As far as Maher’s observation goes, I think it is directed at the swamp. Let’s take it away from science. Do I think that Taylor Swift is a sinister agent of the left to sway voters? No. That verges on the delusional. Do I think that Trump means to be a dictator and will wipe out our entire constitutional government because he says that on day one he will be a dictator? No. People don’t understand his idiomatic expression and never have. The swamp is this split out society that did not get this way because of Trump; it’s been developing since at least Nixon. And Trump emerged from that. It’s partly a product of declining quality of education, the emergence of a “screen culture” where people cannot tolerate complexity and have no patience. Quick and simple. Text instead of email. Forced choice alternatives between this and that. Data driven “reality” that cannot understand the feel of the moment. So a complex adaptive system makes no sense and it must be that Trump/Biden is either all good or all bad.
I have been re-evaluating a lot of things in the last few years. I was supportive of Trump because I thought he would be an iconoclast who could go to Washington and break up the stuck and dysfunctional aspects of our government. I was naive. I did not expect—suspect—the power of the resisting bureaucracy. It was not a peaceful transfer of power. It was a stealthy subterfuge. And that is the ground upon which Trump supporters have become stubbornly loyal. And now they view Trump’s legal problems as just more of the same. So as the indictments were brought Trump’s ratings went up. And that kind of narrative, whether a person believes it or not is part of the current split, part of the swamp. The swamp is both left and right.
Phil
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Dan
One difference. That which emerges is not identical to that from which it emerges. The swamp gas is not the swamp. They are indeed in a sub- and supervenient relationship, and so Trump emerged from and is of a complex adapting field, and he now exerts a downward influence over it. But the field is still self adapting. There is a Haley. There are more people in the country who will not vote for Trump than who will (no matter what). There is the separation of powers in the government. The system is in turmoil, not dead.
And what I think would be wise is to examine the swamp more than the swamp gas.
Phil
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Thanks Dan.
I think there are arguments to be had about all those points, but the main thing is the totally dumb attempt to provide a spurious parity between actions that weaken the democratic and legal bonds that hold a nation together or that sustain our capacity to live comfortably on our planet, and the gender thing which only really affects those involved.
Peter
I agree Peter.
His emergence is of a field in which he has been a provocateur.
We know in emergence theory that emergent events exert downward non-linear “causation" on that from which they are emergent. This is a sub- and supervenient relationship.
Trump is both the swamp gas emergent of the swamp and the swamp itself. :)
I agree with Maher, by the way. Both sides deny the science that is inconvenient to them. But his characterization of gender issues is uninformed. Does he really know nothing about them? Seems he does.
Dan
No, he was the enabler, but he would have been nobody without people who said 'Well he isn't presidential, but he fulfills our/God's purpose.' Now who would have said that?!
By the way, field theory doesn't say that an individual isn't very powerful at times.
Peter
Ya know. He alone, all by himself pulled the entire country apart. Where is your field theory right now Peter? It’s just not that simple.
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Weasel, weasel, weasel...
You are a distinterested social experimenter who supported the guy who as we predicted pulled apart the social fabric of your country IN THE NAME OF CONSERVATISM.
Peter
I’m not desperate Peter. Desperation not in the equation. I’m just quoting Bill Maher as a kind of social experiment/ Rorschach test. You know what might a person say to this? And there you are.
Phil
Sent from my iPhone
You must be desperate Phil.
On the one hand there are people trying to turn America into a fascist theocracy, invading the seats of power and threatening to kill those they disagree with, threatening democracy, achieving the legal a system, or denying climate emergencies while parts of America burns. On the other hand there are some people whose proprioceptive sense of themselves is of a different gender to their outer physical appearance. I know, let's find a form of weasel words that makes them as bad as each other.
Desperate indeed!
Peter
Bill Maher:
"When historians look back in a hundred years, if we're still here, I don't think they're going to divide the country like we do into these two camps. They're going to say: As a people, they were obnoxious. It happens in different forms on both sides. As a people, they didn't believe in science. On the right, they think global warming is a hoax or whatever nonsense they believe about that. And on the left, they think men can have babies. That's what they'll say. They'll say, ‘As a people, they just lost their s--t.’”
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Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at
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______________
Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at
http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
--
______________
Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at
http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
--
______________
Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at
http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.