Rhetoric Loop
Jeremy just made an excellent comment on one of my Vendetta posts that I think highlights one of the prime issues:
haha, sometimes i think the most effective tactic “they†employ is their ability to create infinite rhetorical loops. we get so stuck trying to escape the loops of rhetoric that we can’t *do* anything.
…is seeing the movie revolutionary? if so, then obviously “they†wouldn’t somehow overlook that fact. so maybe “they†*want* us to see the movie for some reason. but they’d know we’d figure that out, so maybe they’d release it and then pan it so we *think* they hate it when actually they *want* us to see it. but then if they figure that out, then, then, then. maybe “they†want to inspire an actual revolution and copycat acts of terrorism by fooling us into thinking they hate the movie, so that when people start getting inspired to revolutionary acts “they†can bring down the hammer. or, maybe it’s just another way for a bunch of people to get wealthy by charging WAY too much for poppin’ corn and soda. of course, that’s what “they†want you to think.
it’s like getting stuck in a “rhetoric†warp . . . .
Ha. I’m starting to see how Philip K. Dick got into thinking the way he did. So, I guess the question is - how do you step outside the rhetoric loop, the hamster wheel of “what does this mean and how do they want us to take it”? Every time I try to step out of it, I just get caught in another wrinkle that tosses me back in. And the reason I’m focusing on this so much is because it’s not just about this movie. This same shit happens to us with everything. We get caught spinning our wheels in the mud when we could just get out and walk. Except I don’t want any more analogies. I want the real thing.
- END -
ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
- V for Vendetta, Part 3
- Some good old-fashioned link piracy
- V for Vendetta, Part 1
- V for Vendetta, Part 5
- Notes: Chariots and Horses of Israel
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JK has a good post about a new piece of the proposed wiretapping bill that would make it illegal to talk about the fact that we’re under surveillance. what a brilliant fucking rhetorical loop. there is no way to escape that one:
http://www.dunneiv.org/?p=351
If you want to take these loops to a different level, they are the same reason some people become depressed/suicidal. The mind becomes stuck in a logic loop, a loop of neverending despair. Thus, to end the dispair, one must end the ego, either through intentional suicidal actions or through sub-intentional suicidal actions (ie, abusive drug use and other forms of “dangerous” excapism).
It seems at times that the best way to fix such loops is to either 1) step out of the situation to gain new perspective, or 2) rewrite the premises of the logic loop so it ceases to loop. If the new premises do not match reality, then I think it becomes the task of the individual(s) to make it reality.
Just a thought
Invent another point in the trajectory of the loop. Using the example of this movie V for Vendetta (which I haven’t seen yet but I plan to):
Loop: “They want us to see it. They don’t want us to see it. They want us to see it. They don’t want us to see it.”
Invented point: “Who cares what they want? I have $9 and I like Natalie Portman.”
Loop: “If you see it, you’ll be tainted. If you don’t see it, you’ll miss out. If you see it, you’ll be tainted. If you don’t see it, you’ll miss out.”
Invented point: “I’ll be tainted no matter what. I watched American Pie and I seem to be OK despite it.”
After a while, oyou begin to map out a whole new geometry for the loop.
I know you didn’t want analogies, but this one works: I make rap beats and use audio loops all the time. There’s a starting point and ending point for all loops, and in order to render them seamless (meaning that the edit point is undetectable to the average listener) there’s a lot of shaving off of both ends in order to make it fit.
A primitive form of the modern audio loop is (as I stated in another post) the vinyl record with a scratch in it. The scratch randomly occurs on the fabric of the record, and if you’re lucky the resulting “loop” might actually make some linear, musical sense. But that’s very rare. More often than not, a scratch on a vinyl record makes no sense, and irritates upon every 33 rpm revolution pass.
Controlling the loop enables an individual to make sense of the repetition, as well as creating an entirely new work from the remnants of something old.
I guess my point is: don’t let cultural events dictate the infinite rhetorial loops that your mind concocts. Figure out ways to wrangle these loops into submission, so that they serve you rather than torment you.
I went to The Onion immediately after leaving the above comment and found this:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46228
Hilarious. As a CT hobbyist, I find it extremely dead-on.
And, it also serves a purpose, in re: this discussion about loops. What kind of loop is Robert Ericsson stuck in, and how can he step outside of it to confront the reality of his situation? Is he comfortable being stuck in this loop because it gives him a rationale outside of blaming himself? Or is he miserable being stuck in the loop, and is either in denial or silently complicit?
Thank God for The Onion is all I can say…
The question that I do not see you asking is “Why does the rhetorical loop matter?” Answer: By itself, it doesn’t, at least, not enough to bother with. What matters is the goal behind the loop. Figure out who it benefits, and where you got it from. In this way, you can get a feel for how these tricks filter through society. Paranoia helps with this bit. (For those who don’t understand the paranoia bit, here’s a good, albeit kind of funny, illustration.)
If you really have a burning desire to ’solve’ the loop, I have a somewhat simple solution. The rhetorical loop relies on your logic jumping between two or more states in some circular sequence. The key to breaking the loop is to see the loop itself as a state. This allows you to see the transitions out of the loop. That didn’t come out very well. It seemed so much simpler in my head. Any questions are welcome. I would love to be able to explain what I am doing there.
Eventually you want to react to the purveyor who peddles these mentally dangerous wares, but that is a much longer subject.
This reminds me of a scene in Alan Moore’s Promethea where the two main characters accidentally walk onto a Moebius strip and get stuck walking around and around and around. They walk the same path over and over, with a growing sense of unease, until Promethea says “Get off the path! We have to get off the path now!!” and they jump sideways off the path. Her friend Barbara replies, “Whoa, I feel nauseous. How many times did we go round that damn thing? Once? A million times?”
I feel there’s an analogy there. (Yup, another one).
Here’s one way to get off the loop, maybe. Read the book. I just read Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta and it was excellent, really good. Definitely read it before you get “tainted” by the movie; it could serve as a kind of inoculation.
*nods head in agreement*
Ktulu:
I’m going to try and do a post on this tonight before I konk out, but in the seventies in alternative psychology, this same premise was really big. Especially with people like RD Laing, the double bind. He basically believed that schizophrenia wasn’t a chemical or biological situation. He thought that in part people got into that situation mentally because they got caught in a problem which was impossible to solve. They got so far down the loop or the bind that they couldn’t get back out again on their own. He has a whole book of these language loops, called “knots” which depict situations that people get themselves in mentally.
James:
I think you and some other people gave the classic solution to the problem described by these psychologists above. You’re supposed to widen the parameters of the problem until the loop is no longer tight enough to bind. Then you introduce other elements into it which modify the equation.
Doublethink and logical loops can continue for ages - as long as a person is attempting to logically puzzle their way out of a loop like the one proposed above, they will remain trapped. It is, in effect, linked the the scitzophreic double-blind you posted about above. As long as there is insufficient information to make a decision, rational attempts to make that decision will fail. When the loop’s entire purpose is to prevent you from gaining information, as is supposed by many Con. Theorists, a decision point can never be reached rationally.
Eventually, if no logical decision point arrives by studying the loop, a point is arrived at where one is forced to remain in the loop ad infinatum or to make an illogical decision - pick the outcome you personally want, and say “f*** off” to the consequences. In continuance with the zen analogy from the post mentioned above - this would be akin to getting up and wandering away from the test entirely.
As with many such circumstances, there is no immediate way to know if you have made the correct choice - the monk doesn’t hit you if you chose wrong, and doesn’t congratulate you if you chose right - you simply have to wait until much further on, and decide on your own if you made the righ choice or not. If you see it, and the movie sucks, then odds are you will decide you made the wrong choice.
You cannot beat an illogical loop with logic. Sometimes you simply have to make a decision when there isn’t enough information available, ’cause in all our decisions, there are invariably factors and effects we miss… Kinda like why this proposed scenario is a joke to ethical philosophers.
You caught us. The Discordian Society planned this movie as a way to enlighten America, and advance other goals I will not reveal at this time. Alan Moore is one of us, of course, and reading his book will play right into our hands.
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I’m doing a bit more research into double binds, or what we called “rhetorical loops” in a previous post. This is a nice passage from the R [...]