Sunday, February 13, 2011

Vocabulary entry, 02/13/2011

"Zero-sum"

Not a term that I was unfamiliar with, but one which I had not connected to a train of thought I'd been working on.

I had commented on a post at Autonomy For All wherein I had used the awkward phrasing "finite-ist" and "infinite-ist".

"Finite-ists" were those bratty little five-year-olds at birthday parties who were always whining that somebody else's piece of cake was bigger than theirs.

They grow up to be petty, greedy, angry right-wingers: the cake is finite, so if some body's piece gets bigger, theirs, by definition, has to get smaller.

(Compare and contrast with "infinite-ists" -- those kids who didn't care in the least how big everybody's piece of cake was: everybody had some cake, so it was all good.

In the adult world: something good happens to you, and I'm not damaged in the least. In fact I receive joy from the fact).

"Zero-sum" -- one characteristic of the right wing worldview.

No comments:

Post a Comment