Metaphysics & Racism : A Better Way.

Yesterday I wrote about the above video in the context of the role Subject-Object Metaphysics(SOM) plays in undermining intelligent discourse in our media. Between a President and a media personality who both have the same ideological assumptions and are cheering on the same things. All while they do this with little to no intellectual scrutiny and little to no championing of intellectual values.

Today I'll write about this same video and the role identity politics plays in explaining Trump's racist policies.

Because identity politics has a way of splitting people up who have so much more in common regardless of their race. When we fixate on race, gender, or other biological markers, we miss the deeper layers that truly define us. We’re not just a collection of physical traits—we’re a blend of culture, experience, and shared values. And while an amoral Subject-Object approach neatly boxes us into racial categories and acknowledges their existence, it also undermines the increased freedom found in cultural values and leaves our cultural richness in the dust. That’s why the Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ) feels like such a breath of fresh air; it appreciates the nuances of life and emphasizes the importance of culture and our freedom to be who we wish.

By reducing us to our biology, SOM based identity politics creates more conflict than connection. Instead of uniting people around common interests and shared struggles, it enables the socially powerful to pit us against one another based on superficial differences. This narrow focus not only drives wedges between folks of the same class but also pushes racial conflicts to the extreme. The more we emphasize fixed identities, the more we enable an elitist conservative narrative that uses these divisions to bolster racist policies. When our identity is defined solely by what’s immediately visible, we give license to reactionary ideas that thrive on exclusion and segregation.

For those of us who embrace the MOQ perspective though, it’s clear that true quality—whether in art, culture, or moral judgment—transcends the limited view of Subject-Object metaphysics. Culture isn’t a subset of biology; it’s beyond the rules of biology. It's the glue that holds communities together and is the combination of social and intellectual quality. As such we have far more freedom to be who wish than our biological identities reflect. When identity politics insists on reducing us to static, isolated biological categories, it strips away the layers that protect our shared values, and undermines the freedom at the heart of human experience.

After more than a decade of watching this ideology unfold, it’s become all too obvious that a conservative reaction to and interpretation of identity politics was almost inevitable. Leaders like Trump and Musk—seem to emerge from a system that only knows how to talk about folks in racial categories and undermine not just our shared culture but the freedom that we all have to be better people.

The real issue then isn’t just the fight for recognition or equality as identity politics insists—it’s the way we frame that fight. If we continue to define ourselves by narrow, rigid biological identities, we deepen the divides that uber-conservative policies exploit. What we need is a broader perspective—one that celebrates the full, multifaceted nature of who we are both as individuals and as a culture. By shifting our focus from mere biological categorization to the quality of our culture, we can foster a culture that values connection over division and depth over surface-level labels.

In the end then, identity politics, as it’s commonly practiced, does little to challenge the very power structures it claims to oppose. Instead, it often reinforces them, paving the way for policies and leaders that further entrench division. Embracing an MOQ approach means recognizing that our identities are a tapestry woven from far more than our physical attributes—they’re built from the freedom to be who we wish, the quality of our relationships, our shared stories, and the enduring values that bind us together.

In short, the MOQ takes us to a better way.

Metaphysics & Media : A Better Way.

This video is comical if not entirely depressing. Zero facts, zero reality, just folks role playing what they 'feel' is right and most of the country just watching along, aghast, while others cheer it celebrating.

The media—on both sides—has gotten so caught up in social-level power games for so long, that any real pursuit of intellectual values and the common values which underlie them get entirely sidelined. Instead, it’s far too easy to accuse the other side of corruption and ignore our own blind spots. Few voices in American media seem truly dedicated to preserving uncorrupted intellectual values, regardless of the side championing falsehoods.

For those of us who value the Metaphysics of Quality, it’s all too clear that sticking to a strictly subject–object viewpoint too easily shuts out the nuanced role values at play in our understanding of culture and truth. Our perspectives aren’t shaped in a vacuum; they grow out of what we each hold important. And if we can see that, and help our culture see that, we might have a shot at bridging the so-called “great divide” between left and right. Between one media saying one thing, and the other saying something else entirely, it would be nice if folks could begin to acknowledge their own values, the values of others, and then begin to find common ground. Yet instead of that, we’re stuck in a race to the bottom, where even the simplest facts are often dismissed if they don’t align with whichever “side” someone happens to be on, and discussions quickly end.

There’s something profoundly frustrating about all this of course, because deep down, I think most people sense that we’re missing a better approach. An approach that acknowledges how values filter into every corner of our worldview. Rather than continuing to dig trenches, if we can recognize how all these values coexist we can start to find common ground and not simply get stuck in our bubbles. It doesn’t have to be about giving up what we believe or pretending our differences don’t exist. It just means working toward understanding how each person’s values shapes their sense of “right” or “true.” With that, folks can begin to acknowledge the values of the other side as being important, especially intellectual values, and true cultural progress can be made.

Sadly, that’s not what’s happening now, and especially here in this video. But our current situation hasn't come out of nowhere. It's the result of decades of social level corruption of intellectual values. Of an elitist social level power making decisions in the name of the common man, and the dismissal of the importance of an informed people and the intellectual values they help to protect. With this elitist attitude towards the intellectual values of the common man - cynicism among the people has grown and an appreciation of common values we all have has been thrown out the window.

So this is where we are. On full display in this video. It's now just about pure team playing. With social level power using our current amoral metaphysics to keep folks divided, to ignore intellectual values, and fight one another. Intellectual Morality, Dynamic Morality be damned.

It's time for a better way.

Rejection.

I have a confession.

For the great majority of good things in my life - I rejected them when I first heard about or saw or heard them.

Everything from my favorite author - to my favorite movie - Gattaca - a now to one my favorite songs - 'You can do it' by CARIBOU.  At first - when I heard this song I found it too repetitive and far too simplistic for my ears. It's the type of song to get on ones nerves if heard in the wrong way or wrong context.  But now much later.. having needed the occasional push of encouragement - it's one of the few songs that comes to mind when I need it.  

Its repetitive drive, its pattern, really gets me going and into a more positive mood..

Maybe you will like it - maybe you will hate it like I did when I first heard it. But either way it's fascinating how our opinions of Art can change over time.  And for me at least, it's usually those things which challenge me the most, which I'm likely to reject outright, but which are actually the best things going around.

To fully appreciate these things - I have to grow.  Oftentimes that growth isn't done intentionally.  I don't intentionally think about liking something - and very often things are rejected which, for good reasons, are bad anyway.  But sometimes things aren't so easily rejected. And in an effort to understand them - to appreciate them - sometimes I end up running out of reasons to dislike them.  In the process of understanding them, in the process of putting them in their own unique context, I realise that I can really just appreate them for what they are.   And sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes, those things first rejected, but which took an extra long time to appreciate, are the best things going around.

To understand required growth. And in that growth was the Quality that was there all along.