For those who have already read the article version: this is basically a video recap of the main themes. The only new information is a story from my high school days about how a kid shared an unpopular (and sadly true) opinion about the death of one of my friends and ended up with a mob outside his house.
While the observation that a lot of adult behavior, unfortunately, hasn’t evolved past adolescent hijinks isn’t new. I feel it necessary to grind the old hurdy-gurdy till Schubert rises from his grave in protest. Maybe then they’ll listen.
Everyone does. Because everyone understands that no action occurs in a vaccum and is thus inherently multifaceted.
There’s a New York attorney called Aaron Schlossberg who was recently the subject of much controversy.
He took issue with some employees at an eatery. The issue was that they spoke Spanish. He went on a bit of a rant about how he as an American pays for the welfare of these potentially illegal immigrants. That they should speak English etc.
This tirade went viral. The publicity caused Schlossberg so much professional damage that he was even at risk of being disbarred.
This little episode has so many implications that I feel it would be irresponsible for me as a writer and citizen to pass it up.
First, it is demonstrative of a great many things. The impact of social media, the by now tiresome talking point of political polarization, and the nature of modern social expectations.
Let’s unpack that.
Social media is what allowed the incident to gain traction so quickly and in such numbers that it was able to put pressure on Schlossberg’s employers. Social media is also the technology that allowed those who took issue with Schlossberg’s actions to coordinate what can only be described as harrasment.
Political polarization is the fuel that powered both Schlossberg’s ire and the reaction of those seeking the destruction of both his professional and personal life. These two sides of the same coin only reach this sort of fever pitch in the presence of heavy ideological conditioning.
Social expectations today seem to include an insistence on certain points of politesse while completely flaunting general timeworn standards of civil interaction. Schlossberg said something politically unpopular in an aggressive way. Given the overwhelming abundance of casual swearing, in your face banter, and general penchant for sarcasm that permeates American society, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Schlossberg’crucifixionon likely resulted from unpopularity rather than aggression.
All these implications raise questions that I feel are essential to make.
First, social media, is it destructive and if so what can we do about it?
Like any other tool, I don’t think that social media is inherently destructive. The nature of social media seems to tend toward being a catalyst. A catalyst can produce either a favorable or unfavorable reaction. The swelling of outrage that culminated in trolling a private citizen with live Mariachi music and fiestas around his apartment can also be quelled by voices advocating for rationality.
One subcaveat of this social media thing is privacy. Is it fair to take a private citizens outburst and post it online?
Is it fair to then use this evidence to coordinate harassment?
It is true that Mr. Schlossberg was in a public area, behaving very rudely, and that people certainly have the right to film others in public. But does this make it alright for the offended to magnify the event through social media, and in essence involve the entire world in one man losing his cool?
Mr. Schlossberg was not acting civilly but he certainly wasn’t doing anything illegal.
Should we put restrictions on social media posts about private citizens controversial behavior? Should we put restrictions on using such videos to coordinate retribution. Should losing your cool or acting uncouth be so easy to shame from the rooftops?
This technology raises a lot of policy questions which seem to only increase in both number and scope.
I think that it’s a subject that will likely warrant its own article and video.
The second question then is what can be done about political polarization? I think the answer is obvious. Those of us that favor nuanced discussions need to become more vocal and advocate for rational discourse in greater numbers. The popularity of tactics like memes and trolling while fun and not necessarily out of line with the spirit of effective discourse shouldn’t be at the forefront of discourse.
The final question is related to social expectations. Both the public and employers have social expectations. Where, how, and to what extent should such expectations impact the lives of individual citizens?
Wherein does a professional get leeway to act unprofessionally? Being rude certainly falls well within the protection of the first amendment. But, companies can and do exercise the right to fire employees for misconduct. This right is also well within the bounds of the US Constitution.
However, an interesting subcategory emerges here. Namely, should a company be allowed to fire an employee for unprofessional behavior outside of work? If Mr. Schlossberg is good at his job, and reasonably civil in the confines thereof, should his social and political views and faux-pas be cause for termination? If so, then on what legal grounds can he contest the termination?
There do seem to be precedents for firing folks for extracurricular activities. In 2004, Ellen Simonetti was fired for taking pictures of herself in her Delta uniform as she lounged across the backs of airplane seats. The photograph which she posted to a blog about stewardessing, that she’d started in order to cope with the loss of her mother, wasn’t racy even by 1950’s standards. But nonetheless, Delta considered it unprofessional and sacked her.
My position is that Simonetti should not have been fired. Schlossberg has even less reason to be fired/evicted/disbarred etc. than she does. This is because he was not on company property, representing his company, or wearing company paraphernalia when he had his outburst.
His history of outbursts, including one where he ran into a radnomer with his bag and called him a ‘dirty foreigner’ might be a minor case of harassment or perhaps assault. Which I could see as being unsavory for an employer. But, again where should the line be drawn? There wasn’t really any battery, and the harassment was brief, akin to a middle finger on a busy street.
Should a line be drawn at all? Or should employers/landlords continue to wield carte blanche to terminate otherwise competent employees on grounds of unsavory conduct?
When looking at this case I ran across the notion that Schlossberg’s career was destroyed by the people he’d offended. This, to me, is where it gets a tad murky. Schlossberg initiated the aggression, in a public space, he is aware of cell phones, and he is aware of social media. While I 100% sympathize with the notion that the possibility of backlash shouldn’t intimidate Schlossberg or anyone into silence or even politesse, I can’t really view him as a victim. Even if I did, the link between those who posted the video and coordinated the harassment and his termination remains tenuous. Because it was still up to his employer to make the decision, and more importantly, it was up to him to avoid being confrontational.
Running up to randomers to call them dirty foreigners, haranguing Spanish speaking employees, and similar hijinks aren’t really public discourse. They’re outbursts and while they are protected under freedom of speech, that freedom doesn’t necessarily shield you form things like social ostracization, or job loss.
I don’t think either of those things should be the result of making an ass of yourself. However, if you work in a sector that requires a great deal of civic responsibility, being consistently combative, is likely a poor career choice. Whether that’s done on your own time or not.
As you can see, this is a really multifaceted issue that raises many questions. I encourage everyone to comment below, whether you agree or disagree with this analysis.
Incel is just another ambiguous term like loser. Part of the reason people have trouble connecting is arbitrary spontaneously emerging social hierarchies. Schoolyard taunts only reinforce this.
This incel thing…is just that…a taunt, like the word nerd, that some have adopted as an antihero status, I have friends that didn’t have girlfriends till their late twenties. They were just normal guys who were kinda shy. They’re both married now.
The first part is me putzing around then I kinda do:An impromptu vlog on how to engage with life through art. How art and the development of skills and serious self-expression shouldn’t be reserved for a select Olympian few.
The video below comes from ‘The Knife Media’ which seems to be taking a step in the right direction. They use a fairly good grasp of logical fallacies to point out the misleading tactics of big media companies and influential personalities. Their journalistic chops working for MSM rags like Bloomberg, TIME, and NYT give them added credibility and insight.
While I’m leary of organizations and people promoting themselves as ‘rational voices’ I think that a lot of good might come out of ‘The Knife Media’ in the years ahead.
One of the biggest problems in society is oversimplification. With better tech and more information we’re doing it more and quicker than ever before – with ‘sciencey’ words like ‘Dopamine.’
While Dopamine is a real neurotransmitter, the way that it’s implicated in absolutely everything is indicative of the trend of dangerous and annoying reductionist psychobabble.
The article referenced: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-who-stray/201701/no-dopamine-is-not-addictive
Had an interesting article pop up on my Twitter feed this morning. It was posted by a youngish (and increasingly successful – good on him!) New York publishing agent and linked to an article titled, “Why the First Novel Created Such a Stir” Here is a quote: “…This was one of the reasons book inspired […]
I’m launching a series that’s kinda philosophical in nature. Feels a bit pompous to say that but that really is it: a feeflowing foray into methods and philosophies and what they can teach us about the world.
I’m not attempting to shed any kind of new light here. Though if that happens in an emergent way that’s swell. There are two reasons for doing philosophy or any kind of analysis in my opinion:
1) To discover some new truth
2) Maintenance – understanding why what you know is true, and sharpening your abilities to discern truth and effective philosophies/methods
I will primarily be doing the latter. I think it more important in the same way that exercising regularly is more important than trying to max out.
Today’s Topic
Generalities and Specifics
When you analyze anything – you do so in either a general or specific way – in a microcosmic or macrocosmic scope.
You either see the forest or the trees.
This well-known concept called perspective bears visiting and revisiting.
That’s the curious thing about philosophy, whenever you run its various algorithms, you come up with iterations that are either entirely new or new to yourself. Which if you’re paying attention will inevitably lead to a deeper appreciation of life and perhaps augmented faculties.
Sort of like expanding your verbal vocabulary will allow you to know more, to express more, the study of philosophy and method: will allow you to know what you don’t know which in a curious reversal will allow you to know more truly.
The hunt for veracity, the pruning of the wild garden of concept, history, and method begins with perspective. It begins with generalities and specifics.
Why come up with these words. Why not just say perspective?
Well, I think that it’s important to highlight the sketching nature of inquiry. It’s not a laserlike, precise, engineering, sort of thing; at least not most of the time. Seeing that the general can be specific and the specific can be the general – will allow the sort of flexibility which will eventually provide the strength of sinew and ligament requisite for the precise and utilitarian glory of a piston or microprocessor.
That is the thing that seems to be forgotten more and more as more and more generations are undergoing the sterile process of common core. Philosophy, you see, is the forefather of mathematics, which is the forefather of science, which is the forefather of the technique that allows for 4g streaming. We seem to have let this fact get a tad dusty.
All these disciplines are various levels of generalities and specifics and often intertwine. Philosophy and mathematics must still be applied to the theories derived from the data derived from the scientific method. Here again is evidence of the fractal nature of inquiry of generalities and specifics.
Philosophy is perhaps the most general brush. The thing that allows us to set the scene, to paint in the background.
The unfortunate thing is that it has gotten a bad name. And it has gotten a bad name because many of its practitioners forget that they are sketching. I’m not at the present talking about the various schools and professional philosophers that you will encounter in any given Philosophy 101 course.
I’m talking about conversation.
I am talking about conversation because everyone does philosophy. Conversation as long as it strays beyond the weather and favorite flavors of ice cream will eventually take a philosophical turn. In fact, one can look at the entire history of inquiry as basically one continuous conversation facilitated by the advent of the printing press, and prior to that, the traditions and practices of various conservatories both secular and religious.
I am not only talking about conversation in general but a more specific type of conversation known as public discourse.
General conversation leads to the specific conversation of public discourse which leads to various societal, technological, legal, artistic, and historic outcomes that are either glorious or tragic.
In a society of frantic actors who all believe themselves to be put upon entrepreneurs, conversation can also get a bad name – And it can get a bad practice.
Empty talk! Actions speak louder than words! Etc. ad naseum.
Well, supposing I told you that there’s a cliff you’re about to fall off, then the value of words will certainly become aparent, and quickly!
Actions are certainly more exciting than conversation and often times more efficacious. Since direct experience at times allows you to learn far more than poring over the most erudite tome, of the most illustrious thinker.
Yet when you’ve had the experience you must be able to contextualize it, in order to more effectively remember it, to be able to share it with others and to know what of the experience was real.
It is here that conversation goes awry because most people don’t contextualize their experiences, they don’t classify it into generalities and specifics very effectively, and share it in a raw sort of form.
This report of impressions while initially useful will if not expounded and improved upon with the rigorous methods of philosophy and logic, eventually lead to faulty conclusions and reinforced biases.
This is why today as always it is painfully apparent that most people, even cautious people, myself included, more often than not simply exchange talking points, and return quickly to the comforting arms of prosaics like: which beer?
One shouldn’t try to force deeper conversations. One should not make it a chore. The thing I am calling for is to be aware of where on the ‘generalities and specifics’ spectrum you find yourself during conversation. This is a call for being better aware of when exactly you are engaging in pundit style banter and smalltalk and when you’ve hit upon something profound.
This ability hinges on the capactiy for philsophy something that arises from a combination of knowledge and practice.
Philosophy is really method, or rather philosophy is the ur-method which allows you to form new methods with structural integrity.
What I am calling for is some reading, is some thinking, is some attention. All thigns which should provide you with the realization that most of your conclusions are lacking. That conversations, ideas, and actions dervied from lacking conclusions will compound into an obfuscating cloud that may compromise your ability to enjoy life and see truth.
It is a difficult thing, that begins with a more careful examination of generalities and specifics of who, what, where, and how? Of words like any, many, some, always, never, etc.
It is a difficult thing that I myself don’t always live up.
Here is an admitedly dry and somewhat impenetrable little volume that may, given some patience, give you a start.
The Fractal Journal 