Makes sense. Delving into the "why" can often lead into chaos which might lead to a diminished understanding or even total ignorance of the "what". An example would be Christian pacifists who read all kinds of things into the 'Cleansing of the Temple' in order to avoid the thought that Jesus "might have" used force. "He only whipped the animals!", or "He whipped the pillars of the temple, not the people!" are the ridiculous outcomes of such an approach.
This was useful for me in a number of ways. I couldn't fathom why Vox would not be interested in the why. I certainly am, and I know that he has a curious brain too, though, of course there is no accounting for taste.
The answer appears to be that he has a better grasp of how to bridge the IQ gap with normies than I do. The concept that anyone would assume that because they don't understand what the motivation is one does not exist, or that because they can't imagine something it necessarily means it's not true and so on, while... well... obvious, I suppose, just didn't present to me as something a sane person would do. I do wonder if perhaps this is because he has interfaced with humans through his blog for considerably longer than I have, at least in a serious manner. I blogged before too, but mostly just as a form of self-entertainment or general humour. And certainly in the last couple of years, the feedback from the people who read my blog has shown patterns that are hard to ignore.
And it is a pattern I do have, that apparently I keep being too optimistic when it comes to the capacity of humans to not delude themselves. So thanks for explaining this. On the positive side, I think reviewing my opinions concerning the why, I don't see that any of my conclusions, (which are mostly statistical observations, so not like hard lines) suffer from any of the logical flaws he mentions here, so my views on it may in fact be relatively close to the truth.
Dear Lord, hear my prayer: please have these words delivered to every US State Department employee! Preferably, with the words inscribed on a baseball bat that smacks them on both sides of their pointy heads. Amen
Often heard/seen in reply to those claims that would undermine the post-WWII structures of understanding set out in the curricula we received: "Why would they lie?"
At this point, would you believe they've been getting the Russians the whole time? They had to run Operation Gladio and move chipmaking to Taiwan because: commies. They had to blow the pipelines because: commies. But Russians aren't commies you say. Shut up, they argued.
It's an emotional thing. If you have trust in your priest or your media, and you don't want to play with the idea that you have been lied to, then you deny it. Because distrust requires to find out how you have been lied to. What it says about you, about them for fooling you for years, and then you also have to find out what and how the world is. The world behind the lies which you have been believing in for so long.
I tried in vain to convince my then 81 year old mom not to get vaxxed. I told her covid was just the flu with new scary label. Her response was, of course, "why would they lie?". Can't argue with that! She's decently intelligent, but unbelievably naive. She's gotten at least one, likely two boosters since, after I pleaded with her not to. Silents deify the Cult of the White Lab-coat.
The vaxxes have had an effect on her, but with all of her other ailments (and being 83), it's easy to blame the vaxx effects on issues she already had. She still believes doctors are smarter than her since she was brainwashed by soaps into seeing them as god-like.
The soaps she watched the last 50 years were all about heroic doctors and nurses in hospitals saving lives every day. The programming has been overwhelming for that generation.
I appreciate that Vox Day has been so ruthless in emphasizing this aspect about how to think about the SSH and how to wield this knowledge. I wish other authors and thinkers would do the same. Thanks.
Does focusing on the what and not the why kill Aristotle?
Aristotelian virtue ethics place motivation ahead of the action. An action is considered virtuous not only because of its outcome but also because it was performed with the right intent. According to Aristotle, The virtue of the agent, his character, and motivations are central to determining the morality of an action.
If we kill Aristotle, then we must also kill the West from the Magna Carta through the Scottish Enlightenment, and on to the close of the Modern Era. Postmodernism is nothing but the why, the triumph of why. Postmodernism is already dead.
Is this really what is being proposed? The death of Aristotle and Aquinas and perhaps the return of Marcus Aurelius and Cicero?
What a do over such a concept is. A Christian Marcus Aurelius might have been the missing keystone in the construction of Western Civilization.
My friends, this is truly audacious. This is profound, if this is where Vox is leading us. If this is where Vox is taking us, to a do over with Christian Stoics instead of pagan Stoics, then heck yes. I am in.
Absolutely not. I am, if anything, an Aristotelian. But the SSH does not concern morality, nor is it a philosophy. Therefore, the focusing on the What has absolutely no significance for Aristotle or any other philosophy. One might even not-unreasonably conclude the articulation of the SSH is an Aristotelian-style categorization.
Also, in light of the way many people here struggle to understand basic applications of observable behavioral patterns, they should not even think about attempting philosophy of any kind.
Aaah. This has been an error on my part. I assumed that the SSH extended into philosophy when the problem of the why emerged. Thank you for your response and clarification.
This is similar to the very obvious and crazy popular view of MPAI that what people say or think is somehow more important than what they do. No. What people do is more important than what they say or think. The Bible says, "You shall know them by their fruits." The Bible does not say, "You shall know them by their thoughts (or motivations)."
> The Bible says, "You shall know them by their fruits."
Thank you for this. I was writing and rewriting a comment yesterday about this. What and how is clearly shown in people's actions, behaviours which have causes and results from those choices. What and how is clear. But the why people do what and how they do it, that can't be seen. And any psychological explanations for them, well, it's pointless to answer, as you can't falsify or prove the why. Not as you can show what and how.
They pretend to care what people think in hopes of erecting pre-crime. Meantime multitudes of crimes go un investigated and unpunished or unrectified daily.
To use the True Detective quote, "You attach an assumption to a piece of evidence, you start to bend the narrative to support it and prejudice yourself."
Right now we are seeing 'junk DNA' being vindicated as quite vital to the whole process of living, as opposed to being the completely useless debris incurious scientists thought it was. We recently learned that the low-fat diet was completely wrong and based on assumptions on 'why' people get fat rather then observing 'what' happens to actual living human beings who have eaten those diets.
Isn't it both useful and difficult enough to log what effects are happening, without having to invent weirdo stories out of whole cloth? Anthropologists, who apparently are even dumber than biologists, thought Stonehenge was constructed by aliens because they couldn't imagine how to raise up simple stone pillars with all their social science degrees. "They're so heavy!!" Then Wally Wallington, a retired construction worker from Michigan, demonstrated that he could raise the stone pillars by himself with simple levers and counterweights.
They should have fired the entire anthropology dept that instant.
The way I saw this best-explained here (for me) was a situation where a young man has committed harm during a robbery/theft. When you start exploring the "Why"(poverty, trauma, socio-economic status, etc) the only result or end is to diminish/dismiss the "What"
If you ask the young man, he'd say "cause it was there." If you ask the biddy probably Irish down the street, she'll come with all sorts of attenuations and excuse making summed up as "Only a Lad."
By observing the What, you begin to recognize patterns. By observing the variables surrounding said patterns, you can then start predicting behaviors. The Why is a nice fluff piece to round out the phenomenon, but it's merely decorative.
Makes sense. Delving into the "why" can often lead into chaos which might lead to a diminished understanding or even total ignorance of the "what". An example would be Christian pacifists who read all kinds of things into the 'Cleansing of the Temple' in order to avoid the thought that Jesus "might have" used force. "He only whipped the animals!", or "He whipped the pillars of the temple, not the people!" are the ridiculous outcomes of such an approach.
This was useful for me in a number of ways. I couldn't fathom why Vox would not be interested in the why. I certainly am, and I know that he has a curious brain too, though, of course there is no accounting for taste.
The answer appears to be that he has a better grasp of how to bridge the IQ gap with normies than I do. The concept that anyone would assume that because they don't understand what the motivation is one does not exist, or that because they can't imagine something it necessarily means it's not true and so on, while... well... obvious, I suppose, just didn't present to me as something a sane person would do. I do wonder if perhaps this is because he has interfaced with humans through his blog for considerably longer than I have, at least in a serious manner. I blogged before too, but mostly just as a form of self-entertainment or general humour. And certainly in the last couple of years, the feedback from the people who read my blog has shown patterns that are hard to ignore.
And it is a pattern I do have, that apparently I keep being too optimistic when it comes to the capacity of humans to not delude themselves. So thanks for explaining this. On the positive side, I think reviewing my opinions concerning the why, I don't see that any of my conclusions, (which are mostly statistical observations, so not like hard lines) suffer from any of the logical flaws he mentions here, so my views on it may in fact be relatively close to the truth.
"Why" is generally only useful for knowing yourself, but navel has diminishing returns and should be used for small time frames.
Other peoples motives are there own and only use of knowing their motives is to seek to manipulate them.
You will know them by their fruits.
Dear Lord, hear my prayer: please have these words delivered to every US State Department employee! Preferably, with the words inscribed on a baseball bat that smacks them on both sides of their pointy heads. Amen
All human beings are deluded, "what" allows us to minimize it's impact.
Why is useful in tightly defined points. The motor failed three times when doing X. Maybe figure out why.
But you fix the problem before the navel gazing.
However in today's corporate world, why is more important than what
Often heard/seen in reply to those claims that would undermine the post-WWII structures of understanding set out in the curricula we received: "Why would they lie?"
At this point, would you believe they've been getting the Russians the whole time? They had to run Operation Gladio and move chipmaking to Taiwan because: commies. They had to blow the pipelines because: commies. But Russians aren't commies you say. Shut up, they argued.
"Why would they lie?"
It's an emotional thing. If you have trust in your priest or your media, and you don't want to play with the idea that you have been lied to, then you deny it. Because distrust requires to find out how you have been lied to. What it says about you, about them for fooling you for years, and then you also have to find out what and how the world is. The world behind the lies which you have been believing in for so long.
I tried in vain to convince my then 81 year old mom not to get vaxxed. I told her covid was just the flu with new scary label. Her response was, of course, "why would they lie?". Can't argue with that! She's decently intelligent, but unbelievably naive. She's gotten at least one, likely two boosters since, after I pleaded with her not to. Silents deify the Cult of the White Lab-coat.
Maybe it’s the post enlightenment understanding. They’ve been working us with purpose and direction for a long time. Hope she’s doing ok.
The vaxxes have had an effect on her, but with all of her other ailments (and being 83), it's easy to blame the vaxx effects on issues she already had. She still believes doctors are smarter than her since she was brainwashed by soaps into seeing them as god-like.
The soaps she watched the last 50 years were all about heroic doctors and nurses in hospitals saving lives every day. The programming has been overwhelming for that generation.
True, that is why every parent has said to their child “What were you thinking.” Never “Why were you thinking.”
I appreciate that Vox Day has been so ruthless in emphasizing this aspect about how to think about the SSH and how to wield this knowledge. I wish other authors and thinkers would do the same. Thanks.
Does focusing on the what and not the why kill Aristotle?
Aristotelian virtue ethics place motivation ahead of the action. An action is considered virtuous not only because of its outcome but also because it was performed with the right intent. According to Aristotle, The virtue of the agent, his character, and motivations are central to determining the morality of an action.
If we kill Aristotle, then we must also kill the West from the Magna Carta through the Scottish Enlightenment, and on to the close of the Modern Era. Postmodernism is nothing but the why, the triumph of why. Postmodernism is already dead.
Is this really what is being proposed? The death of Aristotle and Aquinas and perhaps the return of Marcus Aurelius and Cicero?
What a do over such a concept is. A Christian Marcus Aurelius might have been the missing keystone in the construction of Western Civilization.
My friends, this is truly audacious. This is profound, if this is where Vox is leading us. If this is where Vox is taking us, to a do over with Christian Stoics instead of pagan Stoics, then heck yes. I am in.
Absolutely not. I am, if anything, an Aristotelian. But the SSH does not concern morality, nor is it a philosophy. Therefore, the focusing on the What has absolutely no significance for Aristotle or any other philosophy. One might even not-unreasonably conclude the articulation of the SSH is an Aristotelian-style categorization.
Also, in light of the way many people here struggle to understand basic applications of observable behavioral patterns, they should not even think about attempting philosophy of any kind.
Aaah. This has been an error on my part. I assumed that the SSH extended into philosophy when the problem of the why emerged. Thank you for your response and clarification.
You were getting me fired up. But alas there are no do-overs.
This is similar to the very obvious and crazy popular view of MPAI that what people say or think is somehow more important than what they do. No. What people do is more important than what they say or think. The Bible says, "You shall know them by their fruits." The Bible does not say, "You shall know them by their thoughts (or motivations)."
> The Bible says, "You shall know them by their fruits."
Thank you for this. I was writing and rewriting a comment yesterday about this. What and how is clearly shown in people's actions, behaviours which have causes and results from those choices. What and how is clear. But the why people do what and how they do it, that can't be seen. And any psychological explanations for them, well, it's pointless to answer, as you can't falsify or prove the why. Not as you can show what and how.
They pretend to care what people think in hopes of erecting pre-crime. Meantime multitudes of crimes go un investigated and unpunished or unrectified daily.
To use the True Detective quote, "You attach an assumption to a piece of evidence, you start to bend the narrative to support it and prejudice yourself."
Right now we are seeing 'junk DNA' being vindicated as quite vital to the whole process of living, as opposed to being the completely useless debris incurious scientists thought it was. We recently learned that the low-fat diet was completely wrong and based on assumptions on 'why' people get fat rather then observing 'what' happens to actual living human beings who have eaten those diets.
Isn't it both useful and difficult enough to log what effects are happening, without having to invent weirdo stories out of whole cloth? Anthropologists, who apparently are even dumber than biologists, thought Stonehenge was constructed by aliens because they couldn't imagine how to raise up simple stone pillars with all their social science degrees. "They're so heavy!!" Then Wally Wallington, a retired construction worker from Michigan, demonstrated that he could raise the stone pillars by himself with simple levers and counterweights.
They should have fired the entire anthropology dept that instant.
Ha, Wally was probably a Sigma
The way I saw this best-explained here (for me) was a situation where a young man has committed harm during a robbery/theft. When you start exploring the "Why"(poverty, trauma, socio-economic status, etc) the only result or end is to diminish/dismiss the "What"
If you ask the young man, he'd say "cause it was there." If you ask the biddy probably Irish down the street, she'll come with all sorts of attenuations and excuse making summed up as "Only a Lad."
This stack is my favorite daily read, much Gratitude for the content and sharing. Love the Comments section too! It's a Good Life!
By observing the What, you begin to recognize patterns. By observing the variables surrounding said patterns, you can then start predicting behaviors. The Why is a nice fluff piece to round out the phenomenon, but it's merely decorative.
Oh I'm glad! Like I said, some great comedy and just fun.