psychology – Page 75

Te Reo With Mnemonics: School and Study Words

to study, to learn – ako

A student is learning how to do arc welding. With a welding helmet on, he shoots electric arcs all over the place. “Ah, cool!” he says.

to teach – whakaako

A student learning arc welding is shooting arcs all over the place instead of aiming them at the metal to be welded. His teacher comes over and says “Fuck arcs!” and then teaches the student how to be more accurate and precise.

Subject – akoranga

An old dignitary on a campus tour approaches a young man who is standing at a sink coring apples. The dignitary asks: “What subject are you studying? Cooking?” The youth looks back and replies: “Ah, Coring.”

Book – pukapuka

A small boy sits reading a picture book about two adventurous pigs. The book is titled ‘Porker Porker‘.

Student – tauira

A number of half-men, half-monkeys sit at desks in a classroom. Absent a teacher, they are occupied with cleaning the wax out of their ears with their own toes. Every student here is a toe-earer.

Teacher – kaiako

A man kayaks down a river. The river runs through a classroom, so he kayaks up the shore, gets out, and starts teaching his class. The teacher is a kayaker.

Professor/teacher of high standing – ahorangi

An old dignitary on a campus tour approaches a woman who is clearly dressed to solicit men for prostitution. The dignitary asks: “You’re a professor? What subject are you a professor of?” The woman looks back and replies: “Ah, Whoring.”

Classroom – akomanga

In a primary school classroom, all the kids line up to hang a comb on a bow turned upside-down for the purpose. At the front of the class room is a comb hanger.

to know, to understand, to realise – mōhio

A woman is teaching a young girl to tapdance. The girl shows what she can do and the woman says “More heel. More heel.” The girl says “Okay, I get it.”

Awareness/Intelligence/Perception – mōhiotanga

A woman walks onto a stage before an audience, blindfolds herself, and says “This dance is called the more heel tango.” She launches into a dance which is mix of tapdancing with heavy emphasis on heel strikes, and the tango. She comes very close to the edge but does not fall off, despite being blindfolded, thanks to a kind of extra-sensory awareness or perception.

Knowledge/Wisdom/Understanding – mātauranga

A bikini-clad beach bunny walks along the boardwalk reading a book called “The Book of Knowledge and Wisdom.” Her toe ring falls off and rolls away, and she calls out “My toe ring!”

University degree – tohu mātauranga

At a graduation ceremony, a barefoot young woman walks on stage to receive her degree. The man gives her the degree and says “Don’t forget to give your toe ring to the dean.” The girl says “Give to who my toe ring?”

This wordlist is an except from Learn Te Reo With Mnemonics, a book being compiled by Jeff Ngatai for an expected release at the beginning of 2020.

Slave Morality and Modern Conceptions of Human Nature

The main reason why there is so much political disagreement in the world is because there are many different conceptions of human nature. As this column has discussed previously, a person’s politics follow directly from their conception of human nature. This essay will look specifically at how slave morality conceives of human nature, and the effect this has on public discourse.

To understand how slave morality conceives of human nature, it’s first necessary to understand the difference between the Hobbesian and the Rousseauean conceptions of it.

Hobbes’s conception, as discussed in Leviathan, is that human life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” The state of nature, for humans, is the same as the state of nature for other animals – a zero-sum game characterised by violence and cruelty. Because life is naturally miserable, enlightened elites are justified in defying nature in various ways, such as building a giant state apparatus to watch over people.

Rousseau’s conception is best described as that of the “noble savage”. The essential idea here is that humanity was better before it was corrupted by civilisation. In a state of nature, Rousseau contends, humans are gregarious, wealthy, kind etc. – the opposite of Hobbes’s conception. Rousseau’s idea belongs to a school of thought broadly described as Romanticism.

The idea that humans are intrinsically good is far from a new one. Confucian philosopher Mencius made the argument, some 2,400 years ago, that humans were inherently good because all humans would instinctively act if they saw a baby crawling towards a well. Confucius himself, however, argued that men had to be bound by laws imposed upon them from above by their betters.

The reality is better understood today, thanks to advances in biological science and ethology. Observational fieldwork of other primate species has shown us that Hobbes and Rousseau were both right and wrong. Humans are more than capable of being either good or evil, both at an individual and at a collective level, and are really more opportunistic than they are moral.

Slave morality blends these two conceptions together and combines them in a single idea girded by unalloyed resentment. Slave morality expresses itself as a belief that the weaker party is automatically the morally superior party. Therefore, whenever there is a conflict, picking a side is as simple as determining who is the weaker party.

What this has led to is a conception of human nature that claims strong people are nasty and Hobbesian, and weak people kind and Rousseauean.

Anyone with high social status is assumed to have achieved it by viciousness, aggression, skulduggery and violence. Nastiness is, to the slave mindset, the only way that one can distinguish oneself from the masses – there is no such thing as excellence. Even the desire to distinguish oneself is evil.

Anyone with low social status, by contrast, is assumed to have received it because they were too kind and loving. Either they got exploited by a nasty Hobbesian, or they gave so much of their wealth away that they were left with nothing themselves. Kindness is, to the slave mindset, the highest moral value, because it avoids confrontation.

Another way that slave morality expresses itself is a refusal to concede that any one person or group of people are superior to any other, in any way. This mentality will deny that the great variety of different environments on this planet resulted in a commensurate variety of different adaptations. To admit this would be to concede that some were better adapted to others. Slave mentality is too resentful to admit this.

At its most dogmatic, slave morality denies any inherent difference between population groups full stop. All differences in outcome are therefore considered to be cultural in nature. This mentality was satirised by StoneToss when he pointed out the contrast between how willing people are to concede that genes explain physical differences on the one hand, with how willing people are to concede that genes explain mental or behavioural differences on the other.

This reaches its greatest absurdity when slave moralists insist that the difference in physical strength between men and women is due to environmental causes. This comically naive logic would be laughable if it was held by a child. When held by a fully serious adult it’s monstrous, and the shadows of the gulags become apparent.

Anyone who has travelled and observed the world (and many people who haven’t) will, of course, have noticed that there are many people who have laboured their entire lives without building up much strength (such as Indians), whereas others don’t need to exercise at all to become strong (such as Polynesians). The other population groups are all somewhere in between.

Moreover, anyone who has travelled will have observed that there are a vast range of different environments on Planet Earth, and therefore a vast range of different survival pressures. This range of survival pressures has necessarily led to a multiplicity of genetic variation.

The genetic basis for the differences in physical strength between populations is obvious. Therefore, it stands to reason that there will be a large variation in mental, intellectual and behavioural tendencies because of genetics.

To disagree is to deny reality, but this is the real horror of slave morality – it rejects life and even reality itself.

Unfortunately, slave morality has started to become normalised on account of the fact that populations are so large now that the vast majority of people have no chance of ever achieving a leadership position. This means that resentment-based narratives will become ever more popular, and accurate scientific information will become ever harder to find.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 is also available.

Why Alt-Centrism is Necessarily A Spiritual Movement

Central to alt-centrist philosophy is that, although it’s possible to understand why people support the other political positions, all those positions are fundamentally misguided by ignorance of the true nature of reality. Because the Establishment positions, the alt-left and the alt-right are all materialist, alt-centrism must distinguish itself from materialism. As this essay will explain, alt-centrism is necessarily a spiritual movement.

Keeping in accordance with the Five Rejections, the alt-centrist believes both that: 1) the current political system has failed and is causing misery, and 2) that the most popular of the proposed solutions to the current system will also fail and will cause more misery.

The ultimate underlying reason for all of this is the process of spiritual degeneration that has taken place over many centuries. Since the destruction of the Eleusinian Mysteries by Christian zealots in the 4th century A.D., the Western World lost touch with the methodologies they once used to connect to God.

Over the past 1,600 years, we’ve gradually come to believe, more and more, that materialist solutions are the only possible ways to alleviate suffering. This morphine-over-meditation reasoning has made us creatures of sensory pleasure. We have abandoned the old ways that led to acceptance of the world and the truth that life is transitory suffering on the way to reunion with God, and replaced them with a child’s narrative that we will never suffer again if we have enough stuff.

This has led to great innovations for making war on our enemies, but has done little to alleviate the suffering of sentient beings. The hyperfocus on knowledge that would allow up to build better weapons or to manufacture greater volumes of widgets has allowed for great physical wealth and power, but it came at the price of a commensurate lack of focus on spiritual knowledge.

We no longer know the spiritual truths of existence. We no longer know that the material world is an illusion borne of God’s will to play, and we no longer know that consciousness survives the death of the physical body and comes thereafter to associate with other consciousnesses on a similar frequency. Because we now believe that this world is all there is, no concern is given to one’s situation after death. It’s simply assumed that, upon the death of one’s physical body, one simply stops existing.

Therefore, much like an 80-minute game of rugby, one must score as much as possible as quickly as possible before one’s time is up.

This leads to a scramble for material wealth and power. Because spiritual knowledge and wealth is considered to have no value, the order of the day is to accumulate as many resources as possible. In New Zealand, and many other places, this has taken its most obscene form in the obsession with rent-seeking. The praised man is not one who has found peace and set his heart to order; the praised man is the billionaire.

The ultimate materialist dream is to own a large amount of property, because then rent can be charged. With enough property, it’s possible to charge enough rent to maintain a lifestyle without doing any work. It might sound incredible, but the popular model of success in our society is someone who has become the largest parasite they could manage to be.

In our severely degraded culture, the man who absorbs wealth from the wider system without working for it is lauded and envied.

The problem exacerbates when crude displays of success at resource accumulation is the only way to attract women. In a degraded age, women are not able to perceive or value higher qualities in men, so they become attracted to superficial ones. This leads to immense resentment, both from men and women, as they come to feel that their chances for a happy marriage were robbed from them.

The alt-centrist rejects this materialist obsession with resource acquisition. It’s obvious that the crude obsession with wealth has locked the vast majority of us into a zero-sum contest for the best-looking women, the trendiest places of residence and the highest positions in the social dominance hierarchy. This is zero-sum at best when the population is small; with a population as large as that of the current world, it’s a recipe for widespread misery.

As mentioned above, however, it isn’t just the Establishment and our inherited culture that is materialist.

The alt-left are atheist and Marxist, and therefore utterly materialist as well. The alt-left, like the original left, considers spirituality a means by which the poor are tricked out of their real wealth. In accordance with the Five Acceptances, alt-centrism accepts that there is some merit in this concern, and that many people claiming to possess spiritual truths were really crooks. The alt-left, however, has gone too far.

In any case, we insist that no number of religious criminals can invalidate the value of genuine spirituality.

The alt-right recognises that the left is materialist, and that this leads to death camps and gulags, but their error is to demand a return to Abrahamism. Alt-centrism rejects this nostalgic attempt to return to the past. Abrahamism has always been a millstone around the neck of the world, and currently it serves only to further entrench pre-existing hatreds. The world needs a new spiritual methodology that unites people across divisions.

The alt-centre, therefore, must be spiritual by way of contrast to the materialist ideologies that have caused so much suffering.

This is another way in which alt-centrism is entirely different to centrism. A regular centrist is likely to also be a materialist, on account of that they are trying to find a balanced compromise between other materialist positions. They note that the left and the right are both materialist, so agreeing on that point seems like a good start. The regular centrist merely follows along with social convention.

The alt-centrist says “Fuck that!” and declares that the fact the paradigm is materialist is evidence to support the case the paradigm needs to be overthrown. If all of the corrupt actors responsible for a failing system tell us that materialism is correct, then it is more likely to be false.

Alt-centrism then, is about a return to spirituality – but not a return to religion.

A return to spirituality would allow for the genuine moral and spiritual self-improvement that materialism denies is possible. If people would focus on this, instead of on acquiring more physical possessions, achieving liberation from suffering would be more realistic. A spiritually improved population would succeed regardless of the political system they laboured under.

Te Reo With Mnemonics: Recreational Drugs Words

Cannabis – tarukino

The Queen sits on a throne smoking some cannabis. A truck backs up to her and dumps a pile of tar in front of her. The cannabis is being smoked by the Tar Queen.

Beer – pia

A man walks along a pier while skulling a bottle of beer.

Tobacco – tupeka

A pouch of tobacco lies on the ground while two chickens peck at it. The tobacco is under attack by two peckers.

Wine – wāina

A family sits at a table in a restaurant. The young boy of the family is sipping from a glass of wine and screwing up his face. He says “But Mum, I don’t like shiraz!” His mother says “Drink up and don’t be such a whiner.”

to smoke – auahi

A man sits at a table, smoking one cigarettes after another out of a pack. A woman comes up to him and says “Where did you cigarettes go?” The man replies: “I smoked them all away.”

to drink – inu

A man sitting at a bar skulls a bottle of hard liquor and then falls on the ground unconscious. Another man asks the barmaid if the man knew he was drinking hard liquor and not lemonade. The women shrugs and says “He knew.”

Spirits/Hard Liquor/Alcohol – waipiro

A man sits in a car drinking hard liquor from a paper bag. It’s raining, and although the car is parked the window wipers are going full tilt.

Methamphetamine – tioata whakaihi

Two men are sitting at a table, smoking meth out of lightbulbs and chewing on rocks in their mania. One of the men says “Chewing all these rocks is making me hungry.” The other man fixes him with a baleful stare and says “Chew harder! Fuck eating!”

Cigarette – hikareti

If you know anyone named Eddie, imagine them hiking along a trail. Then they stop and pull out a cigarette, light it and smoke it. The cigarette is being smoked by Hiker Eddie.

Rolling papers – pepa hikareti

If you know anyone named Eddie, imagine then hiking along a roadside. He comes to a tree that has cigarette rolling papers instead of leaves. A strong wind blows, and it blows the papers off the tree and into Eddie’s face. The rolling papers pepper Hiker Eddie.

to be drunk – haurangi

Two drunks are sitting around in a flat, drinking. The phone rings, and one of them tries to answer it but ends up knocking the phone out of the wall and then falling on his face. The other drunk looks up and slurs: “Who rang?”

to be stoned/high – māngina

Two stoners are sitting around smoking from bongs. One of them says: “I think this weed has got us more stoned than the last stuff.” The other one looks back, shrugs and says “It’s marginal.”

This wordlist is an except from Learn Te Reo With Mnemonics, a book being compiled by Jeff Ngatai for an expected release at the beginning of 2020.