Featured in The Map Is Indestructible by O.G. Rose

Coda III (Part 1)

O.G. Rose
22 min readOct 22, 2024

Reflections on “Map-Vanishing”

Photo by Marvin van Beek

Once we map-seal and map-insulate with “blood” and “dominate strategies,” the next way to strengthen our “maps” and make them “indestructible” is by engaging in map-vanishing, which is to say by making our “map vanish as a map” into rather “is-ness.” If what we believe just “is” versus “be a map,” it’s all the stronger and more “indestructible,” which is a strategy we already discussed in Coda I. “True ignorance” is a powerful way to map-vanish, for if we are ignorant of everything that could reveal our “map” as being a “map,” then our “map” will easily become an “is-ness” (“practically at least, for we will still easily know that in conversation we must speak more humbly). And critically everyone “practically experiences” their “map as the territory” (paradoxically), for otherwise it would lose authority and strength to guide and direct their lives. But so long as a map is “visible” as a map, it is still at risk of being seen as not the territory, and so there is a strange incentive to engage in map-vanishing. We try to make the map transparent, per se, which means we only see the territory through it, and then we don’t use a map — don’t you see there’s just the territory? Indeed, “what is” is “what is”…

In some (often “invisible”) way, everyone is a “denier” of what threatens their personal situation. The professor denies reports saying college isn’t worth it; the Pro-Lifer denies reports that fetuses aren’t human; coal miners deny Global Warming; and so on. The professor looks for scraps of information verifying the usefulness of college against the onslaught of articles questioning college; the Conservative digs up reports about Global Cooling in the 70s; and so on. We claim people who disagree with us are “deniers,” but we are all truthfully “deniers” in different ways, especially considering that we are all “truly ignorant” in many more ways than we are informed. And yet we all take “leaps of faith” accepting some ideology, and in so doing we then work to make our map “invisible.” Map-vanishing is critical for our “natural” lives.

I

We spoke in Belonging Again how everything experienced as a constraint is likely to be deconstructed, which is to say the moment a “given” is experienced as a “given” and not an “is-ness,” it loses its power and authority. Similarly, once we experience a map as a map, its power is at risk; thus, the importance of map-vanishing. And even if we can’t make our map entirely invisible, if we can just make it “a little less a map” than all the others and/or “a little more like the territory,” then our map is likely to get a pass as “not just a map.” And at this point the power and strength of our ideology grows significantly, and even if we confront the idea that “we are all ideological,” since our map is “a little less a map” than all the others, this idea doesn’t disturb us. In fact, how blessed we are to have the ideology we have (it would be irrational to venture out of it).

But if our map is ultimately an ideology, won’t it eventually fail us and unveil the reality that “the map isn’t the territory?” How can it avoid being made “visible” by failure? Well, because we from within our ideology have “the power to define” what functions as evidence against our worldview and what confirms it (and we can carefully expose it to just enough counter-evidence to strengthen it and to make ourselves seem unbiased, but not so much counter-evidence that it is threatened — like a good cook or someone in control of a pressure-value). If we defend Capitalism, we have control over how we define Capitalism, and so all evidence against Capitalism can be defined as evidence that “true Capitalism hasn’t been tried yet,” thus protecting Capitalism from critique (so it goes with any map). No matter how Capitalism is approached, I can always find a place to slip in a “could,” which is to say that I can always claim we could try Capitalism longer, in a different way, according to a different vision — and this “could” is ideologically invaluable as an endless source of plausible deniability (it is why we can always “define ourselves out of” critique). A reason the Enlightenment sought to replace religion, philosophy, metaphysics, and the like with science was precisely because of this “could,” which could be used not to prove any superstition, conspiracy, madness, etc., but to maintain belief in, which is to say the “could” enabled anyone to “plausibly deny” that they should stop believing x, y, or z. The “could” made it so thus no one had to leave their map, and yet these maps lead to religious wars, witch-hunts, and worse. It was understandable then why the Enlightenment sought to remove this “could” with science, empiricism, and the like — and yet that project arguably lead us into “autonomous rationality,” autocannibalism, and the “totalitarianism” which can follow. “The Dream of the Enlightenment” is not the way, and yet it is understandable why it was attempted. The dream having failed, we must face “The Pynchon Risk” (as explored in The Conflict of Mind and which we will soon explore again).

“A world of maps” is a world in which there will always be a “could,” which means the future is open and we are free to create our world, but that also means we are in danger of extremism, fundamentalism, and the like. But avoiding maps is impossible, for the moment I say “that is a rock” or refer to anything as data, evidence, etc., I must assume a framework in which phenomena can be made “toward” me as evidence (and furthermore “autonomous rationality” like “autonomous empiricism” is impossible because I cannot “in a framework” determine which framework I should use through which I should interpret phenomena “toward” me as evidence). And if I must ultimately choose the framework in which evidence is situated, defined, and possible, then I ultimately always have the last say: I am ideologically invincible. If I don’t like the evidence, I don’t have to ignore it or counter it: I can simply change the framework in which the evidence is “evidence,” thus transforming the evidence (back) into phenomena. And so I am not irrational or closed-minded, for there’s nothing there relative to which I can be deemed and judged as such, just phenomena. Where’s the evidence? I’d happily consider it…

Through changing, shifting, and/or altering frameworks and thus making “evidence” turn back into phenomena or phenomena into “evidence,” I can engage in map-vanishing, both in that I can make other maps vanish (thus making mine “is-ness”), and in that I can make anything vanish which might counter my map and so unveil it as a map, which is to say “as (possibly) distinct from the territory.” Though (possibly) a powerful tool against ideology, the transformation of science into Scientism can be evidence of map-vanishing, for the conclusions of science become glimmers of “is-ness” (not products of interpretation or opinion), which is to say the framework science assumes “vanishes” in scientific inquiry. In its effort to free the world of ideology, arguably science becomes a powerful ideology in Scientism, Empiricism, Autonomous Rationality, and the like (what we fear is what comes unto us, it seems), giving us unintentional problems. This doesn’t mean Scientism was the worst ideology of all (as Steven Pinker argues against), but it easily could still be the most powerful in its capacity to spread, totalize, and the like. If Ivan Illich is correct that it is the best of things which can become the worst of things, then it is perhaps precisely the greatness of science which makes Scientism so problematic. That would have to be debated: the point is that science cannot free us from “the problem of internally consistent systems”; “the map is (still) indestructible.”

II

Science can lead to Scientism, but because philosophy can always ask “why” and examine anything (as Samuel Barnes discusses in The Iconoclast), philosophy can possibly help us avoid ending up in an ideology like Scientism that is totalizing and difficult to escape. Philosophy can always provide me the option of moving “vertically,” per se, while in the world I can only move “horizontally,” and “horizontally” we all inevitably end up in ideology and likely stuck in “an indestructible map.” Philosophy is the possibility of escape in being the possibility of “meta-movement,” but this is a double-edged sword: “philosophical consciousness,” as Hume admonished, is also why we end up losing “givens” and entering an existentially anxious world in which totalitarianism becomes appealing (as described in Belonging Again); furthermore, philosophy makes “totalization” possible precisely in that philosophy can be about anything, meaning philosophy is what makes “total war” possible. But wait, didn’t we say that philosophy could help us avoid “indestructible maps?” Yes, this is so in philosophy providing the possibility of “vertical movement,” but unfortunately philosophy can also be used to help “horizontal movement,” in that we can use philosophy to “jump over” any “bump in the road” we might encounter in our “horizontal movement,” thus enabling us to keep going. This is precisely because philosophy enables us to “define evidence” and “re-describe” in a way that helps us avoid evidence against our worldview by making that evidence “vanish,” which then saves us from seeing ourselves as “closed-minded” or “ignoring the evidence.” After all, there’s no evidence there to ignore…(In this way, we can begin to glimpse why a philosophy of “dwelling in conditions of possibility” is critical for us to focus on.)

At the same time, though philosophy can equip us to engage more in map-creation, map-sealing, map-vanishing, etc., philosophy can also help us stop and correct these tendencies, and if they are natural, then we cannot blame philosophy for their existence and occurrence. Also, if we are now in a “Philosophical Age” and cannot go back (an “Age Without Givens”), then the name of the game is not “erasing philosophy” but “mastering the art of philosophy” — but that begs the question, “What is philosophy?” and “How should philosophy be used?” These are questions which might require all of O.G. Rose to address, but for example if economic studies present facts as if those facts are the sources of the frameworks in which those facts are situated (which is impossible), philosophy can be used to overcome this mistake; at the same time, philosophy could also be used to rationalize this error. Philosophy can be used to help us determine what “killing” falls under the category of “murder,” as it can be used to help us avoid seeing an example of “killing as murder”; philosophy can help us assess Capitalism, as it can be used to rationalize Capitalism. Philosophy can be used to “define ourselves out of” critique, as it can be used to help us realize that we are using philosophy to “define ourselves out of” critique — as it can be used to make us think that we have avoided “using philosophy to avoid critique” in a manner that actually helps us avoid critique (on and on, ever-meta).

Philosophy and abstraction define our world today (as of the 2020s), and this cannot be reversed without reversing Pluralism, Globalization, and technology (and even then, unless we undergo a collective amnesia, we know of the possibility of these states of being and “toward-ness,” and that cannot be readily reversed). Philosophy can then be used to map-create, map-seal, map-vanish, etc., or philosophy can be used to resist map-power — but the very fact that philosophy can be used either way means there is always room for ideology to survive. In the same way that “we can never establish a definition of x with certainty” (only confidence), which hence means we can always “define ourselves out of” critique, so the fact philosophy is always at play means we can always use philosophy to avoid a critique which could threaten our ideology, and this alone means our “map” is perhaps ultimately indestructible. The very philosophy which might help us “vertically” escape a “map” might also be what assures that we never have to escape our “map.” We play with fire to live at risk of death.

As gaining a theory about developing can trick us into thinking we are developing, so philosophy can trick us into thinking we are critical of our worldview when we only could be critical of our worldview (we “just happen” to never get around to, as we also “just happen” to use philosophy to avoid critique). Since axioms are ultimately nonrational, we can use philosophy to always keep ourselves in “the rational,” thus saving our axioms from critique (at the risk of “autonomous rationality” though, please note) — and anyone who critiques us we can simply deem “irrational” (“a dominate strategy”). We have the power of choice to defend ourselves with (for “choice worlds,” per se, which is to say we can ideologically choose the world we live in, protecting us), and though life without choice is empty, like philosophy, choice is a double-edged sword: we can use it to protect ourselves from anxiety or to force ourselves to confront possibility. Choice and philosophy are a reason why we can end up in conspiracies, but they are also why we can escape them, self-defend ourselves from them, and see beauty in the struggle. Philosophy facilitates ethics and thus a world which stops horror, but it is also what can rationalize away facing horror. We must choose. And since we always must choose something — a framework in which choices are defined, a framework in which phenomena become “toward” us as evidence, etc. — the subject is always involved, which means doubt is always possible, and that means we always have the tools both to free ourselves “vertically” and the tools to assure nothing ever stops us from moving “horizontally” as far as we like. Definitions, evidence, frameworks, descriptions — none of these tell us how we should use them, and so there is always room for escape or fundamentalism. And regardless what we choose, others might choose differently (making us reflect on ourselves).

No phenomena are made “toward” us as evidence without becoming an abstraction of themselves, as no description of a thing is ever equivalent to the thing: everything we experience is a testament to experience, though that doesn’t mean what we experience reflects an error or has “nothing to do” with the thing (as we learn from Hegel). We describe in hopes of really describing things as they are, as we make cases with evidence in hopes of getting at “what is the case.” And perhaps we do. And it is that “perhaps” which gives us “plausible deniability” and space to see ourselves as not necessarily “epistemically immoral” to choose whatever we choose. And choose we all do. How we live. How we see others. We are always involved. It is often said that humans cannot escape subjective experience, a notion which can lead to (at least popular) Kantianism, but I submit that we should emphasize our inability “to escape choice” more than subjectivity. To emphasize subjectivity can make us sound like victims, stuck in a prison of ourselves. But if we emphasize choice, we are responsible, and what exactly are we responsible for? Something we couldn’t know ahead of time? Something we didn’t want to experience? Seems unfair, and yet it “is.”

We must experience, but we can choose what we experience and how we make the world “toward” us in that experience, and it is this very situation that makes us free to either use philosophy “vertically” or “horizontally” (though unfortunately “horizontally” seems more natural). And whatever our choice, it can then “work backward” and make it seem like we didn’t “choose” anything at all, only “realized” such was the case. This is because how we choose to “frame” the world makes it seem as if the world isn’t “framed” but rather just “is,” and this in itself contributes to map-vanishing. Even if I learn this, since map-making is inevitable, that very inevitably of map-making can make it invisible to me, because I can just shrug and say, “What’s the point then?” Either through definition or defining, or through seeing “maps” everywhere and thus nowhere, humans are masters at map-vanishing. Perhaps none of us really live experiencing “maps”: to speak of “maps versus territories” is to meta-think, and even meta-thinking can be used for map-vanishing as well (when a “vertical move” of thought is only engaged in to the degree that we need to in order to keep moving “horizontally,” map-strengthening). It would also require meta-thinking to describe subjectivity and the role of choice and experience in our experience of the world, and that meta-thinking is something we must choose to engage in (and might only use manipulatively). If we do not, then we perhaps can protect our ideology, for we make “invisible” the subjectivity which makes ideology possible (to avoid meta-thinking is to contribute to map-vanishing). But in making subjectivity invisible to help with map-vanishing (which perhaps entails a dismal of fields like philosophy, psychoanalysis, etc.), we might contribute to us feeling alone. If we don’t “see” the workings and existence of subjectivity though, we can “plausibly deny” the involvement of subjectivity in our worldview. We can protect it and keep it from causing us anxiety, but at what cost? (Do we care?)

III

Once we make the involvement of subjectivity seem optional, we can then make the word “subjective” into a term that “practically means” “error-prone” (a move we cannot readily do when the role of the subject is undeniable, for then how could we judge subjectivity as error-prone without undermining that very effort?). Once we do this, people can hesitate to use the construct and do everything in their power to avoid being referred to by it, and once this occurs, map-vanishing is intensified (for the recognition of the subject is central for realizing the existence and place of “maps” in the first place). And then this can be socially-reinforced, in that everyone can organically avoid using the term “subjective” and come to understand that “subjective” is a simile for “mistake,” and as a result it will be (rationally) considered problematic to use the word “subjective” to describe people — except perhaps people we disagree with, which means we will identify with our opponents a term we need to describe ourselves with if we are to understand the role of the subject and presence of “maps.” This might make it harder in the future to use this term on ourselves, for we would have to identify with our opponents, which in itself might threaten to deconstruct our whole worldview — and nobody gives up their world easily (regardless our relationship with the world).

If we use the word “subjective” as a simile for error and to “other others,” we might not realize that we are doing something wrong, especially if everyone we know (and seemingly the entire world) use the word “subjective” as a simile for “error.” At this point, we might be “ignorant about our ignorance” in using the term wrongly, and this too will greatly contribute to map-vanishing, for we will “not know that we don’t know” that we engage in map-vanishing (and ultimately a “true ignorance” regarding all map-vanishing is seemingly always the goal of “maps”). Furthermore, if we live according to a “map” and “don’t know we don’t know” that we do, we can be seen as innocent of living according to a “map” and better yet be seen as a victim of natural map-making — exactly as is advantageous for maps. If we are innocent of doing anything wrong, we cannot readily be expected to change our lives or held responsible for changing them, and so we will easily slip back into map-making without realizing it, for map-making is what we can all slip into without focused and intentional effort. In this way, even if map-making is recognized, we can gradually and subtly slip back into its habits.

It benefits “maps” and ideology if we are “truly ignorant” about their existence, suggesting that there is incentive to “not know that we don’t know” we live according to “maps.” In fact, there can be more anxiety when we know about maps versus when we don’t, suggesting that it can feel like we are in the right when we successfully map-hide. To live ignorantly in the world can feel exactly like living enlightened, and those who might make us see our ideology can make us feel bad, which could be taken as “evidence” that they are in the wrong (to think together “true ignorance” and “the heart/mind dialectic”). Maps work by not letting us know we are in a map, as aided by the fact we can feel bad to recognize maps, keeping us in them — with the added bonus, actually, of us hence-forth thinking we have “evidence” that we shouldn’t leave our map, especially if we believe that we wouldn’t know it if we lived in ignorance, helping us not suspect that we are doing something wrong. Since we naturally experience the world as “grasping” it, this both functions as evidence that our map “works,” and also trains us to believe that if we were deceived that we would “grasp” our deception, when in fact that notion is itself possibly a mechanism of deception. We naturally only ever experience ourselves “getting things” (even if we “get that we don’t get,” etc.) and “being guided toward truth,” so why would we ever think that we are dealing with a mere “map” versus is-ness itself? Even if we do use a map, surely it’s more like things “are” than not? Otherwise, we wouldn’t be “grasping” things all the time, right?

All we ever experience is ourselves “learning,” as moving from falsity to truth — to suggest we use a map that might lead us in circles is to suggest something counter to our experience (if anything, that describes what others do). And in always experiencing ourselves as learning, we garner reason to believe that we can be trusted, for have we not proven willing to learn? When it comes to others though, we can experience them as “not willing to learn” and “not knowing,” which means that we’re different from them (hence worthy of more trust than most), which might also suggest that others need our help. They seem incapable of learning, stuck in error, while we are humble and ever-learning, ever-moving into greater-knowing, ever-grasping. In fact, they seem stuck in “maps” and don’t even know it…

That all said, we know that “nobody knows everything,” and we also might know that everyone has to make assumptions — so when we encounter gaps in our knowledge (as perhaps brought out by “the other”), we can easily see them as “necessary assumptions” or “evidence of imperfection” (a confession of which suggests our humility), of which in being unavoidable, do not necessarily function to us as evidence that we are in the wrong. Additionally, if I come to my map and worldview through “flickers” and “impressions” (as Wittgenstein discussed), then I also might lack a “clear line of sight” for the foundation of my beliefs, and though that might sound like it would put my beliefs at greater risk, this “lack of clarity” could actually prove advantageous, for then I cannot “see clearly” if belief is undermined; instead, I might claim I need to “study more” or “look into” some things, which could be completely genuine, but the point is that this move would still have a function of helping preserve and protect my map. Furthermore, I could see myself as not “ignorant about the foundations of my worldview,” suggesting I am willing to be critical of it, when really this can then move into an “awareness of myself” that paradoxically can function to help me see myself as critical without doing the work of critiquing, helping me protect my map.

Also, we should note that what I believe is true impacts what it is possible for me to be ignorant about, which in of itself means I can frame “ignorance” in a way that protects me from things that might disprove my map. If I believe in God, for example, I can know that “I’m ignorant regarding the depths of theology,” but I don’t so readily see myself as “ignorant about atheism,” for this second possibility of ignorance isn’t really even “a possibility of ignorance” according to my map (by which I decide what I will investigate, how I will use my time, etc. ). It would be in a way “irrational” for me to investigate “ignorance about atheism,” and who wants to do something irrational? According to my map, I would be searching for something that doesn’t exist, which means I might be caught in an endless game of searching, risking madness — and for what? Nothing. “A Pynchon Risk” for nothing. And so there is a kind of “innocence” that accompanies those who choose not to investigate “the ignorance that isn’t even an ignorance” according to their map. I mean, can we investigate everything? No. We can only do the best we can (a claim that further benefits my map); we humbly “know our limits” (a claim that further…); it’s only “epistemically responsible” (a claim…). We “feel” like we are doing the best we can, and we can’t expect everyone to be “mind people,” can we? A claim…

IV

There is little split between “heart” and “mind”; we are each a “heart/mind,” but if we believe that our thinking is uninfluenced by emotion and personality, it can be easier to believe our map isn’t just a map. “The Heart/Mind Dialectic” can threaten the map-vanishing which helps us avoid anxiety, and so we might easily feel like the dialect doesn’t exist (sticking to “a way/language of life” (“heart and mind”) that makes “a different/way language of life” (“heart/mind”) unintelligible). We think our beliefs when asked about them and/or when they are “visible,” and so readily experience our beliefs as products of thought, which seems to give them authority (though it is a fallacy to believe that feelings reduce reliability) (they paradoxically feel authoritative, funny enough). We do not acknowledge what we see through, and so there is nothing we miss-see. But others — they miss-see much, suggesting we are right to not take what they say seriously, for we “see” lots of evidence that we shouldn’t (they live in a map, ideological, after all…).

Indeed, failing to realize the heart and mind exist dialectically, we can fail to realize that when we think we are thinking, we may actually be (more so) feeling, as we can fail to grasp that when we think we are feeling, we may actually be (more so) thinking. Consequently, when we think we are philosophizing, we may actually be emoting and vice-versa. Worse yet, when we think we philosophize but actually emote, we can believe of ourselves to be objective and “clear headed,” and that it is those we are debating who fail to “check their subjectivity.” Ironically, as our minds hide from us the influence of our hearts, our minds can make us increasingly aware of the influence of the heart in those with whom we disagree (all while they observe the same influence in us). And isn’t it reasonable to disregard such people? They’re emotional and can’t be reasoned with — why should we waste our time? Isn’t that irrational? And so bias might be something we like to worry and complain about, for much labor is offloaded from us. And how else could we survive in a world of so much information and complexity? Perhaps the media knows we need bias, and for our sakes, they give us what we need? Perhaps belief that people are biased is necessary to handle living in a world full of so many different and diverse people? Perhaps then for good reason ideology won’t give up “heart and mind” (for “heard/mind”) so easily…Furthermore, if people are heart/minds, we cannot discount them “for not using their minds enough,” for that would be to discount people “for being people,” and so we lose a defense to keep us from facing people (for which we are not responsible). And people are hard.

We easily take on our map in a manner that makes it feel rationally earned, thus justified, helping it self-hide (self-deceive), and since it feels “rationally earned,” we easily conclude it is (while perhaps paradoxically discounting feelings). Gradually, slowly, through years of living and working with this map, we can come to believe/feel we have strong evidence that our map is valid, and yet at the same time we can prove willing to change our mind here and there about this and that (within our map), providing us evidence (alongside our convictions) that we are reasonable, humble, and not closed-minded. All of this transformation and debate though tends to occur “upon” and “within” certain framings, as they must, and since change occurs within these framings, we can provide ourselves reason to think that we are open to change. But under all this can be beliefs that we do not question, for otherwise our entire framework for asking questions would be in jeopardy, and the very fact that these beliefs would threaten our entire framework provides a deterrence to keep us from questioning them. We come to hold positions which are “too central to be false” while at the same time perhaps changing our views about this or that (upon that which is “too central to be false”), which gives us reason to feel that we are not ideological. And thus we map-vanish, both in that our beliefs, assumptions, etc. which are protected by deterrence vanish, and in that our willingness to change our views in some areas helps our map vanish as well as a “mere” or “closed” ideological position.

As we approach beliefs protected by deterrence, a person might become anxious and upset, precisely because they feel “their entire world” becoming unstable. Bringing together “Certainty Deterrence” and “The Heart/Mind Dialectic,” the very fact a person feels this way could function as “objective” evidence to him or her that the “challenging person” being spoken with is wrong, or at the very least uncaring and cold, which could mean that the person shouldn’t be taken seriously: it would be “rational” to disregard the person (please note how “think” and “feel” come to be blurred). And if there are others witnessing this exchange, the very act of witnessing anxiety could be interpreted that the person being challenged is a victim and thus deserves support, not only from an emotional place, but also from a realization that if this person could be wrong and brought to change his or her views, couldn’t the same thing happen to us? And so support can pour in (there are many ways that “mutually assured deconstruction” can work to maintain maps).

We can see in deterrence how beliefs can be like relationships (which makes sense if our beliefs are a result of an “encounter” between ourselves and the world, ourselves and unknowns, etc.), and as when someone precious is critiqued we can react very defensively, so when something important is critiqued, we can do the same. Our most fundamental beliefs can be like loves, and what kind of person would want to submit another to suffering a breakup? Not a good person, assumedly, and so those who would make us experience deconstruction can automatically “feel like” (“be”) a person with whom we shouldn’t interact or trust. And as it can be seen as wrong to interact with people who would even tempt us to turn against our committed relationships, so it can be seen as wrong to interact with people who would tempt us against our beliefs (as it would be the same for others to so interact who share in our beliefs, for if they change their minds, that could impact my relationship with my beliefs, for they are the same as theirs). “The dynamics of belief” and “the dynamics of relationship” might be more similar than we often realize, suggesting the wisdom of Hegel to see logic as having something to do with instincts. And as with time my most familiar and regular relationships become “invisible” to me (with parents, spouses, siblings, etc.), so too my more familiar and regular beliefs become “invisible,” simply “given” — and if they are questioned, it is automatically a deep crisis (“blood-ties” cannot come under question without everything coming under question). If we can’t be certain that our family will always be there for us, what can we be certain of? Is anything trustable? (Beliefs are connected to “networks of beliefs,” as Wittgenstein understood.) And it won’t do to think that my family might always be there for me; I need to believe they will be there for me — don’t I? And so it can similarly feel devastating to think that my deepest beliefs only might be true. The whole world becomes a different place. How can I live in a meltable world? Furthermore, how can I say I care about people who I would risk suffering a “meltable world?” Surely we cannot say we care about people we let interact with such danger, can we? And so love has us tribalize. It feels objective. Wise…

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O.G. Rose
O.G. Rose

Written by O.G. Rose

Iowa. Broken Pencil. Allegory. Write Launch. Ponder. Pidgeonholes. W&M. Poydras. Toho. ellipsis. O:JA&L. West Trade. UNO. Pushcart. https://linktr.ee/ogrose