Jamie Q Roberts

Beauty that endures contains the true and the good.

My book: The Intellectual Dark Web: expressed are my own, not my employer's

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

Aristotle suggests taking the middle path.

But I'd caution against always taking the middle path.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

I left the path to find my way
You buy your cage with what they pay
But once you see the light of day
There's not a soul hears what you say

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

I'm back working on the Stendhal article that will come out shortly.
I remember when I first read The Red and the Black. It was around 2007. I was a PhD student, trying to make sense of the university cult. Why - I kept thinking - does no one talk about anything that matters (such as the point that university seems to be a cult)? Why are so many questions taboo - why are claims that would crumble with the lightest scrutiny permitted to endure?
I was reading the end of Book One - from Chapter 25 onwards - which details Julien Sorel's time in the seminary, and it all made sense: universities are the seminaries of the 21st century.
As Julien realised when he foolishly tries to distinguish himself, 'learning counts for nothing here!' What counts is 'drawn-out exercises in ascetic piety'.
As Stendhal writes, 'To their [the other students'] eyes he was guilty of the monstrous vice that he thought, he judged for himself - as opposed to blindly following authority and example.'
Once we grasp the de facto function of universities - the arts and social science parts at least - all the rest makes sense:
- The claim that there is no truth (while still drawing a salary)
- Or that gender is a social construction (while still adhering to gender norms)
- The blief that biological sex, too, is a pernicious social construction (while believing that sex can and should be changed to conform to the social construction of gender that we had just said is bad)
- The dogmatic condemnation of all things western (while living off the fat of the land)
- The endless acknowledgements of country (while doing nothing to help indigenous people)
- The veneration of an identity politics which dictates that access to the true and the good is inversely proportional to one's putative power as determined by identity markers or at least allyship...
This story is now so old that it's exhausting to keep writing about it.
But it all makes sense when you read Stendhal.
We are forever creating rackets that capitalise upon people's natural religious - or at least tribal - impulses.
This is why our hard-fought liberal values are so important. These include free speech, basing truth claims on reasoning and evidence, and tethering reward to merit.
Books like The Red and the Black are there for everyone to read. Just like Nineteen Eighty-Four, or The Crucible, or Beyond Good and Evil. But somehow the message doesn't quite get through.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

I realise I said something similar a couple of posts ago... Shows it's still on my mind.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

Having just lost someone close to me, looking back on her life, a couple of things become clear.

1) My own failures in the relationship. i.e. I could have done better. In short: I could have been more responsible - shouldered more of a load. So much of life, and indeed living a good life, involves shouldering a load. It's not easy, but it's right. Regrets are forever.

2) What we admire in humanity. When talking about her life, I found myself lauding her kindness and achievements. This reveals to me all the more that we want a society that supports people who are struggling, but that we must maintain a value hierarchy where achievement is seen as good. Whence equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

As I do each semester, I'm trying to explain to the students what's gone wrong with the university system (the sacrifice of truth to relativism, the subordination of merit to identity, etc). This time round I'm talking about 'postmodernism versus liberalism'.

I was pondering how to tie it all together in my final lecture, then I came across this from David Butterfield - Ancient Greece guy. He says it as well as I've ever heard anyone say it.

Listen from around 1:09:30 - where he talks about why he left a tenured position at Cambridge.

https://t.co/JsQgokJIXO

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

Losing someone very close to me, what first comes to mind is regret about everything I could've done better.

It really is important to do the right thing - act in accordance with one's conscience I guess - in all situations.

And along with this comes the centrality of responsibility - duty.

It's taken me decades to really grasp this...

Being a parent helps. It burns away all the confusion, and what must be done becomes clearer.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

When we are angry about something, the question is: do we actually care, or is it just sanctioned cruelty?

Hard to say, right?

How will we tell the light from the dark?

'You will know. When you are calm,
at peace. Passive.'

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

An enduring question is: How do we know whether we actually want to solve problems or whether we are merely pursuing social goals (eg belonging, status, career advancement).

An obvious answer is: If we actually want to solve problems, then surely we would be keen to talk about the problems.

The evil genius of the faux-progressives who dominate our world is to say that even talking about a problem is not permitted because the problems of the world are constituted by langauge.

With this move, people protect their pursuit of social goals, and problems don't get solved.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

This is nothing new at all, but... The more I speak my mind, the more I realise on a visceral level how much we are held hostage by the least impressive people - in short, by the people who haven't thought things through, don't want to think things through, and who gain power by being offended or difficult.

Obviously, this is why we need a strong free speech culture.

If we have an incentive system where power can be easily got through denunciation, weaponising the bureaucracy, etc, then those who are least inclined to gain self-worth by doing real things will, alas, thrive.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

One thing you can guarantee about humans is that regardless of whether we care about our own virtue, health, who we have sex with, and much besides, we will ensure that we look good in public.

Shows where our priorities really lie.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

The challenge I find in myself is to keep a level head. Academia, where I work, is so broken that it is tempting to join the other side. But my enemy's enemy is not necessarily my friend. Truth is what we must serve - wherever it leads us. And when I examine my conscience I sometimes find that I've become too cosy with my enemy's enemy.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

Good work Michael!

I was talking about 1984 yesterday in a lecture. As we all know the 'postmodernists' (or 'poststructuralists' or 'anti-foundationalists' - there are endless names) don't think we have access to reality. It's remarkable how much all their talking points are reminiscent of the logic of The Party. The distrust of evidence. The denunciation of common sense. We all know the quote.

“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?”

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

Trump just gets back to work after each assassination attempt.

Meanwhile the rest of us have to take a mental health day after a rude email.

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

Issues:

1) There is an oversupply of 'research'.
2) This is largely because 'research' is how one gets ahead.
3) Optimistically, peer review = quality control.
4) However, in knowledge creation, we want to allow a significant degree of eccentricity - i.e. we ought to cast a wide net (venture capital works this way).
5) However, we can't do #4 because too many 'researchers' are not in good faith.
6) Solution? Um... Greatly reduce the tertiary sector? It's hard to say.

[Natalie Khalil @natalienkhalil]

Basically

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

Marcus Aurelius is sometimes thought of as the best example of Plato's Philosopher Ruler we have ever had. Obvious questions, though, are: if he was so good, then why did Rome still have slaves, go to war, etc? While these questions could sink the ship, Aurelius himself does have a response:

Book 9, 29. 'The cause of the whole is a torrent. It carries all along with it. How very little worth, too, are those poor creatures who pretend to understand affairs of state, and imagine they unite in themselves the statesman and the philosopher! mere froth! Do you, O man! that which nature requires of you, whatever it be. Set about it, if you have the means: and don’t look about you, to see if any be taking notice, and don’t hope for Plato’s common-wealth: But be satisfied if it have the smallest success; and consider the event of this very thing as no small matter. For who can change the opinions of those men? Now, without a change of their opinions, what is it else but a slavery they are groaning under, while they pretend a willing obedience? … The business of philosophy is simple, meek, and modest. Don’t lead me away after [the smoak and vapourof] a vain glorious stateliness.'

The point: You can't force significant change on people, because they will not change their opinions.

It is sad that even with this wisdom, we still had the likes of Communism, whose phony philosopher kings tried to force people to change their minds. And it is sad that even today, what we call 'wokism' or 'identity politics' still tries for force people to change their minds (it is assisted by the postmodern assumptions that language conjures reality into existence and the human mind is a blank slate - i.e. the human mind is infinitely malleable).

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

As I prepare for some more 'challenging' lectures, I'm struck afresh by how massively lost we are. The most basic questions and obvervations remain taboo. It all points to the fact that so many serve the group, not truth (in a better world, we would serve the group by serving truth).

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

Antwuan Dixon is the steeziest skater of all time. And here he is, back with another part at the age of 37. It's a tear-in-your-eye story. He made some bad choices back in the day, but he's since turned it all around.

Check the double flip @ 1:57.

https://t.co/EqqS2vTYhE

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

Some reflections on worriers:

1. One of the most challenging things when dealing with people who are worriers / risk averse, is that sometimes they are right, even though the gestalt of their worrying is ultimately counterproductive.

2. A line I have figured out is this: 'I'm not as reckless as you think. It's just that because my threshold for risk is always higher than yours, it seems to you that I have no threshold.'

[Jamie Q Roberts @JamieQRoberts]

You'd really think that the realisation that we will soon be dead for all eternity would incline us to live less lame lives.

Funny how it doesn't seem to work that way.