Being critical of abstraction is kind of my thing these days. IMO most people are more concerned with making or adopting abstractions that convincingly pass as real, because the abstractions validate people’s lived experience, rather than dig into the actual concrete conditions.
The real mindfuck comes when we realize that people can be totally idealistic in their understanding, and simultaneously very effective at certain kinds of organizing because they have more experience with a domain of practical work than they do with theoretical understanding of that work. Because people can be kinda negative its obvious to us that people can have seemingly good theory but really bad organizing instincts, but the other side always stands out to me as well.
Interesting thoughts, and nice talking to you too! Abstraction isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s indeed incredibly easy to have bad abstraction that obfuscates reality.
Yeah I guess when I mean “being critical of abstraction” I mean like theoretically critical, not anti. I’m against abstractions being used incorrectly. An abstraction can be neutral, good even, but if misapplied it creates all sorts of problems.
My main criticism isn’t people using abstractions to understand, its not checking to see if the ones we are using bear out in real conditions.
I think there was a time when almost no one thought in terms of abstraction. And now its like the only way that most people think. Well like in said I have a lot of work to do
Yep, metaphysicians in particular make the mistake of abstracting away essential context, and it leads to misconceptions and faulty understanding. Good luck!
Being critical of abstraction is kind of my thing these days. IMO most people are more concerned with making or adopting abstractions that convincingly pass as real, because the abstractions validate people’s lived experience, rather than dig into the actual concrete conditions.
The real mindfuck comes when we realize that people can be totally idealistic in their understanding, and simultaneously very effective at certain kinds of organizing because they have more experience with a domain of practical work than they do with theoretical understanding of that work. Because people can be kinda negative its obvious to us that people can have seemingly good theory but really bad organizing instincts, but the other side always stands out to me as well.
Anyway, always good talking to ya comrade
Interesting thoughts, and nice talking to you too! Abstraction isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s indeed incredibly easy to have bad abstraction that obfuscates reality.
Yeah I guess when I mean “being critical of abstraction” I mean like theoretically critical, not anti. I’m against abstractions being used incorrectly. An abstraction can be neutral, good even, but if misapplied it creates all sorts of problems.
My main criticism isn’t people using abstractions to understand, its not checking to see if the ones we are using bear out in real conditions.
I think there was a time when almost no one thought in terms of abstraction. And now its like the only way that most people think. Well like in said I have a lot of work to do
Yep, metaphysicians in particular make the mistake of abstracting away essential context, and it leads to misconceptions and faulty understanding. Good luck!