Pathodicy

Renee Descartes's (pr. Day-kart) position is simply, "I think, therefore I am". He was saying because I can think of something or about something or about myself, I can objectively conclude. I can say what Is. I can be assured that it actually is because I pointed. It exists in the way I see it because I see it that way. There's a joke that he put Descartes before Dehorse. But alas, his idea has been left aside due to the notion that Descarte's notion was not in fact confirmation of objective reality, but merely of human perception. "I perceive therefore I perceive", is the truer statement. Ludwig Wittgenstein's position was less aimed at what is and more aimed at the processes by which we conclude what is. It's hard to find a broader or more helpful term for his work than the Linguistic Philosophy or the philosophy of language. Put simply, function determined meaning/location/value, and that language is relative to experience. One example is ...

I almost drowned as a Jr. Lifeguard. Go figure. During one of our first summers in California, my parents enlisted me in the Jr. Lifeguards at Leo Carillo. I was 12 or 13, in the midst of puberty, and completely insecure about my body and its tendency to react overtly to gorgeous girls in baywatching suits. Sorry, Baywatch-like bathing suits. It’s interesting to see how much of a paradise this might seem to other kids. Hot girls, the beach, being little lifeguards, getting in shape, and... girls. Aside from almost drowning… and every moment walking around constantly worried about one physiological aspect or another, ...it was ...great? There are a few sections to Leo Carrillo. The point everyone surfs is the section can see from the highway. The wave breaks off a huge rock, and surfers are known to be fairly territorial due to its consistency, not unlike the sharks that are known to sometimes show up (Dun dun dun). On the Northern side of Leo Carrillo's surfing poin...

Nazi ideology breeds coercion, just as Evangelical Fundamentalism breeds coercion, just as Koch Industries breeds coercion, just as America's coercive actions over the last 150 years throughout South and Central America, Asia, and the Middle East have bred little more than coercion. By coercion, I mean the attempt to manipulate or dominate a person or group of persons ability to choose. The most severe cases of coercion include exploitation, emotional manipulation, rape, murder, and genocide. The more insidious version of coercion is shame or stigma. It's quicksand, an imposition used to scare us into obedience through unspoken threats that evoke our deepest fears. Southern Hospitality is one such language. The threat of what happens to those who are impolite is implicit with every breathless nicety. One important distinction is that ideas aren't inherently coercive, it is people that use them as such. Forgetting or refusing our limitations, scientists, preachers, and...