Steven Parmenius

  When one is in a feedback loop it becomes impossible to resist the temptation to double down on the very things that created the loop in the first place. An example is demands: in a feedback loop demands replace proposals though a demand by itself can generate nothing but a counter-demand. I suppose this reflects the fact that in our day praxis is immediate. The truth is what is brought about in action. Action posits the very truth it seeks to realize. Alas, someone else’s praxis can be just as immediate as mine. Then we have two absolute and unmediated ‘truths’ in competition: two ‘little Hitlers’, to cite the Elvis Costello song, who seek to force the other to their will. If we belong to the tradition of philosophy (Western OR Eastern I must add) we cannot quite conceive it this way. Action must be embedded in reflection. This is why an activist once insulted me by accusing me of being a ‘philosopher’! This is a charge to which I plead guilty. A philosopher is someone who dissolves

  In my last piece I described the feedback loop that is destroying the U.S. By this I refer to a cycle of negative actions and reactions that perpetuates itself by means of any energy whatsoever poured into it. ALL attempts to stop the loop make the loop spin faster leaving the persons stuck in it perplexed and despairing. There is probably a point of no return with such loops and I suspect the United States has reached or is imminently reaching such a point. This means that however the loop resolves itself the United States may not survive that process in anything resembling its current form (even if it surmounts its current crisis and manages to have a tolerably peaceful election- as Biden’s lead widens the odds for this have slightly improved). This has dangers, obviously, for Canada just one of which is that the crash, when it comes, will send people flooding across our border. If a Georgian and a New Yorker arrive, both fleeing chaos, we have no moral right to choose between them