Vision Circle

1. Cobb's recent definition of punditry;

I think we in the intellectual elite have been cowed by the notion that there is some extraordinary 'grass roots' phenomena that is not essentially captured in our debates. If there is, I would submit that it is nothing more than chaos, solopsism or force of personality. Let me stress as clearly as I can that what we pundits do is control the publicity of rationale. All the logic in the world is pretty much out there, but the reasons those charged with making the final decision is are different from our own and everyone elses. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a way to change or deal with that.

We are not changing what people can think, we are influencing how they think by giving them paths of rationality towards our opinions and away from the opinions of our opponents. I think this is (heh) an interesting way to think about the business of all punditry, whether it be MSM or New Media. In other words we are not owners of the ideas, we are facilitators between people's emotions and their decisions. We offer a publically referenceable decision making augmentation process. This is a great value add, especially if and when people can accept and vibe with our existentials.

I need to say that I think is one of the more profound insights I have come upon. The reason that I'm here is because of the confluence of events that have transpired for me in the past few weeks with regard to my acknowledgement of the value of progressive politics in African America, my broadcast TV debut as Cobb and my recognition of the value of porch conversations.

2. Because digital or blogospheric porch conversations are subject to constraints which would not apply in the real world setting, by interests unique to the digital rationale publicity site;

I'm on the verge of asking you not to comment on anything you haven't thoroughly explored on Vision Circle. The impact on your traffic will convince you I'm right about this mysogyny repels.

On the porch, in the barbershop, or around the kitchen table, a free-wheeling discussion of Faheem Akuta's Blacktown.net website would - and most definitely has -taken place countless times without fear of recrimination. Such issues are discussed all the time in far more direct terms in every place where unconstrained black discourse takes place. Nobody I kick it with on the porch practices or preaches misogyny. Most everybody I kick it with has a point of view concerning assimilation, aesthetics, and gender.

3.The valuable reminder that Temple3 dropped into this thread last night;

Given this, it must be our CHOICES that define our unity - just as we choose friends, but not family - we choose what we believe and how we choose to wage war and frame piece. Kujichagulia is all about the choices and the right of a people to define themselves and their world. To the extent that a people define and live in light of their own interests, they are "free." We recognize the distinction between individual and collective freedom - we also understand the distinction between what people say and what people do. The critical mass is all that is needed...the unity of all is neither necessary nor sufficient.

led to my less than sanguine epiphany concerning black-partisan utility and the blogosphere. Thankfully, as I mulled this notion, the quantum mechanical aethernet went to Work on my behalf and I received a wisdom infusion.

4. The grand master just now called to give me a head's up about the C-SPAN2 program on Class Divide in Black America. {i.e., Bill Cosby's afrosticratic diatribes} Personally, I had to work my way through quite a number of free-wheeling porch conversations to come to terms with what Cosby is perpetrating. I told Mr. Dixon about what was on my mind concerning the blogosphere, the issue of hair as signifier, {a big issue for Akuta on Blacktown} and amplified further by my viewing of the Madame CJ Walker program the other night on True Stories - about which I remarked in response to something Temple3 said;

Of course we have trouble differentiating from the conscious and unconscious realms - our subconscious doesn't even bother - which means it is programmable.

I saw a program the other night about Madame CJ Walker. In it, these two elderly Walker-agent women from Indianapolis protested vehemently that no aspect of the Walker aesthetic programme was intended to make black women look white, rather, it was about looking beautiful...,

Most often my Work consists of the struggle to sublimate immense resentment for people who fail to Work with what is termed subconscious -because in so doing - these people fail not only to complete their own development, which is the fundamental responsibility of every being daring to claim itself conscious - they also mechanically subject not only themselves - but every other duppy with whom they interact - to the most pernicious, ridiculous, and obvious memetic infections. case in point, the two lily-whitened little old women from Indianapolis vehemently denying the visually obvious about the Walker aesthetic written all over their lyed, dyed, and fryed heads and faces!

If I were to apply the Promethean/McGee-ian litmus test, in commenting on these two little old ladies, I just now veered waaaay deep into the realm of misogynistic hateration. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.

I asked Mr. Dixon what he thought about all this. He told me about his Aunt and the argument about good hair/bad hair. The upshot of the story was that one his cousins was being upbraided by the aunt for "bad hair". Mr. Dixon told his aunt at that very moment that any hair that doesn't come off your head in the shower is good hair. Everyone laughed then, as I laughed today, on hearing this. Then he dropped the moral of the story, "it's not so much a question of the extent to which people sell-out Craig, the real question is the extent to which people unconsciously buy-in to notions pernicious to their own interests."

Boiled down to salient points gravy;

1. We are not changing what people can think

2.We are influencing how they think by giving them paths of rationality towards our opinions

3. We offer a publically referenceable decision making augmentation process

4. This is a great value add, especially if and when people can accept and vibe with our existentials

5. The impact on your traffic will convince you I'm right about this mysogyny repels

I interpret these dots as indicative of a common debilitating constraint conjoining the Cobbian and Promethian ends of the political spectrum in the context of this digital medium; argumentum ad populum As Temple3 said;

To the extent that a people define and live in light of their own interests, they are "free." We recognize the distinction between individual and collective freedom - we also understand the distinction between what people say and what people do. The critical mass is all that is needed...the unity of all is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Cognitive Flexibility of the type currently permissible only on the porch - is an essential prerequisite of black partisan freedom and utility.

I wonder whether a thorough exploration can now proceed, inclusive of material reflexively censored as misogynistic and thus inherently unpopular, or, whether my objection will be dismissed as specious demagoguery or nothing more than chaos, solopsism or force of personality...,

meanwhile, I rest easy knowing there's a free, conscious, and cognitively flexible multigenerational, multi-gendered porch conversation taking place - even as I type - over at the Learning Center...,

Posted by at July 23, 2005 02:20 PM | TrackBack