The Emperor Has No Clothes

What follows is just opinion based on my brain function, stories I have heard, whom I trust, the culture in which I live, etc. So when I use my most persuasive rhetoric to make my case and demolish the opposition, you should picture me shivering in my socks while you evaluate my published words. Always treat opinions as partial, parochial, contingent and ephemeral. Never trust a proposition that begins with always or never (including this one). These opinions may be wrong and are certainly incomplete.

There. Got that off my chest. 

Please excuse the big words and the clever paradox. To be quite clear, the emperor has no clothes. It's up to us as arbiters of meaning to lend him some pants or laugh him off the throne. The hierarchy isn't as high as it pretends to be. Plebeians (students, listeners, readers, voters, we the audience) have some power.

Brain Function
Subjectively, the familiar cognitive universe within which one lives feels real. But is it really real? Consider he whose name begins like a duck and ends in rump, not as clever as the average bird but convinced that he has the best words, magic words that when spoken loudly and often make his delusions come true. Objectively: emergent, evolved, dynamically developing brain structures act on a shallow stream of accumulating sensory information generating opinions and predictions. Then a mysterious neural calculus chooses one possible future and dismisses others, like this: storm the Capitol Building and declare Trump the winner. 

You can't depend on brain function but you can judge by events, which in this case prove that he who would be president has no clothes.

Stories I have Heard
In her book "Braiding Sweetgrass", Robin Wall Kimmerer, indigenous biologist and author, tells of mentoring a graduate student who was curious about the disappearance of sweetgrass from places where it had been growing for generations. Her research proposal was nearly dismissed as too simple. According to the supervisor in charge, sweetgrass was disappearing because of over-harvesting. It's obvious. Why investigate? Permission to proceed was given reluctantly. She completed meticulous research demonstrating conclusively that that sweetgrass dies out not because of over-harvesting but rather when it is not harvested in the traditional way, that is, by taking only half the grass in each clump. Unharvested grass does not renew itself. It appears that sweetgrass and native harvesters evolved together in a mutual symbiotic relationship. The grass needs people just as people need the grass. 

What of the supervisor who presumed to know the answer before the experiment was done? Apparently, no clothes. 

Whom to Trust
We are motivated by instincts that may have evolved in three stages, (a plausible but naive theory of mine with no proof that I can think of). 

At the most primitive level, the individual is busy satisfying basic needs, safety, food, comfort, etc.  The world affords what we require to survive and also threatens survival. Responses to circumstances must be quick or one dies. As a result we are often mistaken and don't survive for long. 

At a more advanced level, which I name Reciprocity, self-interest is in tension with regard for others. The contest is mediated by empathy, aversion, attraction, esteem and shame, custom, oversight, rules, rewards and punishments. Reciprocity comes with costs and benefits. Costs: complex and expensive social regulation and loss of some autonomy. Benefits: less risk, better provision of needs and wants.

At a still higher level, which I have labelled Grace, some of those who have more than they need experience gratitude and are moved to acts of generosity. Conflict is relaxed and replaced by trust, transcending self-interest and enforced reciprocity. The benefit of trust is a reduction of the expensive machinations of legislation, policing, lawyers, judiciary, incarceration.

Unfortunately, trust is also recruited for nefarious ends when needy or greedy people revert to self-interest while pretending to be gracious.
Phone call at 6:00 AM: "This is your computer security department. Your system is infected with malware. Sign in and let us correct the problem."
Not going to happen. The guy on the phone has no clothes.

"Hello, Computer Security. What's your name?"
"Gabriel."
"Nice name but not a good fit. You're no angel asking people to trust you while you empty their bank account. Anyway, Gabe, what are you wearing? I guess nothing."
"Hey! This is computer security, not phone sex."
"Sure it is. Why don't you get a real job instead of stealing from old folks?"
"I tried. Nobody wants to hire a philosophy grad, and I have student loans to pay."
"So be your own boss. I was talking to a taxi driver last week who started cutting lawns when he was a kid and worked his way up to three cabs and a crew of drivers. He's going to retire at 55. If you can spell Nietzsche you can be your own boss."
"I'll think about it."
"Good. Just put on a shirt and jeans before you go out. Pajama bottoms don't work outside the home office. But I might be wrong, so make up your own mind about that. You busy today? Our windows need washing. Twenty bucks an hour if you don't leave smears. Twenty-five if you work fast. You can ponder Nietzsche while you work."
"Thanks. Most people just hang up."

Culture
I have been impressed by the writing of psychologist Jordon Peterson who has made a career out of poking holes in conventional wisdom to let some light in. Good for him. I contributed to his mortgage by purchasing his first book "Maps of Meaning: the Architecture of Belief", which I didn't finish reading because it was too dense or I am too dense or both. If I only understood what he was saying, I would probably still be repeating it to whoever would listen. Perhaps I am repeating it. Perhaps I have been absorbing his notions by osmosis because they have become current culture.

So let's put him in the lineup of emperors with no clothes. In 2016 Peterson found fault with Bill C-16 which amended the Canadian human rights act and the criminal code concerning discrimination on the basis of gender identity. He objected to politically correct speech being mandated, specifically certain gender pronouns. This is one of those complex issues with a list of pros and cons that need to be considered and weighed by the community to reach consensus. One argument I didn't hear from Peterson is that the price of social order is the loss of some autonomy. Individual rights imply a duty to observe the rights of others. Also, an entrenched culture of exclusion and oppression of minorities owes to future generations some affirmative action so that a culture of inclusion will emerge and prevail. Until it does, if we can't treat each other with respect out of compassion, then it may be appropriate to legislate. If Jordan Peterson objects to mandated gender speech, she shouldn't object to how we talk about her. Some day soon we could be respectful because it is the right way to be; and that would make the law irrelevant. I am sure that Peterson could demolish this paragraph with 500 pages of evidence, logic, stereotyping and epithets. I think he should put on some clothes; there are women present and various other genders as well. They are not the radical left. They are vulnerable individuals, many with stories to tell in which they are victims while the prevailing culture has been the villain. We should be ashamed and resolve to do better.

There is more to say about Jordan Peterson because he keeps on talking. His first book was an attempt to correct all the ignorance in sight using every tool available. Too much for my little mind. Later he wrote "12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos" which I actually finished reading. I have yet to read his latest effort, "Beyond Order: 12 more rules for life". He has learned from experience that absurdity should be uprooted a bit at a time rather than all at once. If you overdo things, people resist change or get confused and the culture dies out.

Apparently, the intellectually gifted and we simple folk have evolved together in a mutual symbiotic relationship. Simple folk need the intelligentsia so they don't have to rediscover the entire body of wisdom on their own by trial and error. In the absence of received wisdom, we would not survive long enough to reproduce; ask my wife who can tell stories about the author as a young man. The intelligentsia need the rest of us; they exist to root out absurdity and nurture wisdom. They would be bored to death talking exclusively to each other because they all think alike (don't they?) and they are always right (aren't they?). Where's the fun in that? Like talking to yourself. Geniuses exist to suffer fools like us. I imagine when Jordon gets to heaven where there are no fools he will be poking holes in eternal truth to let in the darkness so he has something interesting to talk about.

That idea may be wrong and is certainly incomplete.