Engaging with constraints of the dealer

Annexing the World as the Deal of the Century (Part #8)

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Recognizing "bullshit": Faced with the externalities of having to deal with a "wreck" which one has acquired, combined with devious pressures from a "dealer" -- especially given one's own complicity -- the dynamics of the situation call for reframing with aesthetic skills, informed by martial art philosophy (Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patterns: reframing the scope of the "martial arts" in response to strategic threats, 2006). In aesthetic terms, this could be understand as gardening -- an inner game of gardening -- strategically marshalling and applying one's resources, even juggling them (Governance as "juggling" -- Juggling as "governance": dynamics of braiding incommensurable insights for sustainable governance, 2018).

Expressed otherwise, and more succinctly, it is a case of dealing with bullshit which one has variously engendered -- but is most readily blamed as the responsibility of others. That the term is deprecated in a context of political correctness is potentially an indicator that it obscures a reality meriting creative thinking (Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit, 2005). Clues are evident in the focus on "bulls" in the Zen philosophy associated with martial art engagement with an opponent (Zen of Facticity: Bull, Ox or Otherwise? Herding facts and their alternatives in a post-truth-era, 2017). They are also evident in bull-fighting and the hisotical ignifince of bull-related symbolism (Viable Global Governance through Bullfighting: challenge of transcendence, 2009).

Given that bullshit could be recognized as a feature of an "ecological footprint", namely as the failure to recycle engendered waste effectively, a cognitive variant can be explored with respect to arguments for recognition of a complementary "ecological mouthprint" (Ecological Mouthprint versus Ecological Footprint, 2019).

Confidence games: The deal is then best understood as one involving a degree of antagonism and subterfuge, rather than being an innocent neutral process framed naively by win-win arguments from which none will lose. The dealer is out to profit from the process in ways which are a challenge to determine -- especially in whose interests it is being proposed and undertaken. Dramatically framed, it can be understood as a deal with the devil as variously imagined -- namely with the epitome of otherness (Taylor Caldwell, Dialogues with the Devil, 1967; Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal, 1957; Tom Graneau, The Devil in Modern Eden, 2015; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, 1790).

Given a degree of obligation to engage with the dealer, a further complication is advice by eminent authorities not to engage at all (Pope's Morning Homily: Don't Dialogue With Devil, Keep a Good Distance, Zenit, 8 May 2018). Can engaging with the dealer be avoided in this light -- or do efforts at such avoidance exacerbate the condition the deal is claimed to address? Given the tradition in that regard, is the dealer to be understood as essentially as trickster? Given the source of that advice, to what extent is it to be considered trustworthy (Frédéric Martel, In the Closet of the Vatican: power, homosexuality, hypocrisy, 2019).

Authoritarianism: Even more challenging is any cultivation by the dealer of a Messianic role in responding to the experience of disaster -- effectively constituting a riddle of the most fundamental nature (Global Governance as a Riddle: but is a solution the answer to the question? 2018). This can be variously clarified on the basis of complementary professional insights from preemptive news and image management (Strategic Briefing for Satan, 1999; Strategic Briefing for the Messiah, 1999).

Radical imagination of possibilities is appropriate (despite reservations in that regard), including:

• appreciation of the tensions within which the deal is framed -- as a proposal "one cannot refuse", exemplified by the style of racketeers
  
  
• recognition of the sense that if the deal is refused, reasonable as it is claimed to be, it will be one's own fault -- as with any disastrous consequences, then to be framed by the dealer as self-inflicted
  
  
• recognition that the more obviously attractive features of the deal (especially those framed in monetary terms or career advantage) merit appreciation as a distraction from the underlying confidence of which they are typically a surrogate. It is in this sense that the engagement with the deal and the dealer involves a confidence trick of the most fundamental nature (***). Can one be beneficailly "conned" by the dealer and the deal?
  
  
• recognition of the time frame of the proposal, typically characterized as urgently requiring a decision in order to benefit from the deal -- a delay upheld as "not an option", although waiting is otherwise upheld an essential feature of democratic processes?
  
  
• recognition of the extent to which waiting until some future time may be claimed as necessary to benefit from the deal as proposed, raising questions regarding the problematic aspects of waiting for resolution under conditions of crisis (Waiting as an Experience of Fundamental Significance: commentary on web resources on types of waiting and anticipation, 2018)
  
  
• recognition of to whom the dealer assumes the proposal is being made, and how one frames oneself as the recipient of the proposal -- who is the dealer's "target", and how does one define oneself as a "target", and why the recourse to miltary metaphors (Enhancing Sustainable Development Strategies through Avoidance of Military Metaphors, 1998)?
  
  
• recognition of who it is who needs to decide -- the "target"?
  
  
• recognition of the questionable "objectification" of the deal, given that the deal is typically framed as of benefit in objective terms, this calls into question the mysterious complementarity of subjective and objective and the process of being subjected to objectivity -- especially the objectives of others (A Subjective Objection: Objecting to Subjection -- Interplay of questions enabling transcendence of fundamental dilemmas? 2016; Conditions of Objective, Subjective and Embodied Cognition, 2007; ¡¿ Defining the objective 8 Refining the subjective ?! Explaining reality 8 Embodying realization, 2011)
  
  
• recognition of the kind of sacrifice the dealer frames as being reasonable -- recalling the sacrifices to the gods framed as appropriate in civilizations past. Does one become complicit in the sacrifice of others -- following the questionable formula that "omelettes cannot be made without breaking eggs"
  
  
• recognition of the necessary degree of secrecy held to be necessary by the dealer in order for the proposed deal to be viable, implying that it is not viable under conditions of transparency. What complicity with the dealer does this then imply? What are the implications of any non-disclosure agreement?
  
  
• recognition of dimensions which are undeclared and unstated (Varieties of the "unsaid" in sustaining psycho-social community, 2003; Global Strategic Implications of the "Unsaid", 2003). Rather than being secret, does this imply a secret bond with the dealer, which one may come to regret?
  
  
• recognition of the extent in which the deal involve "thinking the unthinkable" in some manner -- or "feeling the unfeelable" -- especially when "unthinkable" implies otherwise unacceptable
  
  
• recognition that in accepting the deal, is one's identity appropriately "in the game" or ineffectually dissociated from it, as vigorously challenged by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: hidden asymmetries in daily life, 2018)?
  
  
• vigilance with regard to the "economy of truth" meriting attention -- in a negotiation in which the degree of truthfulness can be understood as necessarily questionable (Global Economy of Truth as a Ponzi Scheme: personal cognitive implication in globalization? 2016). Presentation of the deal could go beyond a tolerable degree of puffery (typically to be expected) to include various degrees of outright lying, compounded by lying about any occurrence of such lying (The Trump team is now lying about lying, CNN, 29 August 2019; In 928 days, President Trump has made 12,019 false or misleading claims, The Washington Post, 5 August 2019),
  
  
• further to the previous point, in a period in which the promotion of deals is only with the greatest difficulty dissociated from "hot air" (not to say "bullshit"), it could be considered amazing that the global preoccupation is with the accumulating hot air of global warming. The relationship between the two merits close attention (Sins of Hot Air Emission, Omission, Commission and Promission: the political challenge of responding to global crises, 2009; Ecological Mouthprint versus Ecological Footprint, 2019).

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