Rima Basu & the grief caused by 'Grievance Studies'

Rima Basu is an up and coming philosopher whose 'work highlights the epistemic dimensions of wrongs such as racism'.

This seems strange. Ignorance, or blind hatred, or murderous xenophobia may give rise to Racism. But Ignorance is not Knowledge. Hatred and malice and the desire to kill do not arise from a rational calculus or a scientific investigation. There are no 'epistemic dimensions' to wrongs like racism or misogyny. To argue otherwise is to concede that Racists are correct: Misogynists are only reflecting 'common knowledge'. Nevertheless, Rima claims, Racists and Misogynists should act as if they did not know what in fact everybody does know. Since Rima is herself a brown woman, Racists and Misogynists can dismiss her claim by saying that she herself admits that Racists and Misogynists are right to think darker complected females are cretins. Dismissing the claims of cretins is the smart thing to do. Thus what Rima is actually providing is not just a justification for Racism and Misogyny. She is offering herself up as proof that people belonging to the wrong race and gender are as stupid as shit and ought not to be on the faculty of a College where White Males receive instruction unless it be to serve the function of a drunken helot at a Spartan feast- i.e. to present a vivid tableau of the dangers of such sophistic misology as passes for Moral Philosophy.

In Rima's defense, I would like to point out that she is just repeating the idiocy of White Males. Furthermore she teaches a shite subject and is thus obliged to make shite arguments.

Rima says that how we acquire knowledge is tainted by the unjust, non-ideal condition of the world. Both Science and Religion refute this notion. No Physicist says 'OMG, my theory of super-symmetry is bound to be shite coz I live under Trump'. No Priest says 'OMG, we can no longer gain proper soteriological guidance from Scripture because Racism and Misogyny are on the rise.'

Indeed, no sensible person feels that what they know- e.g. their phone number- or how they acquire useful knowledge- like looking up phone numbers in the Directory- is at all compromised or otherwise affected by any change in the condition of world with respect to things like the prevalence of Racism or Misogyny or Homophobia.

Nevertheless Rima writes-

 'Motivated by the recognition that our epistemic practices exist in an unjust and non-ideal world, I argue that there are moral and social constraints on our epistemic practices; what we owe to each other encompasses not only word and deeds, but also beliefs.'

In other words, because we live in an unjust world, we need to tell stupid lies about how people who are inferior are actually superior though it is 'common knowledge' that this is not the case.

I think Rima is wrong because I don't believe it is either true or common knowledge that some Race or Gender is superior to another Race or Gender.

I also think it is wrong- foolishly so- to tell stupid lies for what can only be a 'virtue signalling' purpose.

Rima has published an essay in Aeon. I believe her intention is to combat racism. Yet, it seems to me, she is supporting the notion that White people are superior to Black people- at least in America.

She writes-

 If we’re the kind of people who care both about not being racist, and also about basing our beliefs on the evidence that we have, then the world presents us with a challenge.

The world presents us with challenges- staying upright in my case after a night at the pub- irrespective of our beliefs or desires.

What specific challenge is Rima speaking of? It is that of not being racist though the world is constantly giving us evidence that some races are better than others.

I don't believe any such challenge exists. If there really was any evidence confirming that one's 'race' (whatever that might mean) made one superior or inferior, in at least one respect, to a similarly placed person with different ancestry, then Medical Science would be looking for a 'Structural Causal Model' for that difference. The person of the 'inferior' race (with respect to that metric) would benefit because of some preventive or remedial medical treatment becoming available. If no such treatment is feasible, still the 'inferior' gains utility from an expanded information set.

As a South Indian, I know I am 'inferior' to Dutch people in that I have to have lower body mass relative to my height in order to achieve similar longevity. This pisses the fuck out of me. But, it is useful information.

The world is pretty racist. It shouldn’t be surprising then that sometimes it seems as if the evidence is stacked in favour of some racist belief.

The world is not racist at all- at least to those who belong to population groups which have experienced significant demographic growth over the last few centuries. If the fitness landscape had been hostile to our genes, we wouldn't be here or will soon disappear.

It would be very surprising if a rational person thought 'the evidence is stacked in favor of some racist belief'. On the other hand, an ignorant and stupid person might draw conclusions which were 'racist' precisely because they can neither access nor properly evaluate relevant evidence. But in this case, racism does not have an epistemic dimension. It has a dimension of stupid ignorance.

For example, it’s racist to assume that someone’s a staff member on the basis of his skin colour.

Nonsense! It is racist to pretend that a person of another color or gender is uneducated or in a subservient position so as to insult them or undermine their confidence. It is not racist to make an unwarranted assumption by reason of inexperience or absence of mind. Rather, it is embarrassing to do so because it reveals a humiliating lack of worldliness & savoir faire.

But what if it’s the case that, because of historical patterns of discrimination, the members of staff with whom you interact are predominantly of one race?

Why does Rima make a distinction between 'members of staff'  and academic colleagues? The late Abdus Salaam greeted his cleaner- an illiterate lady from South Italy- in exactly the same way he greeted a fellow Nobel laureate.

It seems the real problem here is that of class, not race. All are worthy of equal treatment. At any rate, this is the view of Religion.

When the late John Hope Franklin, professor of history at Duke University in North Carolina, hosted a dinner party at his private club in Washington, DC in 1995, he was mistaken as a member of staff. Did the woman who did so do something wrong? Yes. It was indeed racist of her, even though Franklin was, since 1962, that club’s first black member.

Rima has a heteronomous notion of wrongdoing. A small child, or an animal, may not appreciate that an unintentional wrong with no adverse consequence is no wrong at all. Such a creature may accept punishment and feel shame and remorse even though it was not guilty of anything. An autonomous subject, however, would feel the punishment was wrong. She may feel anger and resentment at an unjust punishment.

Why does Rima think being a member of some Beltway 'private club' is superior to working there? The lady in question may have mistaken Franklin for an honest and decent man who actually worked for a living. Indeed, it may be, a waiter of Franklin's age at that club might have made a better chair for Clinton's 'Advisory Body on Race'.  Moreover, Franklin's having been a member of a 'private dining club' whose other members were all White, suggests a reason for that Advisory Body's abject failure to address current issues.

As a matter of fact, the elderly woman in question may simply have been displaying signs of mental deterioration. Staff members wore uniforms. Franklin was in mufti. Still, this lady may have handed her coat-stub to any passing stranger demanding he or she help retrieve her coat. Her imperious demand would signal something else- her frailty and confusion. She assumes others are servants because in her vulnerable state she needs servants to look after her. A gentleman might play along simply out of a feeling of amused pity.

On the other hand, if this elderly woman was perfectly compos mentis and had a history of seeking to 'put niggers in their place', then she was being deliberately rude and her conduct was reprehensible. But we need evidence to come to this conclusion.

Basu thinks there can be a case where properly evaluated evidence leads to a wrongful act. However, the case which she cites does not correspond to such a situation. An elderly woman either makes a stupid mistake or is being deliberately rude. She has not properly evaluated the only relevant piece of evidence- viz. staff members wear uniforms, members or guests don't.

Human beings have evolved elaborate ways of signalling status and identity and this affects their interactions. Humans have also evolved ways of judging objects by their appearance, smell etc. Thus, if I see a guy with gang tats holding a machete, I understand I should not assume he is a policeman. Similarly, if I smell a turd, I should avoid eating it on the assumption it is chocolate cake.

Rima takes a different view. If you see a turd in a cake shop, you should eat it because, statistically speaking and judging it only by its color, it is likely to be cake. This is very racist of you because it means you endorse cannibalistic acts against darker people.

To begin with, we don’t relate to people in the same way that we relate to objects.

I use objects. I don't relate to them because I neither believe in magic nor am I a fetishist. Rima is different. She 'relates' to them. What a special little flower our Rima is to be sure!

Human beings are different in an important way.

Which however it is not important at all to spell out to fellow human beings- coz they aint cretins.

In the world, there are things – tables, chairs, desks and other objects that aren’t furniture – and we try our best to understand how this world works.

Rima tries her best to understand how chairs and tables work. What a very special little flower she is!

We ask why plants grow when watered, why dogs give birth to dogs and never to cats, and so on.

You do, Rima- because you are such a special little flower.  God bless you, dear! Your courage is an inspiration to us all!

But when it comes to people, ‘we have a different way of going on, though it is hard to capture just what that is’, as Rae Langton, now professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge, put it so nicely in 1991.

It is easy to capture the difference between strategic games and 'games against nature'. Open market operations- though the counter-party is a class of humans- are 'games against nature'. Only if the reactions and attitudes of other people affect the payoff matrix is there a strategic game. In such a game- more particularly repeated games of a certain type- a Kantian strategy (viz. showing mutual consideration) may give rise to a superior 'co-operative' equilibrium. However, it may not be stable. Indeed, a 'tit-for-tat' strategy may be eusoical. Indeed, one may oneself be punished for failing to punish transgressors.

Langton's paper focuses on an interchange of letters between Kant and a woman having suicidal thoughts because, according to her claim, of an unhappy romantic relationship. Kant offers a 'moral sedative' of a predictable sort.
The woman, getting back her lover, writes another letter saying that she still felt empty. Obeying the moral law was too easy if there was no temptation to sin. She then suggests that she could visit him. What did he think of marriage and having kids? Please help me get rid of this vast emptiness in my soul!

Kant takes fright and does not reply. He passes the woman's letter to a young woman as a dire warning against 'the wanderings of sublimated fantasy.'

It appears the woman, like her brother- an equally ardent Kantian- had some sort of predisposition to mental illness. Both committed suicide a few years later.

Clearly the moral of this story is Moral Philosophy can't do the job of Psychiatry. Langton, however, focuses on two different questions- 'what is good about friendship?' & 'what is bad about deceit?'. However, in this context, both questions are foolish. A mentally unstable woman is having suicidal thoughts. To be her friend is to help her overcome these thoughts and find pleasure and value in life. Since she has already tried Kantian philosophy and it hasn't helped what would be good about any friendship shown to her would be its capacity to turn her mind in other directions.

Where there is mental illness, the only 'deceit' that is mischievous is the pretence that no mental illness exists. Rather there is a conflict with the Moral Law or the Injustice of Society or some other such highfalutin' shite. Kant, to his credit, didn't try to make some money off this poor woman and did cut off the correspondence because he was out of his depth. Still, it is nothing but charlatanism to pretend that the worthless shite this mentally ill woman was inquiring about can help us or anybody else.

Langton, however, is a belle lettrist in a fine old English tradition as well as a pedagogue- this passage is euphonious and has many echoes in the writing of late Victorian and Edwardian dons.

This is 'fine writing' but we immediately recognize it to be foolish. Out ancestors were born into a world of humans who, because of high mortality rates, were largely replaceable. Mum dies and another Mum appears. Dad is killed and his killer is our new Uncle-Daddy. Slaves, purchased for a price, may join the family unit. One might oneself be sold into slavery and thus become part of another family unit. Like the price of rocks, what determined the price or humans was not the capacity to serve human ends, but supply and demand. Many things aren't tools- they are stores of value- though they may be exchanged for tools. But the same can be said of slaves- or where slavery is outlawed- the supply of services of various sorts including sexual or reproductive services.

Rima, does not recognize that everything Langton said was silly. She gives us a watered down version of him- instead of reindeers and rhinoceroses she has cats and dogs- but in doing so displays more nakedly the stupidity of his position.

The fact is we already know how to relate to other humans long before we know what it means- if it means anything at all- to ''accept a general intuition'.

Once you accept this general intuition, you might begin to wonder how can we capture that different way in which we ought to relate to others.

Only a few stupid pedagogues may want to capture anything so inutile. But they fail. That is why they have always been figures of fun.

To do this, first we must recognise that, as Langton goes on to write, ‘we don’t simply observe people as we might observe planets, we don’t simply treat them as things to be sought out when they can be of use to us, and avoid when they are a nuisance. We are, as [the British philosopher P F] Strawson says, involved.’

Rima is being silly. She must have been born after the Moon landing. She knows very well, we will spend a lot of money getting to planets even if no immediate utility is gained thereby. We may destroy an asteroid on a collision course with earth, just as we order a drone strike on a bunch of guys whom we have kept under observation for some other purpose.

We do avoid people and things which are a nuisance but approach them if they can be of use.

Langton writes-

 There is merely a difference in degree between our interactions between objects and people. When it comes to 'open market operations' or 'contracts of adhesion', we behave as if we are playing a game against nature. Only if an interaction materially changes the pay-off matrix- which happens where there is locally imperfect competition arising perhaps out of Hohfeldian rights and obligations- does Strawson type 'involvement' arise. However, such 'involvement' is too important to be left to the pedagogues. We have a much better 'unthought known' in this respect than any shitty little epistemic scheme they can come up with.

This way of being involved has been played out in many different ways, but here’s the basic thought: being involved is thinking that others’ attitudes and intentions towards us are important in a special way, and that our treatment of others should reflect that importance.

This basic thought is basically worthless. It is not specific enough to yield any action guiding principle. Only those others we interact with, or who can affect the behavior of those we interact with, matter. We needn't and shouldn't bother with anyone else.

We are, each of us, in virtue of being social beings, vulnerable.

But we are social beings in virtue of being biological organisms. Any additional vulnerability arising by reason of our 'social being' can be hedged against or avoided altogether absent resource constraints. But then, it is the resource constraints which are binding- not some aspect of our Social being.

We depend upon others for our self-esteem and self-respect.

There is no dependency if we can always exit a place where others don't afford us respect and enter another where we obtain what we desire. Alternatively, if we have sufficient 'Voice' to change others' behavior then, once again, no dependency arises. Finally, out of 'Loyalty' we may replace the disrespect others accord us with an esteem of an abstract sort. Thus a soldier, shunned by his comrades, may nevertheless show his superior loyalty to the Regiment by an act of valor and self sacrifice. His motivation may be the abstract esteem owed to him which, however, was never manifested during his own life.

For example, we each think of ourselves as having a variety of more or less stable characteristics, from marginal ones such as being born on a Friday to central ones such as being a philosopher or a spouse.

We may think of ourselves in this way but soon find it is a silly way to think. It serves no good purpose.

The more central self-descriptions are important to our sense of self-worth, to our self-understanding, and they constitute our sense of identity.

Nonsense! My self-description as the Tamil Beyonce is not important to my sense of self-worth. My Bank balance, however, does impinge on it.

When these central self-descriptions are ignored by others in favour of expectations on the basis of our race, gender or sexual orientation, we’re wronged.

No we are not. When I showed up for the Miss Teen Tamil Nadu trials, I was not wronged by the organizers who told me I was the wrong gender and age to qualify.  I simply pushed the other girls off stage and did my Beyonce booty shake while lip-synching to Halo greatly to my own satisfaction. The organizers called Security. I flounced off saying, come to think of it, Gran spoke Telugu so I'm gonna win the Miss Telengana Contest, and then the Miss India Crown and then the Miss Universe Crown and become the next Priynaka Chopra.

Perhaps our self-worth shouldn’t be based on something so fragile, but not only are we all-too-human, these self-descriptions also allow us to understand who we are and where we stand in the world.

Our self-worth should be based on what other people value- like money in the bank and being able to shake your booty like Beyonce.

This thought is echoed in the American sociologist and civil rights activist W E B DuBois’s concept of double consciousness. In The Souls of Black Folk(1903), DuBois notes a common feeling: ‘this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity’.

DuBois achieved a lot- as did the vast majority of African Americans, not just the 'talented tenth', under very adverse circumstances. That is why African American culture has had such a huge global impact. 'Double Consciousness' turned out to have great comic potential and is still effective- e.g. in the film Blacklansman- though, admittedly, there are decreasing returns to it.

When you believe that John Hope Franklin must be a staff member rather than a club member, you’ve made predictions of him and observed him in the same way that one might observe the planets.

Because the lady who thought he was a waiter was an amateur astronomer? Rima is being silly. The fact is, if you are a member of a Beltway private dining club, you are supposed to display your savoir faire by being able to distinguish a guy close to the President from the sommelier. It was the lady, not the Professor, who ended up feeling embarrassed. Why? She showed she wasn't observant in matters affecting her own status. At the very least, she should have been able to tell a bespoke Tux from the polyester garments worn by waiters.

Our private thoughts can wrong other people.

Yes! What I am thinking about P. Chidambaram is wronging him so badly he won't be able to walk straight!

It is comforting to know that a branch of pedagogy exists where people who believe their thoughts can hurt others can be cosseted and protected from the cruel reality that they have no such power.

When someone forms beliefs about you in this predictive way, they fail to see you, they fail to interact with you as a person.

No. When someone makes a wrong prediction about something they should know about then they reveal themselves to be stupid and ignorant. If their wrong prediction is about you, you have an opportunity to either humiliate or exploit them in some way.

On the other hand, if I feel aggrieved that Beyonce is failing to interact with me as a person, despite all the text messages, and dead cats, I send her, then it is my sense of grievance which is a moral failing. It causes grief and upset to others. Indeed, 'Grievance Studies' is productive only of grief because despite all the ire and annoyance it sparks, it makes things worse by supplying a ready-made template for a more vicious backlash.

Suppose I neglect to bathe and to comb my hair. A person seeing me for the first time may predict that I'm a homeless or habitually dirty person. Observing their reaction to me, I should not get upset with them. To do so is a moral failing. The proper thing to do is to take note that their adverse reaction is occasioned by something about myself which I could and should change. I should bathe and present a more soigne appearance.

This is not only upsetting. It is a moral failing.
The English philosopher W K Clifford argued in 1877 that we were morally criticisable if our beliefs weren’t formed in the right way.

Being morally criticisable is no big deal. Indeed, moral criticism is itself immoral because it is a nuisance. If Moral Philosophers had formed their beliefs in the right way, they would have campaigned for the abolition of their own Chairs so that resources could be freed up for more utile disciplines to flourish.

He warned that we have a duty to humanity to never believe on the basis of insufficient evidence because to do so would be to put society at risk.

But Knightian Uncertainty is ubiquitous. Actions have to be taken on the basis of Beliefs so that those Beliefs can be audited and corrected in the light of outcomes.

As we look at the world around us and the epistemic crisis in which we find ourselves, we see what happens when Clifford’s imperative is ignored.

Rima thinks there is an epistemic crisis. She is wrong. There is merely the lysis of festering ignorance and stupidity in her own discipline- which appears to be 'Grievance studies'.

The STEM subjects, by contrast, are doing fine.

And if we combine Clifford’s warning with DuBois’s and Langton’s observations, it becomes clear that, for our belief-forming practices, the stakes aren’t just high because we depend on one another for knowledge – the stakes are also high because we depend on one another for respect and dignity.

If you have worthless University Departments handing out PhDs as consolation prizes for being Stupid, Ignorant and belonging to a group which Racists or Misogynists might characterize as Stupid and Ignorant, then what Rima says holds true.

However, only a very tiny number of people have chosen her own career path. Why should the rest of us care if everybody else thinks Rima and her ilk are cretins? How does this amount to Racism or Misogyny?

Consider how upset Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters get with Sherlock Holmes for the beliefs this fictional detective forms about them.

All Doyle's characters were fictional. His great success had to do with the dramatic nature of his narratives. It was only so as to build dramatic tension that Doyle showed Holmes's targets getting hot under the collar as he, as if by magic, told them things about themselves they thought nobody else could possibly know.

It is absurd to rely upon a wholly fictional work to draw a highly tendentious conclusion.

Without fail, the people whom Holmes encounters find the way he forms beliefs about others to be insulting. Sometimes it’s because it is a negative belief. Often, however, the belief is mundane: eg, what they ate on the train or which shoe they put on first in the morning. There’s something improper about the way that Holmes relates to other human beings.

No there isn't. He is relating to them as a good detective and it is his services as a detective that is needful for them to avoid some particular peril.

Holmes’s failure to relate is not just a matter of his actions or his words (though sometimes it is also that), but what really rubs us up the wrong way is that Holmes observes us all as objects to be studied, predicted and managed. He doesn’t relate to us as human beings.

Sheer nonsense! He relates to his clients as human beings in danger of being killed or robbed or suffering some other misfortune. He uses his talents to help them. That is why, though quirky and perhaps a little 'autistic', he is considered a hero on the side of the angels. Moriarty, by contrast, uses his talents in a cruel and destructive manner.

Suppose Holmes had not displayed his talent. His clients would have had less confidence in him. They might have concealed things better revealed.

Doyle himself was a Doctor. He knew that a good Doctor should be observant. He should form his own opinion about how much the patient eats and drinks and smokes- not rely upon the patient's own testimony. What matters is, not befriending the patient, but ensuring his health improves.

There are people who feel their Doctor is being very mean when she refuses to believe that one has strictly kept to one's diet and avoided drink and tobacco and chocolate cake. However, it is in their own interest to heed the Doctor's warning.

Rima is now a pedagogue. Perhaps she fears to injure the amour propre of her students by criticizing their work. Only if they are all actually cretins will they retain any warm affection for her in after years because they will realize she failed in her duty towards them.

Maybe in an ideal world, what goes on inside our heads wouldn’t matter.

It appears that 'what goes inside our heads' does not affect the Universe absent some physical action. That is why, unless there is a conceptual tie to action, the thing does not matter at all.

But just as the personal is the political, our private thoughts aren’t really only our own.

The personal is not the political. If it were, our private thoughts and activities- including those which occur in the water closet- would be a proper matter for public investigation if we happen to occupy a high political position.

Our private thoughts are wholly our own. Believing the opposite involves an ex falso quodlibet explosion of nonsense- stuff like this-

If a man believes of every woman he meets: ‘She’s someone I can sleep with,’ it’s no excuse that he never acts on the belief or reveals the belief to others.

There is no excuse for accusing this man of anything because there is no evidence against him.

He has objectified her and failed to relate to her as a human being, and he has done so in a world in which women are routinely objectified and made to feel less-than.

So, it would be okay if he believed he could sleep with every man he met but it would be wrong if he believed he could also sleep with every woman he met. This is special pleading.

Why not simply say: 'Anyone who thinks anything I disapprove off is committing a wrong'?

This kind of indifference to the effect one has on others is morally criticisable.

The effect Rima is having on me is morally criticisable. But she is indifferent to my feelings in this respect. This is very wrong of her.

It has always struck me as odd that everyone grants that our actions and words are apt for moral critique, but once we enter the realm of thought we’re off the hook.

In the case of words and actions, some evidence exists. Moral critique has some grist for its mill. Where there is no evidence, there can be no critique of a rational sort. All you have is bullying and intimidation. Why stop at private thoughts? Why not speak of unconscious fantasies or the hidden stirrings of the soul? Why not simply come out and say all beings, save oneself and those one approves off, are subhuman imps damned to Hell for all eternity?

Our beliefs about others matter.

Only if they have a conceptual tie to action. I may believe everybody is actually a Nicraguan horcrux of the neighbor's cat but if nothing I say or do changes then this belief of mine does not matter at all.

If Rima is right, then one may legitimately object to the presence within the polity of those whose Religious beliefs preclude them from accepting people of other creeds, or no creed at all, as being in receipt of an equal share of God's grace or moral value or auspiciousness.

We care what others think of us.

Coz we are teenage girls in a High School Comedy.

When we mistake a person of colour for a staff member, that challenges this person’s central self-descriptions, the descriptions from which he draws his sense of self-worth.

If he is a snowflake.

What happens if we meet a mentally ill person whose 'central self-description' is that he is our boss or entitled to have sex with us? Do we harm him by refusing to obey him or should we let him have his way with us so as to maintain his sense of self-worth?

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with being a staff member, but if your reason for thinking that someone is staff is tied not only to something he has no control over (his skin colour) but also to a history of oppression (being denied access to more prestigious forms of employment), then that should give you pause.

What should give you pause is the fact that you are making a fool of yourself and coming across like some backwoods retard.

The facts might not be racist, but the facts that we often rely on can be the result of racism, including racist institutions and policies.

What are the facts Rima is talking about? The Social configuration space is stochastic. You make bad decisions if you have a framing or anchoring bias or otherwise give salience to hysteresis where there is a single ergodic generator. This means, under scarcity, you are at a competitive disadvantage. If you don't mend your ways, sooner or later, others will eat your lunch.

So when forming beliefs using evidence that is a result of racist history, we are accountable for failing to show more care and for believing so easily that someone is a staff member.

Rima's own background features 'racist history'. It was believed that Professors, even of shite subjects, in Europe and America were smarter than brown people who did useful stuff. Thus Rima cared more about becoming a faculty member at a prestigious White College than serving humanity by taking up some useful work or alethic discipline.

Precisely what is owed can vary along a number of dimensions, but nonetheless we can recognise that some extra care with our beliefs is owed along these lines.

Had Rima taken such care she might have studied something worthwhile or taken up a useful occupation.

Why bother doing a PhD if, at the end of the day, you are going to utter bromides like this?-

We owe each other not only better actions and better words, but also better thoughts.

To discharge our debt to think 'better thoughts' we must study alethic, STEM type subjects, or else take up useful work in an idiographic field. This means saying no to Grievance Studies and grieving over the opportunities to help others we have foregone in order to write worthless shite like this.