Don't Play the Game

 

There's a phrase in the fighting game community I like: "Don't let them play their game". The idea is that each character in a fighting game interacts with the mechanics of the game in a unique way, and thus have their own way of playing the game, and their strategy is to find a way to play their form of the game. The basics of any fighting game are to deny the opponent their form of the game, while getting to maximize your own time playing your game.  

So, for instance, these are the shenanigans that my favorite character Sub-Zero can get up to, should he put you into the corner:

Now, why am I pointing this out?

Because, as a geek, I've noticed that this logic is pretty damn near universal, especially when it comes to debate. I've never, not even once, seen this not be an issue. If you share assumptions then certain logical outcomes are certain. Sorry, there's only so many ways to skin the rabbit in a way that works with power. And yes, trying to keep power/politics out of the situation is naive. Power is a magnet: if you're set up to be in agreement with its assumptions you will, eventually, go to where the power is. It's a matter of time. Power, whether it be military, cultural, personal, will always win if you give it an inch.

I disagree with where society is going, and always have. Hell, I'm not sure I've ever agreed with any society at any point in time. That may be because of the sheer number of times I've seen groupthink be harmful. So I acknowledge there may be an irrational impetus in there. But, looking the rage, distrust, and outright incoherence of where we're at I don't think I'm entirely off the track. So I don't want to be like what the society around us wants. That means my assumptions are different, and if they aren't different I must make them different, to avoid the pull of power. And so, if I wish to maintain what I think is a good outlook on life, my assumptions must be radically different from what society assumes. They can't play their game, not even for a moment.

Here's some of the assumptions I keep running into with our society that I think aren't just wrong but are obviously wrong. And by assumptions I mean things that you can more or less ascertain if you just a take second and actually look at the world and how it operates.

1. People are, by nature, good and if we could just get the bad programming out it would be fine.

Nope. I've never agreed with this, because it's just manifestly and obviously untrue.  Everyone, from every culture, has a degree of brutality and evil to them, and you can't not pass it on. The attempts to "reboot" have always been disastrous, and there's so much blood in just the French Revolution (which implemented 10 day weeks, temple prostitutes to Reason, and a generous severance package from life if you disagreed with them), nevermind the Nazis (who adapted Marxist principles to the scale of nations, that's literally what nationalism is), and definitely the Bolsheviks (whose attempts to rewrite human nature resulted in a black market that choked out the "legit" one).... people are social animals. They're immediately imprinted upon, from the moment they come into existence. There are no blank slates.

And even then, humans are programmed to follow the path of least resistance, which leads to entropy and death. Social programming is there to stop us from killing ourselves due to sheer indolence. You need people around to tell you how to fight against your own ennui. Which is everywhere in you, all the time.

You. Need. People. That's HUMAN 101 folks. 

So no, the programming is not the problem, on principle. People just do bad things with the programming they're given, and the best human programming attempts to make it as difficult as possible to subvert it.

2. Categorical imperatives are the key to morality.

I've written about this before. If such and such was applied universally would it be right? That's the categorical imperative. It assumes that humans can figure crap out. Again, that's manifestly untrue. If you think religion is the problem with that please, explain the 20th century, which implemented the openly atheistic principles of the Enlightenment, like the categorical imperative... to absolutely disastrous effect. Anyone who wants to defend the categorical imperative has to explain why it didn't impact the bloodshed of the 20th century, an act suspiciously like trying to deny the nose on your face. Somehow you'd have to go through the works of the Marxists, Communists, and Nazis, and prove they didn't have the categorical imperative behind them.

Good luck.

3. The key to a good life is minimizing pain while maximizing pleasure.

That's called hedonism, specifically epicureanism.

And that's, again, obviously wrong. 

Most of the things I've found worth doing in my life have not just been horrifically hard, but painful beyond cruelty. But if I hadn't have done those things I would have become less, lost my peace, which is not the same as being happy. To quote George Lucas "Happiness is only for a moment". You can't control whether or not you're happy, but you can control whether or not you're at peace.

Yes, that means learning to sit in the midst of the inferno as it rages around you and accepting it. Or, as St. Silouan puts it: "Keep thy mind in Hell and despair not". Yes, it means that you have to let go of the idea of happiness as an end point, or even as something worth thinking about at all.

The modern world only makes sense if you accept its assumptions. Assumptions are either correct or they're not.  If you accept the assumption you accept the logic founded upon it. The only way out is to reject the assumptions. You either look at the world around you and go "Yup, that tracks" or you don't.

And honestly? I don't. And haven't. And never will.