dont be a creep bruh
The same shit…over and over.
shit-Stain…I’ve been watching…you are repeating the same shit, and it has no point, no end, no objective other than self-defence. Evasion.
Why, moron are you childless, despite fuckin all those whores?
What will you leave behind, when you die?
What will be your legacy?
Tell me what hurts Stan. Tell me why you come here?
Then this is the crux of the problem. You think the appropriate reaction to your pointing out the relation between our current political prejudices and its being the result of the life we’ve lived (dasein) is to change our current political prejudice (or at least to doubt our political prejudice), and if we don’t, we must think it could never have been any other way. Are you sure we’re not overlooking a hidden assumption on your part, one that neither of us realize must be addressed? Are you assuming that the admission of a political prejudice is equivalent to an objective affirmation of that political prejudice? If such an admission were instead an expression of feeling rather than an assertion meant to be taken in an objective way, would that make a difference?
Well, here might be some of those hidden assumptions you’re making. I would think my point about my abhorrence to feminism being a feeling rather than an assertion would make a difference, but you’ll have to tell me. If I continue to say “Feminism is just not my kind of political prejudice,” could it not just be a report on my inner feelings towards feminism rather than a stubborn persistence in claiming that feminism is an objectively wrong philosophy? Could I not just be introspecting and reporting to you, “Hmm… nope, my abhorrence to feminism, still there.” If there’s any objective statement being made, it’s about my state of mind, not the state of feminism. And it’s an objective statement about the either/or world. I actually observe my feelings about feminism in my mind, scientifically as it were, and I see that they are in fact there.
Then you have that from me. No qualms about it. My admission that my feelings on feminism are rooted in dasein is that. I think the leap you’re making is that my reporting to you that my feelings on feminism have not disappeared in light of this is equivalent to a continued assertion about feminism being objectively mistaken.
Sure, I suppose I would say that–at least in the sense that my views on feminism aren’t meant to be taken in the “arrogant and self-righteous bluster” of the likes of Satyr and his minions. I think I just have a more forgiving attitude towards myself, allowing myself to slip into the role of the objectivist sometimes (I feel that’s just a human tendency and it would be unhealthy to fight it)–just as long as I don’t commit to it as my formal stance on the issue (in other words, it’s all just blowing off steam). A good analogy would be the way we tend to allow ourselves to be temporarily immersed in the world of a good movie when we go to the theatre. Why fight it? Why deny ourselves the pleasure of a couple hours of entertainment? It’s not like there’s any danger of not being able to get out of that world once the movie ends, of being permanently seduced into believing the movie is real–at least, I don’t feel I’m in any danger.
I don’t think it even has to be that (starting from different assumptions). Most of the time, it’s driven by emotions and values, the way they were raised, the communities they identify with, what “good” men and women are supposed to say when confronted with opposing ideas and behaviors. This is a lot more animalistic than the rationalists and philosophers sitting in ivory towers. Any rationality with its starting assumptions (if there are any) are usually slapped together after the fact.
Yes, when it comes to the law. That’s why Justitia is blind folded. It’s supposed to represent impartiality, reason, and lack of prejudice. And the scales representing equal attention given to all sides. Something happens to human nature when it’s handed over to institutions. Common folk psychology gives way to more powerful forces. People start behaving more in accordance with the rules rather than their passions and their prejudices. Mob mentality gives way to civility and orderliness. This isn’t necessarily to say that human nature under the rule of institutionalism escapes the snares of dasein any more than the mob left to its own devices, but just that different forces are at play and human behavior changes.
But I was thinking more of human beings in the mob, or following the herd, or just human beings when they’re not under the pressure of having to behave like professionals. Something more like what we see here–pick your favorite ILP stooge–getting them to acknowledge even a drop of reasonableness from whatever opponent they happen to be engaged with is like trying to squeeze a drop of water out of a rock. And not just because they see the world in such radically different ways from their opponent but because they tend not to even listen to their opponent–as if theirs is the more rational point of view because it’s the only point of view being voiced.
Then let me ask you: do you not harbor strong feelings to one side of a political spectrum or another? Are you telling me that your mind is devoid of any strong feelings about this or that controversial, unsettled issue that tends to get people riled up? Are you Spock? An emotionless logic chopping machine? When one points out strong feelings you may have in favor of one or another political prejudice, what is your response to that? If your response is your familiar concession that your strong feelings are no less subject to dasein and the life experiences that mold political prejudices for us all, then again, why can’t the same be said of me?
I don’t know if I’d say my feelings are “good enough” for me to scoff at liberals. I do scoff at liberals on occasion (actually, it’s limited more to wokists), and it is driven by my right leaning feelings, but not in the sense that I think those feelings justify the scoffing but just that they drive the scoffing.
While I can’t speak for Maia, I’ll admonish that you don’t interpret me as saying “Yeah, I know my thoughts and feelings towards feminism probably would have been different if I was born under different circumstances, had a different life, went through a different set of experiences, but I just have a really strong feeling that feminism is wrong.” That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t even think I’m saying anything. It’s more like I’m giving you the best answer to your question that I can. I’m reporting the fact (in the either/or world) that my feelings towards feminism don’t go away even in light of your dasein arguments, even in light of my agreement (more or less) with your dasein arguments, and that these feelings are just feelings. They don’t mean anything beyond that. They certainly don’t determine anything with respect to the correctness of feminism, to its being right or wrong (morally or otherwise), but like it or not, they’re here to stay, and what they do determine is that feminism isn’t my cup of tea.
Trying, Biggy, trying.
Absolutely!
100% agree. It’s just the part about the feelings going away just by recognizing this that I’m on about. Emotions don’t adapt the same way thoughts do. If you think a certain way, and then you’re hit with proof that you’re wrong, you can quite easily correct your thinking (assuming you don’t go into denial or some such). Emotions don’t budge quite as easily (and in fact, are often responsible for the denial you might go into). Of course, this isn’t always the case. If, for example, you were angry at someone for not responding to your texts for a couple days, but then learned that they were away on vacation and turn off their phone, that anger would typically disappear almost instantly. But we’re talking about emotions tied to long held values and political prejudices (right?) and those put up a fierce fight when we try to suppress them or attempt to convince ourselves they’re unreasonable.
No, let’s focus on the distinction between abortion and feminism, the meanings thereof. If you were to ask me: “Gib, what’s the difference between abortion and feminism in your view?” I would answer: “Abortion is the deliberate termination of a fetus while still inside the mother’s womb, and feminism is a god awful abomination staining the face of the planet a movement that began as the championing of the rights and liberation of women but over time became more about swapping the roles of men and women in a dominance hierarchy (and even further became nothing but a power grab tool for the democratic left).” ← Easy-peasy.
Now, I get that people may quibble about whether this really is what abortions are or whether this really is what feminism is (I left my definition of feminism controversial and arguably wrong on purpose), and therein definitely lies plenty of obscurity, but if the question is how do I define and distinguish between these terms, it’s a no brainer–not that difficult–and I wouldn’t force one to jump through hoops to get it out of me.
Ever looked into Neitzsche’s abyss? It gives you vertigo because it is a look into your own unconscious, and the longer you look, the more you make out the horrors that lurk in the darkness.
I couldn’t be bothered. It’s your problem.
But this isn’t the distinction that matters. You can lump all objective facts into the either/or camp to your hearts content, but it’s the is/ought camp where your obsession lies. It’s there that you claim to want to find just one kernel of objective truth, but in reality you resist every such effort.
So is your campaign against them an attempt to prevent that from happening or you getting your dues before it actually happens?
And BTW, do you not ever confront left-wing fulminating fanatics? I would think they’re no less prone to dogmatic objectivism than the right-wingers.
You know what it means.
On existential leaps:
As I said above, the crux of the issue for you seems to be this “existential leap” you point out that people like me take after concurring with you that we have the political prejudices we have only because of our life circumstances, but then going right back to our political prejudices. My response was that it’s driven more by an emotional disposition than an attitude towards the objective veracity of our political prejudices, an emotional disposition that makes us want to argue in favor of our political prejudices nonetheless. I don’t see that as problematic, you do. So I think we differ on what this “existential leap” consists of, and more importantly (probably) what each of us thinks we’re leaping into.
I think we can both agree that we’re leaping back into our political prejudices, but what is the state of mind that comprises this? What is the attitude one takes towards their political prejudice? Does it always have to be belief? Unwavering certainty? Must one forget their admission that their political prejudices are root in dasein and molded by their unique life experiences?
As I noted, the drive to return back to our political prejudices is rooted in emotion, but to take the position of our political prejudices (in a debate as it were) also involves a large cognitive component, a willingness to state that one’s political prejudices are correct. I would think that, for the most part, people fully believe the things they are willing to state and defend in a debate, and I would think that people understand belief to be “how they see the world (cognitively)”. But I’ve been a subjectivist for so long, and had enough psychedelic experiences, to question whether this is the best portrayal of belief. I have become acquainted enough with belief (at least the way I believe) to say I doubt belief is simply “how one sees the world”–it can be that, but for the vast majority of what we call our “beliefs” (namely, the controversial topics that raise levels of hostility in people ← the one’s you fetishize), I think they are more “tools” than “visions” of the world as one sees it. And I truly think we experience them as such, though we aren’t always aware of it (let alone able to admit it). This is certainly the case with me. Whenever I bring my beliefs to consciousness, I feel I’m more constructing something than looking at reality and taking mental notes. And whenever I express my beliefs to someone, I don’t feel like I’m describing the world, I feel like I’m throwing ideas at them in order to have some effect (to impress them, to have something to contribute, to change their minds, to compliment them, to insult them, to challenge them, etc.). Very rarely do I feel I’m just passively reporting on what I see when I look at reality. What this means is that I can admit that the majority of my beliefs are existential contraptions, political prejudices, the arbitrary products of dasein when thrown into my unique place in this world, there to have the unique life experiences that mold me (or whatever other phrase you want to turn) without feeling like I have to commit to that when debating people over those very existential contraptions. Beliefs are just ideas we throw together in our minds and use as tools when communicating with others–actual belief need not apply.
This is why I say it makes a difference what we are taking an existential leap into; I think 90% of the time, we are not leaping into a state of belief in the classical sense, we are leaping into “belief” in the sense of a set of ideas we cling to because we are used to using them as tools in discussions and interactions with others. Most of us will say that we fully believe them (in the sense of seeing reality in that way) but this is because it would not be useful for the brain to focus attention on and acknowledge what we are clinging to these beliefs for (in fact, it would be counter-productive). So we usually just go with a sort of “default” assumption that these beliefs faithfully depict how we see the world. But if this is not true, if we are only using these beliefs as tools in social situations, then this state of mind that we take an existential leap into isn’t all that incompatible with acknowledging the role of dasein and the formative powers of our life experiences. IOW, we can do both at the same time.
Now, this is not to say that our beliefs, even when used only as tools, can’t function as lenses through which we see the world the way our beliefs paint it. We can see the world according to our beliefs just as easily as we can imagine being an alien from another planet–it’s not a hard task–but that our brains fall back on this vision when it wants to work with the world as it really is is not always the case. The way I experience debate and discussion with others when I bring to the table my personal “beliefs”–my political prejudices and biased dispositions–is, most of the time, more like pulling out the tools that I’ve found to work in these situations; I feel like I’m throwing ideas at the other person that I trust will accomplish some goal (to point out certain flaws in their reasoning, to see how their ideas fair against certain challenges, and sometimes to put them in their place if I feel my thoughts have that potential). This is not always the case, of course. Sometimes I feel I actually am simply formulating a description of the world as I really see it, but I can easily slip into a different world, a constructed world, one constituted by a different set of ideas whose purpose is to have an effect on the other person rather than to communicate to him the way I actually see the world.
_
Who is Stolas, Gib.
This is Stolas:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W0jIVGaZ3Q[/youtube]
He’s a character from a cute little adult cartoon series on youtube: Helluva Boss.
But he’s not just a cartoon character out of the genius mind of Vivsiepop, he’s also a mythical creature that goes back centuries:
Gib is convinced that iamapileolfgarbage is honest in his claim that he want to be helped, or that he is truly interested in changing her mind.
That’s the bait…the pretence to reel you in.
Her only motive is to undermine, to destroy, to reduce confidence to nil, so that, then, the desperate degenerate she has created will be ready to make any compromise, like surrender to a collective.
This strategy si not her own. She was taught it by her communist friends.
The communists quickly realized that the mases would not rise up, so they began to add to their misery, their suffering, thinking that desperation would finally make them rebel.
They actually began contributing to their misery and their exploitation believing that if they brought them to a state of total degradation that then they would rise up.
To this day communist parties around the world undermine government attempts to increase the standard of living of their people, knowing g that a middle-class of relative contentment, would never revolt…ever.
This is iamapileofshit’s strategy.
Communists have gone a step further, as you can see…they don’t really care about the masses. their continuous rebellion is a way of life. They actually despise the masses and want nothing to do with them other than exploit them…irony of ironies, to live a good life, to earn a living without working…to be professional revolutionaries.
The trash heap’s sig tells you all you need to know about her.
Simpletons usually tell you who and what they are in the form of an attack, an insult.
See how they use “projection” as a defensive attack, knowing that this is all they can ever do…project themselves into others.
In positive manifestations of this they call it “altruism” or “sympathy”.
The only way they can understand another is by putting themselves - their subjective selves - in their shoes, i.e., circumstances.
They are unable to advance and become more objective.
So when they attack it is themselves in the other’s place which they attack, and when they critique it is their understanding of the other’s positions…they are attacking their own understanding and projecting upon the incomprehensible, to them, other, their understanding of his positions…projection.
Then they use feminine methods of concealing their motives, of undermining of slandering…and I use “feminine” for specific reasons because it is a feminine way of competing.
Here imaapileofshit wants to lead the adversaries to the point of frustration where they will then give up…and she can declare victory…claiming it was her superior positions.
She admits to being a nihilist…now its a moral nihilist…she’s backtracked a bit seeing how unattainable her positions are.
Morality is the postmodernisms adaptation to communism’s failures on all fronts. It’s no longer material or wealth distribution within the collective but moral distribution, a distribution of responsibility.
she needs morality to remain magical, obscure, vague…not “brought down to earth” like she claims, lying.
All must be made ideological because then she takes her into the social contexts where she believes she has an advantage…the contexts of emotion, participation, assimilation, love, bonding…feminine…
She undermines the foundations of philosophy calling it philosophy. She rejects objectivity, which is philosophy’s prime objective.
Subjectivisation means “divide and conquer” - American individualism - reducing an individual - which she also denies existence to - to his lowest point so as to then absorb him into her collectivizing ideology.
She doesn’t even know she’s doing it…'cause she’s a moron…she learned this method, was told it by her buddies.
Degrade individuals to their lowest power point and then assimilate them and gain power.
These communists - and Abrahamics - don’t care about Nietzsche’s motives beyond his power formula…Will to Power. They appropriate, corrupt and assimilate what defeated them into a weapon to then become victorious.
Opportunism.
Well, in the words of Gandalf the grey, “Do not take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks.” I may have once been this easy to seduce by Biggy (not knowing a person that well, you tend to give them the benefit of the doubt) but I’ve been through the ringer with him (her?) enough to understand Biggy the way you do. Look up any debate between him and I, even this one, and you’ll see (on occasion) that I call him out on almost exactly the same charges you are leveling against him. Biggy is definitely playing a game, but so am I (and philosophy in general is a game). Remember, I started this thread. He didn’t egg me on. And the times when he does egg me on (elsewhere at ILP), you’ll see I usually don’t bite (my favorite is here). I have my own agenda in this thread, and it’s not a secret. I lay it out here.
I certainly hear the echoes of Marxism in Biggy’s style of debate. He sees the world as primarily driven by conflict. Everything to him is a perilous encounter with life or death at the hands of those who hold opposite political prejudices to him, even in internet forum discussions, which is how one would see the world if they were influenced by Marx. History as a perpetual struggle between upper and lower classes, between the oppressors and the oppressed, is the lens through which Marxism envisions the world–everything fundamentally funneling down to conflict and war–and for Biggy, every response he gets here at ILP is just another attack, another “existential contraption” thrown at him by another fulminating objectivist, even by the subjectivists and those who ultimately want to agree with him. You will find this pattern in almost any leftist and Marxist, the expectation that everyday human encounters are, at bottom, manifestations of conflict between an oppressor and an oppressed (themselves typically being the oppressed), so they very rarely see amicability even when it’s staring them in the face.
“Her”…using postmodern reasoning…she’s a feminine spirit trapped in a biologically male body.
Her methods are feminine. Have you ever argued with a woman?
Irrational using words to slander, and undermined confidence. Psychological warfare.
She claims one thing, thinks a second, and does a third.
Her goal is not a rational conclusion…but your surrender to her demands.
Yes…there is no objective reality so reality is a human construct - subjective.
Those with power impose their version on those without power.
Marxism.
Gender is not an extension of sexual - specialized reproductive roles - but a fabrication…as is race - begging the question: how did intelligence evolve and why did environment only affect man physically? - an end of Evolution Theory only in regards to man.
Gender is not the social application of these specialized reproductive roles…they are “human contrivances”.
Male/Female is entirely physical, and the body is evil, a prison for the individuals - divine whole - soul/spirit. Each individuation is a representation of a sacred singularity.
Back to Abrahamic superstitious tropes.
Females are entirely physical…their minds are no different than those of males.
Reproductive specialization does not require a psychological, mental component…it’s only physical.
The postmoderns will liberate man from the oppression of the body; liberating the human spirit.
There is no individual…we are all one. There is only humanity- collective. No “I” and “other” only “us and we”.
Subjectivity must be integrated into collectives - inter-subjectivity - to then come to a mutually beneficial agreement to create reality, from nothing.
Capitalists are replacing Abrahamism’s sinners, evil, infidels. In Judaism…the goy who shall pay the price for not being of the chosen.
In Marxism this role is taken up by capitalists…the system.
Postmoderns now replace capitalists with white heterosexual males and their paternalistic establishment. They are the new evil the good must eradicate.
Exploiters, colonizers, authoritarians. Nazis. Fascists. Whites, Europeans. Males, Heterosexuals.
They are the satanic tricksters that lost them their paradise/utopia, and now they will be punished - divine retribution. Armageddon.
Humanity will be unified because it has been fragmented and spread across the world - divine sparks of light eradicating darkness. Kabballah.
Americanism was infected by this messianic world-view.
Uh, the life you live?
1] I was basically a male chauvinist pig before Song Be
2] Danny, Steve, John, Mac
3] “the Sixties”
4] I embraced feminism
Now, had I not been drafted into the Army who knows if I would have remained a male chauvinist pig to this day.
Again, this as opposed to philosophers, ethicists, political scientists etc., discovering or inventing the most rational manner in to think about it.
Thus:
No, from my frame of mind, the crux of the problem as we both understand it is no less rooted in the existential assumptions we have come to make about feminism.
Again, way too abstract. In regard to feminism, walk us through your own current conclusions given this point that you are making. In my view, thoughts and feelings are no less rooted intersubjectively in dasein. Out in a particular world. If you disagree in regard to feminism, explain why. Given this point.
From my frame of mind, you speak of feelings here almost as though they were these “mystical” reactions to things like feminism. Religious folks might connect it to their “soul”.
For example:
“I actually observe my feelings about feminism in my mind, scientifically as it were, and I see that they are in fact there.”
I have no idea how this explains the existential intertwining of your thoughts and feelings pertaining to feminism. Your uniquely personal life brought you into contact with contexts relating to feminism. This generated subjective thoughts about it precipitating subjective feelings.
Then [for me] back to 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.”
But not for you. All I can then do is to keep probing your arguments in an attempt to understand why you don’t think and feel about “I” at the existential juncture or identity, value judgments and political economy as I do.
This part, basically:
I’m sorry, but again, I don’t really follow this. Our emotions about things like feminism [which often generate fierce conflicts] can become deeply engrained in our minds. And when you include the subconscious and the unconscious “I”, it’s not like flicking a switch in your brain from “feminism stupid” to “feminism smartt”. What you’re saying here is mostly unintelligible to me.
And even your more “forgiving attitude” about those who don’t share your views on feminism is for me no less the embodiment of dasein. Some are forgiving, some aren’t. Depending on the context and what is at stake. But, again, using the tools of philosophy, is there a way to determine how forgiving one ought to be when confronting those who oppose them?
Exactly. What I call the “fulminating fanatic objectivists” here. In particular, those like Obsrvr524 and Urwrong.
On the other hand, men and women have been confronting the same “conflicting goods” now for thousands of years. No final solutions. Not even close on many issues. Other than in historical and cultural fonts: God, ideology, deontology, nature.
And how does that then not lend itself to my own conclusions above?
Okay, so what’s the most common means of avoiding these tragedies? Of course: objectivism!
Feminism is not in sync with my God, or my ideology, or my philosophical assumptions or my assessment of nature. And even if they are not, at least I know that how I think and feel about it is the embodiment of the Right Thing To Do wholly subsumed in the Real Me.
Why on earth do you suppose the objectivists here often respond to me as they do? I challenge not what they believe so much as the nature of their convictions themselves. The profoundly problematic existential nature of them. Just the thought that one day they too might beome increasingly more “fractured and fragmented” in regard to their own value judgments is enough to send some of them into Stooge mode.
Just look at how those like Satyr react to me! A part of him knows damn well what is at stake if he can’t continue to convince himself that he deserves his own clique/claque at KT. Nature becomes but his own rendition of Maia’s Goddess. The font of choice in sustaining his own comfort and consolation. Especially in a world that can truly become nasty, brutish and short. And eventually for all of us.
Well, this revolves more around the particular “rules of behavior” that any given human community must create, enforce and then sustain. Here arguments all up and down the political spectrum are debated. But my point remains the same. That any flesh and blood individual’s conclusions are largely rooted intersubjectively in dasein. Out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially. A world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change. And that there does not appear to be an optimal frame of mind to resolve all the differences.
Sure, individuals in a “mob” are likely to act differently from individuals sitting in a legislative chamber debating this or that legislation relating to things like abortion. Or arguing before a court.
But here in America the Supreme Court may well soon dismantle Roe v Wade because the 6 conservative ideologues will pretend that it is just about the Constitution and not their own moral objectivism. And if abortions are literally outlawed from coast to coast how much pain and suffering will that bring to untold number of women? Far more so than the actions of this or that mob in this or that jurisdiction.
On the other hand, “I” am still no less “fractured and fragmented” about it no matter what is decided.
Here, for me, cling revolves around how important it is for someone to sustain the belief that their own value judgments anchor them to a font that allows them to think of themselves as “one of us”. The rational and virtuous ilk.
Again, what they believe tends to pale next to that.
Yes, it can be almost anything. What’s crucial for me though is how these experiences either do or do not change the way you think about identity [in the is/ought world] itself. For the objectivists, who believe in the Real Me able to be in sync with the Right Thing To Do, all that changes is the font. Like me going from the Christian God to Marxism.
But, what if the experience is so traumatic, you come to recognize this? That such fonts are merely psychological defense mechanisms you sustain existentially in order to comfort and console yourself in an essentially meaningless and purposeless world.
You become “me” in other words.
No, when I follow the news, I often have strong emotional reactions to the things I read or hear. But “here and now” I construe them more as reactions embedded in the man I have become existentially. In other words, reactions as a result of the experiences I had. And not very different experiences instead. Thus the Song Be Syndrome. I can’t pull back from that and think, “okay, given this, is there then a way for me to determine how all rational and virtuous human beings ought to feel about the events unfolding in the news?”
Instead, now I react as I do based on years and years of being who I have become. It’s all embedded in my brain from endless conditioning given the life I lived. I just think about that very differently from my own objectivist years.
Either way, for me, it revolves more around the arguments I make about identity above and in my signature threads then in the idea that philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, etc., can come up with the optimal or the only rational resolutions such that we can know for sure if we are justified in scoffing. Here I’m in my hole. Which I examine in depth in my signature threads.
Well, from my frame of mind, she can’t speak for Maia either. Her answers are almost always contained in one or two sentences here, one or two sentences there. And barely scratch the surface philosophically.
Unless of course I’m wrong.
Any answer here for me though is no less rooted in dasein. We just think about the “for all practical purposes” implications of that differently.
You have had years and years to acquire your thoughts and feelings about feminism. How could a few exchanges with me even put much of a dent in that. It took me the longest time to reconfigure my own thoughts and feelings about value judgments in a No God world.
As long as a part of you is able to convince yourself that feminism isn’t your cup of tea because it shouldn’t be your cup of tea, you will be able at least to convince yourself that how you think about it is more reasonable than how the liberals think about it. You’ll still cling to the debate format here that your frame of mind is the better one. After all, having convictions is what comforts and consoles people. No less for the liberals than the conservatives.
The extent to which you can think of your Self as a more rather than a less solid “thing”, is the whole point of objectivism. You can read a news story about one or another feminist victory and still be able to remind yourself that at least you are on the right side of the issue. That is what is most at stake for the objectivists. That is what most threatens them about my point of view.
And I know this in part because of how threatened I was at the thought of losing that foundation I anchored my own precious Self to as an objectivist.
Plenty of room. In fact I myself am hopelessly ambivalent regarding my own thinking here. I just have not of late come up with an argument able to demonstrate that one need not be ambivalent at all. That one can anchor one’s Self to the “real deal” reality in the is/ought world.
No, like I noted above, here we basically exchange “worlds of words”. And, as a habitual polemicist, I’m never far removed from provocative “language games”. But:
“…just follow the news day after day after day for all of the endless examples of just how serious things can get when value judgments do collide.”
The gap here for me revolves around how the leap is construed by someone from a more rather than a less “fractured and fragmented” frame of mind in regard to their value judgments.
And, for me, a leap is existential in that it is derived from dasein…from the actual life that we live. And not a different one. That’s what makes it a leap. Whereas the objectivists take no leaps at all. Other than the initial one derived from their indoctrination as a child and/or the experiences that formed their own particular political prejudices as adults.
For me, though, much of this going to be “played out” in particular contexts based on all of the variables in our lives that come together over the years to produce these thought and feelings rather than others. Variables that can often be beyond either our fully understanding or controlling.
I have come to believe that in regard to conflicting goods, there is no way to correct your thinking because there is no way to determine how a rational and virtuous person ought to think. That’s embodied subjectively/intersubjectively in dasein. Emotions are just that much more murky because they come from more primitive parts of the brain. This distinction you make between thinking and feeling is just something that I do not make myself. They’re different ways of reacting but profoundly intertwined in dasein.
In a word: huh?
Yes, the differences between the meaning of abortion and the meaning of feminism are rooted in the either/or world. Jane either had an abortion or she didn’t. Jane either calls herself a feminist or she doesn’t.
But that’s not where the ferocious conflicts come from. That’s not where the lack of clarity reigns.
Instead, it’s the part where individuals who defend abortion and feminism and come into contact with those who attack them. That’s where the fracturing and fragmentation either commences or does not commence in discussions here.
Yes, even in regard to the either/or world, there can be squabbles over meaning. Jane gets an abortion and believes she is destroying a clump of cells. Joan gets an abortion and admits that she is taking a human life but sees no alternative. Mary calls herself a feminist but defends pornography. Margaret calls herself a feminist and condemns pornography.
But how would we go about determining when from the moment of conception human life begins in the womb? And how would we go about establishing that pornography is either something to defend or condemn?
How is even this not profoundly rooted in dasein?
Yes, but that’s something a philosopher might think up. What I focus on instead is going about the task of living your life from day to day to day and thinking like I do. And the only solution I have come up with is “distractions”. Behaviors and activities – music, film, books, magazines, the good stuff on TV etc. – that takes me into a frame of mind where I don’t dwell on the hole I have dug myself down into.
What, because you don’t make the same distinction, that makes my own wrong? And there are tons and tons of objective facts that we can all agree in regard to abortion and feminism. But what becomes far more important to the objectivists among us is that we all agree with their own moral narrative and political agenda. Those are the juicy discussions, right?
In regard to abortion, are we going to discuss who sits on the Supreme Court in terms of demographic factors or empirical truths that can be demonstrated beyond all doubt about them? Or is it going to focus instead on the ruling they make next year and their arguments.
Are we going to note how many words each Justice used to make their arguments, or focus instead on our own reaction to those words?
More to the point, do you? From my frame of mind, it’s like, yeah, you get some of the points I make about dasein…and you see how they are applicable to you. But you’re still able reach that point where you are comfortable making that distinction between “one of us” [the good guys] and “one of them” [the bad guys].
Well, I’m not. And, as with Maia, I believe to the extent you accomplish this it’s because you don’t think down deep enough in regard to how we acquire and sustain an identity in the is/ought world. The main difference being that your arguments are more sophisticated as philosophical conjectures.
I’ll post this for now and get back to your “on existential leaps” later…
The more I go one way I stop and realise I could have gone the other way.
My grandfather was a Marxist, his son, my father, was one as well.
My mother a Christian.
I am neither.
Go figure.
I didn’t stay where I was thrown - Dasein…I didn’t stay there.
Environment gave me options. I explored them, comparing the theory to the actuality, the ideal to the real.
In theory everything is perfect …in practice nothing ever is.
In words all is amazing…all is possible. In action it is not.
Bringing me back over and over to this:
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p … 7#p2844117
Wow, he was right. He is only here this festive holiday season “for fun”.
And, sure, if posting gibberish is his idea of having a good time, who am I to speak philosophically about it instead.
Maybe next year, he’ll want to be taken seriously.
See you then.
I discussed this above. You think about feminism given a particular context and it may or may not trigger a strong emotional reaction. It may make you want to cheer. It may fill you with disgust.
How is that not intertwined in dasein…in the life you lived predisposing you to react emotionally one way rather than another? And, just as importantly, is there a way using the tools of philosophy [here in a philosophy venue] to ascertain what the appropriate, most reasonable emotional reaction ought to be?
Now, the emotional “leaps” in our head are, in my view, rooted existentially in the life we lived. The manner in which both genes and memes come together to prompt us to react as we do. And how can that not be problematic given that there can be as many different reactions [to the same set of circumstances] as there are people reacting?
The state of mind derived from conflating any number of variables surrounding an event which we perceive and then think through to form an intellectual and emotional “attitude”. Why your attitude and not mine?
And the level of certainty is always going to vary from person to person as well. Here, we are either able to establish what we claim to be certain about or not. You listen to a speech by Hillary Clinton embracing her own rendition of feminism. How unwavering is your reaction to it? And how is that reaction not embedded existentially in dasein?
I care considerably less for what people claim to understand or believe about feminism and more in how they are able to back that up empirically, materially and phenomenologically. What evidence do they have? And how do they make the arguments of those who embrace feminism go away?
Okay, in regard to a context revolving around feminism, explain the behaviors you’d choose given this abstract assessment. What of “tools” and “vision” there? And how would you differentiate objectivism and subjectivism when confronting those who take the opposite point of view?
From my frame of mind this is just another “general description intellectual assessment”. You would have to bring it all down to earth by noting actual interactions you have had with others revolving around the political prejudices you have that revolve around an issue like feminism. What went through your head specifically? How did that trigger a specific emotional reaction? How sure can you be that this reaction comes closer to the objective truth rather than just a particular subjective response that was generated by the manner in which I have come to understand “I” here?
Same with this:
You will need to “illustrate the text” in regard to actual experiences that you have had if you are aiming to make a more effable point.
On the other hand, our reactions are often so complex that any attempt at all to actually describe them fully is often futile. There are just too many variables in our lives that are beyond our fully understanding and controlling.
Starting with the biggest one of all: years and years of being indoctrinated as a child. And often because this flows from the actual love that the brainwashers feel for us, it becomes all that much more engrained. As an adult, how would you really be able to yank that part out?
What can I say? Another “wall of words”/“world of words” that does not actually come down to earth.
Flesh it out contextually and make it all clearer.
Clit
Anyone got a context.
I’m looking for a context.
Something base…soap operish…
Jane went to a brothel with Mike to pick up her sister Mary…who works there as a prostitute.
Jane is propositioned, mistaken for one of the whores.
Mike is offended, since he wants to fuck Jane.
Jane accepts the offer…'cause she’s adventurous and she loves sex and Mike doesn’t do it for her.
What’s Mike to do?
Moral dilemma.
Down to Earth stuff…no skyhook philosophy.
Feminine gossip. Subjective.
Circumstantial not generalities.
Let’s dish, girlfriends…
snap
crackle
pop… philosophy for prostituting pendants
Note to Subjective Self
Am I choosing to respond or are you Lord, guiding me?
Okay, we are now all in agreement that he utterly embarrasses himself with these lame attempts at being “clever”.
Now it’s time to pin down how embarrassed he should be.
From 1 to 10:
1 being embarrassed enough to seek out emergency psychiatric care
10 being embarrassed enough to snuff out his own very existence
Please think this through. A man’s life is at stake here.
Not to mention all that fun. 
Biggy, it’s not my fault that you won’t get a prescription for whatever cognitive defect you’re suffering from here, but this is a prime example of what I’m talking about. Here’s the full context of my question:
I’m asking how you draw the connection between 1) my admission that my thoughts about feminism are a result of the life I lived, and the conclusion that 2) I must think there was never any possibility that my life might have unfolded another way. I’m asking why could it not be that despite 1), I actually might believe that my life could have unfolded differently. I’m asking what’s the logic behind your thinking here. Why did you say this? Not, why did I end up despising feminism. ← That you interpreted it the latter way is too much of a miss to be chocked up to a simple mistake. Either you’re suffering from some kind of brain damage, or you’re being an obscurantist on purpose.
So we’re just arguing about feminism?
This has nothing to do with feminism. You do this every time someone actually comes close to the crux of the problem. It’s like your brain is a gold medalist in the blocking-things-out Olympics. ← And that’s giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Is that the issue? You’re wondering why my feelings towards feminism remain intact rather than my ‘I’ fragmenting (whatever that means)?
Because you’re suffering a cognitive defect. Sorry to make it about you again, but all roads apparently lead to Rome (you’re Rome). I’ve deciphered this about you:
-
The occasional inability to distinguish the meanings of different statements/explanations that others find extremely simple. ^ This for example (i.e. the difference between reporting on feelings and making assertions). Then there’s the distinction you failed to make between the question I asked above (<-- what’s the link from this and this -->) and you’re interpreting it as asking why I ended up despising feminism. And of course, the distinction between the meaning of “context” and “discussion topic” which you couldn’t make.
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The shutting off of your comprehension skills when confronted with a point that poses a challenge to you, if not breaks your argument entirely. This is what you just did. On other occasions, you say things like “I don’t really follow this” or “this is just psychobabble” or “that’s just another intellectual contraption” or, everyone’s favorite, “we need a context”. Most of the stuff that you respond to with this ain’t that difficult. I don’t buy that it’s all just too abstract for you (your own philosophy is about the most abstract thing I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading). This seems more a Freudian defense mechanism on steroids. Your mind just has an unparalleled ability to block things out (or blur their meaning) when it poses a challenge to your arguments or meets your challenges and overcomes them with flying colors. This is interesting because you said on more than one occasion that your upbringing was in a right-wing religious family, and some of those kinds of environments can be especially harsh in terms of instilling the fear of God in a child’s mind. Richard Dawkins pointed out that the harm this can cause to a child could be severe enough to warrant the label “brain damage”–one manifestation of it being overly developed psychoanalytic defense mechanisms, the uncanny ability to block things out (like “sinful” thoughts).
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The use of completely unjustified segways from topics you have no interest in to the ones you obsess over. You know the example I’m thinking of–the segway you used to go from talking about smears’ owning a motorcycle and being a chick magnet to his having certain political prejudices. I believe it was “Not only that but he has his own collection of political prejudices”. ← But this is a completely unjustified segway since the topic of smears owning a motorcycle and being a chick magnetic has absolutely nothing to do with his having political prejudices. It’s only purpose was so that you could steer the topic back into your own familiar waters. ← But this alone is not the cognitive defect. The defect is that you have no idea that you’re doing this. That you think the segway is completely relevant.
I could probably add at least 3 more but that would require going back through the mountains of material that exists on ILP revealing the patterns and style in your thinking, and I don’t have the time or the interest.
Don’t flatter yourself.
Do we have a way of measuring that?
Yeah, I’m sure you would be broken hearted if the bill was voted down.
This is something else we should probably explore (<-- God, I shouldn’t say that). The whole “fragmented I” or the “me” that doesn’t exist–you know, all that eastern sounding philosophy stuff–I’ve never really been able to make sense of it. That “I” don’t actually exist seems, well… stupid. What do you mean that your “I” is fragmented? How do your insights into dasein lead to that?
So I ask again, why can’t this apply to me as well?
Of course, how could it not be?! But then one questions, what answer would satisfy you? Are you expecting me to somehow reach beyond my dasein roots and miraculously find an answer that isn’t rooted in dasein? Would you even know how to recognize such an answer?
Well, that’s something, but still conjecture when you project it onto other objectivists.
Well, let me put it this way: I’ll use feminism as my example (since you love contexts so much). When it comes to my thoughts on feminism, assuming I’m trying to take it seriously, I will strive to be as reasonable, realistic, and wholistic as I can–I will strive to understand feminism apart from my personal biases and prejudices–that is, feminism as it really is (objectively as it were), feminism on all sides; but when it comes to my emotions on feminism, that can’t be separated from my biases and prejudices–you might even says my emotions towards feminism are my biases and prejudices–IOW, there is no striving to be reasonable, realistic, and wholistic with my emotions towards feminism. Why? Because emotions are all about how things affect one’s self. I’m a man. Feminism is driven by angry women, women who are angry at men, women who are vying for political power and are angry at men. ← That’s very threatening. There’s no way I can’t feel emotionally disturbed by feminism. It may be true that this is a twisted distortion of feminism–obviously, not all feminist hate men, and not all feminist are vying for political power, and not all feminists are even women. I don’t even know the proportion of feminists who are and who are not these things. But the threat is certainly there, and as a man in this feminist infected world, I feel that threat. So when I try to think about feminism as rationally and objectively as I can–putting aside my biases and prejudices to the extent that is possible–I may arrive at the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with feminism inherently, that maybe there is some weight to the feminists’ point of view, that maybe even the threat to my well being is worth the strides it would allow feminism to take in the long run (assuming it actually can make the world a better place for both men and women). But that doesn’t change the fact that as a man, my well being is (or might) be in danger if feminists, especially man hating angry feminists, got into a position of power to implement their agenda. My manhood is an immutable fact in the either/or world, and it makes my position in the world, and therefore my emotional reaction to feminism, what it is–even if my better (rational) judgment recognizes the arbitrariness of my prejudices towards feminism by virtue of their roots in dasein.
(You might consider the implications this has on dasein and the way one’s life experiences shape one’s beliefs and values–while no one can predict from birth where they will end up in life, what experiences they will have, what circumstance will befall them, how they will be raised, what community they will be integrated into, one is stuck, at birth, with certain immutable characteristics–sex, race, parents, genetic predispositions, etc.–and they aren’t nearly as arbitrary as where in this world we are thrown like the roll of a dice–meaning that sometimes our prejudices wouldn’t have been different if our life circumstances were different–or at least, wouldn’t have been as likely to change.)
Ah, I think this is stemming, once again, from your tendency to want to segway–except you didn’t do so explicitly; rather, you abruptly switched contexts before even responding to me. Let me remind you of how this strain started. It started with me asking what you mean by “context” and if it differed from “discussion topic” ← Again, a question of the meaning of words (just like those of “feminism” and “abortion”). I told you that the reason for my asking was to clarify your meaning (because it’s hard to have a discussion with you before understanding what you mean by terms like “context”). You responded saying how can we possibly clarify something that is so intertwined with a whole bunch of other stuff–science, religious, philosophy, politics, and even the whole universe, even going back to the big bang–implying that it’s a hopeless mess from which it is useless to try and draw out any clarity. ← This was a segway. You segwayed from the question of what you mean by “context” to the question of “how do we get clarity out of all these tangled messes (political, social, religious, etc.) that dasein gets us into?” You did so despite knowing full well that I needed to know what you meant by “context” in order to give you proper responses to your demand for a context, that the discussion can’t go forward (or it would be very difficult) if I didn’t understand what you mean by the terms you use first. You seem to want to discussion these real life event–these social and political predicaments, these “tangled messes” dasein gets us into–so badly that you can’t even be bothered to clarify your terms when asked. You’re so desperate to skip right away to your central topics of interest that you’ll segway (if only in your mind) before even thinking of how to respond to my request for clarity. This is why I refused to answer your question. I’m not letting you segway. You need to focus on clarifying the definitions of the words you use first. This is why I segwayed back to definitions (to give you an example). You need to stay on topic. You need to stay focused. It’s okay, we’ll get to your precious dasein in a moment, just humor me a bit; it won’t take long; help me understand your terms and then we can get to real life situations where dasein throws us to the wolves.
You should add booz to the mix.
I can make the distinction (if I feel like it), but that’s based whether or not I want to, not because it’s the truth. This is crucial. It’s, once again, the distinction between how I feel, and what I believe is the truth. You will have to understand this distinction if you are going to make any sense of it.
Well, I don’t know what you mean by “sustaining an identity”–sounds like it comes back around to the “‘I’ fragmenting” part, which I said we should explore further (although I’ll probably regret that). I just don’t feel like I have to prove (to myself or others) that I’m on the moral high ground when it comes to us/them conflicts. I can just say “I don’t like you guys, I’m going to work against you. And these guys here… I like them. I’m going ally with them.” I don’t struggle with justifying my choices here morally. I just feel comfortable in the choices I make and try to stick with them.
Oh, now you want me to clarify my terms to you, huh? 
That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think? Well, I’ll tell you what. What I wrote above is clear. It’s just that you’re so used to thinking of these “worlds of words” as meaningless intellectual contraptions that your mind (probably unconsciously) removes their meaning upon being filtering into your consciousness–and all you hear are the ramblings of Charlie Brown’s teacher:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04[/youtube]
It’s such a tragic thing to watch. You claim to not understand how I can admit that my emotional reactions to things like feminism are rooted in dasein and yet go on accepting my emotional reactions, and when I attempt to explain it to you, attempt to make clear why I feel like I can do this, your mind sucks all the meaning out of my explanation like a vampire, leaving behind a meaningless husk of rambling words. And then you have the audacity to continue complaining about how you just don’t understand how I can accept my emotional reactions knowing they are rooted in dasein. Oh sure, I could “bring this down to Earth” with concrete examples (bring in a context as it were) but I shouldn’t have to dignify your request with any examples given that you can, whether you realize it or not, understand everything I’m saying if you’d only snap out of this neurotic frame of mind you’re stuck in and take me, along with every other person on this board, seriously. So no, I won’t flesh out contextually and make it all clear for you. You will no doubt simply run this through your proverbial machine, your game, and play me like a fool, and it will get you no closer to understanding my “wall of words”. Sometimes, Biggy, you just gotta accept that the answers you seek are gonna be abstract. You actually have to put some effort into understanding them–don’t ignore the meaning, embrace it, actually try to parse the words and make sense of what they’re telling you. Alas, you won’t, and there’s nothing I nor anyone in this world can do to make you.
But I’ll tell you one thing. This is exactly–exactly–why people get frustrated with you, and eventually despise you–because you do this with our explanations, with the explanations you trick us into thinking you need, with the answers–the straight up answers–to your very questions–when delivered to you are transformed, by your mind, consciously or unconsciously, into the meaningless garble, the intellectual contraptions and worlds of words, that you claim to be receiving. It’s the effort we put into it, hoping to shed some light on these issues for you (because you ask us to) only to be told we’re uttering nonsense, that irritates us so. This has absolutely nothing to do with some fear we hold deep inside that maybe you’re right–maybe what you say about dasein applies to us and our political prejudices–especially with someone like me who, seemingly to your bafflement, freely admits that what you say about dasein applies to him and yet, like the rest, ends up despising you for your block headedness. We’re not afraid that you might be right, we’re frustrated with you incessant anti-cooperative approach to discussing the issues you ask for our cooperation to help you with. Sheesh!
Anyway, I can see myself getting frustrated here. This was my thread and I shouldn’t be letting it take me down like this. So I’ll try to go maybe one or two more rounds with you, but as I think I’ve gotten what I wanted (and a hell of a lot more!), I think it’s fair that I leave soon.
Iamalyingwoman’s context.
What does she mean by context?
What does she mean by “bring it down to earth”?
She means give it a moral dilemma, a scenario, like in the movies. Make it personal, subjective…you know 'cause there is no objective reality when it comes to humans.
Bring it down into her postmodern, Marxist hole.
Like this
Mary Land went to a bar and picked up Joe. she thought him a nice guy.
She fucked him.
She got pregnant.
Then Joe showed his “real face” and Mary Land changed her mind about his greatness.
Mary Land wants a abortion.
Should the collective pay for Mary Lands error in judgement?
Should her problem be collectivized?
Should Mary Land be protected from her own mind’s bad judgements?
Should the responsibility for her mistakes not be shared by a collective so that Mary can continue living her life without stress and without ever, ever, having to change?
But, but, the poor woman got pregnant. How can it be anyone’s fault?
2 + 2 = 5
A product of a series of choices.
Choices lead an individual towards a probability - every choice, based on his/her judgment adding or subtracting from producing a consequence…in this case a pregnancy.
Note to others:
Gib and I have been providing Satyr with an example of how a substantive exchange can unfold in the philosophy forum here. An exchange relating to conflicting goods that revolve around particular contexts. It includes both “straight talk” and huffing and puffing “gotcha” polemics.
But, alas, he persists in sustaining this “Mr. Fun” persona…bursting into threads here at ILP with these ridiculous posts.
Personally, I think he should be shamed for it. Though, admittedly, that can be no more than a hopelessly subjective opinion rooted in dasein.
And, true, it is only during the festive holiday season.
Oh well, never mind.
