Template:Standpoint capsule: Difference between revisions
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The [[future]] contains only as-yet ''unlived'' experiences. There are ''no'' [[grievance]]s there. Our [[standpoint]]s, the margins and their [[intersectionality|intersections]] are ''unknown''.<ref>Unless you accept the data formalist’s stance that the universe is a clockwork, causal determinacy is absolute, and therefore the future is a linear extrapolating of the past. In which case, so is complaining about it. Nothing can be done, and no-one is to be blamed: we are “as flies to wanton boys”. </Ref> | The [[future]] contains only as-yet ''unlived'' experiences. There are ''no'' [[grievance]]s there. Our [[standpoint]]s, the margins and their [[intersectionality|intersections]] are ''unknown''.<ref>Unless you accept the data formalist’s stance that the universe is a clockwork, causal determinacy is absolute, and therefore the future is a linear extrapolating of the past. In which case, so is complaining about it. Nothing can be done, and no-one is to be blamed: we are “as flies to wanton boys”. </Ref> | ||
Being historical, | Being historical, an already-[[lived experience]] is permanent, and set in stone. It cannot be moved. It cannot be removed. It cannot be compensated for. It cannot be denied. It becomes a monument. A shibboleth. A sacred prophecy. But it remains our own imaginative construction. We choose which of our own significant events define our lives. We build our own memorials. We choose to live beneath their shadows. But our ''present'' is a function of ''every'' point in the past, not just the ones it suits us to obsess about. | ||
This is the [[Empathy|empathetic]] stance. To adopt a historical narrative: to step into its shoes, to take sides, to exalt it and ''perpetuate'' its ''grievance''. Empathy is to exalt history, whilst pretending to despise it. | This is the [[Empathy|empathetic]] stance. To adopt a historical narrative: to step into its shoes, to take sides, to exalt it and ''perpetuate'' its ''grievance''. Empathy is to ''exalt'' history, whilst pretending to ''despise'' it. | ||
But, look: standpoints ''iterate''. As the present moves through [[space-time]], we lay down the tracks of future, each new decision we make contributes to our [[lived experience]]. We ''update'' our standpoints — it is only by refusing to that we can optimise grievance. The decisions we, and our ancestors made, and had made about us, fall ever further away in time and significance. It is an inverse square. | But, look: standpoints ''iterate''. As the present moves through [[space-time]], we lay down the tracks of future, each new decision we make contributes to our [[lived experience]]. We ''update'' our standpoints — it is only by refusing to update our standpoint that we can optimise our grievance. There are people whose professional interests are served by optimising their own grievances. They are not fun people. They probably don’t have much fun. Don’t be like that. The decisions we, and our ancestors made, and had made about us, fall ever further away in time and significance. It is an inverse square. ''Keep moving forward, and they fall further away''. | ||
The [[infinite game]] counsels us to look at where we are, see what we’ve got now and how to make the best of it. It focuses on the decisions we can influence now and the possibilities of the future. It regards the past as informational and instructive, not constraining. If I once hit my thumb with a hammer, I know to be careful next time I use a hammer. It does not make me forever a victim of hammer abuse. | The [[infinite game]] counsels us to look at where we are, see what we’ve got now and how to make the best of it. It focuses on the decisions we can influence now and the possibilities of the future. It regards the past as informational and instructive, not constraining. If I once hit my thumb with a hammer, I know to be careful next time I use a hammer. It does not make me forever a victim of hammer abuse. | ||
Revision as of 11:47, 19 October 2023
James Carse’s fabulous Finite and Infinite Games provides a great prism for framing these battles between the past and present. For what is a “lived experience”, a “grievance” or a “standpoint”, if not an articulation of history?
The future contains only as-yet unlived experiences. There are no grievances there. Our standpoints, the margins and their intersections are unknown.[1]
Being historical, an already-lived experience is permanent, and set in stone. It cannot be moved. It cannot be removed. It cannot be compensated for. It cannot be denied. It becomes a monument. A shibboleth. A sacred prophecy. But it remains our own imaginative construction. We choose which of our own significant events define our lives. We build our own memorials. We choose to live beneath their shadows. But our present is a function of every point in the past, not just the ones it suits us to obsess about.
This is the empathetic stance. To adopt a historical narrative: to step into its shoes, to take sides, to exalt it and perpetuate its grievance. Empathy is to exalt history, whilst pretending to despise it.
But, look: standpoints iterate. As the present moves through space-time, we lay down the tracks of future, each new decision we make contributes to our lived experience. We update our standpoints — it is only by refusing to update our standpoint that we can optimise our grievance. There are people whose professional interests are served by optimising their own grievances. They are not fun people. They probably don’t have much fun. Don’t be like that. The decisions we, and our ancestors made, and had made about us, fall ever further away in time and significance. It is an inverse square. Keep moving forward, and they fall further away.
The infinite game counsels us to look at where we are, see what we’ve got now and how to make the best of it. It focuses on the decisions we can influence now and the possibilities of the future. It regards the past as informational and instructive, not constraining. If I once hit my thumb with a hammer, I know to be careful next time I use a hammer. It does not make me forever a victim of hammer abuse.
- ↑ Unless you accept the data formalist’s stance that the universe is a clockwork, causal determinacy is absolute, and therefore the future is a linear extrapolating of the past. In which case, so is complaining about it. Nothing can be done, and no-one is to be blamed: we are “as flies to wanton boys”.