complexity

i want to make you understand how fucking complex everything is.

essentialism is a myth; humans have no fixed nature. the whole record of human history(and the history of existence itself) can be explained in terms of the causal principle. the only human nature that can be spoken of is the chemical reaction of the human body to its physical surroundings and internal status.

this is the template for understanding everything about human social organization. we can derive no truths about the "natural" human condition when no human can be observed outside of any social/environmental influences, but by understanding environmental influences we can explain and predict human behavior with some accuracy.

how do people look at history without this mindset? some people are certain that history is driven by the essential differences between groups divided along arbitrary borders, or the influence of a divine being with extremely obscure methods, impenetrable designs. by force of divine or biological inevitability, people possess an essential nature, are 'good' or 'evil' down to their cores.

a complete history, which takes into account the countless baleful horrors of the human condition, can't be explained in this context. the world is a place where prison doctors kick the stomachs of pregnant inmates as they're delivering their babies. the world is a place where women die in dangerous factories, scalded and drowned in vats of boiling rubber. dr. john fian, a real human being in full color who felt pain as real and exquisite as you do, met his end in north berwick, scotland, "put to the most severe and cruel pain in the world, called the boots." if such cruelty is inherent in human nature or inexorable divine will, then we are utterly beyond hope of redemption, we have only to despair.

but this isn't the case. applying the causal principle allows us to avoid viewing history in these stark terms of despair vs. optimism, because it uniquely allows us to derive some aphoristic truths without generalizing away any important facts. i'm thinking of a particular truth here: "everything makes sense." not "everything happens for a reason", but "everything happens for every reason, to varying degrees."

applying the essentialist mindset as a historical method flagrantly defies everything that we actually know about history. an intensive review of even a single historical event requires one to understand an unbelievably sophisticated number of facts which constitute a rough approximation of the sociocultural context in which the event occurred. during a historical event, each actor involved is a product of their entire personal history intersected with the results of their genetic code. the place where the actor was born, their sexual attractions, their gastrointestinal well-being, their childhood nightmares, their personal conflicts of interest, all of these can and do influence historical outcomes in ways that can't be measured. everything makes sense.

to say that these influences can't be measured, however, doesn't mean that they are irrelevant or that they can't be accounted for. as analysis of the historical record grows deeper, the influences of smaller historical forces can be seen; when we do history correctly, we develop an ever-closer approximation of actual history without fully explaining it. it's impossible to know everything, but our generalizations can become marvelously accurate and we can strive to include as much of the historical record as possible in our analysis. because everything makes sense.

when i speak of history, i'm not referring to an isolated academic subject which stands apart from other subjects; countering essentialism also requires us to recognize the arbitrary divisions even between the academic schools. political science, history, sociology, psychology, all of these fields focus on analyzing the total historical record in different parts or for different purposes, but they cannot exist apart. to understand political science thoroughly, you must understand how sociology and psychology effect political actors. to understand sociology, you must understand the place of political entities in the formation of societies and the role of psychology in informing people's social development. the political and social spheres loom large on the landscape of human imagination which psychology seeks to understand. all three topics draw on history for their analysis. an elegant understanding of art and literature is required to account for their influence in these subjects.

and all human history is but a consequence of human biology and environmental circumstances. our biology and environment are but consequences of the laws of chemistry, which are themselves the consequences of the laws of physics. our understanding of physics is shaped and limited by our chemical-biologically determined sensory perception, and the development of physics as a science is a consequence of our unique methods of social organization. things circle in on themselves. there is a completeness, a sort of reciprocal cycle, that the complexity of reality creates. because everything makes sense.

this requires us to be rigorously challenging of our own moral standards. it seriously fucks with the concept of "blame": our whole political system is founded on the idea that people are solely responsible for their own actions and life conditions. but people as actors play no role in their own genetic composition or the environment that shapes them. to go against the environment requires that the actor have some internal difficulty in dealing with an environmental circumstance, and to do this the actor must have some knowledge that things can be different. even then, there are often extreme social consequences to acting against the norm.

in short, we're like the people chained up in the cave in the allegory of the people in the cave by the Greek guy.

john fian and the thousands of curious young girls and unlucky old women who shared his fate died at the hands of miserable, sexually repressed, uneducated, malnourished, perpetually insecure people. those who accused witches were not always petty profit-seekers often quite literally insane with grief in the wake of losing something invaluable to their lives: their virility or fertility, irreplaceable livestock or crops, their health and well-being, the lives of their loved ones. is it unreasonable to be understanding of the actions of these people, who desperately sought explanation and closure and completeness in the face of terrifying events that they couldn't understand? were they truly "evil"?

this is the defense attorney's argument, isn't it? that the atrocity that individuals do can't be separated from the society which created the individual. this is the argument which we are too quick to reject in our hunger to punish people.

the priests who condemned witches to their torture and death did so because they were insane too. deprived of all sexual gratification and given an ideological language of authoritarian malice by their churches. their wealth and privilege could barely protect them from the horrible conditions of the outside world; no amount of money could have bought them decent medical care.

do you see it yet? everything blending together. everything connecting, not in some vague spiritual sense but in the most direct sense imaginable. the individual, irreducible from the universe which developed them.

to get someone to commit torture, you must not only possess the authority which reasonably inspires fear and therefore obedience but you must also dehumanize the subject of torture, you must convince the torturer that their victim is deserving.

to maintain racial apartheid in any society, the authority figures of that society must work tirelessly to prevent miscegenation and integration. the racist institution is constantly threatened by the possibility that people will just stop caring about the cultural divide and start fucking.

to study the abuser, determine at what points and in which what ways they were abused.

do you see it yet? the causal principle is the foundation of everything. intellectual honesty can only occur when you recognize the staggering complexity of all existence and constantly compare your own intellectual products against this standard.

essentialist arguments attempt to make arbitrary divisions meaningful. they unwittingly sacrifice accuracy and validity for the sake of efficiency. this isn't necessarily wrong; indeed, the best generalizations are actually extremely effective, descriptive, and practical. they should never, however, be confused for the indescribably complex reality which they seek to describe.

do you see it yet?