I’ve included here, likely to your utter dismay, the ramblings that transpired after coming upon the term cognitive estrangement:
You know that feeling when you are passionate about something & you are gifted, or have stumbled upon, a tool that facilitates a more refined process to what you are working on?
Cognitive estrangement is my new ’23’, in that, I see the brilliance of its application everywhere, for good or for bad, how this relates to the development of any social structure, technology, biospheres.. this is not new to me in essence, but to have linked into that ephemeral something that was gnawing at me & to have come across another mind who has articulated that modus operandi that I was struggling to effectively grasp onto is of some great significance to me. Speculative fiction has been designed server-side to instigate a change of perception client-side, without the barrier of previous programming. This is a brilliant medium to cognitively hack the rigid processes that perceive the veils that ensure that the systems of control in place are mere phantasmagoria. This requires minimal hard resources as the inertia created through the pleasure of finely crafted fiction jars the mind willingly to be open to the probability of another way as the processes are done client-side within one’s own subjectivity integrating into the core of how that system operates. This, of course, is only the seed bed. Past this point references to linking to a broader network of like intended minds is necessary foster the full benefits of this methodology.
Communicating & exploring complex ideas within the imaginative realm has brought our collective minds far, & with so much speculative fiction being an escapist medium, in so many cases, I can see how the power of this method of exploration can be dismissed. Just by the mere fact that the de facto references to oppressive government & corporate policy get directed to books & authors of speculative fiction says to me that there is much power there to instigate change within this medium. I see the ‘suspension of disbelief’ utilized client side all over most of what we would call our news sources who have usurped the collective consciousness. These cognitive C&C hacking models can & have been undone via speculative fiction, graphic novels, film, video games.. the means & distribution of these have well been in the hands of the power brokers, but with the invention of a free press &, later, the internet, there are the means to effectively distribute communications abroad doing away, for the most part, the sophistry of borders & geography.
All this to say, the conscious utilization of cognitive estrangement to the end of introducing a foundation not otherwise accessible to a DRM mind, in the hands of a few motivated individuals, can sow the seeds to affect great change insofar at there is to foresight to have the social infrastructure in place to foster like minds to come to affect much needed change.
“In Suvin’s opinion, the focus of the genre lies in encouraging new ways of thinking about human society, or to inspire those who are oppressed to resist. Suvin has labeled this idea of subversive thinking as cognitive estrangement. Those works of SF that could be characterized as using cognitive estrangement rely on no one particular hypothesis, but instead on the cognitive presentation of alternative realities that directly contradict the status quo.[9]”
thank you for yr enthusiaatic comment and parahrase.
you’re from the Twitter – Facebook – Internet hacking generation, i gather; i’m not. so yr vocabulary is understandably different from mine in the 60s-70s. i’m therefore not sure i understood all, in particular i don’t recognize yr acronyms, sorry.
however i gather we’re on the same side of the class barrier, so to speak, and that you find cognitive estrangement useful, so i’m glad. it’s every intellectual’s fond wish to be useful. so far as i can get it, you’ve understood its gist well. therefore our generational and semantic differences are finally secondary. what matters is to see humanity and civilization survive as against our present rulers.
Darko Suvin 
I’ve included here, likely to your utter dismay, the ramblings that transpired after coming upon the term cognitive estrangement:
You know that feeling when you are passionate about something & you are gifted, or have stumbled upon, a tool that facilitates a more refined process to what you are working on?
Cognitive estrangement is my new ’23’, in that, I see the brilliance of its application everywhere, for good or for bad, how this relates to the development of any social structure, technology, biospheres.. this is not new to me in essence, but to have linked into that ephemeral something that was gnawing at me & to have come across another mind who has articulated that modus operandi that I was struggling to effectively grasp onto is of some great significance to me. Speculative fiction has been designed server-side to instigate a change of perception client-side, without the barrier of previous programming. This is a brilliant medium to cognitively hack the rigid processes that perceive the veils that ensure that the systems of control in place are mere phantasmagoria. This requires minimal hard resources as the inertia created through the pleasure of finely crafted fiction jars the mind willingly to be open to the probability of another way as the processes are done client-side within one’s own subjectivity integrating into the core of how that system operates. This, of course, is only the seed bed. Past this point references to linking to a broader network of like intended minds is necessary foster the full benefits of this methodology.
Communicating & exploring complex ideas within the imaginative realm has brought our collective minds far, & with so much speculative fiction being an escapist medium, in so many cases, I can see how the power of this method of exploration can be dismissed. Just by the mere fact that the de facto references to oppressive government & corporate policy get directed to books & authors of speculative fiction says to me that there is much power there to instigate change within this medium. I see the ‘suspension of disbelief’ utilized client side all over most of what we would call our news sources who have usurped the collective consciousness. These cognitive C&C hacking models can & have been undone via speculative fiction, graphic novels, film, video games.. the means & distribution of these have well been in the hands of the power brokers, but with the invention of a free press &, later, the internet, there are the means to effectively distribute communications abroad doing away, for the most part, the sophistry of borders & geography.
All this to say, the conscious utilization of cognitive estrangement to the end of introducing a foundation not otherwise accessible to a DRM mind, in the hands of a few motivated individuals, can sow the seeds to affect great change insofar at there is to foresight to have the social infrastructure in place to foster like minds to come to affect much needed change.
#guerillapsyops #isolatednutbar #rubberwalls
“In Suvin’s opinion, the focus of the genre lies in encouraging new ways of thinking about human society, or to inspire those who are oppressed to resist. Suvin has labeled this idea of subversive thinking as cognitive estrangement. Those works of SF that could be characterized as using cognitive estrangement rely on no one particular hypothesis, but instead on the cognitive presentation of alternative realities that directly contradict the status quo.[9]”
https://darkosuvin.com/
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dear mr/ms Blackburn,
thank you for yr enthusiaatic comment and parahrase.
you’re from the Twitter – Facebook – Internet hacking generation, i gather; i’m not. so yr vocabulary is understandably different from mine in the 60s-70s. i’m therefore not sure i understood all, in particular i don’t recognize yr acronyms, sorry.
however i gather we’re on the same side of the class barrier, so to speak, and that you find cognitive estrangement useful, so i’m glad. it’s every intellectual’s fond wish to be useful. so far as i can get it, you’ve understood its gist well. therefore our generational and semantic differences are finally secondary. what matters is to see humanity and civilization survive as against our present rulers.
i’d encourage you to visit my site https://independent.academia.edu/DarkoSuvin/Papers where newer things are posted. in particular i’d be interested if you had comments abt the last paper, WHAT IS TO BE DONE. ypou can send them directly to dsuvin@gmail.com.
good wishes abt yr work, of wch i wish i knew something.
yours Darko Suvin
Professor Emeritus
McGill Univ.
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