Grandiloquent hyperverbosity!

I read an amusing article by an old associate, Emeritus Prof Steven Schwartz AM , which he addressed to the "dear aspiring academic". In the piece, he quite eloquently and somewhat acerbically comedically notes how important it is to "master strategic ambiguity":

"Embrace the art of the opaque, twirl in the fog of uncertainty, and you’ll navigate the academic minefield with grace and cunning. It’s not about what you say—it’s about how you say it."

Nodding, in some agreement, whilst reading Steven's piece, I thought:

Ah, the artifice of the “Idiot’s Guide”?- blind them with verbiage and vocabulary in loosely bound syntax. It is the old politics and legalese of haystacking to abide by rules and appear clever whilst really you’re only data dumping to drown the other’s capabilities in effluent and never ending chaff.

Such duplicitous endeavours spill into our wider culture through kiasuism and the cynical spins and pivots we use to avoid accountability:

• The disingenuous, gagging apology for perceived wrongs.
• The popularism of being popular.
• The deft correctness of being correct.

All deriving from the imbecility of broad-spectrum appeasement to marginal wavelengths by empowering and amplifying their glow to such luminosity that we are blinded to reality, engulfed in the?dazzling glare of inflated nuance.

We are diluting knowledge and truth until commonsense is an oxymoron as we give names to the ultramicrotomed slices of newly created spectra where none were known or needed before.

We fill illusorily vacuous spaces with helium to make ourselves seem less heavy and more ethereal, ephemeral and, thereby, somehow closer to a delusional godliness of right. All of this in abhorrence of our own emptiness... in an ill-considered, self-righteous indignation at?not being seen how we wish to be seen rather than how we truly are. A flagrant and hypocritical denial of the right of opinion and personal viewpoint. A commanding, unassailable demand that perception means nothing (unless it is our perception) and that all truth is personal truth because no truth is universally true.?

But, despite such riotous proclamations, some truths must be recognised as being simply true, and these truths pertain to this whole dilemma... Such as:

1. Bias is a natural and understandable foundation, a platform of reactive thought for us as animals; what is novel could be dangerous, so we treat the novel or peculiar or simply unfamiliar with some caution lest it tries to eat us.
2. Empathy is a higher state of mind: it can (and should) subdue the instinctually hyper-defensive reactivity of instinct that would have us all at the throats of anyone outside our immediate clan.
3. Perception is a guide, not a judgement.
4. Curiosity is not, by default, an insult, nor a sin.
5. Presentation is a statement; it is reflective of character. ?
6. Empirical truth, whilst always open to amendment as we acquire more knowledge, does not stop being true simply because someone is discomfited by it…
7. The biggest mouth might shout loudest, but that does not make what it shouts true.

Following the flow of this river of thought, vast and deep as it can be, we are swept into lateral channels, probably shallower, but rocky and with a rapid flow. These are the waters of double think and double speak; of, as Steven puts it, a "perfect performative wokeness" that requires one to "stay informed about the latest developments and be prepared to pivot your stance as needed." In other words, "learn the art of superficial profundity", flip and flop in your artifice in order to be popular and safe in a "sea of alphabet soup".

(And, yes, I did take editorial license by using his verb of "perfect" in the adjective form in that quote.)

I have written further (here and here) on the concept of how wokeism leads to the loss of conversational freedom, of benevolent uncensored enquiry; that the rabid offence over word choice, and the uber-zealous defense of everyone from such words (not sticks or stones or bullets or bombs) absent true threat or harm is the tree-lined avenue that leads to the destruction of rational, civilised society.?

Peter Kreeft said it well: “Control language and you control thought; control thought, and you control action; control action and you control the world.” And, indeed, this observation was echoed by the author, Philip K Dick, who said that "the basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them."

So, into what bay and ocean does our river and all its turbulent tributaries ultimately empty? To my mind, if we are to survive and develop as a global, egalitarian community, we must engineer the flow of all our communally intermixing waters into a sea of rational and forgiving tranquility. A safe harbour of gentle swells in which all those bathing must aspire to abide, respect and reciprocate; where there is no demand for more than we are prepared to yield, and where we need not suffer our own hypocrisy any more than we would suffer the injustices of another. ?In such safe and balmy waters, we could surely recognise that judgement is natural, even if prejudicial to start. We would see that it is the fervent, fanatic adherence to ignorance and the bigotry that results that we should rightfully abhor and banish, not the knee jerk bewilderment (or even transient doubt) that can arise at a new experience (particularly when such new experiences can be volatile, ever-changing, tenuous and complex).

Amidst our benevolent thoughts in this non-lunar sea of tranquility, however, there will be times when we might righteously attest to a grievance in history, a wrong of times long gone by - or even one of contemporary association. When such a tsunamic wave arises, we must always remain cognizant and aware that?the injustice we sense lays at the feet of the perpetrator - it is their guilt alone, and attribution of that guilt or any consequential blame onto all that has or shall ever touch upon that perpetrator throughout time and space is not a rational extrapolation.

• How can we justify a perpetual and persistent search for utopia, a universal recognition of individualism and diversity in our bonded biological and sociological unity, when we seem incapable of extending the shield of such beliefs to all?
• How can we be who we are and be seen as who we wish to be seen amidst a bewilderment of unique realities?
• Why do we deliver the sins of the father upon the children for three or four generations - or even more? (The choice of the male gender assignment - father, in that statement being purely a consequence of adaptation from the Biblical reference in Deuteronomy...just to preempt the possible outcry of passive misogyny.)

To borrow, in paraphrase, from an earlier article of mine: It is the beguilement of "the emperor’s new clothes indeed. Would it not be of greater benefit to focus less upon the perceptions of others (whether agreeable or contemptuous in our eyes), and more upon our own happiness amongst a seething but tenuous and transient turmoil of vapor and myth, of intemperance and ill-governed opinion?"??

To look upon history as passed, as lessons that were hard-earned rather than as shames and iniquities to be denied or deleted, or as punishments to be visited upon those that follow only in heredity. (Even Ezekiel turned around on Deuteronomy there...)

To hold steadfast in the visceral recognition of how our poisons can poison others and to therefore seek to do no harm and to see no harm being done unto us?

To abide in the reality of our mind and act our scenes upon the stage we share with all of life such that the theatre of our world becomes a harmony of existence; our fleeting lives a sequence of joy-filled moments over which we each have intrinsic and reciprocal control?

It is all down to how we choose to interact with the world around us, how we interpret the presence of it all in the present moment of time, reminiscent of our past, but not defined by it, cognizant of our futures, but not predetermined to bring our projections into effect.

It is, perhaps, a universal and ubiquitous truth for us all that we are the butterfly's wings, sometimes impacting worlds of time and space, and sometimes pinned to a board.

In the grand scheme of our lives, all we can truly seek to be is to be true to ourselves whilst respecting the sensibilities and sensitivities of others; to be cognizant of culture and history and tradition; to accept without caveat that the comfort of others is at least as important as our own.

“Intolerance of others’ views (no matter how ignorant or incoherent they may be) is not simply wrong; in a world where there is no right or wrong, it is worse: it is a sign you are embarrassingly unsophisticated or, possibly, dangerous.” ~ Jordan Peterson

Again, in paraphrase of my earlier article: "Our 'truth' cannot and does not lend to us the authority to impinge, inflict damage upon or deny the rights and feelings of anyone else. If our truth is righteous, if we accept that we are all owners of our own truth and believe that we are all equal to one another; it follows that the sauce for the gander must be defended as sauce for the goose too - regardless of how that goose might rankle with us.?All we can do is to wear our masks knowingly and be aware that all those around us wear their own - sometimes out of volition, sometimes out of obligation, sometimes out of fear...and, sometimes, simply out of respect for others…"

The mask, however, does remain only a mask and we must not swiftly judge the wearer, because we cannot know truly and fully what lies beneath or why they wear it. So, we aspire and strive to rise above it all, with the benevolence that comes of empathy and a sense of our common humanity casting the bias of our base instincts into shadow - present and in view, a guide to the light without malice or substance itself.