Hunting Hypocrisy

A subtle irony, or hypocrisy even, occurred to me while I was thinking about Thus Spake Zarathustra. Actually, let me back up. Someone wrote a rather vulgar and brazenly honest (by that, I mean negative) comment of me, personally, in a recent entry. I went something like: "You didn't come to our leadership camp, so therefore you're a bad person [this reasoning is quite lame, so one must assume that there are other unstated actions which have aroused distaste against me], and your future will be filled with misfortune." I was quite surprised by this and figure that the person clearly didn't realize that I didn't go to leadership camp because I'm working 40 hours a week on cold fusion research at PSU, taking a class on differential calculus for 8 hours a week, teaching myself integral caculus and physics, and doing some music. It's called prioritization. But then again, some people don't view science, music, and literature as priorities, just like I don't view the unnecessary superfluities of human interaction to be that great of a priority (I sense bias in that statement). In short, they are the aspects of humanity I find beautiful.

Well, there it was, the word "humanity" had popped into my head and I was reminded of Nietzsche's belief on the overcoming of humanity and the overman and all of that semi-romantic existential optimism, blah, blah, blah. But Nietzsche was a great critic of the quantity, believing that it inhibits quality. He had great trouble believing in the Darwinian version of nature, as it implied that numbers were naturally more important to success than biological quality. This dislike for the masses is easy to aquire in general, given the tendency for the mass to behave using the psychological principle of groupthink, as developed by the Yale psychologist Irving Janis. This is what the Senate Intelligence Committee is accusing CIA analysts of succumbing to (in general, it's absolute balderdash and is merely an example of corrupt politicians covering up for their unbelievable incompetance, John Edwards included). And yet it is to these same masses that I owe my class presidency. It's rather ironic and hypocritical.

As for my role in student government, I believe that it is time for me to work on a major streamlining of function. Now that I am finally older, I should have more power. With Leeor on the cabinet, we should be able to accomplish a massive increase in efficiency: reduction in budget, an increase in money raised, reduction in incompetance, transfer of the saved and additionally raised money to more worthwhile things like science and the arts... oh the list goes on. I'm a strong believer in extending the impeachment powers to combat things like incompetance, laziness, tardiness, and poor attendence within the class. We should not of course punish people if they are simply not naturally as productive as others, but only if they are not trying hard. Social status and equality should be divided on the premise of how hard one tries. I can't speak about the camp that I missed, but I can say that the class already works very well together. The part that I hate though, is that the only thing that the class works well toward is the state of total unproductiveness. I like to view this as an economy. Last year, we were employing anarchist economics due to the previous teacher's miserable job of running things. It is obvious that capitalist reforms need to occur; things need to become more cutthroat. The problem with capitalism is that it leaves people behind and creates social stratification. Using the economic analogy, a capitalist model would not share these same flaws in this instance. Because this is an elective of sorts, participation in our analagous "economy" is not mandatory, nor does failure in the "economy of leadership" constitute a failure of any kind in general society. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that anyone would be "left behind" because everyone in the "economy" would theoretically already be capable of succeeding within it, because they chose to take part. Unlike standard capitalist economies, the success of the individual in this one is not dependent on the failure or subjugation of other individuals within the system. Ha! This is beautiful.

The most beautiful part of it all though, is the psychological principle being demonstrated. The person who wrote the previously referred comment is probably quaking with rage at my flaming pretension (I think I may have outdone myself this time!). Undoubtedly, this person is also ready to write a comment chastising me for my patronizing, bourgeoisie arrogance. By specifically targeting this predicted impulse, I can obtain a reaction. That is the essence of power and control, something that people forget today. So the point has nothing to do with the petty soap of opera of high school anything. The point is that the human mind is a shallow pitiful thing easily persuaded perversely into a desired action or belief. The war in Iraq is an example of this. How on earth did everyone in America start vehemently supporting evidence that never really existed? In hind sight it was quite obvious that much of it never existed. So whether you support(ed) the war or not, THINK dammit, just THINK. The mind too easily sinks into a passive state these days, when things like TV, video games, etc. are so prolific that they can consume the better part of a person's reality. Passiveness is slavery.

As an aside: Politics these days are enraging me beyond belief. I firmly believe that we should have a recall of the presidency, the entire House, the entire Senate, and consider making the director of the CIA and FBI publically elected positions.