Template:Standpoint capsule: Difference between revisions
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James Carse’s fabulous {{br|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''? | James Carse’s fabulous {{br|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 | 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, a lived experience is permanent, and set it 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 is our imaginative construction. We choose our significant events. 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's suits us to settle on. | Being historical, a lived experience is permanent, and set it 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 is our imaginative construction. We choose our significant events. 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's suits us to settle on. | ||
Revision as of 14:04, 30 January 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, a lived experience is permanent, and set it 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 is our imaginative construction. We choose our significant events. 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's suits us to settle on.
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.
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 — and if we refuse to, to optimise grievance, we should not. The decisions of the past for all further away in time and significance. It is an inverse square.
The infinite game counsels us to look at where we are, see what we’ve got and make the best of it. It focuses on the decisions of the 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 have 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”.