
Lies damned lies and statistics, an apt summary of the brexit debate in the Main stream media. Propaganda, narratives, messaging,spin and all of that.
The shouting has not stopped after the result the obviscation and manipulation in opposition to reason continues unabated.
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. Epictetus
Indeed, Listen Up dear reader I would like to introduce you to the Golem XIV Blog. Written by David Malone currently a candidate for the Leadership of the Green Party of England and Wales.
Epictetus is a famous stoic philosopher his enchirideon (handbook) offers much practical advice to bearing the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Quite apt to the current discourse is this.
42. When any person harms you, or speaks badly of you, remember that he acts or speaks from a supposition of its being his duty. Now, it is not possible that he should follow what appears right to you, but what appears so to himself. Therefore, if he judges from a wrong appearance, he is the person hurt, since he too is the person deceived. For if anyone should suppose a true proposition to be false, the proposition is not hurt, but he who is deceived about it. Setting out, then, from these principles, you will meekly bear a person who reviles you, for you will say upon every occasion, “It seemed so to him.”
http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
There are subtexts to the appearance of things always and one should always remember that black on black backgrounds and white on white backgrounds render the separateness or different shapes of things invisible. In argument there are useful backgrounds against which to discern meaning in a stated case. These backgrounds are context, that is the adjoining and connected positions both of the advocate making the argument and the contradictions which are inevitable in complex systems. The other background is that of motivation, what are other factors which might influence and motivate the making of a particular argument.
Before offering the main purpose of this Blog and to finalise this introduction please consider this piece of advice on literary critisism. ´´Forget what you think you know and read the arguments developed by the writer in full and consider them in the context they are offered and delineated by the writer, without such a discipline new insights will evade the reader and a constructive dialogue will not arise bringing new texture to an evolving framework of reference and understanding´´
In the spirit of openmindedness and with this insight into reason from CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE: (
”In order to reason well …. it is absolutely necessary to possess … such virtues as intellectual honesty and sincerity and a real love of truth (2.82). The cause [of the success of scientific inquirers] has been that the motive which has carried them to the laboratory and the field has been a craving to know how things really were … (1-34). [Genuine inquiry consists I in diligent inquiry into truth for truth’s sake (1.44), … in actually drawing the bow upon truth with intentness in the eye, with energy in the arm (1.235). [When] it is no longer the reasoning which determines what the conclusion shall be, but … the conclusion which determines what the reasoning shall be … this is sham reasoning…. The effect of this shamming is that men come to look upon reasoning as mainly decorative….”
http://web.ncf.ca/ag659/308/Peirce-Rorty-Haack.pdf ),
I give you David Malone on the Re-Branding of Dissent.
Re-branding Dissent
3) professionalized Governance. Democracy can be and must be neutered, and an effective way of doing this is to insist that amateur, elected officials MUST take the advice of professional (read corporate) advisors. Expand current law to enforce this.If this seems monstrous now, their argument, I suspect, will be that in an increasingly crowded, interconnected and globalised world we can no longer leave critically important decisions in the hands of the uneducated, in-expert and amateur. We must, of course, still be free to choose but must, from now on, be helped to choose ‘wisely’. And how can we choose wisely if we aren’t given wise choices to choose from? Oh, the Orwellian beauty of it! No prizes for guessing who will decide what is and what is not wise.
…when you [Members of Parliament] get that barrage of emails – people sometimes have signed up without fully understanding every part of what they’ve been asked to sign – people want to spread some fear about this thing, and we have a role, I think, of trying to explain properly why these things are good for our country.
“It is not what you chose to believe – you are free to believe what you want – but HOW you believe it.Believe it rationally, based on evidence and with regard for how your belief affects the well-being and security of those around you and there is no problem.But choose to believe irrationally and without regard for how your irrational belief may harm others and you are an Irrationalist. “
- Democracy is the freedom to choose wisely.
- In a globalized, inter-dependant world we cannot afford to choose irrationally or disastrously.
- It is not what you believe but how you believe it.
- Believe things rationally, based on evidence, with regard to how your beliefs affect those around you.
- If you know someone who doesn’t, they may be irrational and suffering from a mental disorder in which the personal notoriety of being contrarian matters more to them than any harm they might do to the safety and stability we all depend upon.
So the question is – how or when will the GP make a decision to leave the EU and trigger the referendum? What will be the criteria and trigger points, and what are the timescales the GP leadership envisage having to wait to see if change will happen?