House of Eratosthenes

Save me from symbolic gestures. I’m not yet at the point of begging for the sweet release of death to avoid the next one…but, I might very well miss an important surgery appointment to do so. I’m definitely at the point where the food tastes better and the air seems fresher, when there are none in my presence and none looming on the horizon.

I’m not sure what’s causing this glut. I’d say there are many factors, most of them cultural, some relatively recent and some others decades in the making. My county’s particularly obnoxious plastic-bag rule clearly shows the Overton Window has shifted, and there is something wrong.

There is legislation, and there is enforcement. If plastic bags have a deleterious effect on our environment, it is by way of littering, which is against the law already. As one of my Facebook sparring partners ably summed up the argument, “Since people (as a whole) seem unable to keep the environment clean without the benefit of rules, it’s time to make some.” Yeah alright, that creeped me out a little bit. Insanity does that to me.

People shopping for groceries are not doing anything harmful to the environment. People who litter are doing that. The rules are already in existence, the enforcement may be lacking. A legitimate argument can certainly be held about what to do next, but “let’s make some” more rules is not part of that, if it is to be any sort of reasonable discussion.

This is the old saw about the cop finding the drunk guy scrounging around in the parking lot looking for something, which turns out to be a watch he dropped. After helping with the search for a minute or two, the cop asks some more questions and it turns out the watch was lost six blocks away. So…why are we looking here? “The light’s better.” That’s what these people are doing. Confronting evil is hazardous, takes some balls, and most importantly — is unlikely to result in increased, fawning publicity. I would connect it to the frothy outrage in response to the invasion of Iraq, all those years ago. Right? Passing the resolution authorizing member nations to enforce: No problem! A member nation actually enforcing: PROBLEM.

If we discuss this cultural shift honestly, we have to see it for what it is. You simply aren’t supposed to do any enforcing; you aren’t supposed to confront evil. You’re only supposed to go through the motions. More rules, more rules, more rules…don’t ever enforce anything. It makes the people who’ve already decided not to do any enforcing, look bad.

The rules are always aimed at the same places. Soft, rule-abiding types. They may go along enthusiastically, racked by guilt, or they may go along the way I do, full of resentment. But an uprising is unlikely, so this is the soft, fatty tissue — the yummy part. No claws, no thorns, none of that messy back-fighting stuff. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s popular. Hey you homeowners, don’t water your lawns, because drought! And hey you law-abiding gun owners, it’s high time we passed some (more) rules against you! Someone who is not you just shot up a school.

We seem to be living in the age of “Go after the ones who didn’t do it.” I’m not sure how we got here, or how to get out of here. But, we’re here. If we really do want things to get better, that’s our first step. We have to break free of that diseased mindset. People are looking for ways they can vote in elections to make things better, and that’s the answer to that question. Skip that step, the rest of the effort isn’t going to matter much.

“Now is the time for common sense gun control, with only a FEW minor confiscation/fees/registration/licensing/ taxation/ “accredited” classes/ penumbras.”
Services for the public? Let’s just tax the assets of folks that don’t use them, rather than the labor of those that DO!
Oooooooh…..So THAT”S how that works…..
- CaptDMO | 08/26/2016 @ 08:17
“Hang a few doers, pour encourager les autres” seems to sum it up. New regs never require us to do additional things, even though they easily could. “You can’t have more than two plastic bags at checkout” could just as easily be framed as “you’re required to bring a burlap sack to the store to carry your groceries.” Instead of “you can’t buy more than two boxes of ammo,” it could be “you’re required to write a five-paragraph essay about gun safety” for each thousand rounds you purchase. Etc. But it never is. It’s only ever negative; something else you CAN’T do.

Which is the point. You look like you do something, or have the potential to do something, and we can’t have that. We must all be state-managed organ farms. Shut up and take your Soma.
- Severian | 08/26/2016 @ 12:30
The moment someone actually starts doing something, it makes all the empty talkers look bad, and if there’s one law above all others, it’s DON’T MAKE YOUR BETTERS LOOK BAD. Pointing out that you are only doing what they said ought to be done just makes it worse.

The flipside of this coin is treating “problematic” speech as actual deeds of violence. After all, they decreed good things and thus considered them done, so why not punish you for bad things when you only talked badly about someone or something? Actual criminality is too tough to handle, because bad guys ignore scolds, and they behave badly when people try to bring them to book.

Since good guys also ignore pointless scolds, it’s a perfect excuse to dump them into the “bad guy” category – you would comply if you were a nice person!

This, of course, stops working pretty much the moment enough good guys also decide to behave badly. Those times are rushing towards us faster than the Sweet Meteor O’ Death, and may be as hard to deflect. It won’t be a good time for anyone.
- nightfly | 08/26/2016 @ 12:52
[…] last, but not least, House Of Eratosthenes wants to be saved from symbolic […]
- Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove | 08/28/2016 @ 06:35

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Asphyxiating Deluge of Symbolic GesturesFriday, August 26th, 2016

Asphyxiating Deluge of Symbolic Gestures
Friday, August 26th, 2016