I Apologize For Failing All Your Litmus Tests
I want to apologize to everyone whose litmus tests I failed. As a non-partisan, non-ideological observer, I fail every tribe’s litmus tests. I may appear to pass your first litmus test but in a few days I will fail your next litmus test, and arouse your rage, because it’s all or nothing, right?
If you pass every litmus test, you’re approved, if you fail even one, you’re shunned.
If you pass them all, you’re one of us, a member of our tribe, and welcomed into our echo chamber, where we all agree with one another and share our scorn for those in other tribes.
There is no middle ground left for those few of us who refuse to comply with the “choose a tribe” directive.
By refusing to join a tribe, we are dissenters in a conflict that no longer allows dissent.
This sliver of sandbar between the diverging rivers that’s open to those who prefer to think things through for themselves–dissenters–is rapidly eroding.
Dissent isn’t the problem. The system is broken, and that’s the problem. There is no easy solution when a complex system is broken. In our frustration, confusion and anger, we seek a refuge, and a tribal echo chamber is a refuge of sorts.
Refusal to join the tribe–and that’s what dissent means, refusing to join the tribe–is the problem to those who see only “us” (the good guys) and the heretics (to be burned at the stake), as if silencing dissenters is actually a solution to systemic breakdown.
That is the mindset of totalitarianism: if the system is no longer functioning as promised, then the solution isn’t to admit this and seek practical ways to improve things. The solution is to silence those pointing out the system is broken, and especially those who refuse to join a tribe.
Here’s how the litmus tests work. If you post a name, in any context, that’s taken as approval of that individual and everything they stand for in a tribal sense. That’s a fail–a big F-U, unsubscribe fail.
If you reference a media source that’s viewed as “the other tribe’s propaganda,” that’s a big fail, too.
I don’t identify with any tribe, or any economic or political ideology. Yes, they hate me for my freedom.
I’ve been interrogated, long ago, for nonviolent resistance that was viewed as “crimes against the state.” I was innocent, though complicit. What litmus test this passes or fails depends on the era and the tribe. It seems to have been a fail, then a pass and now, who knows.
I didn’t do what I did to get anyone’s approval, or to get a membership card in a tribe, I did what I thought was right. There is no tribe for that, as it’s an individual calculus. ChatGPT can’t make it for you. Nor can anyone else. The decision, activity and consequences are yours alone.
I gravitate to trades workers because I’m a trade worker–52 years and counting. We create value with our hands and the tacit knowledge that can only be gained from a deep well of experience. Tradespeople aren’t a tribe; nobody is obligated to agree with anyone else. Rather, it’s live and let live, because we’re here to get the job done, not pass each other’s litmus tests. What we value is integrity, doing what you said you were going to do, lending a hand, efficiency and good workmanship.
We joke around to get through the day and make light of the work. This is the opposite of being on the lookout for a chance to express outrage and indignation. What’s the point of making everything harder by poisoning the jobsite with all that?
I confuse readers because they see something that’s Libertarian in nature (decentralized, localized, self-reliance, trust your own network, not the corporation or the state, etc.), or Progressive (limiting the excesses of private equity) or Conservative (our entire system is rotten to the core due to moral decay) and then they’ll find me quoting Marx approvingly (“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned”) and they’re confused.
I’m not confused. Each of these tenets is supported by case studies and systems-level analysis. Kowtowing to a menu of ideological litmus tests offers no advantage other than entry into the echo-chamber, and those who prefer to think things through for themselves find echo chambers oppressive, the intellectual equivalent of Gulag Archipelago work camps where guards enforce compliance.
All the tribal ideologies have failed, like the system itself. The true believers have an explanation: there were impurities that spoiled the perfection of our ideological solution. Well, yes. Those impurities are called life.
Everyone’s free to stay comfy and warm inside their echo chamber of choice, but solutions in a society where some consensus is required to actually solve anything rarely arise in echo chambers.
One reason for this is echo chambers are hermetically sealed. The litmus test beliefs are set in stone.
This is because those inside the echo chamber traded the uncertainties of skeptical inquiry for the certainties of a belief structure that they refuse to identify as a belief structure.
As for science–now just another arrow in the quiver of narrative control–science is skeptical inquiry, for science is not as incontrovertible as it is presented. Data is often ambiguous, protocols are often flawed, and statistical massaging can warp results to meet pre-selected goals. This is especially true of health sciences, which are attempting to quantify dynamic, highly interactive systems where isolating causal chains is contingent rather than absolute.
Is “the science” actually good science, or is it gamed, flawed or inconclusive? That’s the hard part. It isn’t scripture. It doesn’t become true because we believe it. Then there’s cui bono–to whose benefit? Billions of dollars in potential profits motivate all sorts of things, especially in a system in a freefall of moral decay.
The point here is certainty is easier than skeptical inquiry, but once we trade away inquiry for the certainties of belief, we lose the ability to adapt. Real solutions are no longer possible, because all we’re allowed to propose are the same old approved tropes.
I’m not seeking approval. I’m seeking solutions.
Solutions aren’t solutions because a tribe approves of them. They’re solutions if they’re tested in various conditions and found either lacking or promising, and the future consequences and second-order effects are considered closely.
So I fail all the litmus tests. Please accept my apologies.
CHS NOTE: Welcome ashore! There’s still a bit of room here on the rapidly eroding sandbar of those who prefer thinking things through on their own. I welcome your readership and if you’re of a mind to subscribe, your financial support.