GAMSAT S2 Insights

Love [1/1]

There is something about us where we have a longing and because its directed towards that which cant be satisfied, it means that all of the things we put in the place of that longing almost end up being overwhelmed or falling short of it.

Joy [1/1]

Joy isn't something you can chase or keep. It comes only after hard struggle and disappointment, and its force matches the effort that led to it.

Contempt [1/5] (contempt is different…)

Contempt is different from resentment. Contempt must be expressed. It is performative.

Contempt [2/5] (we are living…)

We are living through an epidemic of mutual contempt, where we share nothing with our 'enemies'. Therefore, they can purely be the objects of our condemnation. This moralization of our political differences is such that there can be no compromise as it becomes less about solving the issue and more about good vs non-existent evil. - rewording to third person

Contempt [3/5] (it's not simply…)

it's not simply that we are angry with one another, but that anger has been transfigured into something deeper: contempt. Disagreement now implies not just a difference in opinion, but a moral indictment of the other person.

Contempt [4/5] (anger in so many ways…)

Anger in so many ways, leads us away from the ability to recognise the dignity in people. This is because anger enrages the face and clouds the vision and prevents us from seeing what is in fact there.

Contempt [5/5] (contempt turns…)

Contempt turns interminable disagreements (of the sort wherein we struggle together to understand the differences between our visions of our shared world in recognition of the moral and political worth of our interlocutor, and the importance of this process to democracy) into incommensurable disagreements (where we allow contempt to enter our vision of the other, and to undermine thereby democracy and any chance of a shared world in which we are at peace).

Optimism [1/1]

Optimism is rather a commitment ; that if I fall backwards, there is a citizen who will be there to catch me. Almost a religious dogma within a democracy.

Hope [1/1]

Hope refuses to succumb to despair but insists on taking that next step even if the future cannot be foreseen and so the experience of hope gives us more than merely optimism; its enriching in its own way.

Identity [1/1]

Identity, as a term that was one connoted to mean something deeper, richer, and involved obligation, has morphed into something that is individualistic and claiming.

Solitude [1/1]

solitude is active not passive in the way that social media consumption might be - it demands that the stimulation comes from within by reflecting oneself, rather than an external agent with a financial or ideological motive

Evil [1/3] (over the course…)

Over the course of the last century, in terms of mass-culture, aesthetics, movies, poetry, novels and even ethically, the existence of acts of tremendous inhumanity, atrocities, and inhuman evil have become far more vivid than countervailing representations of the good

Evil [2/3] (the paradox…)

The paradox is that If our definition of evil is that it sets out to exterminate or vanquish the humanity of a particular group of people, it doesn't make a huge amount of sense then to assign that same title on the perpetrators of that action - to place them beyond the domain of negotiation, deliberation and so on.

Evil [3/3] (evil has been…)

Evil has been given a bad name. Not for bad reasons. There is a real problem in assigning the identity, the name, the label evil to a person, to a group to a nation. Because once you assign someone that name that nomenclature that label, they are off the table of human cooperation or even compilation.

Despair [1/1]

Despair is a feeling that a world that you wanted and were willing to struggle for has been pulled away and subsequently we register the depth and value of the thing we lost through this pain.

Fear [1/1]

One of the corrosive consequences of fear is the abandonment of the moral field. When one is fearful, one retreats ever more willingly to notions of necessity; they will sacrifice whatever rules by which they should live their lives in the interests of self-preservation.

Shame [1/3] (emotions are taken…)

Emotions are taken as evidence of rightness and a side of moral seriousness - because someone is that angry they are right. It is a difficult thing to take someone who is angry and say they are wrong, to do that almost becomes a shameful act.

Shame [2/3] (shame seems to…)

Shame seems to focus itself not so much on the actions of the person but on the person itself. -> we have lost the capacity to separate the sin from the sinner

Shame [3/3] (the way we express…)

The way we express our political polarisation is to shame those who transgress some sort of moral or political line we have established. The idea of morality which might apply to people in the way they act has been displaced by a liberal revolution to be something that only has meaning in the context of causing harm to another. We find it very difficult to brand something immoral where we cannot immediately identify harm caused to another person.

Culture [1/3] (we have to affirm…)

We have to affirm something if we're to have a culture. the problem with affirmation is as soon as you affirm, you invite deconstruction. So we have a culture of perpetual deconstruction. affirmation becomes impossible. Once affirmation becomes impossible, you no longer really have a culture to speak of.

Culture [2/3] (affirmation is not…)

Affirmation is not only something we just don't happen to do, but even something that we're in many respects culturally hostile to, because it ends up becoming uncomfortably close in our public imagination to things like dogma.

Culture [3/3] (taste is not…)

Taste is not only about what we enjoy, it is also about what our culture teaches us to admire. Sometimes we like something freely, but sometimes our "taste" is shaped by the desire to seem intelligent, refined, original, or part of a certain group.

Forgiveness [1/1]

forgiveness isn't mere liberation from guilt and its consequences but ought to be the restoration of moral community or cultivation of a shared understanding of the wrong that has been done.

History [1/1]

When we cut ourselves off from moral traditions and wisdom, our language flattens into mere utility. We lose the vocabulary needed to name, let alone pursue, a good life.

Knowledge [1/3] (reading should not…)

Reading should not be an act of consumption. It's an active encounter coming face to face with something metaphorically speaking that is not us, but to which we have to attend.

Knowledge [2/3] (the purpose of…)

The purpose of knowledge is not accumulation, but transformation. When knowledge becomes a performance of intellect rather than a catalyst for action, it ceases to be truly beneficial.

Knowledge [3/3] (real limits force…)

Real limits force creators to wrestle with their tools, and that tension sparks powerful breakthroughs. Push an instrument to its edge and beauty appears in what it can almost, but not quite, do. Hand over a tool that does everything on demand and the vital struggle disappears, along with the thrill of discovery.

Truth [1/2] (lying may distort…)

Lying may distort the truth, but hypocrisy distorts the self - it corrodes integrity by performing virtue while concealing vice.

Truth [1/2] (guilt and anxiety…)

guilt and anxiety always point you towards the truth, and that's one of the reasons we tend to run away from both

Boredom [1/5] (we try to…)

We try to keep boredom at bay by amassing this steady stream of short term no teleological distractions. The thing they exist for is to keep at bay one's presence with oneself - one's affirmation with one's inner-life and the passage of time. Proximate activities that seem to not go anywhere can be morally loaded with significance as they are the proper activities conducted in this type of time. There is never not a time to exercise kindness, consideration, deference - these are forms of proximate behaviour done in the shadow of the passage of time in which we are insignificant. These can fill moments of insignificance with immense significance.

Boredom [2/5] (there is something…)

There is something about us where we have a longing and because its directed towards that which cant be satisfied, it means that all of the things we put in the place of that longing almost end up being overwhelmed or falling short of it.

Boredom [3/5] (people have…)

People have become avatars rather than complex characters

Boredom [4/5] (the great enemies…)

The great enemies of attention or attentiveness are haste, superficiality, mischaracterisation, dismissal, high minded or haughty disdain

Boredom [5/5] (we have effectively…)

We have effectively reduced ourselves to being avatars to one another. Therefore, not people who can deliberate in good faith, but rather people who effectively hold or fill in particular ideological positions, who therefore can't be persuaded.

Trust [1/4] (whatever matters…)

Whatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives.

Trust [2/4] (trust is that…)

Trust is that which preserves what is of greatest value, our ability to act together for common purpose, we realise that in an atmosphere that is as fragile as a democratic political community, everything depends on trust. When you give yourself to pervasive mistrust, too much mistrust and too much regarding another person of a threat and too little concern for cultivating conditions for which trust can be built. Too much of that loses too much of what is precious in democratic life.

Trust [3/4] (trust breaks down…)

Trust breaks down when people feel justice is not being shared fairly. Once citizens believe others are receiving special treatment, society begins to "marinate" in suspicion, and common life becomes harder to sustain.

Trust [4/4] (there is an attendant…)

There is an attendant lack of faith in institutions with institutions that are losing the faith of people, partly because we are a wash in this kind of anti institutionalism that takes conspiratorial turns. How are those very institutions meant to provide the guardrails, to manifest some kind of ethic of proper right upstanding information?

Jealousy [1/1]

Jealousy is driven by deformed possession, the moment someone else sets their sites on the very thing that is mine, it not a violation of the thing, but a violation of me, of my ego

Future generations [1/1]

Future generations cannot vote, protest, or defend themselves, but their silence does not weaken our duty to them. The challenge is to care for the future without letting powerful people use "the future" as an excuse to ignore the needs of the present.

Ageing [1/5] (how we regard…)

How we regard age, the process of aging depends on what it is we value most in a given community. If you value restraint and wisdom, then you will see age as something necessary to the human experience. If you value virality, sleekness and autonomy, then you will see age as the loss of the things that matter most.

Ageing [2/5] (western culture…)

Western culture has developed a pervasive bias against the ungroomed. As a subtle form of contempt, natural appearances are interpreted as signs of neglect or resignation. In doing so, we reinforce an aesthetic orthodoxy rooted in the pursuit of youthfulness.

Ageing [3/5] (where there is…)

When there is so little about life that we simply accept as belonging to the human condition - this is just part of the state of nature and unavoidable in human life. There are very few aspects of human life that we give ourselves over to the natural course of things, we are habitual interveners.

Ageing [4/5] (it's the culture…)

It's the culture that sets the tone and hierarchy of values and the extent to which age moves towards or away from what matters most.

Ageing [5/5] (there is nothing…)

There is nothing that is more central to the human condition than the act of aging - the fact of our gradual change through time, the fact of our gradual, steady mortality. Because of our condition as creatures of finitude, as belonging to species that are bound together in our finitude of mortality, we age such that who we are is fundamentally an existence that is lived in the shadow of death.

Compromise [1/2] (compromise isn't…)

Compromise isn't simply adopting another's perspective to resolve a dispute. Rather, it involves the shaping and tension of two distinct moral realities, bringing us closer to an approximation of a shared moral ideal.

Compromise [2/2] (moral convictions…)

Moral convictions are undermining our ability to reach a compromise in political discussions. By tying our political positions to our personal morality, any concession begins to feel like a betrayal of one's values or a loss of credibility "

Compassion & Cohesion [1/6] (compassion is not…)

Compassion is not simply putting myself in that person's shoes but rather the recognition that this person is undergoing something that I too could fall foul of. Compassion is instead the extending of the soul from one person to another in recognition of our shared vulnerability.

Compassion & Cohesion [2/6] (we trust one another…)

We trust one another when we believe that there is something fundamental within us and between us that we all follow, of one speaking to one another using the language of humanity. Conversely when the language of humanity gets eroded it means we can not appeal to one another, and are more likely to give up attempts to restore some sense of the civic good, or the essentially humanity and dignity which unites us as members of a common political, or even human, project.

Compassion & Cohesion [3/6] (there is a certain…)

There is a certain spirit of generosity and warmth in unwritten rules, the fact that it is a soft obligation does not seem to take it away, but the minute it's written down and becomes an explicit obligation it becomes cold. It becomes cold because these acts undermine the trust and goodwill that made them warm ->

Compassion & Cohesion [4/6] (engaging with…)

Engaging with someone's words, not with this disbelief about the motif behind them, but seeing the words, is the only way we can really morally engage with someone.

Compassion & Cohesion [5/6] (social cohesion can…)

Social cohesion can become a hollow phrase when it only means people feeling comfortable, rather than society being genuinely held together. Real cohesion is not the absence of discomfort, it is the presence of trust, fairness and shared obligation.

Compassion & Cohesion [6/6] (social cohesion cannot…)

Social cohesion cannot be forced from above when people no longer share a sense of justice. If the state tries to manufacture unity through slogans, bureaucracy or force, it can deepen distrust instead of repairing it.

Soul blindness [1/2] (soul blindness is a failure…)

Soul blindness is a failure to see the richness and fullness of what it is that is actually there. We cannot see the object we're looking at as being fully human and as having a depth of feeling and being capable of pain.

Soul blindness [2/2] (soul blindness is a moral…)

Soul blindness is a moral incapacity. The inability to see what is there and instead diminish and reduce that which is there to a mere object or something regarded with contempt and disdain.

Environment [1/2] (the contemporary…)

The contemporary western world has an imbibed axiom of conquering limits rather than accepting them. In doing so, the ideas of nature and our natural boundaries (ideas that underscore death) are seen merely as frontiers rather than limits.

Environment [2/2] (scarcity tests…)

Scarcity tests whether democracy is built on shared duty or just private comfort. When resources feel threatened, citizens can quickly become competitors, and neighbours can start to look like threats rather than people whose burdens we share.

Democracy [1/] (democracies survive…)

Democracies survive, when a loss isn't permanent. Democracies are able to continue, when the conditions of the common life of a people aren't undermined by another side winning, but rather when we relent, we consent, even to ourselves, our side, our particular political persuasion, our vision of the life of the nation

Democracy [2/] (trust in a democracy…)

Trust in a democracy doesn't begin between individuals, it flows from the top. When institutions fail to show virtue, restraint, or care for the common good, people stop believing that they owe anything to each other. Wildness without virtue isn't freedom, it's collapse dressed up as expression.

Democracy [3/] (it is a core…)

It is a core democratic principle — in a very radical way — that we are each, as a matter of moral conviction and democratic practice, answerable to one another.

Populism & Propaganda [1/5] (populism taps…)

Populism taps into our emotional hardwiring, providing simplified solutions that promote the belief that a receding of vested interests and sheer will can bring about great change

Populism & Propaganda [2/5] (one of the things…)

One of the things that lies at the heart of whatever both political populism, and propaganda, is meant to appeal to is the longing for a degree of simplification in a world that has otherwise varied complex pluralistic.

Populism & Propaganda [3/5] (in modern political…)

In modern political communities, the will of the people needs to be cultivated in such a way that its then amenable to the interest of the party. There is an understanding that the legitimacy of the party is founded on the opinion of the people. Propaganda manufactures public opinion by providing individuals a comfortable environment that provides a sense of at homeness, for understanding in a simple or reductive way why exactly a common enemy is worthy of contempt, or even harm.

Populism & Propaganda [4/5] (populist policies…)

Populist policies appeal to people's inate, uninformed perhaps uneducated fears and gives them something that they think they want as a way of placating them, but not really solving the issue entirely.

Populism & Propaganda [5/5] (one of the reasons…)

One of the reasons that propaganda is ideological and ideology is propagandistic is that it provides us with a kind of comforting environment within which things make sense.

Political violence [1/1]

Political violence distinguishes itself by being instrumental, it's seeking particular ends. One of the things we can be sure, is that the practice of violence like all actions changes the word, but the most probable change is violence. When a representative figure that's meant to attract and bring together aspirations, fears and self-projection of what it means to be american. When that figure is subject to violence there's something that tears at the heart of the people unlike any other form of violence.

Misinformation [1/2] (the danger of…)

The danger of misinformation isn't that people are going to be persuaded by it. The danger of misinformation is that people who see the world in a particular way and want to buy into a dark view of reality are able to.

Misinformation [2/2] (misinformation gives…)

Misinformation gives those who want to see the world in a particular way, reason to continue doing so.

Journalism [1/] (you supply the…)

You supply the images, I'll provide the war. There's a kind of hand in glove that's going on there, where the news needs to get just out ahead of the events, and that the images that are being supplied are meant to create.

Interdependence [1/1]

Interdependence can create peace because nations rely on each other, but it can also become a source of weakness when that dependence is weaponised. The difficult question is whether a country should accept higher costs and less convenience today to protect itself from crisis tomorrow.

Technology [1/2] (in the age of AI…)

In the age of AI, literacy is no longer just about reading and writing but it is about verification. Technology has made the "cost" of information near zero, which has ironically made the "value" of truth much higher

Technology [2/2] (the conditions in…)

The conditions in which automation, of the type of AI, would be morally and culturally justified, or not destructive, would be in circumstances in which the quality of human life is not diminished in the process and that what might be lost in the sphere of cultural production (by things like AI making art, film, or music, for instance) would be gained in sphere of convenience and of money making

Power of Influencers [1/3] (there is something…)

There is something imaginatively stunting about images and even morally compromising because they work their way into your heart and in some way harden or soften it. They can do all kinds of things. In a drip by drip effect, a kind of formative action upon the character and moral formation.

Power of Influencers [2/3] (in image saturation…)

In image saturation we replace something of essence with something of an icon. Then we submit to or sanctify that icon. In doing so, any pictorial representation immediately debases the essence we once imagined.

Power of Influencers [3/3] (some things are…)

Some things are meant to remain beyond the reach of our sight. When we turn them into idols, we diminish what they represent—and in doing so, erode our moral imagination. The image lodges itself in the soul like a splinter. No matter what you believe about the object, what now arises in the mind is a distorted and degraded version of it.

Distractive Content [1/5] (at a time when…)

At a time when we are addicted to screens and texts that get ever more short… we tend to look at words rather than really mean them

Distractive Content [2/5] (we may have moved…)

We may have moved from Roosevelt's "age of distrust" to an "age of noise," where temporary coalitions form but dissolve quickly. Social media reduces all information to "content," valued only for circulation, not truth. Algorithms amplify the scandalous and divisive, rewarding niche global subcultures that need not engage with the mainstream.

Distractive Content [3/5] (today being human…)

Today being human means being distracted, it's our new default setting. In the meantime, our deepest feelings are being flushed out, dissolved in the endless chatter of our heavily mediated environment. Trampled underfoot in the rush to be heard and seen

Distractive Content [4/5] (there's not merely…)

There's not merely a cultural imperative perspective to fill law, but the engines of that, with social media and traditional media.

In both social media and traditional media there exists an imperative to fill silence, an imperative to produce. If people turned on the television, or logged onto social media, and saw contemplative silence, they would very quickly turn off. These platforms wouldn't exist. And so the lowest common denominator that happened to have the qualities that make a thing virally circulate that day is what we see instead, regardless of the content of that content and how it might shape our interior or exterior life.

Distractive Content [5/5] (one of the problems…)

One of the problems we have created here is a culture, where we have acquiesced to a culture in which convenience renders us largely uncritical. We begin to think, this is so convenient, ultimately, what's the harm? Or, I don't mind what the harm is.

Hate [1/1] (the popularity of…)

The popularity of hating things, and this reversion to moralism or moral prejudice — I think these two things have gone together to make us aesthetically incredibly inattentive and inauthentic, and also to make us morally unresponsive and inattentive.

Social Media [1/5] (we have the most…)

We have the most image saturated culture in human history, and thereby we see a desensitisation as things have to become more and more spectacular and extreme to hold our attention and hold our hearts. You might become immune or inured to certain kinds of human suffering as a result.

Social Media [2/5] (the worst aspects…)

The worst aspects of social media are incubated in American political life, and then that's what we see constantly on our social media feeds. And so there's something about that kind of debauched, corrupted ecosystem that then generates its own friction, its own thrill here, and that what seems to be a kind of conspiratorial issue du jour elsewhere, then takes on its own life here.

Social Media [3/5] (algorithms do not…)

Algorithms do not really cultivate taste, they protect us from the discomfort of difficulty. In a world of endless choice, the danger is not that we lack culture, but that we lose the patience to be changed by something we did not immediately like.

Social Media [4/5] (when we are in…)

When we are in conflict, all of our intelligence is used, not to understand the truth but to make the case that our side is right and your side is wrong.

Social Media [5/5] (when everything becomes…)

When everything becomes "content," beauty, depth, and meaning are flattened into whatever grabs attention fastest. The value of something no longer lies in what it is, but in how easily it circulates.

Uncertainty [1/1] (to admit…)

To admit uncertainty—an honest recognition of complexity—is seen not as wisdom, but as weakness. In this environment, reputations are tethered to unyielding conviction, and moral sensitivity to others is dulled by the perverse incentive to never concede.