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I want to connect this thread on political philosophy of free will to cultural consumption choices that seem “necessary” in some ways. Things you might sincerely tag #mustread or something like Kanye West music which all my music maven friends tell me is a must-appreciate oeuvre
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Thinking about the rule of totalitarianism "Everything not forbidden is compulsory." (T. H. White) which Gell-Mann ported to physics. Science of Discworld 2 states it as the principle of societies run on tribal law.
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In what sense is a must read a must read? Or a must-watch a must-watch? Or a must-listen a must-listen? Or to generalize, a must-obey cultural consumption/knowledge imperative. It is a version of authoritarian “what isn’t prohibited is compulsory” but an unusual kind
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I think that’s a grey zone thing. Popularity is weak social proof of potential historicity, but some things embody actual historicity, where past and future of X don’t make sense without X. Memes that flood the meme pool.
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i think the statement "some things embody actual historicity" is too dubious to argue one way or the other to wit, the stroke by which the past and the present "make sense" we should always regard with skepticism, that is, as a stroke which seeks its own, artificial historicity
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I agree, it is 100% dubious and I don’t actually believe it, but that’s the point. Historicity is a construct that a) you can opt-in to b) has no pr9vileged version. It’s more than popular appeal, but falls short of an absolute temporality (which I argue cannot exist)
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i disagree i think absolute temporality is the mechanism which enables art to exist, in a large part by dissolving historicity into it--sort of an experiential vortex and as such, we are in no position to evaluate this kind of temporality, only experience it
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Ah I would say there’s no way to experience this absolute temporality at all, *except* through transient experiencable temporalities that emerge from and collapse back into it. So to believe in it is a leap of faith This is where I end up disagreeing with experienced meditators
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