Race is not a social construct: an anti-racist perspective.

[A member of the audience writes in reply to my short video titled, Anti-Racism: Perception and Action:]

I think the real issue is that skin color doesn't tell you anything meaningful about a person's character, which is the only thing that matters. The degree to which anyone else believes your skin color defines you of course changes the way they treat you, but this is a false belief, since race is a social construct rather than a biological reality. Realizing this is as close as we can get to being colorblind, but since there are still people who believe the mirage, we are stuck navigating that regardless.

[And I reply:]

No, you're making two incompatible points: (1) "I think the real issue is that skin color doesn't tell you anything meaningful about a person's character, which is the only thing that matters." (2) "…race is a social construct rather than a biological reality."

Point two is nonsensical if you profoundly understand point one: skin color is a biological reality but is not salient to judgements made about a person's character —it is "real but irrelevant". It would be deeply incoherent to then try to argue that it is unreal and a social construct: in parallel, it wouldn't liberate anyone to argue that homosexuality is unreal and a social construct.

As a further —even more absurd— parallel: it doesn't liberate anyone to argue that veganism is biologically unreal and merely "a social construct". The cultural concept of veganism is different in China, America and Israel today, and a human being could reasonably say that these cultural assumptions are "socially constructed" in some sense, but it is utterly absurd to claim that veganism as such, sensu stricto, is a biologically unreal social construct. Likewise, cultural assumptions surrounding homosexuality are different from place to place, etc.

There is a biological difference between beef and tofu; there is a scientifically, objectively real difference between a vegan and a non-vegan —and, likewise, there is a scientifically, objectively real difference between someone who never drinks alcohol and someone who regularly does —and this difference is ultimately rooted in the biological difference between alcohol and orange juice. If there were no chemically real difference between alcohol and water, and if there were no biologically real difference between the effect of alcohol and the effect of water on your brain and body, this whole line of reasoning would be ridiculous.

Is there some great step taken forward for human equality if we say that the effects of alcohol are "biologically unreal" and is merely "a social construct"? Perhaps the relationship between cholesterol and heart attacks is similarly relativistic?

My video (Anti-Racism: Perception and Action) already made this point: disregarding differences does not overcome them, but deepens them. We do not make progress —and we do not liberate anyone— by pretending that these differences do not exist. What is shallow let us regard as shallow and what is profound let us regard as profound.

This is the London Review of Books… which has become a youtube channel… with all the inevitability of a can of tomato soup rolling down a staircase.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG1RRmjv760

Their struggle to avoid sounding self-congratulatory exacerbates their idiocy: it would have been better if they could have spoken self-confidently in the first person, "This is how and why I became an intellectual, and this is what it means to me, etc."

The Unbelievable Ignorance of the CIA: Somalia in 1968.

Quote, "Politically, Somalia is remarkably cohesive. There are almost none of the ethnic, cultural, or religious divisions which plague much of the rest of Eastern Africa." [Page 3, bullet point 2]

This was not a propaganda statement: this is quoted from a "proper" intelligence report, for the government's internal (and "secret") use only.

LINK: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000231744.pdf

This report certainly failed to foresee a world in which people of Somali ancestry would be a larger percentage of the population of Finland than Italy. And, of course, Somalis are an even larger percentage of population of the state of Minnesota.

It is peculiar to imagine how many of the specialists involved in these projects might still be alive (in Italy, in Russia, etc.) to be interviewed, retrospectively, about their experience in the making and unmaking of modern Somalia, today.

Back in bed with a spinal injury: misc. life update.

Can you believe someone stole my book at the gym? My copy of Plutarch's Lives, volume 1, Loeb edition... stolen right off the stationary bicycle when I left the cycling room for 30 seconds.

LINK: https://youtube.com/shorts/Sg-dExkTq5U

Festina lente, indeed.

 [J. Falcon, a member of the audience, writes in:]

Eisel -- your rapping has been improving, man! Great stuff. What's your current recording process? Flow is tight and compelling overall, but I think you're rushing in a few places (either when you fell behind or starting the next line too soon when a minuscule gap might suit your rhythm better.) If you're not already, recording to a metronome might help you get an even stronger flow (and then removing it from the final version of the recording). If you don't know the exact BPM of a track you're rapping over, you can try getting a free metronome app and tapping the rhythm, which can often detect the tempo pretty accurately. Hopefully I'm not telling you stuff you are already implementing! Great work in any event -- love how much passion and energy comes through in the delivery. You rap like you love life.

Festina lente.

Re: "…but I think you're rushing in a few places…" —this was recorded mere minutes after the lyrics were written, with zero rehearsal or preparation. If you watch the motion of my eyes, you can see that I'm still reading the lyrics off screen as I go and, of course, I'm interrupting myself by breaking out laughing.

I was also recording in natural sunlight, and arbitrarily challenging myself to finish the whole thing before the sun became too dim (on both days). You can see this in the second half: the color tint hasn't been artificially adjusted, it is naturally shifting from yellow to faint blue.

Re: "If you don't know the exact BPM of a track you're rapping over, you can try getting a free metronome app… Hopefully I'm not telling you stuff you are already implementing…" —nope. I never have and I never will. This is "outsider art" in every sense of the term, i.e., the good and the bad of it. I am an outsider to hip hop culture, and an outsider I will remain.

———

[HistoryReset, a member of the audience, writes in:]

This is the tightest rhyme you have dropped since bomb cyclone or [that song about Kanye West].

Yep. The whole creative process took place within two days —and I didn't even work on it "all day" for either one of those days. This was my first time rapping on camera (as opposed to "on the microphone" with the camera turned off) and I think this is now necessary to overturn the assumption that whatever you're doing is A.I. —in other words, I don't have the luxury of being a disembodied voice anymore. ;-)

[Meanwhile:] Cocaine has corrupted the Canadian police. And quite possibly every other police service on earth, at this point.

A few of you will remember (long, long ago) when I challenged the youtuber known as ModVegan on her excuses for the decriminalization of drugs: she believed (e.g.) that everyone should be allowed to use cocaine without fear of legal repercussions, but she then seemed to be unable to deal with the implications when asked how this would apply to police officers, medical doctors —anyone with any real responsibility. This is made more obvious when we are talking about positions of authority that involve life-or-death decisions (like police officers and medical doctors) but the point is the same for even the most modest of minimum wage jobs: neither a construction worker nor a babysitter can be trusted if they're using cocaine —and, on the contrary, both examples may endanger the lives of others.

This is a short news item but some of the details are telling: one police officer asks another if he looks okay —while high on cocaine— as he is about "to go to daycare", presumably to pick up (or drop off) his own child. The other police officer tells him, in reply, to keep his sunglasses on, to conceal his "cocaine eyes".

The problem is more profound than anyone wants to admit to themselves: people leading meaningless lives will risk them for practically nothing at all —for the mere semblance of purpose and meaning brought about by the pursuit of a chemically-induced high.

This is short term gratification that comes at the cost of a real commitment: anyone playing with cocaine (let alone meth, fentanyl, etc.) is aware that they will not grow old. One way or another, they will not experience old age before death.

What happens when workplace cocaine use isn't just a problem in the construction industry, but in the law enforcement industry… quite possibly in each and every industry? Everyone already knows, unless we choose not to know.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn-4epTZEDA

Fear of Failure: the life of the body, the life of the mind.

I do not want to pester my patreon supporters with a notification for each and every "short" uploaded… HOWEVER…

It's not your fault, but it is your problem. #nepal

 

An especially poignant "short" covering the full gamut, from global warming to the breakup with Melissa.

LINK: https://youtube.com/shorts/CniEpHzKtNk

Cocaine Iceberg: Newfoundland.

 

Okay, just this once, I'm gonna say it:

SHARE THE LINK WITH ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

LINK: https://youtu.be/wi-UD3Cr8Fk

Plutarch 02: Romulus and the Rape Culture of Rome.

If the title is too shocking for you, keep in mind: they don't exactly call it "the arranged marriage of the Sabine women."

LINK: https://youtu.be/rDGURRn5kV0