Benzodiazepine Awareness Day
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This podcast was previously posted on my daughter Mikhaila Peterson's podcast and channel. I thought it appropriate to repost on my channel to increase viewership. July 11th was also World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day, so it seemed like a good time to post it.
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The following is from a draft of Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life.
Imagine a system dedicated toward a particular goal: the education, for example, of young people. An educator with a belief system is construing the world in a simplified manner, but is intending to use those simplifications (and is justifying their utility) in relationship to their effectiveness in providing education. A valid educational institution has a purpose, which transcends the narrow interests of those who run the institution. It is therefore not predicated appropriately on the power that only serves, say, the teachers or professors. It has a purpose outside its own existence, and that purpose is generally and genuinely social value.
An education system that is functional teaches those who are exposed to it to conduct themselves in a successful manner in situations outside the institute itself: they learn to read, and to write, and to think critically, and to act in a socialized manner, and to compete, and to cooperate. And all these skills generalize beyond the narrow confines of what makes a given teacher capable of rising in the hierarchy of “power” that hypothetically characterizes the patriarchal institution. A hierarchy is a tool whose function transcends its own existence.
As a system becomes corrupt—degenerates, say, into mere order—its external function is increasingly sacrificed to the narrow self-interest of those who have come to occupy the safe, secure, predictable and, sometimes arbitrarily powerful niches of the institutional hierarchy. This is not to say that this is the defining characteristic of human organizations in general. There is virtually no view that is more cynical. Such a perspective denies the very notion of competence itself, as well as making light of the genuine desire to help, and to mentor, and to improve, and to create, and to reduce suffering, and to constrain malevolence. Such a perspective entirely denies the existence of the good (and I believe that is its fundamental purpose and motivation).
To the degree that a system remains honest—predicated on belief, rather than ideology—progress in the bureaucratized system remains dependent on ability to educate. The algorithms of belief suit the stated and planned intent. But then imagine, further, that the system can be gamed. Simplifications that merely mimic the provision of education emerge. These simplifications purport to educate, but what they really do, for example, is increase the probability that the simplifier will move up the hierarchy of education provision, while simultaneously ensuring (for example) unearned moral superiority, convenient identification of enemies, and the opportunity to vengefully hurt and destroy...
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Original Health Update and Interview on the Mikhaila Peterson Podcast
Coverage by CTV, the Post Millennial, and Sputnik International
Podcast Re-release: Jacob: Wrestling with God (season 3, episode 12)
- "That is what human beings do, in some sense: they wrestle with the divine—even with the concept of the divine, for that matter. But the question is, do they prevail? It’s an odd thing that Jacob actually seems to win this battle. At least, he wins it enough so that whoever he’s wrestling—this divine figure that he’s wrestling—is willing to bestow a divine blessing on him. I think the transformation of the name from ‘Jacob’ to ‘Israel’ is really telling, as well as the fact that ‘Israel’ means ‘he who wrestles or struggles with God,' perhaps successfully.... We’re contentious creatures, and that actually seems to be something that meets with God’s favour, in this situation—especially given that that’s actually what he names the whole kingdom of the chosen people. The idea is that the kingdom is composed of those who contend with God." Listen to the current release or join the discussion.
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