Wilsonian Quantifiers in Hashtag Politics

Wilsonian Quantifiers in Hashtag Politics

Consider the logic quantifiers “some but not all” and “none or all”. The former is the variability quantifier, the latter is the constancy quantifier: “some but not all things have property P” means that P is variable; “none or all things have property P” means that P is constant.

“Some but not all” and “none or all” are to the “some” and “all” quantifiers as “xor” and “iff” are to “or” and “and”. I call them “Wilsonian” quantifiers in honor of the speculative-fiction writer Robert Anton Wilson, who coined the word “sumbunall” as a philosophical corrective to ideological overgeneralization. I coined the word “nunnerol” as its counterpart.

          Now note #BLM = “Black Lives Matter”. This hashtag denotes an aspiration, not a description. Its implicit protest message is that as things are, black lives do not matter.

          A Wilsonian hashtag would be: #SBNALM = “Some but not all lives matter”. That is a cynical description of political reality. Its aspirational opposite: #NOALM = “None or all lives matter”.

          Actually, I think that SBNALM is the overclass aspirational delusion, and NOALM is the gritty long-run reality.