doing for others - that they lived by acts, acting practically for others. Generosity, selflessness are not mere attitudes or states of mind. Acts are facts.

Stick with the facts.
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ex-l

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Re: Doublethink

Post04 Feb 2018

Apparently, President Donald Trump made roughly 500 false statements in the first 200 days of his presidency and I was wondering how on earth the Americans accept can it and worship him. Then I read a piece in Vox, "The Bullsh*tter-in-Chief: Donald Trump’s disregard for the truth is something more sinister than ordinary lying", and reflected on how it applied to our adherence to BKism ... and how on earth we came to accept it and, for some at least, worshipped its Dadas, Dadis and Babas.

Adherence to BKism is based on the acceptance of and conformity to their "truth" (and authority), despite it being clearly bullsh*t. Of course, new adherents are not told what that "truth" is to begin with nor, until much later, how the authority structure within BKism operates. Indeed, the latter is not even really written down, or formalised.

BKism is either absolutely truth, which it is not, or very largely bullsh*t. Which it clearly is. So how and why did we come to accept it, even just play along with accepting for whatever needs or wants or satisfying "ego trip" to be met?

The piece quote a famous essay by a Princeton University philosophy professor called Harry Frankfurt called, “On Bullsh*t (1986)" and starts,
"to lie presumes a kind of awareness of and interest in the truth - and the goal is to convince the audience that the false thing you are saying is in fact true".

Do the Didis and Dadis and Dadas and Babas (acceptance of such titles reflecting the process of infantilisation going on within BKism), really believe what they are teaching is "the truth" ... even after they know it is not and have been exposed to know that it is not? Or is it merely a convenience device that works for them to maintain their authority, and thereby income and security?
Harry Frankfurt’s theory of bullsh**

Frankfurt attempts to give the term definition that distinguishes the bullshitter from the liar, with the most salient distinction being that the liar is genuinely trying to trick you.

“The bullsh*tter”, by contrast, “may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be.” The liar wants to be seen as the one telling the truth. The bullsh*tter just doesn’t care. For the bullshitter ... is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all ... except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.

The article goes on to say that what it is really all about is not aobut 'truth and falsehood' - or The Gyan (The Knowledge) in the case of BKism - but 'trust and loyalty'.
By asking subordinates to echo his bullsh**, Trump accomplishes two goals:

    He tests the loyalty of his subordinates ... “if you want to ascertain if someone is truly loyal to you, ask them to do something outrageous or stupid.”

    The other is that it turns his aides into members of a distinct tribe.

    “By requiring subordinates to speak untruths, a leader can undercut their independent standing, including their standing with the public, with the media and with other members of the administration.”

Now let us apply that to BKism and adhernences to its De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da leaders ...
“If you want to ascertain if someone is truly loyal to you, ask them to do something outrageous or stupid ... By requiring subordinates to speak untruths, a leader can undercut their independent standing, including their standing with the public, with the media and with other members of the administration.”

Is that not what the president Didis and Dadis and Dadas and Babas did and do to us?
Bullsh*t is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullsh** is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic are more excessive than his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. This discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frequently impelled whether by their own propensities or by the demands of others to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant.

As with "Trumpian bullsh**", "BK bullsh*t" serves not only as a test of elite loyalty, but as a signifier of belonging to a mass audience.
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Pink Panther

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Re: BK Doublethink and Harry Frankfurt's, “On Bullsh*t" essa

Post04 Feb 2018

On that definition of bullsh**:

I subscribe to a Facebook page by a historian of American politics. She recently wrote about the attempts to turn America into a more authoritarian state by the Trump administration. I left a comment along the lines of Harry Frankfurt, that I didn’t think Trump even realises his words and actions are turning America to (an even) more authoritarian state. He is not that smart or thoughtful (unlike Putin).

Trump is acting in his own interests but the consequences are playing into the hands of those in his administration and outside it whose interests are served by a more authoritarian system of government.

President Johnson (LBJ) was a shrewd political operator. He would often get someone’s loyalty by getting some dirt on them or, getting them to do something in exchange for a promotion or benefit. He’d then say, ”I have his pecker in my pocket” - a rewording of the classic, ”Now I have him by the balls”.

So too, the majority of BKs are sincere in that they believe they are serving the world’s interests by serving their own interests (humble, hey?).

Consciously they think these are ”spiritual” interests but psychologically mostly ego-driven (including its shadow, insecurity-driven) ones. The consequences of these ”self-interests" are a perpetuation through ”loyalty tests” like the ones Harry Frankfurt describes; the ”family” is the group invested in the same scheme/scheming.
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ex-l

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Re: BK Doublethink and Harry Frankfurt's, “On Bullsh*t" essa

Post05 Feb 2018

Pink Panther wrote:He would often get someone’s loyalty by getting some dirt on them ...

I wonder how much the BKs' habit of offering "a 50% reduction in karma" if someone confessed their dirt (sins/bad karma) to their leaders?

Do they still do that?

We've heard before the contents were often shared around within the inner circle. Nirwair used to get the confessions of Westerners, I wonder what happened to them all?

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