Overcoming our own idols

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

In reading another history of philosophy book, the topic
is Bacon and the idea is the idols of… of which there are
4 idols… and the 4 idols are the idol of the tribe, idol
of the cave, idol of the Marketplace and the last, the idol
of the Theater…

the first is an important one for me personally, the idol of the
tribe is the human tendency to perceive more order and
regularity in systems than truly exists, is due to people following
their preconceived ideas about things… the assumption of god
follows the idol of the tribe…that the idea of god automatically
creates order from chaos… and this follows the human need,
compulsion really of finding order and stability where none exists…
so, I ask, what does order look like and where does it come from?
Many try, and fail, to find order within a political landscape… where
we find order in the laws and the judicial system… but clearly,
the law is not an ethical/moral matter.. and we must have order
in that sphere too… for example, slavery and the Holocaust were
both legal, and tampering with them, against the law…
and in a minor sidelight, both slavery and the Holocaust are
attempts to deny people their humanity…because those
who were put into a concentration camp and held in slavery,
suffered from the same sentence, being less than human,
both suffering parties, the Jews and blacks, were considered
to be ‘‘subhuman’’ less than human… and its easier for one’s
conscience to consider those we punish as being less human…
Note IQ45 often declaration that people from certain countries,
brown and black countries, to be ‘‘subhuman’’ and he has
said that enough to know that is what he believes…
that anyone from say, Mexico is subhuman…and he
has used that exact phrase in reference to Mexico and with
countries in Africa, except for South Africa… they apparently
are human to him, because they are white…
anyway, back at the ranch, so I ask, how does assuming
that others, being black for example, being subhuman,
leads us to order and stability? I can’t see how these
prejudice and bigotries lead us to having order/stability?

the second idol, the idol of the cave, leads us to understand
that this idol comes from an individual’s personal weaknesses
in reasoning due to particular personalities, likes and dislikes…
if one is born Catholic, and that is why anyone who is not Catholic
is dislike and hated… one cannot get past their own personal
likes and dislikes to have an open, honest opinion about someone
or something…I am known as a liberal, and yet, one of my closes
friends is conservative, who voted for IQ45 every time…but I
do not allow my own personal beliefs prevent me from being friends with
him… in regards to people, I don’t let my own personal beliefs
force me to judge them for their own beliefs… believe what you want,
what do I care, as long as you don’t preach about it, I’m good…

as far as the third idol, which is the idol of the marketplace…
this is due to the confusion in the use of language and taking
some words in science to have a different meaning than their
common usage… the GOP/MAGA is always manipulating
words and meanings to benefit themselves… if you don’t
believe in IQ45 being the son of god, you are a traitor against
America… or if you approve of abortions, you are against the
word of god… that type of thing… why do liberals hate
America so much? Language as prejudice and bigotry against
others…

the idol of the theatre: this is the following of academic dogma
and not asking questions of the world…and personally,
I would drop the word academic and just say, the following of
dogma and not asking questions of the world…

Now one may say, but asking questions, practicing doubt
and skepticism, can only lead to chaos and disunity…
the chaos and disunity are there, regardless of if we ask questions
about it or not… the automatic default of the universe is not order
and stability but chaos and disorder… entropy is the default
of the universe unless, unless we bring in energy… and that
is the opposite of entropy, the balance between order and disorder
lies within the energy we put into something…
order lies with incoming energy and disorder lies with entropy,
the loss of energy… but at some point, it doesn’t matter how
much energy we put into something, disorder/entropy will win…
It doesn’t matter how much energy I put into my own body,
entropy will win and I will die… death is simply disorder
winning the battle between order and disorder… and every day,
I feel slightly less energy than I did the day before… that is
disorder/entropy overtaking my body…

So, given this information, the real battle in creating order
over disorder within a state or society, lies in putting energy
into the state/society… and that is why MAGA and conservatives
are destroying America, they are removing energy from the body
politic and not replacing it… the fewer government agencies
is a sign of disorder and entropy… remove enough governmental
agencies, and we collapse as a state/society and why?
because there is not enough energy to support our government…
and that loss of energy, which also covers the loss of income
to the government, also brings about disorder and chaos…
all MAGA and conservatives have done is increase disorder
and chaos in America… in their ‘‘idee fixe’’ that in some fashion
government is the enemy but in reality, it is really disorder
and entropy… which is caused by the loss of energy into
the government… stability and order comes from a large,
well-funded government that keeps and maintains order and
stability…we have seen how businesses are growing ever
more powerful in which we have less and less control over
the businesses that today, dominates our world…
and with businesses having domination over the world,
we increase disorder and chaos…for their goal and they
admit this, that their only goal is to make money and get
ever bigger salaries and bonuses…no matter who gets hurt
and deprived of their rights, businesses don’t care as long
as they make money… and this desire to make money
over all other concerns is what drives ever greater
disorder and chaos in our modern-day America…
Thus firing all their employees in order to turn the entire
workplace over to AI, that will make businesses money,
but clearly that harms, brings chaos and disorder into the world…
(my daughter works in a business that fired most of their staff and
replaced them with AI…and it won’t end well, but businesses
don’t care because they are about the profits, nothing else…
and that brings about chaos and disorder)

another idol that brings about chaos and disorder is the belief
in god… for that makes human beings disposable in regards to
god’s plan… read the bible, to achieve his plans, millions of people
died, or as one counted it out, that god kills over 2 million people
in the bible, where Satan, kills 12 people… in terms of a body count
Satan is a far better choice than god… if we use body count as a
criteria…
One of the problems as I see it, that god is transactional,
not transformational… do as I say or suffer, that is transactional
behavior… and what we need is transformational leadership,
not transactional leadership, such as shown by god…
and because belief in god is transactional, it causes disorder
and chaos… it is no different than businesses being fixated on
profits to all other concerns… that belief has caused great damage
and hardships to people, both by god and by businesses…

So, how do we overcome these in the idols that
Bacon has presented us? with doubt, with skepticism
and by examining our own choices and beliefs…
to overcome requires us to reexamine our own idols
and readjust in terms of what we really need to discover…

Kropotkin

2

The idol of socialism?

3

Bacon doesn’t specifically say anything about governments
or political/economic systems, so I’m just guessing but it
seems to me that socialism lies in the idol of the theatre…
it refers to the human tendency to blindly accept false
philosophies, dogmas, and grand narratives as absolute truth…
the term suggests that received systems of thought to stage plays,
because they create artificial, unreal worlds…

But this definition creates a problem… in that all systems,
political and/or economic are, by definition, artificial, unreal
worlds… or as I have stated before, they are human constructs…
and any human construct, whatever its nature, is artificial,
unnatural…it is often said that we need to return to nature
or follow nature, and the problem lies with the fact that
there are no political or economic systems in nature…
and being human, we must have some sort of political
and/or economic system to keep from being in Hobbes
‘‘State of nature’’’ as Hobbes says that in nature itself,

‘‘there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is
uncertain: and consequently, no culture of the earth, no navigation,
nor use of the commodities that maybe imported by sea; no
commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing,
such things as require much force; no knowledge of the fact of
the earth; no accounts of time; no arts, no letters, no society,
and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent
death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short’’

the point of any system we create is an attempt to avoid this
state of nature… the ‘‘social contract’’ as it has been described
by philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke and of course, Rousseau…
but Bacon is not a political or economic philosopher at all…
thus, what he tells us about idols, has to be considered in
context about idols, not politics or economics…
we have to read between the lines as it were…

Kropotkin

4

So almost randomly we have Hobbes coming in, not related to Bacon, to defend socialism. When we think of socialism as an idol we can think: well all political systems are mental constructs but we have to have one. But when we think of Maga, say, then they have specific idols that ‘we’ have to overthrow. But Bacon’s whole point was to check one’s own idols. Here you use Bacon to judge others, which is counter to his whole idea with the idols.

Bacon didn’t design the Idols so we could look out the window and diagnose everyone else’s political systems. In Aphorism XXXVIII, he wrote that the Idols are meant so the individual ‘understanding may be thoroughly fortified and guarded against their assault.’ It is an exercise in internal intellectual hygiene.

In Aphorism XLVI, Bacon perfectly described what you are doing: he warned that once the human mind adopts an opinion it likes, it ‘draws all things else to support and agree with it.’

By pulling in thermodynamics, Hobbes, and the social contract to justify a very specific, modern political stance, you are doing exactly what Bacon despised: twisting external facts to make sure your own preexisting assumptions stay perfectly protected. You are using the Idols as a telescope to judge others, when Bacon meant for them to be a mirror.

Full quote: Book I, Aphorism XLVI:
“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.”

Here we have Hobbes and thermodynamics as the distinctions that set aside and reject to protect your own values and solutions, and Bacon’s idols because a few of ‘all things else to support and agree’ by attacking others.

Oh, look. It’s like Bacon is against my political enemies and his ideas can’t apply to mine.

And the vague, jumping demonstration that entropy can be used to see which political position is best argument could be easily countered by an opposed vague jumping demonstration that entropy proves that small government is good at reducing entropy: “The natural state of the market is order and efficiency, driven by the energy of free individuals. Big government is a massive, bloated machine that creates friction. High taxes drain energy from productive citizens, and unnecessary regulations slow down economic progress. Therefore, a large, heavy government actively increases societal entropy and accelerates the collapse of the state.”

Both thermodynamic ‘proofs’ are examples of the way people defend their idols.

So, one can follow the spirit and intentions of Bacon and challenge one’s own idols or one can do what he warns against and remain impervious by turning any tool only on one’s enemies. That is the Zeitgeist, I guess.

5

and proving once again, you really have reading comprehension issues…
as I noted, Bacon doesn’t say anything about political or economic
systems… but the point of bringing in Hobbes is to state what
economic and political systems are trying to avoid, which is
Hobbes ‘‘state of nature’’ that is the value of having a political/
economic systems… because by definition, any political or
economic system is artificial, unreal, unnatural… a construct
of the mind… so, socialism is by this definition, an artificial,
unnatural system… which is why, I believe that any political
or economic systems falls into Bacon’s idol of the theater…
which is, to repeat, the human tendency to blindly accept false
philosophies, dogmas, and grand narratives as ‘‘ABSOLUTE TRUTH’’…

The fact of the matter is that no matter what political or social or
economic system we decide on, it beats the alternative which
is ‘‘HOBBES STATE OF NATURE’’… and that’s why I brought
it up… what to avoid and socialism is a legitimate economic
system upon which to build a society with… and any system
we decide upon will be artificial and unreal and unnatural…
that is just how it works… so, we begin by working out
Bacon’s idols and see what we can gain by understanding
them… and that is one step, there are plenty of others steps
for us to work through to discover what system is best for us…
noting that because of change, we will have to, at some point,
change even that system to match the everchanging and ongoing
environment we see… I know its hard for you, but occasionally
try to see the big picture… and not get so hung up on details…

Kropotkin

6

One of the most eurodite posters here, maybe ever.

Don’t you get tired of making a fool of yourself?

7
  1. for some reason you insulted me 2) and showed reading comprehension problems. I never said Bacon said something about political or economic systems.

Why insult me?

  1. you ignored the issue of Bacon intending his ideas around idols as tools for self-reflection not for attacking the positions of others. He even implies that this kind of pattern, of taking tools just to use as weapons, hardens one’s own attachment to one’s own idols.

  2. No response to my point about how thermodynamics doesn’t really offer us a way to judge large government vs. small government.

  3. Before Idol of the Theater showed you political opponents were off. Now it shows that they are all off. OK, then it isn’t useful in this context. Bacon meant that when they are unquestioned they are problematic dogmas.

  4. The Big Picture cop out - my criticisms of your use of Bacon are central, not small details. It’s not a detail that he meant it as a process for self-ransacking. It’s not a small issue that thermodynamics can’t show which government form is better.