The elephant in the room

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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that there has been, since existence began, the question
which lies over everything… that life, existence itself has
within it, contradictions, discrepancies, incongruity, positive
and negative… the human side of that is the ongoing need to
find/create a sense of unity, to create, as Einstein tried to create,
a theory of everything… his search was to find the unity within,
the theory of everything in science and physics, and the search since
Plato anyway, has been to seek out the theory of everything in regards to
human beings…a theory that makes sense of existence… which is,
as been noted, that religions and the theory of god, is one attempt
to create a theory of everything… but as I have noted before, that
religion is not universal… it does not take into account all human beings,
because religion itself, is incomplete, partial, inadequate, and deficient…
for it doesn’t take into account all examples of human possibilities…
this fragmentary nature of religions also shows us the fragmentary
nature of existence…as human beings, we too are partial, deficient,
incomplete and fragmentary…it is often said that we marry another
in order to complete ourselves… but given the divorce rate, we can
see that this idea is also fragmentary, incomplete…the idea to complete
who we are tells us that we are, as human beings, fragmentary and
incomplete… and thus, this is the real starting point of philosophy…
not to gain wisdom or seeking the nature of our doubt, but in
overcoming our own incompleteness, our own partial self’s…

and perhaps, this is why philosophy has failed to this point, it has
been about completing ourselves, and as of now, we don’t have
a universal, one size fits all theory that can complete who we are…
just as their is no theory that can unify the society/state with who
we are as individuals…theories that have succeeded in unifying,
turning into one, the state and the individuals are, to this point,
failures…there is no universal, one size fits all theory
that connects the one, the individual within the state/society…
or to put it another way, there is no theory that can connect
Kierkegaard to Marx… the one, the individual within the state…
How do we connect Kierkegaard focus on the one, the individual
with Marx’s theory of the state/society? Kierkegaard held that the
state was untrue… that the crowds were wrong and Ipsen agreed,
but Marx believe in the many/the state over the one, over the
individual… So, the question becomes, how do we unite these
two values? How do we complete the one, within the state/society?
Is there a theory of everything in terms of where the one, the
individual stands in regard to the state? at the same time, both separate
and standing within the state/society… that is the question…

A theory of everything in terms of uniting the one within the state?
The conflict between the one/individual and the state, has
been in progress since the beginning of time…
This conflict is best brought to life in the Life of Socrates…
Who has priority? given that it was Socrates that had to drink
Hemlock, the state/society won that round… and we face that
exact same problem today… the conflict between the defenders
of Trumpism and the individual that is negated by the values
and beliefs of Trumpism, how do we connect those two ideas into
being one? How do we integrate the one, the individual into
a state/society that goes out of its way to negate, to practice
nihilism as Trumpism does…
How do we unite, connect the one/individual into a dictatorship
that practices nihilism, as dictatorship practice the negation,
the dehumanization of the individual in terms of the state…
that is the great lesson of dictatorships… they are doomed
to failure because they negate and deny the one/the individual…
every single dictatorship has failed… as Trumpism is and will
fail…for in negating the one, we reduce people to being things,
to put the needs of the few or the one, above the many or all…
that is the path to failure… because at the heart of Trumpism,
of MAGA is fear, afraid of the other… and what does the right fear?
Basically everything… the list of the rights hatred and fear is a
very, very, very long one… and that fear drives the right to
exclude others…to attack those who drive those fears…
hence the attack on immigrants, gays, trans, the educated,
the bill of rights, blacks/minorities, even women…
and this attempt to exclude, this attempt to ‘‘purify’’ can
only lead to failure… for it separates, divides us… just
as the Nazis tried to purify Germany only for Aryans,
the right is attempting to ‘‘purify’’ American only for Americans,
which is the exact same thing… if there is an attempt to create
a theory of everything, both Nazism and MAGA are complete and
total failures… for those are attempts to divide, separate out
people from each other… and how does that create a unifying,
overall principle that has been the goal of existence since, at least
since Plato? and what if you are not Aryan or American, does that
mean you have no value, no rights? Nonsense, people have value
regardless, if they are or are not, Aryan or American…
and to judge others, based on such values as race, color, creed,
sexual orientation, or other accidental traits, is nothing more
than bigotry, prejudice and intolerance… and those values,
do not and cannot ever create a unified and united people…
for someone will always be discriminated against…and that
discrimination creates conflict, strife, struggle… and how does
that discrimination help us create a unified and healthy society/state?
How does that prejudice help us become better human beings?
How do we become more human if we practice nihilism in
regards to our fellow human beings?

So, how is discrimination, nihilism help us toward ''ad meliora?"
‘‘Toward the better’’ We cannot practice unity if we are excluding
others for no other reason than bigotry and prejudice…
How exactly does bigotry and prejudice help us create a
better America? and that is why dictatorships fail…because
at the heart of every dictatorship lies bigotry and prejudice…and we
cannot, ever, be able to build a strong, unified nation if it is born
within bigotry and prejudice…
and this is why the American Civil War was inevitable…
America was born in bigotry and prejudice with slavery being
the heart of the American experience… and this nihilism,
the negation of human beings, cannot endure…

and what value can we use to escape or negate the negation?
Justice, which is at its heart, is equality… that we can build,
create a strong, complete nation if, if we practice Justice over
all other values… if we practice Justice, we remove much of
the discontent of people…a fair and equable society/state,
or said another way, if we remove bigotry and prejudice from society/
the state, we create a unified theory of the state, where all citizens
are treated equal… the practice of ‘‘Ad melioria’’ requires us to
engage with people equally… and failure to engage with people
equally, helps create conflict and despair in people…for how can
a person feel good about themselves if they are denied equal rights
or treated as a thing, in which their value lies in the creation of something
else… such as Capitalism in which human beings value is in the
creation of wealth… this is nihilism… and it is doomed to failure…
and for the exact reason that communism failed and every single
dictatorship failed… it treats people as a thing, not as people with
value or a goal…

One way to think of this is by the playing of Chess…
in Chess, there are a lot of really bad moves, moves that will
cause one to lose… but to win, there are moves, but we have
to make the right move at the right time… winning at chess requires
us to think about what we are doing, and what needs to happen next,
what move will allow us to achieve our goal… and the same goes true
within the state/society… there are a lot of bad moves the state/the society
can make, but very few moves that will help us reach our goal…
and the right move is ‘‘ad meliora’’ toward the better… not just
individually but also collectively… it isn’t just about my being
successful, but what move or moves will also benefit the state/society
as well as me?

and bigotry, prejudice and violence are not the right moves, for they
separate, divide people… what idea or values will bring people together?
therein lies the cure for our modern state…

Kropotkin

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Existence did not begin.

A beginning point implies a previous state of nonexistence and nonexistence is not and cannot be.

Nonexistence is conceptual. It is abstraction, constructed in the mind and projected outward through concept and language.

Nothing, nothingness and nonexistence are conceptual mechanisms. Conceptual mechanisms employed by conscious beings, specifically advanced organisms like human beings, to help process information.

Further, as expressed in the essay:

.

A comprehensive, all-inclusive framework accommodating science, religion and any other subject imaginable:

A brief summary:

3

Odd take right there

4

Existence itself does not have
within it any contradictions, discrepancies, incongruity, positive
and negative, except for a positive and negative charge within matter.

Humans only cause these things from distorted or incorrect thinking.

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Are you suggesting these things are somehow separate from existence? Then what would they be? Something other than existence? They do not exist? Then how are you able to reference them?

Are you suggesting human experience, and all it entails, is not an aspect of existence?

Even illusions are parts of existence, parts of being. Illusions are illusory, not nonexistent.

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Bigotry, prejudice and violence are all evolutionary functions fulfilling a purpose, but from the three, condemning violence is the hallmark of a privileged, unthinking society.

Violence is not a goal, but violence is an essential tool, a last resort.
The myriads of situations where you are reliant on it starting from oppression by your own government, invasion by an outside force, down to protecting your family and/or yourself with force, is basically limitless.

Anyone who attempts to condemn violence has already put themselves in a corner as an utopian ideologue and/or activist.
But the same kind of pampered westerner mindset comes with things like the condemnation of bigotry and prejudice, both of which are at their core hardly anything more than pattern recognition which should keep you and yours from getting harmed.

This is the point where if one wants to play with their own life and dont mind getting oppressed, enslaved, brutalized, murdered or worse, then they can have at it. Live a life of the pacifist in a world full of wolves and bears that view you as a free meal.

The kind of world where you no longer have ANY use for violence or prejudice is the kind of fantasy even children learn to leave behind by the time they hit the age of 10 and you can say whatever you want about the concept of nationalism, but every community has its own rules, culture, ethics and values.
It is at best dishonest, at worst disgusting to impose the idea on a nation of people that they cant have anything because thats intolerant, but everyone else gets to and they also get to impose it on them because the “diversity, equity, acceptance and tolerance” crew has a severe suicidal ideation.

And thats the delusion, because the stripping of intolerance does not benefit the whole.
America. The melting pot. The “diversity is our strength” proves this every day.
A society where everyone is forced to overlook, tolerate and accept it’s most destructive elements because pointing them out or god forbid solving the issue, would be bigoted, intolerant, racist.

So instead it closes both eyes and takes hundreds of dead bodies on a weekly basis, because according to those with this brain tumor of tolerance, making a funeral pyre out of your own society is just fine as long as it helps with pretending that we are all just one happy big family swaying arm in arm and singing kumbaya

Its easy to preach love, tolerance and acceptance when its not you footing the bill by getting murdered in a ditch because of it.

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@Nausamedu

Peace only exists if you protect it and defeat evil constantly trying to usurp it. Peace requires constant nurturing and tending like the need of water for a flower. The moment you stop watering a flower it withers away and dies.

You cannot maintain peace by doing nothing in idleness, but there’s plenty of fools throughout the entire west that think things can just happen by inaction. They’re severely foolish and deluded. Of course it is that kind of lazy thinking that has got us into our current predicament.

Eternal vigilance is the price of peace otherwise it becomes worthless.

:clown_face:

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The answer to your first question is, “No”. So, your following questions are redundant.

However, your questioning points out the fact that I could have worded my post better, or more accurately.

Existence itself does not have within it any contradictions, discrepancies, nor incongruity other than within human’s distorted and incorrect thinking only.

Does that sentence come across as accurate to you? Or, does it still need some more work?

9

What do you suggest to constantly nurture and tending to peace?

Eternal vigilance, without action, could be considered, more or less, as doing nothing in idleness. What do you actually do that is protecting peace and defeating evil constantly?

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Thank you for this extremely lucid response. You saved me the trouble. I didn’t read the whole post because it is too long and rambling, but I noticed the category error in the first line.

Indeed, the concept ‘exist’ is a verb denoting action. Action presupposes the thing that acts. To be something is to exist. It’s metaphysically impossible for nothing to exist. Therefore, existence did not begin; it is the backdrop of all beginnings.

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@anew1

Eternal vigilance requires constant calls to collective action, that was the entire point of that post.

Moral imperatives requires societies of constant collective action in preserving them and defeating evil requires a constant war against human corruption. A virtuous people is forever vigilant in those things in order to achieve social peace, tranquility, and harmony.

The root of all evil is human corruption, a war has to be waged against that non-stop everywhere so that evil never grows root anywhere. My vision for humanity is a strong morally virtuous people where justice and social harmony is the highest philosophical axioms. I have zero tolerance for corruption and all means of war should be waged against it in the name of greater social cooperation.

:clown_face:

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Okay, but just constantly calling does not necessarily create any actual action.

Also, and do not forget, people on both sides of any war believe it is those on the “other side” who are preventing peace. So, which “side of peace” do we constantly call to collective action?

For example, have you been corrupted? Could we call, to collective action, a war waged against that corruption so that evil is removed and never grows root anywhere else? Or, are you not susceptible to human corruption yourself?

I am just trying to ascertain what is it that you want me to wage against.

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@anew1

I believe in the tyranny of the majority in war against the tyranny of the minority.

The needs of the many and the multitude outweighs the needs of the few. Peace will only be ascertained when the minority stops waging war on the majority of people.

:clown_face:

14

If that is your answer, then, okay.

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let us work out another aspect of existence, which is this
battle between the universal and the one/the individual…

many around here have a real horror of a one world state,
a ‘‘universal’’ state as it were…they call it Globalism…
in this format it is a political idea… for there is already an
economic globalism, we can thank Capitalism for that…I for one,
feel that our worldwide idea of capitalism/Globalism, its time has
come… we can tell because of the ongoing anomalies and
discrepancies that have cropped up around us, we can tell
that capitalism, as a global idea, it has played itself out…
the promise of capitalism, which is a universal wealth for all,
has failed… wealth is now concentrated in the hands of a very few…
it is estimated that 90% of the world’s wealth is in the hands of roughly
10% of the population…or said another way, roughly 80 million people
own more wealth than the remaining 7 billion people, put together…
and how is that supposed to be universal? it isn’t…
even here in America, that most Americans are two paychecks
away from becoming homeless… Miss two paychecks, and most
Americans are in deep financial trouble… How can that be called
a successful economic system?

and what about the other attempts to create a ‘‘universal’’ system,
and here I am referring to the attempt to create a universal/worldwide
religious system… the very word Catholic means Universal…
and everyone who has engaged with the faith, is considered to be
part of the tribe… and it has been the Catholics, among others, who
have tried to create a universal religion… among the other attempts,
Islam, and if we are to believe in MR. A, the Jewish faith, is also
an attempt to create a universal religion… and the two main religions
have been fighting each other for over a thousand years in their attempt
to become ‘‘Worldwide’’… and it has become quite clear that both
religions, Christianity and Islam, has begun to dead end… that there
is no future in either one…They are also ‘‘played out’’, just as capitalism
has played itself out… but we can say in no uncertain terms, that
in their attempts to become ‘‘worldwide’’ religions, they have changed
the course of history… From the Crusades, to the latest ongoing
Iran/US war, the conflict between the two has cost millions of lives…
and continues to damage the world… but given most people around
here believe in the idea of a universal religion, it becomes surprising to
me that despite believing that their religion should become the universal
religion, they also oppose the idea of a political universal world…
it is clear that both the religious and economic try at becoming
universal, has failed… but until recently, the political was still
the path into the future… but the decline of the political
has suggested that the political too has begun the same path
of failure that has moved both the religious and the economic…
one of the ways we can tell this failure, is by the nature of
the ism itself… that both the religious and the economic has
shown itself to fail by its concentration of money and power into
the hands of a smaller and smaller number of people…
as this trend is now becoming prevalent within politics too…
an attempt at the universal begins to fail when it is no longer
applied to the universal, that it is slowly applied to a smaller
and smaller number of people… for an ism to become universal,
it must be applied to an ever larger and larger group of people
but that isn’t true today… power is being driven by an ever
smaller group of people… that denies its universal nature…

Now what isms/ideologies have applications to being
universal? I would say that democracy and voting rights
are something that would be able to carry over to becoming
a universal application…whereas monarchies, dictatorships,
oligarchies, are movements away from being universal…
the idiotic idea of ‘‘America first’’ denies that it is any attempt
at the universal…that is no different from the original attempt
which is

‘‘Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles’’

Which translated means, ‘‘Germany, Germany above all’’…
but that is clearly not an attempt to be universal… but it was,
an ‘‘America first’’ is an attempt to turn ‘‘Germany above all’’
into carrying the German ideals into a universal value…which
is no different than the America version which is ‘‘America first’’
and that is practiced exactly as the German one was, it was
an attempt to transmit American values, whatever they are,
into becoming universal values… and this cannot be done,
for the fact of the matter is, We in America can’t even tell anymore
what values do we actually stand for? This is just as much a
failure in our morals and ethics, as it does for our exporting
such values that we don’t even practice anymore…
such as religion… it has been said that America is probably
the most religious country in the world, a doubtful claim, but
it has been made… and yet, it has become increasingly clear,
Americans such as IQ45 talk the talk, but they don’t practice
Christianity in such way that would be recognizable as Christianity…
their war on immigrants, and the poor and minorities, are all against
the very principles of the bible and of Jesus…and in a very real way,
this is, in part, why we can tell that religions in America are played out,
that their words don’t match their actions… people like IQ45 preach
the Christian religion, but they don’t practice it… the words don’t match
the actions…

The path to the creation of universal theories or values,
begins with the notion of the words that one uses, matches
the actions one takes… and within this one simple idea,
we can begin the path to overcoming our own partisanship…
which begins the path to a universal world… where the values
we practice are the same as the values we preach… that is
in part, what universal means… the matching of the words
with our actions…

So, the question has been asked, should we seek out the
universal or should we remain partisan…

Kropotkin

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What are you saying? Wealth is always concentrated. Just for starters

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@Peter_Kropotkin

Is it Christianity waging war against Muslim Iran or is it Judaism guiding the hands of Christians Peter? Well, which one?

:clown_face:

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@pseudoai

It shouldn’t be though.

If wealth is to be concentrated under the state it should be redistributed throughout society to improve the lives of everyone. We could achieve so much more as a society with that mindset.

Free universal education, free universal on the job training, free universal healthcare, and we could create a variety of public institutions that would improve the lives of so many people everywhere. There is no need for artificial scarcity, we could achieve so much more as a species if we cooperated more instead of constantly fighting, terrorizing, and exploiting one another.

But in order to do that we have to tear down the monopoly of those who has the entire world in a state of captivity.

:clown_face:

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You ‘de-concentrate’ wealth, turn around 5 minutes and it’s concentrated again. It’s just human nature. It even happens with things that are not money.

You are putting too much faith in the people running the state. Those are the people you should be more wary of, in particular if they can manage the most money. I assume you know corruption is rife always.

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@pseudoai

If wealth is always inevitably concentrated I’d rather it be concentrated under the state that looks after people versus private individuals who only care about themselves.

A benevolent dictatorship is way better than an oligarchy of private individuals that fall under the category of megalomania.

:clown_face:

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