Featured in The Map Is Indestructible by O.G. Rose
Reflections on “Map-Vanishing”
V
For Wittgenstein, belief makes doubt possible, and so there is always doubt present that gives me reason to think I am not closed-minded and capable of critical thinking. If all our beliefs were deconstructed, we’d have no basis from which to doubt, suggesting that doubt would be impossible, which furthermore suggests that there might always be present some undoubtable belief. It is invincible, around which doubt transpires to make the belief seem “willingly and critically accepted,” when really the belief more so reflects necessity and deterrence. We doubt parts of “the network” that is our worldview, but we cannot doubt what makes possible that very doubt, which is to say we cannot doubt everything (and if we live in a world that makes us feel like we should, we can feel like we “ought” to do the impossible, suggesting pathology). That all said, oddly, where it was “given” that Christianity was true, it might have been easier to doubt it, but where Christianity isn’t “given,” that means I can only hold it together through navigating and protecting my own map myself, meaning that doubt might come to feel a lot riskier, and though it could be argued that “givens” made doubting Christianity unthinkable, if it did become thinkable, that doubt might have been less pathological, which is to say it might have felt safer. Perhaps this isn’t the case, but if so it might help to explain why religious Fundamentalism often seems more modern than ancient, which is to say Fundamentalism reflects an effort to maintain a map that is not supported by “givens.” Of course, “givens” were also arguably the ultimate way to engage in map-vanishing, so I’m not saying the story is so straightforward, but the point is that where “givens” are gone, Christianity can require my constant affirmation and interaction to “be” in the society, which might favor Fundamentalism.
If we cannot doubt everything, that would suggest why humans so naturally engage in “ideology preservation,” and furthermore if there is likely always some “core belief” that is never deconstructed, no matter what we doubt and/or deconstruct, the whole worldview will easily “spring back to life” from out of that very core (like a plant we trim and cut but never kill). The root must be pulled up, which is to say “everything must be pulled up at once,” but how is that possible if belief is necessary for doubt? Well, it might suggest the need for “an event” — a holistic trauma event. What does that mean? Well, it would suggest that focusing on “conditions of possibility” is perhaps the only “deep” and sustainable way to change people and even the world…
If we cannot doubt everything, that means we could “intend to doubt everything” and always fail (“thank God?”), which means we could come off to others (and ourselves) as if we “don’t intend” to be ideological (and yet nevertheless are ideologically safe). This way, we could always have “good intentions” and/or “objective intentions” and yet nevertheless not have to worry about suffering ultimate deconstruction. Yes, some of our beliefs might be “trimmed” (like a plant), and this could prove very difficult, but this might be a small price to pay so that we can be seen by ourselves and others as a person “intending to be objective.” If we live in a society where “good intention” has moral authority and weight, this might be all we need to sustain our self-image and sense of objective discernment (we might even be praised). Furthermore, none of us really intend to be “truly ignorant,” and so cannot readily be blamed for that, as we cannot be blamed for being ideological if we don’t intend such (and instead “just are,” given the nature and structures of worldviews). Where there is “good intention,” there can be a claim to innocence — how could we be so heartless to suggest otherwise? “The heart/mind dialectic” can suggest the heartless should be (“morally”) ignored…
All intention is “good intention,” or so we learn in Augustine, for it is not possible for me to intend what I don’t think is good (for me). If the presence of “good intention” is socially accepted as justification for a person’s behavior, then this alone could mean that I will always have a defense against being seen as an ideological. For my intentions are always good, and I cannot doubt everything, suggesting I cannot readily be held responsible for my lack of “total skepticism.” I’m just doing the best I can — just look at my intentions (behind which maps can “hide”). And so intention can provide something we can assess one another according to (safely) without ever acknowledging maps, which is to say that intention is a way to assess without philosophical investigation (without asking how do we assess, what should we assess…). And yet even if we do the existential and hard work of philosophically investigating one another, we cannot doubt everything, suggesting we will fail, which could then retrospectively make us feel foolish to have not simply accepted “the good intentions” from the onset. (Ideology seems as ingenious as “The Capital-Nation-State” described by Karatani…)
As our doubt is “always already” preconfigured by our beliefs, so our intentions are also “always already” pre-framed, suggesting our intentions are likely not threatening to our beliefs, and furthermore we can always claim in our beliefs that “we had good intentions,” providing a layer of moral defense. Seemingly the only way to get through this defense is to dismiss the category of “good intention,” but doing this would perhaps automatically force us to become more philosophical and reflective, which would expose people to anxiety to which they will likely respond poorly, suggesting this is unlikely to work (at least “all at once” or through “opposition”). Furthermore, if people can be moral in having “good intention,” to suggest to people they should surrender the category of “good intention” could be to ask them to risk seeing themselves as not “good people” — a heavy ask. Will the majority be willing to risk seeing themselves as “not good?” After all, they can feel “moral” to defend their ideology/is-ness (it defines them as “doing what’s right,” and furthermore they genuinely intend what is right — how can they be in the wrong?). And so being ideological is an act of being moral (how can we can doubt it?): if I am not ideological, I am a questionable character, and if I am questioned as an ideological, I am victimized for being moral (madness).
All intention is “good intention,” and if that has moral weight, if I engage in problem-solving out of “good intention,” I will easily be seen as a moral person. The distinction between “problem-solving” and “problem-preventing” has little use under “a reign of good intention,” and furthermore why do I need to critically consider my worldview if it is in fact a product of “good intention?” Might this not risk immorality? Also, unless others can convince me of their “good intention,” I am unlikely to take their views seriously, which please note others can never prove to me. Hence, in naturally experiencing my intentions as good, and in naturally experiencing the intentions of others as questionable and their goodness unprovable (especially if I disagree with them), I can be at a moral advantage (that is not a product of a direct use of power or force, please note, suggesting I am innocent and have moral authority). Furthermore, nobody can readily prove to me that my intentions are bad, which I can suggest is the necessary move if my view is to be overturned (“the intention card” and “the God card” can be very similar, hence why it is rational that we often play it…). Also, if we accuse someone of doing x (which in a way is to say “you have bad intentions”), then if the person stops doing x, we can always believe they are only doing so because we said something, which could function as evidence to us that we were right to say something and also that the person doesn’t have to be taken seriously, precisely because the person is only acting differently because something was said. In this way, the person could be disqualified from ever offering alternative opinions, which suggests that there might be an incentive to question the motives of the people around us first, precisely because then they can be ever-framed in such a way that colors all of their actions (even if they do change in a way as we think they should — we still gain leverage in having spoken initially). “Intention claiming” may entail incentives to engage in first and to escalate quickly.
“Intention” is a powerful construct for map-defending and map-vanishing. Intention, Pragmatics, Utility — all of these can help us map-vanish, for we don’t readily ask about the existence of frameworks and maps, only ask, “Were the intentions good?” “Is it practical?” “Will it help the most people?” These are not necessarily bad questions, but they can prove to be in service of map-vanishing if we are not careful, and furthermore we can be tempted to ask such questions because they give us a sense of understanding in a world of overwhelming and confusing complexity. And if ultimately we cannot fully understand complex topics, isn’t it irrational not to just appeal to intention or outcome? Won’t that save us a lot of trouble that won’t ultimately get us anywhere anyway? Where “good intentions” are given authority, there is little incentive to cultivate discernment, for what else needs to be known other than if a person has “good intentions” or not? Isn’t that all that matters? Why not map-vanish? Maps distract.
VI
Where “intention” is given great authority and well-entrenched, it would seem that only data and “studies” have any hope of overriding “the regime of intention,” we might say. “Intention” and “data” seem to have arisen together, locked in mortal combat, for only data seems “undeniable enough” to challenge intention. Where data isn’t provided, “the intention-regime” (to invent a phrase) likely dominates, but then data doesn’t prove space for discernment either, meaning “the (performative) combat between the data-regime and intention-regime” overall pushes out philosophy, problem-prevention, and the like (it is a fight that benefits maps, perhaps similar to how (performative) conflicts between Capital and State benefit “The Capital-Nation-State”). Please note neither “intention” nor “data” really need discernment, just “reading” or “assessment”: “discernment” requires ambiguity, grayness, “tragedy,” and seems inherently abstract. Yes, it seems like “intention” and “data” require discernment, but this only contributes to us not noticing where discernment is lacking, which helps maps “vanish,” benefiting ideology. Discernment is uniquely necessary if we are going to engage in map-visibility, but in both “intention” and “data” making us feel like we do discern, this can contribute to us lacking what we need to question ideology, all while we think we are more than capable of questioning it (and so we would be if ideology really was a problem…).
In there being an alternative from “just good intention” in “considering data,” this can provide us “reason to think” that we aren’t just going with our emotions all the time, that we also think and criticize. In this way, “good intention” as a notion might not be so powerful if it didn’t exist in a society where “data” wasn’t so powerful as well, for then there wouldn’t be a source of “plausible deniability” that we mainly engaged in intention. But critically, if there is something about data that makes data weak regarding problem-prevention versus problem-solving, then this would mean decisions more on the side of problem-prevention will likely fall under the intention-regime in the end (“the reign of intention”), which easily contributes to map-vanishing. Overall, this means we will likely organize our lives “now” relative to data, and our futures relative to intention, an overall orientation which contributes to map-vanishing, for nowhere in that orientation must maps become “visible.”
What constitutes a “problem” must be framed as something by a preexisting standard, which suggests that the whole category of “problem” can be uniquely vulnerable to reifying a preexisting frame, especially seeing as “problems” bring with them a feeling that we should do something about them (quickly), motivating us to act in a manner that further assumes “the framework” according to which we operate (for good and for bad). And please note that while in that “emotional process,” it almost seems inevitable that map-vanishing will occur, simply because our focus is on what we see through that map: we don’t have time to get philosophical (there are problems to solve, especially “vivid” ones). Problematically, what we define as a “problem” or “bad” could be that which questions our map (risking map-visibility), suggesting that what will be “vivid” to us will be that which threatens map-vanishing (versus perhaps deeper issues and problems which aren’t so “vivid”). In this way, if things that threaten our map end up uniquely experienced as “vivid problems,” then “vividness” could help ideology and maintain map-vanishing, especially if we associate “the vivid” with “the real” (similar to how people can believe “the real” in a relationship comes out with drama and trouble, incentivizing drama and trouble…), for this means that there is nothing “really there” beyond what is “vivid” (certainly not some map). Where’s the data to prove otherwise?
If we begin to see a map or consider changing maps, there will likely be a lot of “vivid” (even “apocalyptic”) evidence that we should stop, and we likely will if we’re not aware of this very experience (an idea which our map might have kept from us) — especially if we associate “stable states” with “good” and “anxiety” with “bad” (perhaps a crowning achievement of maps). Where map-visibility increases, we easily feel anxious, for maps don’t go down without a fight. Maps easily frame all efforts to “see” or question those maps as “problems,” and where we bias problem-solving, it is likely we will “solve away” those “vivid problems,” benefiting our map. Also, seeing and addressing a map seems like by definition it must be an act of problem-preventing versus problem-solving, which is less natural for us, and perhaps the most difficult form of problem-prevention out there, for while it is hard enough to problem-prevent in and through a map, it seems even harder to consider a whole map as potentially a causer of problems. By what standard do we even engage in such a discernment? From another map? Well, that map might be critiquing another map simply to map-vanish itself. How could we be so sure?
What is “vivid” to us will likely be relative to our ideology, and yet the very “vividness” of the problem will easily make this seem like a sin to even consider. Our maps will define x and y as problems for us to solve, and, always busy “doing what’s right,” we might never inquire into the very map in which x and y become problems, contributing to map-vanishing (a map-vanishing which we could then help for ourselves say through “dominate strategies” in conversation, appealing to martyrs, “certainty,” description, “true ignorance,” etc.). In our map creating/finding problems that we then solve through, this could help us feel “certain” that “our map isn’t just a map,” for otherwise wouldn’t it have not helped us solve problems? In this way, as the Capital-Nation-State benefits in solving problems (that it might create), so ideology can benefit from creating/finding problems we then solve, which might be easier of maps in our world of global connectivity, infinite images, etc. (as discussed throughout O.G. Rose, say in “The Grand Technology”) — and all of this can gradually feel like ever-greater validation that “our map isn’t just a map,” as perhaps intensified by a feeling of urgency to solve problems, which can make it seem like “we don’t have time” to consider maps (helping them vanish, influencing the heart/mind, for perhaps nothing causes map-vanishing” more than urgency, blood…). And this kind of “problem situation” is precisely what maps might naturally try to create/seek, for if our map can ever-create problems that it solves, this can help it become self-feeding and a “self-turning wheel,” per se (and please note that where we are always solving problems, we might find a sense of meaning, suggesting that maps can benefit from “The Meaning Crisis,” and since this might “feel” right, our heart/mind could further favor our map — “The Heart/Mind Dialectic” seems to favor problem-solving over problem-prevention). Because of maps, certain problems become “vivid,” which also means our solutions of them are “vivid,” and then it becomes “vividly obvious” that “our map is more than just a map.” And so we keep using it, and so it keeps proving itself to us (as so framed by “the board”)…And perhaps it is a good map — can we be so sure it’s not? Perhaps. Always perhaps. (A reality which benefits maps rationally).
A favorite move of ideology can be to establish itself abstractly and then deny the validity of abstract thought, for then an established abstraction becomes denied “as abstract,” and furthermore any counter-abstractions are dismissed and disqualified from consideration. Our “reality prejudice” then comes to benefit our (abstract) map, even though it would seem as if a “reality prejudice” would hurt ideology. It could, but often only after an initial map has been “absorbed” (alluding to “Compelling” by O.G. Rose), at which point our “reality prejudice” then helps our map. Why do we even have a natural “reality prejudice” (which can follow after a natural tendency to believe in God, for example, please note)? Perhaps it is because we can easily experience the physical directly affecting our lives: if we don’t eat, we starve, yet if we don’t think, we often don’t feel any direct ramifications (abstractions don’t follow the same definite and predictable causality; they tend to be more associational). The physical can more readily bring a sense of “reliability” and “control.” Additionally, while we can stop someone from running by tackling the person, calling out to the person, etc., we cannot stop someone from thinking whatever that person thinks: we can try, of course, but we don’t have nearly as much of a sense of influence. It seems that because we can rely on, understand, and influence physicality, it comes to be more real to us, and though that isn’t to say everything we can’t rely on, understand, and influence is actually real, it is to say we have a natural tendency to take the physical more seriously than the metaphysical, when equal weight should be given to both.
Critically though, to stress, this “reality prejudice” against abstraction tends to favor our map, because that is an abstraction “smuggled” in, after which we can “practically deny” abstractions a hearing, meaning our (abstract) map could be invincible. After this, we become “always already” sensual beings in a sensual world, hardly influenced by abstractions like we are physical things. As such, it can be greatly beneficial to ideology to keep counterviews “abstract” while evidence for our map is very immediate and experienceable. For example, it is advantageous to the Christian to know Atheists exist, but not so much to live next to Atheists. This keeps the counterviews abstract, and then all I need is a good reason to “just so happen” to not live next to Atheists, which my map will likely prove able to provide (or will work, economic obligations, etc.). Furthermore, if I can say that I know there are Atheists, this creates the impression that “I am a critical thinker,” for it suggests that I am aware of counterviews (which suggests that my views are ones I have earned and questioned). But if I don’t directly relate or encounter Atheists (bringing the Atheist into my natural “reality bias,” we might say), I really haven’t felt Atheism, which is what is required for the heart/mind to really consider counters. But if people don’t realize this, then the mere “abstract knowing of Pluralism” could function as evidence to people that “the world is Pluralistic (and even good at it).” Maybe, but the test is relating and interaction, the making of “The Other” there, sensual, and “vivid.”
VII
We live in an Age of Global Pluralism, and a great benefit of Pluralism is precisely that it makes it harder for “maps to vanish” (which is to say it helps keep us from falling into ideology and the like) — which is also a great problem. Map-visibility comes at the price of making us existentially anxious (though “thoughtlessness” is also a source of great terror, say manifest in Nazism). In response to this, we can react with withdrawal, isolationism, and other social strategies that Belonging Again discusses. Global Pluralism fights map-vanishing, but that doesn’t mean Pluralism equips us with what we need to handle map-visibility: it might simply force us to see something we’re not ready for, which might motivate us to retreat and hence overall make map-vanishing worse. That is the grave problem we currently seem to be in, where people find the global and sociological condition contributing to map-visibility while we prove yet able to handle map-visibility, creating pathology. To deal with this, we might be increasingly digitizing Pluralism and making it “distant” from us or “too fast to understand,” alluding to thinkers like Paul Virilio (who “Owen in Agon” elucidates profoundly).
It might not be by chance that as Pluralism causes map-visibility and tension that digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence have also spread and grown. Yes, obviously because technology connects difference and makes Pluralism possible, but also because technology might provide some “existential relief” needed in a world of map-visibility where we aren’t ready to handle map-visibility. Technology helps difference seem like it is in range without us really feeling it in proximity, which is to say we can learn about difference on the screen, helping us feel like we aren’t ideological and avoiding difference, without needing to confront difference in “The Real” of proximity and life. Much more needs to be said, and this might not be right, but I simply wanted to note here that Pluralism might contribute to map-visibility, but technology might provide ways to keep us from really feeling that “visibility” (which means our heart/mind doesn’t so impact or influence us). “The loss of givens” has already created anxiety for all of us, and technology can contribute to that anxiety, but it could be a “tool” we have employed to help us deal with “the loss of givens.” This has created new problems for us, which might mean our problems are doubled now, because we are yet to really confront Pluralism, while we also now must confront the ways technology shapes us (the medicine had side effects).
Does this mean Global Pluralism is bad or good? Perhaps good if we’re ready for it; otherwise, we’ll find ourselves facing the presence of “maps” without the capacity to negate/sublate this anxiety into higher ways of working with the self and the world. We’ll be given potential, but not the capacity needed to realize anything with this potential, which could cause pathology and self-effacement. When we realize “the problem of maps,” that might be precisely also when we realize we lack the capacity to handle the realization of this problem, which could cause the unintentional consequences discussed in Belonging Again (Part I). How we “define evidence,” “employ description,” and the like are naturally “always already” pre-framed and pre-figured to “other” that which threatens our map-vanishing and map in general, which is to say in a way that we are a problem that must be prevented. Sure, we all know we are imperfect and finite, but here I might mean something deeper, for mostly we take our fallibility as “a problem to be solved.” This easily doesn’t threaten our map and occurs according to and “in” a map, but here what I am suggesting is that we must somehow prevent ourselves from map-vanishing and ideology preservation, without ever finally “solving our problem.” Problem-prevention is already unnatural, let alone this odd meta-problem of seeing ourselves as a problem that we can never solve away and yet always must work with from becoming something “severe” and self-effacing. (It is hard to be human.)
In honor of discussions with Davood Gozli, Cadell Last penned a piece titled, “Towards a Reflective Science,” which I think directly speaks to the arguments found in “Defining Evidence” but also more broadly applies in suggesting a need for thinking as distinct from simply gathering and reading data. A focus on data might make our problem of maps worse, even though data seems objective and like it is helping us move beyond the problem (as we’ll elaborate on when we discuss “factviews”), and instead what we need is “thinking,” though that comes with risk (especially if we don’t realize “the true isn’t the rational,” as we’ll also discuss). Cadell refers to a “Thinking Crisis” and focuses on an assumption which Davood critiques in his book, Experimental Psychology and Human Agency: ‘if we can repeat it we can assume it.’ Is that true? That seems to be a paradigm modern science operates on, but as Cadell and Davood point out, ‘just because you can repeat something it does not mean that is the only way we can think about it.’ However, this seems to be widely assumed, and ‘the result is a situation where data eliminates thinking altogether […] even if experimental psychology can repeat something that does not mean we are thinking the thing.’ The case is thus made for the need to incorporate the subject (‘the psyche as involved in such procedures’), and making this case is indeed the hope of “Defining Evidence”: the categories in which a study occur in and relative to cannot be derived from the study itself, and so the involvement of the subject to some degree must be taken seriously. There will always be a subjective element, and so honoring the subject is necessary. Otherwise, we will likely use studies, experimentation, and science more generally in service of a vision that we never question, meaning that science itself will easily become an ideology of “scientism” and “reductionism” (as arguably it has).
Thus, though the hope of science and our focus on it might have been precisely to avoid ideology and end “religions wars” (a key drive of the Enlightenment), science cannot save us from the subject, (un)fortunately. We must face this risk: there is no inconsequential way to avoid it. The involvement of the subject is why we can avoid scientism, but it is also why we must worry about “the problem of maps” at all (versus just “is-ness”). This will all be elaborated on, and how we “incorporate the subject” is a big question we must consider (which suggests Encounterology, as discussed in O.G. Rose). For now though, we can claim that if “the map is indestructible,” then our best hope for at least starting to think of a way to “address maps” will be with the very realization that “the map is indestructible.” This is a “meta-analysis” that could be associated with interpretation in Hegel, for interpretation is a first step toward freedom. We have attempted so far to show ways that we trap ourselves within theories, “scripts,” judgments, and the like, and though all of these are necessary in some form or degree, if we don’t know about the ways they can become “internally consistent systems” in which we enclose ourselves, the likelihood we use and employ these necessities well will be far less. As we need talks about talks (“metatalks”), we need abstract reasoning about abstract reasoning, philosophy about philosophy, analysis about analysis, and so on (a philosophy without “a philosophy about philosophy itself” is likely doomed, for example, hence the value of Hume). Otherwise, “the background” according to which we talk, think, and act will not be one we master and use to our benefits; instead, “the background” will likely master us. We must all employ theory, but if we know theory tends to “capture” us into “monotheorism,” then the likelihood we avoid trying to interpret life through “a theory of everything” increases.
Ideas that are not good for us easily become a way of life where we lack a meta-analysis, and though we might say that we know “the map isn’t the territory,” without a meta-analysis, what we say could easily just conceal from ourselves what we do, which in this case is to practically live as if “the map is the territory.” What do we notice if we pay attention to “maps” and how they formulate? In my view, we see a necessary “break” between “the true” and “the rational,” which suggests the existence of “maps” requires a dialectic which we might not have noticed or thought through. In thinking through it, perhaps we will find a way to “address maps” which we have not yet attempted or systematically explored and focused on — but determining that will require us to first carry out the meta-analysis, focusing on the matter of “map-consistency.”
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