No, the point on my table is twofold:
1] to the extent such reactions are embedded subjectively in the existential contraption that is dasein, communication here is going to be problematic. Why? Because…
2] given the extent to which your own sequence of experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge relating to homosexuality is different from mine, there is only so far that either of us can go in communicating what we think and feel about Pedro and Jack above.
This is in fact the fundamental assumption that I make in encompassing my own understanding of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
And yet [of course] even in communicating this frame of mind [set of assumptions] I bump into the same existential gaps in our narratives.
And that, in my view, is precisely why others will insist that there is a way around this. Objectively as it were. In other words, re God and religion, a rational assessment of moral obligation, political dogma and/or a take on “human nature”.
I think that is worth pointing out in the case of someone whose drive is to find out how one ought to live. Why such a drive? It is not clear to me, given your solipsism, that this drive to find out how one ought to live comes from empathy or even includes empathy.
Again, I noted above the manner in which the subjunctive “I” is seen by me to be no less an existential contraption. After all, why, for all practical purposes, do different people either have or not have empathy for some things and not for others?
Is there a way in which to know this epistemologically? Is there a way in which to grasp empathy rationally such that any particular individual’s level of empathy for any particular thing can be reasonably calculated and evaluated?
It seems more like finding out what the rules are. Which for some might be a poor base for a morality, perhaps even you mght find it odd realizing that. Perhaps when faced with this you will change. I doubt it, but clearly you do not even consider this an issue.
What I don’t do is to consider it in the manner in which you do. Here and now. What I can’t predict in turn is how I will feel about it a year from now. What I do surmise though is that “I” here is ever and always refabricated [as an existential contraption] in a world of contingency, chance and change. A world in which most of us never really know with any degree of certainty exaclty what new exoeriences, relationships and ideas await us down the road.
I think about that and feel considerably more “fractured and fragmented” than you do. Than most others here.
That part in fact is definitely “on the table”.
As for this:
You frame my response as
KT thinks he knows the right way to live. He is angry at me for not living the right, objectively moral, or civilized way, but this is all a contraption.
THE FACT THAT IT IS AN INTERACTION BETWEEN TWO HUMANS WHO MIGHT AFFECT ONE ANOTHER.
is not on the table.
As I noted previously with you, I accept that you reject [as I do here and now] the idea of an objective morality. So morality would seem to be an “existential contraption” for mere mortals in a No God world.
But, in reacting to the world around me, “I” think about this – mentally, emotionally and psychologically – in a way that is different than you do. But I would never argue that one of is closer to the truth than the other. If for no other reason I am not convinced that such a truth even exists.
And while it is true that his post has not given you the answer to your hole, you could still notice how you responded and decide, yes, I don’t really like how I responded. I cannot know if it was bad or not, but I would prefer, until I know the right way to live when it is demonstrated, to act differently.
From my point of view, his point of view was bursting at the seams with a particular set of political prejudices. And yet it is precisely such beliefs that allow most objectivists to avoid the hole I’m in altogether.
He is able to sustain what is no longer within reach for me: a foundation upon which to anchor “I” when the discussions or the behaviors revolve around homosexuality. So, sure, part of my reaction reflects that. Just as another part reflects this:
He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles
But how on earth could I ever possibly get to the bottom of what makes me “tick” here in terms of my intentions and motivation? We simply think about this is very different ways.
Or so it seems to me. I would need to go back to the day that I was born. I would need to note the sequence of literally thousands upon thousand upon thousand of existential variables and then put them all together into a definitive assessment of “I” and homosexuality.
And above, in this post to me, repeating things AS IF I need to hear, them again. IOW your communication is detached from your readers. It is as if you do not understand that you are interacting with specific people.
I explained this to you before. This thread has garnered over 3,100 views in less than a month. It’s not like it’s only you and me here. Others our reading the stuff I post. And maybe, just maybe, one of them, by “mulling over” the points I make, will come closer to understanding my take on these relationships better than you do.
Pedro’s example did not succeed in nudging me up out of the hole that I am in.
LOL. You are someone with a completely instrumental view of other human beings.
Again, let’s bring this accusation down to earth. Choose a set of conflicting behaviors revolving around conflicting value judgments. And a context. We can exchange moral narratives. And then you can point out specifically actual examples of what you mean by this.
You seem to embody pragmatism in a way that I am not able to grasp. So all we can really do [in my view] is to keep the exchange focused on actual behaviors in conflict. Actual contexts that most here will be familiar with. Seek to describe to each other what unfolds inside our heads as we react to the behaviors of others that are not in sync with our own. Given the manner in which we have come to understand why and how we do choose one set of behaviors rather than another.
You can point out to me with is “absent” in my own reactions.
And then we can take things like this…
But you do not react to individuals. You repeat your ideas, regardless of whether they have shown understanding. You do not for a moment consider that they have their own independent agendas. You psychoanalyze them en masse, knowing their motivations.
You do not seem to have grasped your own ideas, nor do you seem to care much for others, except to the degree they lead you to your goal.
…out for a spin in discussing particular behaviors in particular contexts.
[i]I’m more than willing to concede that you are telling me something important here. But I need the text illustrated.[/i]
And then what is of particular interest to me:
And I’m still basically out of sync with understanding how as a “pragmatist” you are not in turn down in that hole with me.
Somehow you have managed to put together a frame of mind that seems to make your own “I” less fractured and fragmented than mine.
Affording you [it would seem] a more comforting and consoling way in which to negotiate conflicting goods at the intersection of dasein and political economy.
Sigh.
You do not negotiate conflicting goods. You write about the issue online. I probably suffer conflicting goods more than you do and deal actively with people opposed values than you do. That you are sick is certainly part of this, since you are, it seems, not out in active social interactions with others.
Consider:
If Trump gets Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court here in America, there’s a very real possibility that the abortion issue could be sent back to the States. What else is there here but for those on both sides of this wrenching moral and political divide to exchange arguments and behaviors that will come into conflict. What does it mean for you to be a “pragmatist” here such that you avoid the hole that “I” am in given the manner in which I construe identity and conflicting goods in a No God world?
You explain it thusly:
There are a number of reasons I am not in your particular hole: but here’s the obvious one.
I am not looking for an objective answer to: How ought I live? I am pragmatic. You have an extra issue. You want to have this demonstrated to you. I don’t think it can.
So, when you confront others who don’t share your own values on things like abortion, you figure, what, “well, I’ve thought it through to the best of my ability and here and now this is what I think. It just doesn’t concern me all that much that had my life been very different I might be arguing for the other side. And even though both sides have rational arguments pro and con here, I’ve taken a leap to one side over the other and I’ll settle for that”.
Something like that? Well, that’s not an option for me. Years ago I would have been morally outraged at the possibility of overturning Roe V. Wade. As an objectivist [Marxist/feminist] I was convinced that “the right thing to do” was to allow women the right to choose. Then that all began to fall apart with John and Mary and William Barrett. Now I recognize my value judgments as more in sync with a particular existential assessment/contraption/trajectory embedded in “I” “here and now”.
I am “fractured and fragmented” in a way now that I never was before. So, in a No God world where morality is “situational” and “relative”, why aren’t you?
You say:
I still face all the practical issues of dealing with people with different preferences to mine. And conflicting goods with each other. And given that I am out there more than you, this is a real, daily struggle.
A struggle. Just as with me. But in not as nearly a fractured and fragmented way as “I” am. Only for me this is just another manifestation of dasein as an “existential contraption”. You took your “pragmatism” in one direction, I took my “moral nihilism” in another.
And we may or may not be able to bridge this gap. But, again, given the extent to which our lives – our experiences – were/are no doubt very, very different, why on earth would I expect us to?
The rest is just circumstances. And options. You are able to continue the “struggle”, I am not. My health confines me to this particular platform “here and now”. I am only able to go in search of narratives that are in sync with a No God/no objective morality world, but are not in sync with the manner in which I construe my “self” here as embedded in this:
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.
It’s just that I recognize how this too is no less an existential fabrication/contraption that “here and now” makes sense to me.
There is empathy as I understand it, empathy as you understand it, empathy as others understand it. The empathy that is felt and that which one feels empathetic about. Embedded subjectively/subjunctively in “I”.
The options: a Kierkegaardian leap or a Pascalian wager. But it still comes down to how “fractured and fragmented” “I” feels to you “here and now”. We can exchange points of view, and, in particular contexts, judge each others behaviors. But only more or less down in the hole that I am in.
Do you really think you can be good if your heart’s not in it? I can’t see how it could be.
From my perspective, the “heart” here is no less a subjective contraption. Those on both sides of the abortion wars throw their “heart and soul” into the political struggle. But how many of them think that “had my life been different, I might well be on the other side” or “the arguments of the other side are predicated on reasonable assumptions as well. Nothing I say makes them go away.”
So, basically, you become entangled in the belief that “they’re right from their side, we’re right from ours”.
For the objectivists, however, how often is that an option?
Let’s say you find out God hates homosexuals. Will you be a good man and hate them?
That’s my point. If it turns out that a God, the God, my God does in fact exist, that’s a whole other frame of mind. And, in turn, if it turns out that He is omniscient and omnipotent, He knows about these things. As close to objectively as we’re likely ever to get. And if it turns out that He can condemn to Hell for all of eternity those who don’t share His own value judgments…?
Either/or. From a “transcending” point of view homosexuality is either this or it’s that. And we now have access to a frame of mind that really, really knows. You either obey God’s will and opt for Salvation or you challenge it and opt for the fire and brimstone.
But at least you know.
And, as I see it, the whole point of one or another rendition of a secular objectivism revolves around one or another psychological rendition of this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296
Encountering you is like encountering an AI intent on solving a problem, but also one lacking the ability to respond to individuals.
But, of course, for the objectivists, the problem is solved. “In their head” anyway. Either a chosen behavior is deemed the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. And the people that I respond to best are those that “here and now” experience a sense of fragmentation when confronting conflicting goods; in understanding the extent to which “I” here is just an existential contraption ever subject to reconfiguration in a world of contingency, chance and change.
There may well be a “foundation” out there they can sink “I” down into. But I am certainly not able to embody it myself here and now. And it appears that the manner in which you have managed to think about all of this “here and now” affords more [perhaps a lot more] “comfort and consolation” than “I” am able to garner.