ALIMENTARY EIDOLON

NOW WHERE DID I PUT THE REAL WORLD?

It's all well and good thinking that well crafted intellectual rational discussions are somehow better than emotional outbursts full of profanities.  There is value in the observation that they are superior in some significant way.  For example, if I am trying to explain how the adder in the arithmetic logic unit of the CPU in your computer works, I have more chance of successfully imparting that knowledge with rational and carefully crafted words than to say something less intellectual like "it works with electric fucking switches you ignorant cunt."

And yet ... I have been intrigued for most of my adult life by the successful nature, in some circumstances, of more robust and emotionally expressive language rather than intellectually crafted communications.  Even at primary school I recognised the constricting nature of the detailed minutia of the rationalised rules and regulations.  It was clear to the heart and soul that the oppressive moralising by authoritarians was inherently wrong in spite of their words seeming to make some consistent sense.  My sympathy was often with the renegade, the truculent, or even the rude or offensive child.

It seems our culture has gone a long way with the neat and tidy carefully controlled intellectual construction of rationality.  For all the benefits many philosophers have also noticed the dangers of this clinically linear approach to communication.  Over time it can become quite perverse and dislocated from reality.  It seems to me that our culture in general, and our political culture in particular, have deviated dangerously from a correct, accurate, or useful construct for operating successfully as a society in the world.

A currently fashionable example springs to mind - the idea of truth.  Given the history of academic indulgence in the pursuit of truth the culture expects truth to be a kind of thing, an item, a discernible quality, and something that can be determined.  To suggest that the truth is variable seems contradictory and quite wrong.  The reason for this is our misconception of the meaning of truth.  We nail it down in our minds and then go looking for evidence.  It is true that light is a particle and it is true that light is a wave.  It is also true that a thing cannot be both.  But the truth in those statements depends upon the domain, relevance, and purpose of the pronouncement.

The state of affairs in which we exist is precisely that state of affairs.  The fact that we can never know it does not mean it does not exist and more importantly it does not mean that our perspective on it is incorrect.  If you walk around an elephant you will get lots of different views and the more views you get the more accurate will be your comprehension of the elephant.  But no matter how many perspectives you have, the model in your head will never be the elephant.  The only thing that is the elephant is the fucking elephant in the room.

We have travelled so far up our intellectual alimentary canal that we no longer recognise the real world but reside, instead, inside the waste pipe of our own construction.  Brexit is a massive convoluted entangled mess of rationalised intellectual garbage.  It is not a real thing in the real world.  And yet, because of the power of the idea in people's heads this carbuncular manifestation constructed in the minds of the living dead will have very real destructive impact on the otherwise real and valuable people across Europe.  Trump is also not a real thing.  He is the epitome of fake news, post truth, and alternative facts.

Perhaps I could have been more succinct and accurate had I said: "They are so far up their own fucking arses they're talking shit."