Monday, May 14, 2018

everything is worse with politics

fredrik barth's foundational text on transactionalism may, at first blush, appear appealing. but beneath the surface of the idea that all human decisions and action result in a sort of result-based reciprocity is one of those things that is just broad enough to always work. the present author has, indeed, on an unscrupulous social media site designed to create short pontifications, argued that laziness is less a character flaw and more a survival mechanism, or even a value judgment; that in that time, not expelling as much energy is more a reward than doing so. this conclusion is a sort-of inherently transactionalist viewpoint, even without any sort of interaction with another self, in this case, said laziness could very well manifest itself as interaction with one's environment.

of course, barth and later transactionalists appeared to not really grapple with the fact that even if all decisions and actions are a transactional, interlocking response resulting in reciprocity and co-transactional outcomes, little is said about how the information we use to make these transactions can be sorely, sorely lacking.

this wouldn't be a fatal flaw really in barth's argument - we all know we have imperfect and at times limited data. but alas, as a fairly well off norwegian white dude, barth maintained that essentially all transactions; contractual, political, otherwise, were made my individuals with equal standing and resulted in authority figures having to acquiesce to said demands and transactions of the individual.

the present author posits this is not true, and that by advancing this argument into the realm of politics, it becomes, perniciously, irrevocably, stupid.

concurrently, there is a prevailing argument that cultural actors, individuals, authority, anything, attempt to manipulate and use society to achieve profit, and that individual choices maintain and validate authority systems and figures. that it is all a system of equal, co-dependent choices and outcomes.

the problem ultimately is that truth from inquiry, while noble, is inherently invalidating. if there is value in knowing how a transaction will present itself (referred to as the time between "means and end") then one should strive to know all possible outcomes and probabilities. this is impossible, and even more so when you consider the underlying way knowledge expresses itself in this case is via interaction and transaction and not universal epistemological truth.

a driver in a blue subaru impreza was recently kicked out of their apartment for being trans; their landlord made a transaction from an established place of power that rendered equal standing and co-dependent consent moot. the driver looks down at their phone and quickly tries to send a text, while rounding a bend, to their mother, asking if they can crash for a time. a deer jumps out in front of the car, and the driver, whose eyes are not on the road, smashes into the deer. the probability of a deer in that moment was small, the transaction in this case was presenting itself as the text conversation in which the driver attempted to require an end in which they had a place to say. the deer was a confounding, unknowable factor, the landlord was an authority figure whose existence did not require this individual's transactional existence, and indeed, could brute force their way into controlling others. the end result of this... transaction, ultimately, is the same as any other trade or worldview or summation. a sudden end to existence, hastened by unequal standing between haves and have nots.

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