How ludicrous is this
Best not to get involved Phyllo… I certainly aren’t.
Sock-puppets, intrigue, and plot.
Like, politics as usual
Moe, Curly…how ludicrous is it? 
Sure, but it’s not the conflict itself that is biggius’ problem. His problem is that it seems to him that his values, tastes, preferences etc. might (as well) have been different.
By the way, I regard enjoyment and the discharge of power as one and the same thing.
…and yet, it’s not, denied… by they.
What conflict? In regard to what set of circumstances?
Here, I go back to what turned out for me to be the biggest set of circumstances of them all: my birthday.
Being born on March 23rd resulted in my being drafted into the Army. Being drafted into the Army resulted in my being sent to Vietnam. Being sent to Vietnam resulted in my meeting fellow draftees who had a profound impact on my life. Among other things, they succeeded in reconfiguring me from a politically conservative Christian to someone who over a period of months became a Marxist-Leninist atheist.
That’s the part where I “did go in a different direction”. The part where I might just as well have not gone in a different direction revolves around the assumption that even though I changed my mind about God and any number or moral and political value judgments, in the absence of God there does not appear to be a way for mere mortals to establish once and for all whether the old or the new direction reflects that which all rational and virtuous human beings are obligated to choose.
Instead, I am fractured and fragmented in a world where people on both sides [many sides] of any particular conflicting good are able to make reasonable arguments based on a particular set of assumptions regarding the human-all-too-human condition.
And, further, based on the assumption that the arguments they choose are rooted more in dasein than in any assessment that philosophers can come up with.
And that’s before we come to the sociopaths who think themselves into believing that morality revolves entirely around their own subjectively perceived self-interests.
MagsJ’ says" and yet it is not denied by they"
Partly, ambigiously, though, they vacillate between the universals of one and the many, to create an illusion, if the kind that dies not involve freedom or determinancy, so that nothing definite or even hypothetical can be plugged in.
The resulting ennui, can either improve or depreciate the situation, that this universal envokes, swinging between the singular lack of pyrposs, or even the mirror within any progressive reason reside in.
The fact underlying the emotion is the follow-up of the existential contraption of being and nothingness finds presence, vis. that, which reversal Sartre himself find himself in, after 1956, when he reversed the reversablility of being and nothingness, whereby fracturing from communism( after the Soviet brutal aggression toward the Hungarian Freedom uprising.
Such that the denial becomes conflated, and sych does not allow an existential leap in terms of the singular point of view, and so we are here today, fearing the very thing we fought in and through WW2, the ominous approach of national socialism.
Yes, unless you show me that you provided any new information. (Just to make sure: I’m now talking about the case of Mary and John.)
So it sounds that way to you even though I explained the difference. Well, whatever. I do not believe my values are derived from a core self or “soul”, in fact it’s precisely because I don’t believe that that my values spring from the realest me there could possibly be… On the other hand, my valuation of that realest me and its values—in other words, my embrace thereof—does spring from a kind of core self or “soul”: my cosmic self, a “World Soul”, kind of a Buddhist God:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulayarāja_Tantra?#The_Supreme_Source,_Pure_Perfect_Presence
“Let the Magus then contemplate each in turn, raising it to the ultimate power of Infinity. Wherein Sorrow is Joy, and Change is Stability, and Selflessness is Self. For the interplay of the parts hath no action upon the whole.” (Aleister Crowley, “The Book of the Magus”, 16.)
And to me it’s an experience.
Well, to me it seems, like it does to you, that those values are rooted solely in dasein (which is what I take it you mean by “derived from the components of what I construe to be ‘moral nihilism’”). All political values held by all people in all contexts, so no need to focus on (a) particular one(s).
If we were to rule it out, that still wouldn’t change the fact that this and nothing else is who you are. All it would change is that you could then change who you are. But accepting who you are will also change who you are.
So?
Duly noted. But that comment wasn’t really meant for you. This being a public discussion, what I write isn’t just meant for you (compare your “notes to others”). It might be helpful to a future you, a changed you, though.
Not sure what you mean by “would lead one to loathe him”. What I’m saying is that it’s led me to loathe him and should lead you and many others to loathe him—but not every “one”, no; not those, for example, who see their own petty selfishness reflected in human garbage bags like him. (By the way, it’s by no means the only thing that’s led me to loathe him.) There’s not just the individual reactions of the money-grabbers you mention…
What I mean is that this discussion is itself a prime example of me not just living on an island somewhere, but interacting with others and being challenged not to think and feel “fractured and fragmented”.
It’s interesting how you and Fixed Cross can differ so greatly on the subject of Trump while simultaneously sharing a love of Nietzsche.
I believe the information I gave suffices. So here too we will have to agree to disagree.
What values? In regard to what set of circumstances in which another might challenge your behavior becasue it is not in sync with his or her values? Here, in my view, you are ever and always “up in the clouds”.
Then here we will definitely have to agree to disagree.
On the contrary, in choosing to interact with others [minimally as with you] my moral nihilism is open to challenge. Just as is your perfect nihilism. My explanation to others then revolves around my attempt to explain the manner in which “for all practical purposes” I am “fractured and fragmented”. But: I’m still grappling to understand what you tell them in regard to your being a perfect nihilist.
In other words, given a specific situation in which challenges must be resolved. My own “solution” can only revolve around the extent to which both parties are willing to accept moderation, negotiation and compromise as the best of all possible worlds. And I still have no arguments for the moral nihilists who are in turn sociopaths. Here, it would seem, the “resolution” would revolve around who actually has the power to enforce rules of behavior more to their liking.
Okay, but in describing who I am, it seems absurd to me to just shunt aside all of the existential variables that came together to make me that way. Clearly, to the extent that you recognize this you recognize this is also the case for others. And, once both parties recognize the nature of dasein as a crucial factor in explaining their political prejudices, they can recognize the possibility of changing those variables…opening up the door to so many more options.
After all, don’t objectivists insist that they are who they are because who they think they are is necessarily in sync with the real me/core self/soul? Isn’t this precisely why they often become inflexible…authoritarian in their thinking, in their behaviors?
So?! So, in a wholly determined universe as I understand it, this very exchange that we are having is unfolding only as it ever could have – entirely in sync with laws of matter. That’s not important to note? Isn’t this precisely why the advocates of free will insist human autonomy must be the case or else everything is reduced down to those laws? The human brain being no exception.
Duly noted perhaps…but it still doesn’t allow me to understand what being a perfect nihilist is like for you when others challenge your behaviors. As a moral nihilist, I’ve explained my own response to those who challenge mine. They may not agree with me but it is at least an attempt to explain it.
I’m saying that that someone can loathe Donald Trump because they conclude that it is “natural” – nature’s way – to react to him. Or, instead, or one can argue, as I do, that there is no right or wrong reactions to him. There are only particular political prejudices derived existentially re dasein from the life that one lived. In other words, the experiences one had, the relationships one sustained, the information and knowledge one came across. Which, of course, then excludes all of the experiences, relationships, information and knowledge that one did not encounter. And, therefore, how different lives precipitate different value judgments.
But: conflicting value judgments that can never be reconciled through one or another objective, obligatory assessment. Or, rather, none that I have come across of late.
Then we understand the meaning of dasein here – ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529 – in different ways
Here is phoneutria’s latest contribution to the 2nd Amendment Thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 3&t=196070
Now, with respect to the arguments that go back and forth in regard to the right to bear arms in America, what are we to make of it?
I would agree that arguments professed by individuals to be rational here cannot be separated from the values derived from their own sense of self.
If that is what she is herself arguing here.
Instead, I focus on the extent to which those alleged rational arguments are derived from the manner in which I construe the self as the embodiment of dasein out in a particular world historically, culturally and circumstantially…more so than from the capacity of philosophers using the technical tools at their disposal to provide us with an argument in regard to gun ownership that can be said to encompass the most rational assumptions/premises allowing us to come up with the most rational conclusion.
And that would be what argument in particular?
As for…
"nor should they
that would be the deliberate blinding of a sense
impoverishing perspective, rather than enriching
shit runs deep"
…how exactly does that fit into the 2nd Amendment discussion and debate?
More specifically, given a particular set of circumstances.
I have given you examples. Christianity. Man-made climate change. Trump et al. Choose your pick! (Hint: it’s all about the same thing for me.)
Nothing. I’m not going to tell them, “Listen to me! I’m a perfect nihilist!” It’s just not on the same plane. On your plane I’m no nihilist.
(Note to others: On the meta-plane, I’m a perfect nihilist, which, as I’ve said, means in effect a post-nihilist. What makes a perfect nihilist a post-nihilist is precisely the contrast between these two planes: that there is a plane which is non-nihilist (pre-nihilist, and at most semi- or pseudo-nihilist). Note though that this is no metaphysical dualism; they’re just different aspects of one and the same reality—see Buddhism’s two truths doctrine.)
Yes, at this point I suddenly understand you completely.
“In the seventeenth century, a new philosophy and a new science began to emerge. They made the same claims as all earlier philosophy and science had done, but the result of this seventeenth century revolution produced something which had never existed before—the emergence of Science with a capital ‘S’. Originally the attempt had been to replace traditional philosophy and science by a new philosophy and a new science; but in the course of a few generations it appeared that only a part of the new philosophy and science was successful and, indeed, amazingly successful. No one could question these developments, e.g. Newton. But only a part of the new science or philosophy was successful, and then the great distinction between philosophy and science, which we are all familiar with, came into being. Science is the successful part of modern philosophy or science, and philosophy is the unsuccessful part—the rump.” (Leo Strauss, “Progress or Return?”)
Physical, chemical, biological circumstances etc. versus religious, moral, political values etc.
“We all know of the enormous successes of the new science and of the technology which is based on it, and we all can witness the enormous increase of man’s power. Modern man is a giant in comparison to earlier man. But we have also to note that there is no corresponding increase in wisdom and goodness. Modern man is a giant of whom we do not know whether he is better or worse than earlier man. More than that, this development of modern science culminated in the view that man is not able to distinguish in a responsible manner between good and evil—the famous value judgment. Nothing can be said responsibly about the right use of that immense power. Modern man is a blind giant.” (ibid.)
Of course, I already found the solution to this problem about 14 years ago, though I by no means understood it perfectly back then:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?style=9&f=1&t=154706
Highlight:
“One doesn’t discover truth, one’s perspective fucks itself until its impotence is transmuted into continuity.”
—Wobbly, https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?style=9&p=1867900#p1867900
You don’t need arguments against sociopaths…
Exactly. For instance, to change the subject from PTSD to pens, as Trump did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuVo4fnpLC8&t=1036
But at the same time, that will mean they no longer have any criteria for choosing between those options; they can only put their chairs in the middle, as you have. So isn’t it actually self-undermining for you to try and convince others of your own conundrum, as you also have? If everyone agreed with you, there would no longer be a middle to sit in…
Right, and/or in sync with reality in general/the cosmic self/World Soul (compare Hinduism’s formula “atman = Brahman”)…
It doesn’t change anything… In fact, it’s only a problem on the plane of conventional truth (see my two truths link above). On the meta-plane, the problem is precisely the opposite, the lack of any natural law or necessity, the freedom or randomness of empty space.—But we the great philosophers (…) have found the solution to that:
“Nietzsche emphasizes necessity by using two phrases twice: nötig hat (has necessary or needs) and nötig macht (makes necessary). This is not a physical or cosmic necessity but a lover’s necessity, erotic necessity. What the lover needs as lover is the beloved, and what the beloved needs as beloved is the lover. […] The lover ‘has precisely this spectacle as necessary—and makes it necessary.’ To have it as necessary is the lover’s recognition of his need of the beloved. To make this spectacle necessary can hardly be to cause it or to inflate himself into thinking he caused it; rather, it must be to make the spectacle necessary as beloved, to acknowledge its indispensability, to avow, to shout, It’s you, you I want and want eternally as you are.” (Laurence Lampert, Nietzsche’s Task, page 119.)
Even if an unreal something or an other, I tend to agree with You, but the thought occured, why is the topics of alienation aka known as despair through the metaphor of no exit, can’t be tran- versed into post modern level of inducing some level of certainty of deducing it.in terms of conducing bridges? Why need to take existential leaps, when the gaps are increasingly filled in by willfully arrived corresponding power increments?
I think this way at least to me, makes much more cohesive arguments. At least in the contexts You bring into focus by corresponding meta arguments.
The fact that my arguments are rejected by being overly intellectual, need not compel anyone to disclaim them, in fact it is almost the mirror image of what You are implying
Perhaps the opposite of Sauwellios take is needed, for his style is topical and dynamically insubstantial. Direct quotes of major philosophers paraphrase , but miss the thought fragments which determine their synctatical organization.
Your dynamic organization does come through, as used , in pointing to the metalevel as a differencial contrast, where such methods like synthetic modes of ‘mediation’ and ’ compromise’ appear as , again politically reified traces which are limited to archaic and unprogressive signals toward the post-modern stage. Admittedly, this was Kant’ s categorical problem as well, which Marx, likewise inherited, and could not transverse to inducing sets of quantifiable social indexes.
So the problem is universal in scope, but singular in an objective manifested stage of constructive development.
How on earth can this be understood in both senses: if even three: metaphysical, psychological and socialpsychological.
Sorry guys, double post.
Really, Meno? 
No, it’s not that your arguments are rejected, it’s that your posts are ignored—and not for being overly intellectual but for being overly-intellectual-sounding mosaics of nonsense: there are no arguments in them at all…
I could quote almost any clause of any of your sentences and ask what that even means. For instance, “dynamically insubstantial”… What, as opposed to statically insubstantial? Neither of those things mean anything!
Funny though that you’d make the same old, same old objection to me as so many have done over the years (yes, you do make an objection, that sentence being the one exception where you actually say something even remotely coherent). That objection was always ultimately invalid, and increasingly invalid throughout the years; but now it’s completely invalid. So thanks for demonstrating that! (“If even Meno makes that objection, it must be nonsense!”)
Some things really shouldn’t be revived, and pure Socialism is one of them… though it does become a natural default state during times of war, but a very watered-down one.
The recent austerity measures did not go down well here, and many bemoaned and moaned and wanted to spend (more) from the Treasury’s shrunken coffers, but we came out of it as quickly as we had entered it… and so putting a (current) end, to the trend, of spending what we haven’t got. Now imagine if those exact same people had to live during the time of a post-war rationing Britain?
What have we as humans, become?
Where is The Human Manifesto? a manifesto on being human… would one go down well? probably not, and especially if expectation wasn’t met.
yes , Phoneutria, “could quote almost any clause of any of your sentences and ask what that even means. For instance, “dynamically insubstantial”… What, as opposed to statically insubstantial? Neither of those things mean anything!”
They do mean the difference between simply two ways of analyzing , one I’ll use cliches?: looking in and looking out of the box. The dynamic arrangements come from some source, and do tend to construct an imaginative yet, probable hypothetical, which are met, on some level and interpreted: by a progressive will of intentional abstracted reality. The other, does not necessarily does the opposite, but looking in does relate in degrees or levels of depth to meet the eyes which understand what looking into the itself may mean on some constructed level.
The objective becomes the point they meet, and approximate the form that most nearly simulates it, within the contextual reificaton that recognize the variable boundaries of that context.
Relative and Absolute nihilism relate as such, and there is no adequate simulation, if such conflation of focus does not occur.
That is my impression of the problem of clarity between You and Biggy, and strangely will remain as unresolved as that, which denies any level as You claim to position Yourself : metaphysically. You do come to this same conclusion
I agree they shouldn’t be revived, but then some effects are not recreated by those thus effected.
Like " Make America Great Again, until the newly forming ’ soul’ of the nation is depleted toward bankruptsy. The price becomes an inflated reverse pyramid, and as the whole bottom tier becomes the source of the pyramids apex hardly touching it’s ground, then it is but a matter of time, before the tipping point is reached.
Socialism bisected into national and international segments,( with Capital vampiristically digesting the profit generated by the difference) creates more disunion then union, where more and more control, becomes necessary when mere political labels fail to function.
MagsJ, there was an OP-ed, yesterday, promoting the idea that there are no more moderates left in the US Republican Party, as they have gone under the Trumpian resolve to run in 2004. This willingness to go along with this hugely reactionary theater, has upset the whole socially required integration of equitable elements.
With social justice following this political fragmentation, the question needs to be asked, wether it is the nature of wider contexts, stemming from the unsuccessful resolutions that remained after the World Wars, or is it basic instinctive manifestations of negative human traits which have brought this present crisis into actuality.
Narrowing national socialist interests are reductive, and bring on the stereotypical devolutions of what group identity can entail what national organization appears to topically and internally represent.
Britain suffers this problem even more acutely, albeit and it is no co- incidence that wider applications were prophisized by Huxley and others with apprehending the coming of a brave new world. Though the predated it to 1984, it is only now that they seem to be coming into focus.
Perhaps, there is some association with that idea (Huxley, HG Wells) and the intended post modern idea of failure -a suspected Marxian idea . After all, Marx intended socialism toward the developed and advanced industrial country that Britain was at the turn of the 20th century and not Russia, the underdeveloped agricultural serfdom of Russia.
“Where is The Human Manifesto? a manifesto on being human… would one go down well? probably not, and especially if expectation wasn’t met.”
Let’s not abandon hope ! We may wake up to the real purpose we were torn from the natural womb to post industrial contensions.
Then we understand examples and the point of them differently.
In regard to Christianity, climate change, Trump etc., someone can note a context in which they express their own particular spiritual or moral or political prejudices. These prejudices precipitate behaviors that conflict with my own. Now, as a moral nihilist, my point to them is that the conflicts revolve around the manner in which I construe individual value judgments as rooted existentially in dasein. Conflicts are expected by me because, in a No God world, there does not appear to be a font that mere mortals can turn to make the conflicts go away. So while the conflicts are expected, I don’t expect there to be any actual definitive resolutions.
What I’m trying to grasp is how, regarding your own conflicts with others pertaining to spiritual, moral or political values, you explain the conflict to them as a perfect nihilist.
Note where your examples above have accomplished this.
On the other hand, as an objectivist myself back then, if someone expressed an opposing opinion about Christianity, Nixon, abortion etc., I would insist that they were wrong. They must be. Why? Because I knew for certain that I was right.
Sure, to the extent you largely avoid interacting with others, your values and your behaviors don’t get challenged. What interest me however are those who call themselves perfect nihilists and who do find their values and behaviors challenged by others. And this is the case because they do spend a lot of time interacting with them. What then for the perfect nihilists when explaining the behaviors they choose?
Note to others:
Let’s try this:
1] If you think you do understand what he is saying here and
2] if you do interact with others and
3] If, from time to time, your values and behaviors are challenged by them, what do you imagine his point above about being a perfect nihilist is?
Maybe you do. We’ll still need to examine a specific set of circumstances in order to explore the components of moral nihilism and the components of perfect nihilism.
But: my point here is even more dismal. To wit: Even to the extent that I would embrace “moderation, negotiation and compromise” if I was socially, politically and economically active again, “I” would still be no less “fractured and fragmented”.
And it’s that part the objectivist are themselves most repelled by. This thread itself revolves around exploring the extent to which phoneutria is herself an objectivist as I understand it. If she is, is she smart enough to perhaps yank me up out of the hole I’m in? Or, if she engages with me, will I be the one who succeeds in yanking her down into it.
In fact, I suspected that this concerned her enough to “foe” me.
As for all this…
…what is it other than just another ponderous “intellectual contraption” that in no way addresses itself to any particular contexts that revolve around “morality here and now and immortality there and then”. The existential relationship I wish to explore with phoneutria and her ilk.
Thus…
Bring “Nietzsche’s Natural Ethical Order” out into the world of conflicting goods, note a context most here will be familiar with and we can exchange specific description of the “moral nihilist” and the “perfect nihilist” interacting with others who challenge their values and behaviors…
More to the point, they don’t care about your intellectual contraptions above. And they sure as shit don’t care about mine. And, in this postmodern world, they are everywhere. They live their lives entirely in sync with doing whatever the fuck they want to. And if you or I or phoneutria or others get in their way, it’s dog eat dog survival of the fittest.
For them, the number one concern is this: don’t get caught. And, if you do, mow them down.
Again, from my frame of mind, it depends on the extent to which they see their interactions with others [in a world of conflicting goods] as a “fractured and fragmented” persona. Yes, the more successful I am at bringing them over to my frame of mind, the greater the chances are that they themselves might choose the route of the sociopaths. I can only attempt to suggest instead that they accept the arguments I make in my signature threads and agree to accept their values and their behaviors as the embodiment of “existential leaps of faith” based on particular political prejudices rooted in dasein.
And then when they note that this is just another “intellectual contraption”, I say ,“you’re right, let’s bring it down to earth.”
We don’t know what changes or does not change as a result of a “will to power” rooted in the actual reality of human autonomy. All I can do is to speculate regarding this. If my own understanding of determinism is the case any change at all is only in accordance with whatever set the laws of matter into motion going back to whatever set into motion existence itself.
Conventional truth, unconventional truth…what’s the difference if truth itself is merely an “act of nature” going back to the explanation for existence itself.
What, you think that anything Nietzsche thought, felt, said, wrote or did is somehow the exeption? Or that perhaps you and I are?