Gregg:

Dividing the population into "identities" (which then need to be  
"federated" to march against injustice) -- as is typical of today's  
"left" (against which Jordan Peterson fights, from the "right") -- is  
an internalization of TELEVISION marketing techniques.

In order to maximize sales and consumption, people have to be chopped  
up into "niches" that can then be "targeted."  It began as  
demographics, which then expanded to psycho-graphics.  In the 90s,  
television marketers designed the one-to-one techniques that are the  
basis for Google, Facebook, Twitter &c business models today.   
Ultimately, the goal was a market-of-one, whose "desires" could then  
be individually tracked and exploited.

At a recent conference at the Wharton School, a group of "leftists" --  
who were previously wildly enthusiastic about how digital technology  
would "decentralize" the world (i.e. reduce us all to "singularities")  
-- met to discuss their essays for an upcoming volume titled "After  
the Digital Tornado" (so-named by its editor/organizer who had  
previously written "The Digital Tornado" praising the Internet, when  
he worked for the FCC.)  Now that Trump has been elected, they are  
really pissed off.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__digitaltornado.net_&d=DwIBaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=jD23beoLVi6GfVPsSZTqXdvEcfAa2ctOi1mHVAo5kpg&s=ejt_90mMnMEG1VBCEfYpod5Z4CwFVbU7czRwanXvlME&e=

When I suggested that the origin of these problems was the approach  
that treated humans as-if they are computers -- Cybernetics, Systems  
Theory, Cognitive and Complexity Sciences -- the response was that "we  
don't care about that, what bothers us is that we are being tracked,  
categorized and targeted -- treated like we are just data to be  
exploited."

As Marshall McLuhan put it in a 1935 letter to his mother, "You may  
know a thing by its fruits if you are silly enough or ignorant enough  
to wait that long."  Indeed.  And those sufficiently handicapped will  
only notice the "fruits" once they appear and never bother to notice  
the tree on which they are growing.

Any description of "What Makes Us Humans Different?" would, it seems,  
require us to notice that we aren't like computers at all and that, in  
fact, those who have promoted such schemes are intending to "program"  
us.  One of these goals is to get us to buy things we don't need.   
Another is to get us to only say-and-do what is "authorized."  With  
the recent round of attacks on the "platforms," the *televisioning* of  
social media is well on its way.

If only JP could step away from his Carl Jung "frame" and notice what  
has *formally* caused all this derangement (instead of just attracting  
crowds to regale them about the malign "fruits.") . . . <g>

Mark

Quoting "Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx" <[log in to unmask]>:

> Hi List,
>   I am going to be replying to the "What Makes Us Humans Different"  
> soon (later today), but I saw this in the NY Times and thought of  
> the discussion about JP and identity politics. It exemplifies the  
> kind of concern I have (and I know JP would have) about the  
> movement.  
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.nytimes.com_2018_08_14_style_white-2Dguilt-2Dprivilege.html&d=DwIBaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=jD23beoLVi6GfVPsSZTqXdvEcfAa2ctOi1mHVAo5kpg&s=pOiELX7LUx2y9-V9N4btBAgqxJ5AW3BC-s4odG8g4C4&e=   
> I recommend Shelby Steele's analysis of White  
> Guilt<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_White-2DGuilt-2DTogether-2DDestroyed-2DPromise_dp_0060578637&d=DwIBaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=jD23beoLVi6GfVPsSZTqXdvEcfAa2ctOi1mHVAo5kpg&s=Oqkb_A672JK74p2GT0dPtYN5MaoapGo8Otg6YUBuQ4Q&e=>, and the damage that it can do to both Blacks and  
> Whites.
>
> G
>
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