proximoception | (no subject)

People are such flakes about "fate" and "determinism". Reality extends all the way out and all the way in, and yes there appear to be consistent rules to its changes and motions, and if anything's ruleless we haven't put our finger on just what just where. But why is it anyone accepting this immediately picks out some flavor or set of observed (or imagined) rules and decides it's both completely known and completely decisive? Unreferential language, social construction of the personality, meme theory, and other recent formations join social Darwinism, psychoanalysis, a causal God, Marxism, Hegelianism, racism and many others in the gallery of annoying abortions that is history. All of them have less deterministic versions, of course, but where freedom (from their being able to predict you further with their model, anyway) is offered it tends to be at the price of affiliating yourself with them, submitting to their process and its timetable. Freudians offer freedom from neurosis; Marxists, freedom from economic gang-fighting; Christians, from death. Theory people, when scratched deep enough, seem to divide pretty evenly into those who think their brand ultimately frees you from the world or, after seven feats and seven deprivations, restores you to the real one. I write this in tired anger but the mistakes people make really do seem to merge here, in a loud marketplace of flattering lies.