back to the beginning: morality

Once again, this may contain an important insight regarding the moral narrative that I have come to embody “down in the hole” that “I” am.

But in no way, shape or form [that I can discern] are these words connected to any actual social, political or economic context in which particular value judgments do in fact come into conflict with other particular value judgments.

Now, why do you suppose that is?

P.S.

.

Ok. To clarify

The hole as You express is very understandable from the point of view
that has generally been expressed all through out our / Your experience .

But that hole is not a singular manifestation of being (there), but a built (here) , where it (the experience)
of Being having a beginning.

The point Heidegger makes is that the Being can not be approached as if, through It’s self, the whole self, as a composite of psychological , philosophical, metapsychologocal, political origin, because it has to be looked at from the different vantage points.

But we can’t because trying to find it is only possible by going back and finding the original experience of the hole.

The ‘hole’ , , has manyform derivations. of mostly symbolic forms taken , would You go along with that?
That the Platonic Cave, and Nietzsche’s Abyss have some semblance relevant to experience in general. Then the the hole You inhabit share somewhat of a re-semblance.

The etymology of the word between semblance and resemblance occasions two different forms of ‘appearing different’. Not that I’m into with this kind of analysis for my basic effort of proof, only to dole out defenses toward such people who find such proof definitive. (And you know whom I’m referring), but merely stating that that view is not substantially definitive, only literally.

That connecting types of holes by virtue of an imposed temporal referentially is am arduous and nay oft impossible task, and it is not based simply on current, not exclusive definition.

It is alive, in the sense temporality more in line with what Augustine defines time as being transcendence.

,It’s is an existential contraption , but one with transcendental undertones of time as understood to before, bound to a backward understanding rather than a forward look.(which causes stasis)

So the contraption is there and it isn’t.
The duality has disappeared but understandably so, because of the inherent duality within time itself.

This is the conflict which binds us onto a hole from which we are trying to escape.

We would like to get away from time, as some modern historians claim unsuccessfully so, that we are living , having passed the age of history.

But it may not be so simple to escape it, nonetheless, the constraints, which the totality of the darkness of the hole(whole) has imprinted.

True, but I speculate that there are any number of variables embedded in our lives that do seem true for all of us: mathematics, the laws of nature, empirical facts, the logical rules of language.

But [as I always note in turn]: Even the either/or world is still embedded in this:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

Embedded in [among other things] the extent to which determinism or sollipsism or sim worlds are or are not applicable to the “human condition”. Given the gap that would seem to exist between what any particular “I” claims to know here and now and all that would need to be known about the very ontological nature of existence itself.

The parts that any number of “serious philosophers” [not to mention astrophysicists] seem to just shrug off.

Look, either Phyllo is still able to sustain some measure of “comfort and consolation” regarding the relationship between morality on this side of the grave and his fate on the other side or he is not.

And that is either embedded in the assumptions he makes about how rational his thinking is “here and now” or it is not. Only he can aprise us of that. And I have reacted to the assumptions [political prejudices] he makes about things like Communism with certain assumptions [political prejudices] of my own. Then it is up to others to react to our arguments as they do. I merely note that such reactions seem to me to be embodied in political prejudices rooted in the existential contraption that is his “lived life” rooted in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

But that explanation is acknolwedged by me [over and again] to be no less an existential contraption. Given that I know very, very little about the life that he has lived, I can only react to his points by extrapolating from arguments that I have come across many, many, many times from those that I – “I” – deem to be objectivists.

But even here given only the extent to which my own understanding of objectivism is, in and of itself, just another existential contraption. The product of “I” embedded in my own actual “lived life”.

The comfort and consolation is either there for him [or you] or it is not. It is no longer there for me.

Huh?

If I believe that my beliefs here [re the is/ought world and oblivion] are just existential contraptions then I am acknowledging right from the start that assesments deemed to be either “superior” or “inferior” here are no less existential contraptions.

Also, to the extent that subjunctively I seem to be more certain of this, is only the extent to which the subjunctive “I” too is an existential contraption.

And the only thing I can “know” about his motivation and intentions is that which “I” have managed to scrape together given my own profoundly problematic reaction to what he has told me about his life so far. And what are the odds that is anything other than me barely scratching the surface of what makes him tick?

As for all this…

…we would have to bring this “general description” down to earth. To focus this “wall of words” on a particular context in which we attempt to describe what unfolds “inside out head” when confronting conflicting goods at the existential juncture that is 1] identity 2] value judgments and 3] political economy.

He can choose it.

Then it will come down [once again] to the extent to which we might perhaps become clearer to each other regarding the arguments we made here and elsewhere about things like Communism.

As for this…

you pick the context, the conflicting goods, and the extent to which “I” can articulate a point of view here that is able to transcend the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein above.

Show us how “pragmatic” you can be in exposing me as just another “moralist”.

Or maybe it’s time [once again] for you to be “moving on” to others. :wink:

The abortion issue can be approached logically.

If giving birth makes the planet worse for all including the child in question, then abortion is prudent. What better generation than this to make this argument?

If there is some kind of “cosmic savior”, this baby would be impossible to abort.

Since we know in fantasy (by definition) that the second one is true, it’s up to us to handle the justice of the situation, and abortion is a matter of justice.

I’ve often said that if people are really concerned about “be fruitful and multiply”, we’d have 3.7 billion women strapped down on beds and inseminate them every 9 months - leaving us with a world where each women has an average of 52 offspring - real lives that we know for a fact can be here, to the extent we don’t do this - it also is abortion.

That you actually [still] imagine that this is what is really behind my posting here speaks, say, volumes?

Comfort and consolation per se isn’t my point.

It is the extent to which others insist that what comforts and consoles them can comfort and console you too — if only you’ll think about one or another set of conflicting goods and/or God as they do.

Not counting those objectivists [ubermen] here who insist that, say, only white anglo-saxon, protestant and heterosexual men even deserve to be comforted and consoled.

I always focus the beam on the fact that I – “I” – no longer have access to this comfort and consolation. Neither on this side of the grave nor on the other side of it.

And all I can do is to explore the reasons that others give to explain why they still do have access to them.

The rest is just polemics and waiting for godot.

Right.

Clarification as just another [bigger] wall of words defining and defending other words. An intellectual contraption of steroids.

Really, imagine someone struggling at the intersection of identity, value judgment and political economy. They are struggling existentially to answer the question “how ought I to live?”

In other words, given that they are faced “out in a particular world” with a tumultuous clash of moral and political narratives/agendas. It could be anything from abortion to keeping animals in zoos.

They read your assessment and…and what?

Right.

Clarification as just another [bigger] wall of words defining and defending other words. An intellectual contraption of steroids.

Really, imagine someone struggling at the intersection of identity, value judgment and political economy. They are struggling existentially to answer the question “how ought I to live?”

In other words, given that they are faced “out in a particular world” with a tumultuous clash of moral and political narratives/agendas. It could be anything from abortion to keeping animals in zoos.

They read your assessment and…and what?[/quote

Then , like I likewise, would and do, feel existentially defeated, and adhere to an earlier sign posted there: Beware those, who enter here!

I can no possibly give up on getting out of the I (eye) , whereby my values and my confusions would condemn me , in a metaphorical Altona.

But as I’m completely on that as for me, I cannot get over an existential leap i have made recently to transfer the angst in form of a totality of hope.

Situations give rise to conflicting values as well, and in cases like that,
choices can drive one literally to the wall, from which there actually may not be an exit.

I will describe somewhat a situation to follow that personally is causing me similar state of impotence.

I’ve been looking for a job for some time now, for my familie’s financial needs grossly acceed my capacity to satisfy them.

I took a job offer about a couple of months ago, and I was fired from lack of telling them, that my recent operation would disqualify me from the job, as designated in their employment manual.

Actually , it was a joint decision by my employer and me.

So now I was left with not only a diminished income, but time , which would have been better spent.

So just today, I get a call from another interested employer in Santa Ana, .ca.
and they indicated a far better paying training paid opportunity at twice the salary and a lucrative sign in bonus.

Well, then I suddenly remembered that my wife and I have purchesed6 tickets for a return visit to Hungary, my birthplace.The shock of that remembrance knocked the wind out of me for, this would have been an ideal position , if it had worked out.

So feeling trapped, I asked them if the starting date could be adjusted to coincide after the 10 some days that our visit would have taken.

The answer was a flat out , resounding ‘NO’, and with nothing to drink, a total exasperation came over me. Now this ‘real’ hole, not constracted, seems to bottom out into a myriad of valuelessness, leaving me in an existential lurch, from which escape appears impossible for the moment.

I an particularising for a deeper meaning here, that it appeared for me. that I’m not in a situation, but its derivative : a state.So here it is: my psycholigism or lack of psycho-holism devolved into a feeling state, because I couldn’t dis-associate it from the overall situation as a whole.

Literally I fell into a whole-less hole, like Alice did.

I think this is a good metaphore into what Heidegger meant.

I bring you back to this:

viewtopic.php?p=2705940#p2705940

Apparently, Iambiguous is not looking for an on topic debate.

Abortion is much more dramatic , but not as prevalent as finding, holding and looking losing a job. It’s a strange anomaly.

Too many people are having kids who can’t afford it, but no one is much concerned about what is really behind a guy’s problems concerning how problematic it is morally speaking, on those whose lives were shattered by losing job, wife and kids , health and meaning and desire to live. That category includes the irresponsible good ol’ union busters.

Not to mention kids having to grow up fatherless and in many cases adopted out to abusive people who are only running these businesses out of greed.

That really tips the scale.

My point is that not everything is a "psychological defense mechanism’. Not everything is an “existential contraption”.

It’s important to examine when something is a “defense mechanism” and when it is not… instead of pointlessly dumping it all into one category.

And please don’t respond with “the distinction between facts that can be shown to be true for all of us”, because you don’t apply that distinction consistently. That’s my biggest problem with your reaction to my statements about communism … as soon as it suits you, facts and truth get tossed out and they are replaced by personal reactions.

It appears that truth is essentially worthless. Why even pretend to be interested in truth?

Then drop it. The drama of your losing objectivism and all the implicit judgments of objectivists, intended or not, are not then relevent. Focus just on the epistemological issue. You can’t fling around judgments of other people’s internal processes when compared with you own and not expect people to interpret you the way they do.

You claim to have a goal of understanding how they can be certain of specific values and goods. Fine, that is an episemological issue. All the comfort and consolation - terms you use and bring up yourself - is ad hom and irrelevent. All you need to do is focus on

how do you now that?

Period.

It comes off so disingenous when you get up in arms that someone has attributed motives to you when you regularly do this yourself AND it is not necessary for your project.

And here, when I tell you abotu your project, I am going by your own description of your goals.

Sure, you do this, but you also make ad hom psychic claims about the motivations of people you disagree with. It is not necessary to speak about your emotional situation. It is not necessary to speculate about theirs. It causes problems when you compare and contrast and it is even less necessary. That you do this implicitly allows you to feel victimized when others react to all this focus on motivations and emotion which is to the man and not relevent to your purported goals.

But that is not all you do do! That would be great, just focus on the reasons and drop all the psychology, comparisons, mind reading…

Just focus on the issue of how they know.

Can you do that?

Can you drop the implicit and explicit personal comparisons, the ad hom content?

You seem to get upset when people notice it and respond to it, when they return the favor.

Just drop it.

Be more Socrates like. How did you draw that conclusion? How do you know? How does that demonstrate that this value is correct?

You keep referring to I, then ‘I’. Drop both out of this. The irony that there is so much of your I in your posts is part of what is causing you problems.

Just focus on the issue of who people get certain about their moral beliefs. That is a questioning process.

But if the issue is you and your feelings and that is what the discussion should be about, along with your ideas about what is going on in objectivists and their feelings and motivations…

if that is the discussion you want to have, fine.

Have that discussion. But 1) it will get in the way of the other conversation and 2) it will not speak volumes about anything when people say stuff about you, mind read about you, compare your motivations with others. It will simply be a natural outcome of what you are focusing on.

Now this suggestion will not eliminate conflict, but I would bet heavily it will reduce it. I don’t think it will provide you with a solution, since I don’t think there is one. However if there were a solution to conflicting goods, this streamlining opens the door for the discussion that would lead to it. Precise questioning leaving your biography and other people’s motives and emotions OUT OF IT.

IOW a philosophical discussion.

I do think that one’s personal life can be a part of philosophy discussions, but here your goal is so precise and the inevitability of the distraction coupled with its utter lack of usefulness in this issue, lead me to suggest you just leave it out.

Yes, there are any number of existential holes just like this. Holes that any number of us here could recount.

Sets of circumstances entirely unique to us. “Situations” that are bursting at the seams with all manner of complex variables that we will only have so much understanding and control over.

What then is to be done?

For example:

1] Why will we choose to do some things and not other things? And why will others choose to do the things that we choose not to do instead?

2] How do we go about determining the most rational things to do?

3] How might those folks we call “philosophers” examine the context in order to come up with that which can be described as the “right thing to do”?

What would constitute, say, “justice” here?

Now, my own philosophical hole comes into play here in suggesting there are limits beyond which the tools of philosophy may well not be able to go.

In many profound and problematic ways, “I” here is just an “existential contraption”. A particular prefabricated and ever refabricated “sense of self” predisposed subjectively out in a particular world understood in a particular way by the existential trajectory of the life that has actually been lived.

So, it would seem [to me] the best that we can hope for here is to at least come to an agreement regarding those things – facts --able to be demonstrated as true for all of us.

And then “for all practical purposes” our reaction to those agreed upon facts will precipitate choices [behaviors] that gravitate toward one or another combination of might makes right, right makes might, or moderation, negotiation and compromise.

The best of all possible worlds given what we construe to be [here and now] the best of all possible ways to think about that.

The implication being that to me everything is. And yet over and over and over and over and over again I note how the vast preponderance of human interactions revolve entirely around sustained material relationships embedded – immutably? – in mathematical and scientific truths, in nature, in empirical fact, in the logical rules of language.

No, the “existential contraptions” and the “psychological defense mechanisms” revolve instead only around our reactions to conflicting goods. Why any particular “I” goes in one direction here and not another. And how that gets all tangled up in genes and memes and Gods and politics.

Right, and as soon as it suits you, the alleged facts and truths coming from those who still embrace Communism – Communism done right this time – get tossed out in turn.

The distinction here will only ever be applied “consistently” when others who don’t think like you do admit that their own value judgments really are just inherently flawed “personal reactions” out of sync with the “whole truth” about Communism.

There are truths that seem clearly embedded in the either/or world.

But in a No God world what does it mean even to speak of these truths as “essential”?

If next month an asteroid – the Big One – plows into the planet, every single one of us might be obliterated. What human truths then would not become essentially worthless?

No.

Yes, we all know that because you have posted it hundreds of times.

No shit. That’s what we were discussing. As usual.

Do we really need to put a disclaimer in every post :“The “existential contraptions” and the “psychological defense mechanisms” revolve instead only around our reactions to conflicting goods.”

That’s a product of your imagination. It’s not based on anything that I have written.

Another obstacle to having a discussion with you.

You’re alive now and the truth is valuable now. Next month, next minute or a billion years from now … are all irrelevant in the present.

PS

Right. The “epistemological issue”.

Just focus the beam on a moral and political context in which conflicts are rife. How would we actually go about examining these conflicts as an “epistemological issue”? What can we know for certain such that “interpretation” is not really a factor. There is only what is in fact known to be true and what is in fact known to be not true.

Comfort and consolation here would seem to revolve basically around the fact that everyone is able to at least agree on the facts.

Where the discomfort and disconsolation pop up is [of course] in our reactions to the behaviors that some choose given their own understanding of the facts regarding things like abortion.

Objectivists and some pragmatists/realists have managed to attain and then sustain a level of psychological comfort and consolation that is now [more or less] beyond my reach. They have managed to sustain an “I” that, in the is/ought world, seems considerably less fractured and fragmentd than mine.

And if I bring that up over and again on threads like this one, it is precisely because for me nothing is more relevant with regard to philosophy.

So, sure, if that isn’t of real concern to others, they should certainly steer clear of me here.

But: For those who do choose to interact with others socially, politically and economically, there’s no getting around conflicting goods.

Now, indeed, in terms of how we discuss this philosophically there are any number of technical conponents that revolve around that which we either can or cannot know for certain.

And, for the epistemologists among us, I ask that they bring these technical points out into the world of conflicting goods.

Instead, any number of them will insist that only when I go up into the technical clouds and demonstrate my understanding of these things as a “serious philosopher”, is it worth their while to bring their far more sophisticated analytical contraptions down to earth.

So, we’re stuck.

Now, I’m not saying they don’t make a good point about me. I’m just asking them to demonstrate that point by bringing their technical skills to bear on a particular context in which they are confronting actual flesh and blood folks on opposite sides of one or another moral and political conflagration.

Again, an issue like abortion. Discuss the “goal of understanding” the “specific values and goals” embedded in this particularly ferocious conflicting good…as an epistemologist might. What would she be telling those folks outside the abortion clinic who are hurling insults and spit – and bullets? – at each other?

Cite an example of this. I don’t see my reaction as anything other than probing into how others rationalize their own thoughts and feelings and behaviors in conflicts with others.

Such that they do not construe “I” then as being down in the hole that my “I” is in. That they do not see “I” then as a fractured and fragmented existential contraption.

Now, admittedly, on this thread – viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194190&start=25 – I did explore the complexities embedded in my own reaction to others here.

If some wish to construe this as an example of an “ad hom psychic claim”, so be it.

More to the point [mine] will they? Over and again I ask others to situate their value judgments “here and now” in an existential trajectory along the lines of this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

But how many of them do? To do so [in my view] involves the very real risk of upending the “real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”. And it is this [in my view] that prompts any number of hostile reactions to the arguments I make.

All I need do here is to go back to the time when my own I out in the is/ought began to reconfigure/crumble into “I”.

Yeah, I may be wrong here but it may well be this that triggers the angriest reactions to me. That may well be the source of my “conflicts” with others. My whole frame of mind is about yanking the “real me” and “the right thing to do” out from under the objectivists.

And once they are gone…then what?

Then drop it. The drama of your losing objectivism and all the implicit judgments of objectivists, intended or not, are not then relevent. Focus just on the epistemological issue. You can’t fling around judgments of other people’s internal processes when compared with you own and not expect people to interpret you the way they do.
[/quote]

What an odd way to put it. Yes, you have an epistemological issue. You wonder how others and if others can know what is good and demonstrate this. Your core issue, as presented by you, is an epistemological one.

Exactly the way you sometimes do. You ask people how they know that their idea of the good is the right one. You ask them to demonstrate this to others and to you. That is a set of epistemological issues. It can be specific: give an example, such as the abortion one. It could be general. I have seen you post in both ways and as parts of many posts. My point was that you add in stuff that will distract from what you claim is the project you have here.

Sure, they do. But you need not discuss those emotions or states of mind. You can focus on the issue of how they know they are right and how they can demonstrate this to others. It can all be very specific, but there is no need to discuss what you think their state of mind is.

If you also want to speculate on that, you could do it elsewhere. It is certainly a valid and interesting topic. But here it comes off as smug and condescending. And it is basically ad hom. You believe that because it brings you comfort. That is an ad hom.

Could be in some or many cases. Fine. But it is not relevent and not a help in finding out ways to resolve conflicting goods. Repeating it is a good way to put people on the defensive, since it is an ad hom attack in this context.

It is not relevant to finding out if there is an answer to conflicting goods. And you don’t like it when people do it to you and you go off topic when they do.

Whether it - the internal emotional states of objectivists or non-objectivists - is a concern to others does not matter. Even if it is, and it often is, it is not relevent to the project you have claimed you are about here.

See: right there you acted as if to discuss resolving issues of conflicting goods you must talk about the emotional states of other people and compare them with you states. That we need to know about your hole and what you have felt at other times in your life.

But no, that does not help resolve the issue of conflicting goods. It is ad hom, a way to seem, at the very least, condescending, to make it about you and them, rather than the issue of conflicting goods and how to know what is good and how one should live and how one determines that. IOW it creates distractions from what you have repeatedly claimed is you goal for these topics.

You know what, fuck you. You are an epistemologist as much as anyone here. You have an epistemological quandry. You like to mention it as a hole. But this hole revolves around you no longer feeling certain or even thinking it is possible to know the good and demonstrate it. That’s epistemology. Here you are again labeling other people.

Fuck you, you asshole. That is not what I am saying. Only the most pigheaded uncharitable read of my posts would come up with that shit.

Where, in my fucking posts, did I myself go up in the technical clouds or ask for serious philosophy you fucked up little turd. I mentioned Socrates,that’s the closest I can think of. What did he do, he kept asking questions,and not in technical language, in everyday language. Fuck, you’ve had more academic philosophy than I have, according to what you wrote elsewhere. I took a couple of courses at a weird progressive college with minimal reading.

I said drop the personal stuff, the comparing yourself to others, the condescending shit, the mind reading. Pardon my use of all that technical jargon.

You judgmental little moralizing dick.

It was a practical suggestion related directly to what you say your goals are and what I see as interfering with that goal.

At no point do you even respond to what I said.

No I have to talk about their internal emotional states because…

And now this expecting you to perhaps actually respond to my suggestion will somehow be seen as academic.

What were my suggestions: hm. Ask people how they know this. Ask people how they can demosntrate this for others.

It’s me demanding a paper in symbolic logic.

You just keep spitting in faces.

My ‘technical’ skill was not philosophical, it was interpersonal. I saw you react to someone else commenting on your emotional states, the affront. I point this out and then suggest that your project is ill-served by having emotional states and ad hom and reading others and comparing yourself to others present in a discussion.

At no fucking point did I say you needed to move in any academic direction. I suggested you drop the personal stuff, keep the other.

YOu fucking cunt.

She would ask people on both sides how they know they are right. Just like you do. The problem is you want the psychoanalyze, you want to parade your hole, you want to compare your personalities…

What an utterly irrelevent question or challenge this was. It was as if I said an academic epistemologist would solve the problem. Lunacy. I have made it clear I don’t think there is objective good. I gave a fairly simple practical suggestion about what is making your threads more muddy and off topic. That’s it.

Thank you for citing an example yourself. They abound.

Right, your behavior is not the point, even though we interact with you. Their behavior is more to the point. Everyone’s behavior matters, yours theirs mine. But the goal, as you have presented it, is to see if anyone can solve conflicting goods AND THAT FUCKING DISCUSSION IS NOT AIDED BY your discussions of your hole, their feelings, your feelings, how theri feelings contrast with your feelings and all the judgments around who is braver or facing the hole etc. That’s noise int he way of signal.

You just farted. I mean, walked in and stuck your ass in my face and farted.

And thank you for giving an example of a regular making the issue a contrasting personal one, where you come off as better and why and what their internal motivations are.

[/quote]
I don’t give a fuck about finding objective goods or defending any. I am not threatened by their non-existence like many objectists are and like you are. What pissed me off here more than every before was how poorly you read me, how you misrepresented me, how you played the faux regular guy by calling out ‘the epistemologists’, how you deny something so obvious and then give a few examples of precisely what I am saying, how you spat on a practical suggestion

THAT HAD NOTHING IN THE FUCKING WORLD TO DO WITH BEING A ‘SERIOUS PHILOSOPHER’ OR WRITING SOME TECHINICAL PHILOSOPHY.

NARCISSIST FUCK.

Seriously you shitbag. You seemed to concede earlier that you might have missed something in our last exchange, but here you are just projecting the same tired shit on me and my post and completely misrepresenting it.

Then we construe the implications differently.

I do so only because I perceive others [time and again] as not truly recognizing the distinction that I do make between human interactions [the vast majority of them] not embedded in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy, and those [relatively few] interactions that seem [to me] to be.

But it’s these “relatively few” interactions that precipitate [by far] the most conflict, the most pain and suffering, among the human species.

Thus this point:

Yes, but those folks that I describe as moral and political objectivists certainly seem to discuss these interactions quite a bit differently from those I describe as moral and political nihilists.

As for the “pragmatists” here who in turn shy away from “moral absolutes” themselves, I’m still unclear as to how they have managed to sustain what to me seems like a greater “peace of mind” regarding these things than I am able to garner.

Sure, perhaps, some can just “will” themselves into not being as bothered by this essentially meaningless conflict-ridden world that ends in oblivion as “I” am. But that too can never really be more [for me] than just another “existential contraption” rooted in dasein.

You don’t, I do. Why? Because it seems clear [to me] that many here still do not understand what I mean by them from “down in the hole” that I am. All I can do then is to explore how and why they are convinced that their own “I” here is not down in that hole with me.

Come on, for all practical puroposes, you are either telling others that their understanding of Communism is incorrect if it is not in sync with yours, or you are acknowledging that with respect to value judgments like this, “I’m right from my side and you’re right from your side.”

How is that not applicable to you?

Your truth in other words. And even though you will be dead and gone someday, you have managed to think yourself in believing that your truths “here and now” are all that really matters.

Well, good for you. If that allows you some measure of “comfort and consolation” then that frame of mind “here and now” works for you. End of story. Yours.

It just doesn’t work for me anymore.

So the question for philosophers then is this: Is there a way to determine which frame of mind here reflects that which all rational men and women are In fact obligated to share?

If they wish to be thought of as rational men and women.

Sure, that’s possible.

Only “here and now” – the present – it’s not something that “I” believe.

Yes, that seems reasonable to me. If the conflicting good revolves around, say, the arguments expressed here…
slate.com/business/2018/08/demo … -poll.html

…how would one go about describing the conflicted reactions to capitalism and socialism as anything other than “existential contraptions” rooted more or less in “psychological defense mechanisms” pertaining to any particular ego out in any particular world understood from any particular point of view?

How would you go about it?

Unfuckingbelievable

I’ll promise not to ask, “how so?”, if you’ll promise not to tell me.

See you in the next round.

For now, pick one:

=D>
:wink:
:laughing:
:banana-linedance: