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Notes -
Marxism and the History of Philosophy:
If this sounds a lot like a religion, then that's because it should. Marxism undoubtedly shares many structural features with traditional religions in its fundamentals.
(I have argued previously that wokeism is not identical with Marxism. The relationship between wokeism and Marxism should be understood as being something like the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Adherents of the newer religion incorporate the sacred texts of the older religion as their own, but they also make a number of modifications and additions that adherents of the older religion would stridently reject. Nonetheless, the two traditions are united in certain ethical and philosophical commitments that more distant outsiders would find baffling.)
Much ado has been made about the "crisis of meaning" in the contemporary West, and how "we", as a civilization, "need" religion (and how in its absence, people will inevitably seek out substitutes like wokeism). But speaking at this level of generality obscures important and interesting psychological differences between different individuals. Many, perhaps most, people are actually perfectly fine with operating in the absence of meaning. And they can be quite happy this way. They may be dimly aware that "something" is missing or not quite right, but they'll still live docile and functional existences overall. They achieve this by operating at a persistently minimal level of sensitivity towards issues of meaning, value, aesthetics, etc, a sort of "spiritual hibernation".
It is only a certain segment of the population (whose size I will not venture to estimate -- it may be a larger segment than the hibernators, or it may be smaller, I don't know) that really needs to receive a sense of purpose from an authoritative external social source. And this segment of the population has an outsized effect on society as a whole, because these are the people who most zealously sustain mass social movements like Christianity and wokeism.
Finally there are individuals who are seemingly capable of generating a sui generis sense of meaning wholly from within themselves. This is surely the smallest segment of the population, and it's unlikely that you could learn to emulate their mode of existence if you weren't born into it -- but you wouldn't want to anyway. Such individuals are often consumed by powerful manias to the point of self-ruin, or else they become condemned to inaction, paralyzed with fear over not being able to fulfill the momentous duties they have placed upon themselves.
This article by arcove is a great dive into the genetic & cultural markers of the priest caste, which sounds like what you're pointing out here.
… and loads of other random stuff.
I've never heard of this idea before but it grossly fails the sniff test - a lot of this stuff is pretty much known in medicine to almost always be untreated/diagnosed/refused diagnosis Cluster-B.
Some of the rest of it is known to have other different causes for instance (allergies).
Seems very likely to be bullshit, especially since the patients we see who fit into these buckets are um very un priestly.
Perhaps they would've lead happier lives as priests!
And why would Cluster-B not fall into this? Also you're saying hypermobility and chronic stomach pain are cluster B as well?
People with Autism and people with "Autism" are very different. There is a large community of people in the US who have a number of the conditions on this list by their own understanding but are really just someone with BPD.
"Yes I have depression, anxiety, PTSD, EDS, mast cell blah blah and 5 allergies as well as a non-typical gender presentation." That person is a borderline who refuses diagnosis or is not diagnosed.
This is so wildly off base.
Additionally most of these people are women. Women aren't really priests in the abrahamic tradition and the emotional instability associated with these people is not a good fit for priestliness.
Most of the listed disorders are incompatible with leadership and gravitas.
Idk man, I am one of these, and I'm a man. Perhaps I'm extremely rare. But the article matches my personal experience extremely well.
Again, what is the point of labeling it "borderline?" How does that solve anything? You're still agreeing that this is a real phenomena just putting it into a different box.
No, the point of doing that is because people who say they have it are usually using it as an excuse to be destructive, and the cost of making a Type I error here is nothing compared to what you'll spend if you make a Type II error here instead and give a bunch of wicked people carte blanche to just make up self-serving nonsense at everyone else's expense (otherwise known as "sufferers of Cluster B disorders").
Naturally, this has a huge selection bias, where people who are just making shit up are overwhelmingly more likely to talk about it, especially if society is currently biased towards making Type II errors in their direction. The word "religious sacrifice" was generally used to refer to this when society contextualized its desires using that lens, which is why people with an inkling of this tend to class atheism and woke as religions (because of the way they justify the benefits of intentionally making those particular Type II errors).
And even then, there are people who can use this 'condition' productively, and there are those who can not. Again, in conditions of societal oversupply [which people without the condition are relatively adept at noticing, at least on a group level] it can be a reasonable strategy to over-reject people on the grounds that they're destructive with that power, or that they don't have enough of the power to actually be worth fully utilizing them.
Much like with words related to gender identity and sexuality, and potentially for the exact same reason, the terms the wise (or more precisely, those who have this condition, or at least those who are fully capable of understanding what it is and how it works) use to talk to each other are dangerous to everyone else when they inevitably fall into the wrong hands.
A big part of having this condition is knowing when, when not, and how to talk about advanced topics to co-sufferers.
Idk man, I have experienced the opposite where I am genuinely hypermobile (source: my joints pop around!) and if anything it was less of an excuse to be destructive. I think that you and mister throwaway are being far too negative towards this subset of the population, though I'm sure he at least has fair reason having to deal with many more of them than I do.
All this being said, I'm not sure how this line of argumentation applies to the original point that some people with these health issues have shamanic abilities/tendencies. Can you tie it back for me?
You misunderstand.
We know that they misuse these tools/words/concepts that could have (and perhaps were originally intended to) helped us, in an intentionally destructive way. It's not
Complete Asshole DiseaseCluster B disorder, it's My Anxiety (and everything else I've Munchausen'd my way into today).The article very clearly describes us, who are describing actual problems (and I can attest that the statements made in the article are indeed very accurate), and not just using them as a license to be selfish pricks.
It's difficult for the normies to tell the difference and depending on the situation sometimes there legitimately isn't one. They just have to trust us. And that is difficult, even for others like us.
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