With an informative encyclopedia called “Mind Control”.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ogCc8ObiwQ[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1EvCH8czhk[/youtube]
archive.org/details/MindControl … ontrol1998
How else would you control sentient beasts?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fj6Qamu0JY[/youtube]
… been telln ya…
Is that what you think of our species?
The real problem is that the ones doing the controlling are themselves sentient “beasts”, and by observing the actions of the ruling classes of the world one can see they are not beyond such a label, so their attempt to apply the label only to others is hypocritical, and therein lies the impetus for the drive of opposition.
(It is also, by the way, why the RAND corp. wrote as their thesis for their pamphlet on Noopolitik that the goal is to appear the most ethical in order to maintain ideological hegemony: http://books.google.se/books?id=nXSYgFxjMoYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=noopolitik&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=fP9yVMrRNYeqywPKnYDwDg&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=noopolitik&f=false)
(Noopolitik: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noopolitik)
Video on social manipulation:
BBC’s Century of the Self (segment one —the whole series is worthwhile though):
Beasts emerge out of beastly conditions.
Give one respect/nurture/care/guidance - and something quite different than a beast may emerge.
A being that propagates these influences, internally and externally.
Well, in reality there are no beastly-conditions-in-themselves, it is the faculty of human perception and applying valuation which designates a condition beastly.
What we habitually designate “the beastly” is the state of nature which is compelled by necessity to enact “brutal” deeds, like an animal tearing apart another for the sake of survival. Since we all emerge foremost from nature, and it is from habituation to nature which we gain our knowledge to pass down, we never really “escape” or do away with the primary condition, we merely cover it up.
Even if we stop slaughtering animals for meat we plant in the earth and ravage habitats, even of smaller beasts. By appropriating land we have taken it from another who inhabits the same land, the “beastliness” is never done away with, merely forgotten.
As for beastly being a negativism, it is merely conventional, part of our self created narrative. Our desire for “the good” also seeks to label ourselves and our actions as “the good”, but naturally, to quote Shakespeare “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” [Hamlet, II.ii]
And from this perspective, no beasts.
Completely irrelevant to the point being made though.
If we create an environment where the brutal aspects aren’t reinforced and rewarded, then these aspects needn’t become habitual.
We can grow out of them. We can adapt to our capacity to live beyond such states.
It isn’t an ‘escape’ or cover up - these are loaded terms saying brutality is permanent, and a truer form than being noble. That brutality is impossible to outgrow.
We have the capacity for brutality, yes, but it is in response to the environment. Just as we have the capacity for being gentle, given the right environment.
I disagree.
We’re not necessarily guilty or condemned by the actions of our ancestors.
We can understand, learn and accept past actions. If one feels another has done wrong by them, they can forgive.
We can live in symbiosis with the planet, and other animals. We could eventually build our own nutrition without needing to consume other life.
Beyond the bias of the living, all is neutral, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are indeed bias and do indeed value things.
All your rationality and your thoughts are completely irrelevant if you dismiss value. They have no purpose and you needn’t engage in any of it. You needn’t live. You needn’t move.
If you move, think, consider, judge - you affirm your own bias, and thus, it’s relevance.
Now that we’ve established that value is relevant:
Being beastly undermines many of people’s commonly held values, thus, isn’t ideal to perpetuate.
Yep.
It is relevant because beastly is a designatory label which signifies our dominant and destructive tendencies.
You are missing the point that even by stepping you are potentially destroying the habitat of ants, there is no way of exiting the realm of the animal, because we inhabit the earth. Even to build our homes we take our trees and purify them from insects and destroy their habitat. The beastliness is relative to what we wish to call it. That you don’t realize the relevance of our conventional way of designating (creating meaning) is what keeps you from seeing this.
I am not talking about the actions of our ancestors. Even to use our computers we are engaging in the process of slavery and the system of labour and dominance, to live in your house you have designated your habitat from which other things may not enter. To protect your food you ward of animals that may die. That you wish to say this is not a bad thing is just a new mode of designation. To talk about the beastly at all is to talk about it on the terms of its designation, otherwise you are just engaging in a revaluation of meaning but you have not escaped the idea of what is being spoken about.
As I have already said, it is impossible not to perpetuate it, all we can do is drop the signifier (the word “beastly”) and revalue our actions as something good.
If you can describe for me a way of life in which you disturb nothing, no other human, and in such a way which all humans can engage in the very same behavior without disturbing anything or anyone else, then I will say you have proven me wrong. But as the length of any given river is finite, you will find that as we all seek to drink from it, one of us will get in the way of another, and if not another human there will be the gazelle, the lion, or the ant.
When I said:
I was engaging with the discussion of the beast on its own terms, which is not to say I agree with the valuations inherent in the designation. To understand something is not necessarily to agree with it.
Beast - a brutal /cruel /savage, contemptible, uncivilized / coarse / crude, or filthy person || Animal nature as opposed to intellect or spirit
You said it’s all neutral in response to me saying beasts emerge from beastly conditions.
Completely irrelevant.
Also, define beast. Then we can see if our dominant tendencies are beastly.
That’s your criteria for not being a beast?
‘If you create any change, or inconvenience anything, you’re a beast.’
I needn’t bother.
This is akin to saying a hammer is a slave.
Very misguided.
Still, not irrelevant because “beastly conditions” is already a valuation of the conditions, and if no conditions are beastly then no beastliness can arise from them.
We can take your definition at the top of the post. But then we need to be sure we understand those terms. If we move from savage to violent, then define violent:
Oxford’s definition:
“Using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something:” [http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/damage]
Damage:
Physical harm that impairs the value, usefulness, or normal function of something: [http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/damage]
Harm:
Physical injury, especially that which is deliberately inflicted: [http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/harm]
Injure:
Do physical harm or damage to [http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/injure]
It is a self-perpetuating loop between damage and itself. So if you take the rest of the definition of damage, impairs the value of a thing, then value to who, or to what? As we live we engage in the destruction of the values of other people and living things.
It is not if you inconvenience anything, it is if you damage (led above from the definition of savage) or destroy (which amounts to the same thing) the valued objects of another thing. Then yes you are a beast, in the sense that you are part of animalia, all living things must destroy and impinge on each other to live and flourish.
Our computers are not created by hammers and tools alone, there is much labor (and I recommend you go read about working conditions in factories in other parts of the world where our goods are produced) and destruction of habitats which take place before the things we use are produced. if you wish to ignore the entirety of the process of production for the sake of your argument and call me misguided for it, then there is no one that can stop you from living in delusion.
Most of our actions are not intended to harm others. I can say for myself, I don’t want to harm anything. Harm often comes as an unwanted consequence.
Since many do not intend harm, they don’t meet that criteria of violent.
Sorry, I misunderstood you.
I thought you were saying that computers are being enslaved.
==
Are you advocating beastly behaviour? Defending it? - as in, ‘it’s all one in the same, so be as violent as you like’.
This is how I took your initial words.
I’m not advocating beastly behavior, I just think it is very difficult to to escape this cycle, it is something I have been dealing with for years.
You said above about intending, and I get your point, but the problem is because the destruction is of what people value, in a society people may value intended harm, this is the issue of criminality… so how can we do anything about their valuing (even if we think it is “wrong”) without “destroying” their valuations… People may want to agree, for example, we think it is bad to kill another person, but as soon as you have someone who doesn’t want to agree to that, there is conflict and destruction of some sort becomes inevitable.
In the mindset of those who would want peace, what happens is that institutions are created which safeguard peace, but as we can see for example in the American prison system, because people’s valuings are so much in conflict, laws begin to perpetuate at an alarming rate… to the point where it is illegal to catch rainwater, and all sorts of things in between.
That is a simplification to be sure, but I’m just wondering have you ever tried to work with legal theory while attempting to apply universally? Because it’s very difficult while sticking to any conventional ideal.
I am not advocating beastliness, but because of the nature of people having conflicting desires, and because “power” is a concrete thing, it seems that the notion must be worked with in the conception of a society.
I don’t consider this particular post my most well written one, but I hope the general idea is gotten across.
I might be a jackass but I’m not a fool (or at least I try not to be 
)…
I don’t agree with many of today’s legal practices.
I don’t agree with punishment / revenge.
Regardless of how offensive their acts, I believe people should be given dignity, care and support. If we assume the responsibility of being above the ‘criminal’, we ought demonstrate it with our standards.
Concrete cells are offensive to me.
It is largely the difference between a civilized country and a third world country.
I have no problem with your premises in that post. The only thing I think may be tricky is applying them to legal theory in such a way that effectively deals with criminality. If I argued against you it wouldn’t be to say everyone should be locked up in a dungeon! or to say, everyone should have their throat slit! but to point out practical implications, that even if you and I and others accepted moral premises and were willing to live by them, there are others who would either outright refuse, or potentially even say “I agree” but only for the sake of deception.
When I asked you to describe a society for me above, it wasn’t out of spite, but because I haven’t been able to do it. By no means does that mean it can’t be done, but it potentially may be impossible to stick with the premises you made while still conceiving an end to criminality without some kind of counter deception or otherwise destroying “value”, because we, for example, would call the values of others barbaric… What I meant about the US system is when the standard for what is barbaric or not becomes what people call it, it is easy to see imposition upon others in many things and laws have a way of proliferating.
If you would like to have a discussion about this, maybe we should do it in another thread more geared towards it.
Consequence, repercussions, responsibility, give back, repayment, payment, understand, learn, fair, equal, illness, health, safe, hate, anger, pain, love, fear, greed, selfish, selflessness,
All that and more has to do with criminal behavior and prison, victims and loss, society and individual. There is no pat answer for all that is involved. There is(to date) no feasible way to adequately be
right for all, victim and perpetrator. Spill a bag of white rice and a bag of brown rice on your floor then try to separate the grains.
Yes, that is the point I was trying to make.
That is where as philosophers we deal with these “impossible” questions, because they are always dealt with in some way. At least one of the points of philosophy is to think for yourself, and so to give up such questions (into the hands of others, or else into the hands of “chance” or “nature”) despite their “impossibility” or “incalculable difficulty” would be a negation of philosophy. — But it is also reason to leave these questions open, for the continuing tradition of philosophy.
What if their turned out to be an even higher reason that a really good philosopher discovered? How would you know?