Vinsent Nandi
NOTES OF THE METRIC MONTHS
FROM 76 ASWW
To the
first note of the year
LABELS THAT DO NOT REFLECT
Labels such as Left and Right, Woke and
Anti(-)woke are not normative criterions of
the DNI or
the Ananorm.
They do not reflect the
(doctrinal) principles
of the DNI, nor the (doctrinal and
metadoctrinal)
principles of
the Norm:
truth,
relevance and
inclusivity,
neutrality and
personhood.
They are not even products of veridical, relevant, neutral or
personhood-related reflection themselves.
The adherent of the Norm should definitely be alert to all forms of
prejudice and all forms of discrimination which are
not negligible, and therefore also to racial prejudice and racial
discrimination, or to sexual prejudice and sexual
discrimination, or to (pro- or anti-)religious
prejudice and (pro- or anti-)religious discrimination,
and so forth.
But something's being 'left' or 'right' in some polemic political
sense, 'woke' or 'anti-woke' in some ill-considered social sense is not
to be a criterion in itself, for it may not only guide you to what is
better or much better; it may probably also or frequently guide you to
what is worse, or much worse.
77.SLL-78th Northern Mid-Yule
CHANGE VERSUS NO CHANGE
"Change is good, no change is better", some say; and they may be right
in a particular situation.
However, as a generalization the saying is wrong, if not
preposterous.
Change may be good, no change may be better, but in
general may be good or better, bad or worse, or neither, just like no
change.
Yet, arguing for change as a goal in itself, regardless of the
circumstances, is definitely wrong, whereas no change as a goal in
itself can definitely be right when and where the circumstances are good.
77.SML-78th Northern Early Yule
NEITHER LIMITED NOR ENLARGED
Some say that the universe is not limited by what people or they can
imagine.
That's true, but at the same time it's an irrelevant distinction between
limitations and enlargements (extensions or expansions) which is being made
here, for the universe is not enlarged either by what people can imagine.
(Compare someone claiming that reality is not limited by what women can
imagine, whereas it is not limited by what men can imagine either, or vice
versa.)
Even imagination itself, in the shape of scientific or artistic creativity,
for instance, may be a good thing which can further a better understanding
of the world on the one hand, but which, once solidified into fixed
religious or social ideas, for instance, may also be a bad thing which
stands in the way of a better understanding of the world and cultural
progress on the other hand.
77.LSE-77th Southern Late Lent
NOT A SUPREME BEING
The fact that
i spell
the first-person pronoun i with a small letter, except when other
words are capitalized too, proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that i am
not a ('capital-S') Supreme Being or anything else of that ('capital-I')
Ilk.
77.LSE-77th Southern Mid-Lent
CHILD AND DUTY AMONG OTHERS
Some say that 'one stops being a child on the day that one understands
the word duty'.
They are mistaken: one stops being a child when one realizes that there
are duties where there are rights, and vice versa; when one comprehends
both the meaning of duties and of rights.
Especially a duty-obsessed deontologist ought to stop being a child one day.
77.SMY-77th Southern Early Lent
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MATHEMATICIANS
The official standpoint of mathematics is that the radix of the positional
numeral system you use is entirely arbitrary, for a number which can be
expressed in one radix or 'base' (usually but not necessarily a natural
number) can be equally well expressed in the other (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12,
16, 20, or 60, for instance) so long as it is not 0 or 1.
Meanwhile, numerous lustrums or 'lustra' (quinquenniums or five-yearly
anniversaries), decennials, centennials or 'centenaries',
sesquicentennials, bicentennials or 'bicentenaries' and even a
millennium are and have been celebrated by traditional mathematicians,
students and professionals alike, to commemorate the founding of their
students' unions or professional organizations, of their universities, of
the whole countries that provide them a living and a sounding board, or
even of their so-called 'common' system of chronological notation; not to
forget all the denary anniversaries of the births and deaths of their
heroes which demand their further attention.
"Started the union precisely four years ago?"
"Fine, that's precisely one more year to go!"
"Founded the university ninety-six years ago?"
"That'll be a fantastic centenary soon!"
"Signed the country's constitution two hundred and fifty-six years ago
next month?"
Of no interest at all: it is either fifty-six years too late or forty-four
years too early.
Funny, if not tragicomic, how the social practice kind of disproves the
exact theory in the head of the so-called 'queen' of the sciences.
76.MNE-77th Southern Equinoctial
INDIVIDUAL & SOCIETY
When individualists defend a purported primacy of the individual person
and communitarians or collectivists a purported primacy of the community
or collective, they suggest that either the egg or the chicken came first.
However, the chicken-and-egg question itself is erroneous, because it
confuses the long present static time span with a relatively short dynamic
time span preceding it; and it suggests that that the chicken and the egg
themselves are the genetic material in which the change took place in
the course of time.
Similarly, it is neither the individual nor the group, collectivity or
community that came first, it is the culture-generating ideas in which
the change takes place in the course of time.
Single individuals or small groups of individuals will develop these
ideas which may seem to be 'totally new' but which will also build on old
ones, just like genetic material.
In this sense, society needs the individuals, but the individual, in
turn, depends on society too.
An individual's fertile new ideas will die back, if not die out, both in a
society that keeps the land barren and in a society that has the water but
weeds out these ideas, because it is unable to comprehend them.
77.CEN-77th Southern Mid-Yule
THE ERRONEOUS CHICKEN-AND-EGG QUESTION
Those who ask you, "What was first: the chicken or the egg?", ask that
question in a contemporary state of mind in which both the chicken and
the chicken's egg have had all the properties of what makes a member of
the species a member of that species, and not a different one, for ages
already.
A What came first question, however, does not belong to such a
static period; it belongs to a period of transition from the one species
to the next.
And that transition is neither in the chicken as a whole nor in the egg
as a whole; it is in the genetic material which both of them have.
A change in that material may have occurred in the adult male chicken
(in his sperm), in the adult female chicken (in her ovum) or somewhere
in the egg, but the chicken and the egg themselves is not what it is
about.
So long as you focus on the wrong time span and the wrong material, you
will never be able to decide when and where the specific transition took
place; and you will remain in your own chosen chicken-and-egg situation
forever.
77.CEN-77th Southern Early Yule
THE NARROW PATH OF NEUTRALISM
Neutralism does not mean that you will have to choose or strive for
every form of neutrality in every situation.
It means, first of all, that your ultimate goal should not be
an unneutral one.
And, with a neutral instead of unneutral goal, it means that you must
decide what serves neutrality in the end, when neutrality in one
respect does, or seems to, require unneutrality in the other.
Indeed, the path of neutralism is always narrower, yet never gone.
77.NML-77th Equatorial Month
THE WIDER PATH OF INCLUSIVISM
Inclusivism does not mean that you will have to include everything and
everyone in every situation.
It means, first of all, that if you do draw a distinction, it should
not be an irrelevant one.
And, with an inclusive instead of exclusive attitude, it means that you
must decide how inclusivity is not self-defeating in the end, since
it cannot include exclusivist systems, ideologies and attitudes.
Indeed, the path of inclusivism is always wider, yet never widest.
77.NML-77th Northern Late Lent
RICHER, NOT NECESSARILY MORE ADEQUATE
A language with no more than one second- or third-person (singular) pronoun
is the poorest you can imagine (as far as this one aspect is
concerned).
Yet, it is more adequate than a richer language with only second- and
third-male and second- and third-female pronouns, because such a language
forces sexual irrelevantism on you, person, in a
context in which sex or gender is totally irrelevant.
A language which has second- and third-person, second- and third-male and
second- and third-female pronouns is not only the richest one possible in
this respect but also adequate.
Moreover, it gives you a possibility to intentionally stress sex or gender
where this is not only relevant but also desired, if only to modestly
eroticize what you, girl or woman, boy or man, are saying or writing.
76.SEL-77th Northern Mid-Lent
CANCEL CULTURE DOES NOT BUILD ANYTHING
A new culture always implies the replacement of an old one, but there need
not be a total replacement, let alone a total destruction.
A culture which is new as regards content emerges with new norms and/or
values, new ideas and symbols in the first place, and with what may prove
to be nice and/or useful in the second place.
Yet, in order to become known and accepted, and for its foundation, a
substantively new culture relies heavily on creative and
constructive activism, because everything only stays the way it was (good
or bad, right or wrong) where people resign themselves to what has always
been, uttering no criticism and leaving things unchanged out of ignorance,
lack of interest or sheer laxness.
However, destructive cancel culture activism (which
may be a by-product of constructive activism) does not build
anything by itself.
Unless the culture to be 'canceled' stands, and keeps on standing, in the
way of the new culture obtrusively, it is questionable
whether this kind of activism will manage to compensate
for the errors of the past in a sound fashion.
75.SLL-77th Northern Equinoctial
THE JOY OF CULTURE
The joy of culture is found by those who cultivate their enjoyments.
77.NEY-77th Northern Late Yule
A PHOBIA IS A FEAR, HATRED IS NOT
In the term religious or religionist criticophobia,
phobia is used in the correct sense of the word, since it refers to
a dread or fear, something that in itself is quite different from a
feeling of hatred, let alone, an objectionable theory or practice.
Besides the so-called 'phobia' of a particular religion,
homophobia too is a word often used in a way which does not
convey its proper meaning, because in the first place it should refer to a
fear of one's own actual or possible erotic contact with a member of one's
own sex; and only in the second place, if applicable, of the
homosexuality of others, but still as a problem of the homophobe
him- or herself.
To label a heterosexist who hurts, injures or kills human beings that
are not exclusively hetero "a homophobe" is blatantly off target,
because if such a character really possesses enough power or influence and
hates homo- or bisexuals, without being afraid of them —as
probably in most cases— he or she is in the first place a social
problem of all human beings that are not exclusively heterosexual,
altho
also a societal problem of all those who refuse to put up with bullying
and criminal violence regardless of whom it hits.
Of course, a heterosexist may very well be homophobic in
addition to this.
If so, this human being will also have a mental or psychic problem, if
his or her fear stands in the way of what he or she really desires or
would like to do or have, or to be able to do or have.
Fear is not a moral flaw; hurting, wounding or killing others out
of hate definitely is.
75.LSW-77th Northern Mid-Yule
THE RELIGIOUS FEAR OF CRITICISM
Passing criticisms on people and things is a form of free speech which
ought to be possible, but, like so many other activities in life where
space-time has to be shared with others, it need not be allowed at any
moment at any place.
According to some people you may, even if the time and place are not
unsuitable, pass criticism —not just unfounded sentiments, of
course— on anything whatsoever, also political and
nonreligious ideologies —preferably constructive, of
course— except on religions, that is, religious denominational ideologies.
(The idea behind this may be that religion is so much more important in
someone's life than a political ideology, but if so, then it works
both ways: not only its positive, also its factual or possible negative
influence needs so much more attention.)
The fear underlying a cowardly self-immunization strategy which does not
even allow of rational criticism of the theory one has or the religious
or nonreligious doctrine one follows or adheres to is what i would
like to call "criticophobia".
If it concerns the protection of religion in general from criticism,
then it is religious criticophobia; if it concerns especially the unequal
position of religious citizens vis-à-vis fellow citizens with a different
or no religion, then religionist criticophobia.
75.LSW-77th Northern Early Yule
DO NOT TRANSLATE THIS, UNLESS ...
If and when my work needs to be translated into a different language, do
not ask a translator who thinks that every widely supported irrelevance
and each generally accepted inconsistence in that language is perfectly
normal.
Rather find a
Norm-abiding righter of
wrongs than a tradition-fettered writer of mistaken correctness.
Nonetheless, deviation from a convention is not a goal in itself.
At best it is a non-neutral goal on a lower level, and at worst an
unneutral goal, even on a higher level, when sticking to the convention is
anafactive; because
deviating from a convention (linguistic in this case) must serve a neutral
or otherwise
Ananormative goal
on a higher level.
75.LSW-76th Southern Late Lent
NO MORE RIBS OF INTEGERS
In traditional arithmetic the portion is denigratingly called "a fraction",
and she has been created by a Supreme Being from the ribs of two integers.
In the new arithmetic the portion will be a number in its own right, each
individual having a name and formulaic definition not derived from those
of integers, just as integers have their name and formulaic definition not
derived from those of portions.
76.SEM-76th Southern Mid-Lent
FROM RICHES TO RAGS
It is better to be remembered as someone who went from riches to rags
than as someone who went from right to wrong behavior, or from 'virtues'
(with its sexist origin) to vice.
75.SLL-76th Southern Early Lent
UN MODÈLE ACHEVÉ ET ... NON ACHEVÉ
Le Modèle neutre-inclusif est un modèle achevé avec ses trois livres :
le Livre des instruments, le Livre des fondamentaux et le Livre des
symboles.
Mais jusqu'à présent, c'était aussi un modèle non achevé sans au moins
un quatrième livre : le
Livre des événements.
76.SMY-76th Southern Equinoctial
UNMOORED FROM THE RELEVANT FOUNDATION
When people are distinguished on the basis of their being (fully)
vaccinated or not against a certain virus, some immediately object to
this vaccination (or, perhaps, any vaccination) being a criterion for
admittance, for instance.
They claim that they are being discriminated against, suggesting that the
distinction drawn, which might be relevant, is irrelevant by definition.
However, there is no adequate morality without the recognition of
relevancy, that is, of the irrelevance, but also of the relevance, of a
distinction made or to be made.
For also this coin has two sides in that a distinction must not be drawn
because it is irrelevant and in that a distinction may, ought to or even
must be drawn because it is relevant.
Those who argue that a distinction is discriminatory only because it is
to their disadvantage, even regardless of their own behavior, are
unmoored from the relevant foundation.
76.SEY-76th Southern Mid-Yule
LET THE WORLD STEW IN WHAT?
The desperate (or cynically 'pragmatic') give up and say, "Let the world
stew in its own bloody juices" or words to that effect.
First of all, they forget, of course, that they do not have the power nor
the authority to allow 'the world' to do or not to do something.
But this mistake is forgivable.
In this particular case they should also use the American rather than the
British swearword: "Let the world stew in its own fucking juices."
This, because the world's contemporary environmental problems are half
caused by explodist copulation which knows of no sustainable population
equilibrium, and therefore of no bounds.
Also this mistake is forgivable, so far as the use of the one word instead
of the other is concerned.
(True, explicitly national and ideological conflicts, such as between two
countries or denominations, are not environmental on the surface, but in
practice they are not only caused by environmental conditions, they may
also contribute to them.)
Most importantly, those who speak of 'the world and its juices' confuse
the world and the human species.
There is even enough to object against when someone says that
'humanity should stew in its own juices', because not all human beings are
equally responsible for the destruction or degradation of nature (among
which 'the climate'), and for violent ideological conflicts (among which
wars of religion).
Some human people may not at all be responsible for the
overconsumption on this planet (promoting the production of arms, for
instance) or the overpopulation (providing for the cannon fodder, for
instance).
Some of them may be responsible for neither, at least to a degree much
less than that of the average citizen's co-responsibility.
However, to suggest that the world should stew in its juices is no
doubt lamentably unforgivable, for the world is so incomparably much more
than that one species that is causing or aggravating most, if not all, of
today's problems on Earth.
What the desperate (or egoistically 'pragmatic') want the whole of nature
on Earth to stew in is the procreative and recreative juices of the
members of one particular species that just cannot get enough: not enough
children for themselves or their community (if not their gods or God), and
not enough of the services and products of their consumerist society (if
not their brands or Brand).
This is the precise and unforgivable flaw in the utterance of those
saying that 'the world should stew in is own bloody juices'.
It is a sigh that will not even heave the untrefoiled grass, yet it
tramples the flower of this suffering planet.
76.NMY-76th Southern Early Yule
A NEUTRALITY BETWEEN TRIPLE-MAGNITUDE
POLARITIES?
The color analogy which is used in particle physics makes implicit use of
an ad hoc neutrality which fails to resemble the standard one between
single-magnitude polarities, as also used in the
Model of Neutral-Inclusivity.
However, on closer analysis there appears to be one substrative factor
which builds on the electric charge type of a neutrality centrally
catenated with a negative and a positive polarity.
74.NML-76th Equatorial Month
MEMBERS OF HOMO STULTUS
Stray biologists who have forgotten to stick to their last call the
mammalian species to which they themselves belong "Homo sapiens", the
wise human being or, worse, man.
As far as this deviation from proper science is concerned, they behave as
members of 'Homo stultus', the stupid human being or, worse, man.
76.NML-76th Northern Late Lent
PERSONHOOD
Personhood is not only normatively
superior to the theft or destruction of what people morally own but also
to their oppression; and to all authoritarianism.
75.SML-76th Northern Mid-Lent
NEUTRALITY
Neutralness or neutrality is not
only normatively superior to the unfounded negative but also to the
unfounded positive; that is, to all immoderation, especially extremism.
75.SML-76th Northern Equinoctial
INCLUSIVENESS
Inclusiveness or inclusivity is
not only normatively superior to the exclusivity of aggrandizement but
also to the exclusion of abnegation; that is, to all exclusivism.
75.SML-76th Northern Late Yule
RELEVANCE
Relevance is not only normatively
superior to the irrelevance of arbitrary data but also to unjustified
distinctions or discrimination; that is, to all
irrelevantism.
75.SML-76th Northern Mid-Yule
TRUTH
Truth is not only normatively
superior to the falsehood of lies and deceptive tales but also to
promises, even threats, not made good; and to all supernaturalism.
75.SML-76th Northern Early Yule
Notes
of the Metric Months in other four-year
files
