I saw another post in the other philosophy forum about the Race Debate, however could not respond because I am new, so I will respond here. No matter how much scientific research there is that says that there is no race, the fact remains that for all intents and purposes there is and will always be race. As long as human beings look different, behave differently, eat different foods, and live their lives differently, there will be race. The fact is, human beings want to separate and classify themselves, specifically to make themselves better. As the famous saying goes: “If there were no black people, white people would have to invent them”. When it comes down to living in this world and not a scientific one, there is race. There are racial boundaries even within races. Look at the Rwandan conflict in the early nineties. The Hutu and Tutsi tribes (both Black African tribes) fought with one another (more specifically the Hutu massacred the Tutsi) because the Hutu were tired of being ruled over by the Tutsi tribe, who had lighter skin in general, longer, more pointed noses and were generally taller. Whether we want to aknowledge it or not, the fact remaines that there is race in the world and that there will always be racial issues, both well founded and not.
That’s a pretty good post, I must say. However, citing the tools and vernacular of racism doesn’t quite make a case for race the way you seem to imply.
The core issue around which this ‘great race debate’ revolves is indeed the scientific validity of the term - to quote you, ‘whether we want to acknowledge it or not’. You’re essentially arguing, because people are fucking idiots there will always be race and racism. The opposing view, of course, suggests that if and when the concept of race is irradicated from the human psyche (as the anthropological data suggests it should be), people may just start to understand things as cultural, geographic, and ideological differences a bit better.
Fanon’s incredible psychoanalytical insights into the ultimate manifestation of racial indifference that is colonization, is invaluably directional for going around the racial issue in the right track. The biological track, although also scientific, is not quite the science in need here. In the preface for The Wretched Of The Earth, Sartre waisted no ink on “the great race debate”. Racism is the living proof of the reason that Christianity should be abolished alongside it. Faith is farce, a pathological condition that’s exalted instead of diagnosed. Racism is the faith fallen from grace, but its comrade Christianity is unfortunately, still lingering on. Seeking to destroy the basis of such a faith as Racism, in vain if seek among genealogy. Nietzsche didn’t try to bash Christianity with the authority or the credibility of the bible checked. Social science is the hammer for faith. No racist should be refuted, instead everyone of them should be psychoanalysed, for they are sick and twisted in the soul. Don’t try to neuroanalyse their intellect either, for their devious will to power apparently functions. “The great race debate” belongs to the scientific racist and their idiotic enemies. This is strictly an existential matter in the marrow. Racial indifference is humanity, “existentiality is humanity”.
In response to your reply, you do make some good points, however, as long as people have visible differences to rely on in different people (whether it be because of geography or any other factor), there will be classification and therefore racism. At this point in time, it is impossible to be totally non-biased (which is another argument itself but ill not get into that right now), and even Plato, in his “perfect” Republic, gave the guardians of the state a “golden” characteristic, while the artisians got a “silver” characteristic. He said that all of the citizens of this republic should be equal, however he contradicts himself (for evidence of this go to The Republic by Plato). My point is, even when great thinkers who strive to be unbiased do something–or even just live for that matter, we cannot eradicate the underlying nature of human beings to classify other human beings, and therefore use this classification to make themselves “better”. And that my friends, is race and racism at its very core.
Dear Uniqorn,
Yeah, let’s be intolerant of those people who are intolerant of others…
Even to say that while maintaining hope of being understood requires faith, as such your argument denies something on which is rests…
Faith is required for all belief, so what?
Social science requires faith. Nietzsche wasn’t a social scientist…
What soul would that be? One that requires faith, perhaps?
I’m not convinced. I think you’ve read this off the back of cereal box…
To: someoneisatthedoor,
I would appreciate it if you would leave this thread to discuss matters prevalent to the topic post only please, it misleads any intellegent discussion and foward progress on this topic. If you would like to argue with this man, please do so in another thread. Thank You.
To: someoneisatthedoor,
I would appreciate it if you would leave this thread to discuss matters prevalent to the topic post only please, it misleads any intellegent discussion and foward progress on this topic. If you would like to argue with this man, please do so in another thread. Thank You.
Opening post: The race debate will probably continue because race persists
Uniqorn’s post: Racism and consequently the race debate are a faith fallen from grace and social science is the answer
My post: Uniqorn’s post is incorrect and spurious
The matters are relevant (not ‘prevalent’ - look up this word if you don’t know what it means) because Uniqorn brought them up. If you take issue with that you should really be complaining to him. If you want to only discuss things in terms and from perspectives that you enjoy then try only talking to yourself…
Is this relavent to my point in any intellegible way, my brother?
There are a lot of people out there would love to cover up the mouths of deconstructionists, as a matter of fact. To your comfort, however, the father of deconstruction himself is often magly spared.
Maybe one should have a little more subtlety in using concepts, otherwise it’d be like driving on the F1 track with a mini trooper. The core attribute lies in the concept of faith is irrationality. Philosophy can’t be degraded to the level of Christian reasoning, not under any circumstance. There is a clear line that one should always keep.
This is the misguided case that I was just on about. If the fundamental difference between science and religion seems to be insignificant, or the line between the two blurred, one might as well start eating pebbles and shagging sheeps. If Nietzsche was not a psychologist and a sociologist, then nobody else hitherto deserves those two titles. The philosopher is nothing much if he is nothing else but a philosopher. The love of wisdom must be fed by a vast range of knowledge in depth. The is why Mr Kant studied physics and Mr Descartes, mathematics. Nietzsche, my brother, even studied literature.
Racists are as irrational as Christians are. Their “soul” constitutes a self-deceiving, fact-ignoring, roundabout and crooked way of their will to power. They are petty, weak, disillusioned herdmen through and through. Take my word for it on this too, that a racist has a faith that’s always secretly trembling at its base. For precisely this reason, I consider racism a more hopeful conviction than Christianity, as all monks are in it deep, they have no cure I’m afraid. Racists can be cured. In another word, their faith can be rationally analysed under the light of existential philosophy. Again, factual scientific play-arounds can’t help the sick. “The great debate” can only, boost, their anti-racial faith.
The reason that “the great debate” can only act as a drop of oil on the hatred fire is that the debate itself, in its scientific light, is a lost cause. Rushton never dies, nor do those who hate him. They will bite each others thick ass on and on right to the extinction of the whole human race. Whoever sit on their head, can consider themselves faithless philosophers. Finally, to convince you that this framing of humanist racism as an existential matter was not on the back of a cerel box, “existentiality is humanity”, “existentialism is an humanism”, L’existentialisme Est Un Humanisme, Jean-Paul Sartre,
I think the reason that demosthenes8907 tried to act as if himself a “great debate” keeper, is that the man can not really engage himself in great debates with mature composure and acute arguementation. His will to power is offended by my denouciation of the “greatness” of “the great debate”, instead of taking on the possitive and manly route that is, to debate, he shied off and as you rightly conceived - talked to himself as his most comforting and safe ego insurance. Let’s hope that he will actually benefit from taking part in ILP.
To the OP: what do you think “race” means?
That is an important point, because some people use it to note the different ways that people look while others use it to define something else.
Dear Uniqorn,
Your intolerance of racists is as irrational as you accuse them of being. Why sink to their level?
Nonetheless even to criticise faith requires faith and as such is contradictory (if one does so in language)…
In the absence of any proof that God doesn’t exist there’s no irrationality in believing that God does exist. Your argument is nonsense, and isn’t one Nietzsche would endorse. He had little or no time for rationality…
Nietzsche would also have no time for your distinction between faith and rationality…
Both science and religion require faith. Neither can be defended logically. As such the line you hold as all important (which has nothing to do with Nietzschean philosophy) cannot be rigorously maintained.
Bullshit.
Yes, I have read Nietzsche, I’ve noticed his preference for references to literature and history rather than philosophy. None of this supports your central argument about faith and rationality, faith and science.
And scientists and anti-racists…
Now you are resorting to ‘take my word for it’ argument. Nevermind, clearly you aren’t capable of living up to your own demands for rationality. I’m also baffled as to how you see this philosophy as being rooted in Nietzsche’s work…
Sartre was a fag and an idiot. His philosophy was unoriginal, illogical, presumptuous bunk that created far more logical problems than it solved. He was a personally deplorable and professionally mediocre man who only became renowned because France was desperate at that time. No-one takes him seriously anymore except people who are belatedly trying to get into continental philosophy and have heard his name.
“Nonesence”, “bullshit”… oh my brother, what has brother 'trop done to you? A couple of rounds with the existential detective, who is supposed to cure instead of helping his client manifesting masochistic tendency, so now you are exploding the oppressed power wherever you post in the language of thy enemy? But let’s concentrate on my arguement against your philosophical essence.
As I wrote in my previous post, rationality is what distinguish my faith, if you insist, between the faith of the racist and the christian, and perhaps you. Nietzsche irrationalised Immanuel Kant, the so called greatest thinker hitherto, so try not to worry too much.
I got this point of yours in your previous post, and I already tried to state my difference, which you are failing to efficiently argue against here.
You might want to tell that to your unborn child.
Your view on Nietzsche, by the virtue of the above statment alone, is commonly misguided with a foggy intellectual superfaciality and perhaps a profound arogance as well. The one who reckons that Nietzsche is irrationalist, misses the inevitible rationalist inside him and all too cheaply contradicts the very moto of all wisdom-seeking. Do you get me, brother?
Just when I though you couldn’t spead your humility further, you appear here as an overly learnt all-encompassing sage who holds the golden stick with its nob at the top shaped as the heads of Deridda, Keirkegaard, Nietzsche, et cetera. To use your own quoatation of Nietzsche, “one repays his teacher badly if one always remain a student”, brother see for yourself, should you have hollawly and bluntly criticized against my creative but fairly conservative idea that’s in its essence undisputably Nietzschean.
I do not know how to explain to you more clearly. But I try, and let me be laconic and concise in the Nietzschean standard, and as the philosophy of Nietzsche, that my “line” stated in my previous post, justifies itself. While me being two thousand existential leagues above crazy christians, I’m their intellectual stronghold’s equal, for they also make their God self-justifiable. Just like my stance on your misquote of Mao, if you read me again, you’ll change. So read again and think why all your farce about my rational “line” being somehow contradictory is the mere product of an unfortunate mind flash.
I hope you would never, ever again, degenerate your intellectual modesty into the level of those who would cheaply misrepresent or degrade a great mind just for the sake of gaining a little ground in debate. I assumed, of course, that you know better how to subjectively and maturely, righteously and respectably, regard a proper philosopher whose influential philosophy is above and beyond all his other creativities in an undisputable, undisputed manner.
I can’t help wondering how could possibly the author of the above statement have read the very first chapter, which is dedicated to pure reasoning, of Beyond Good And Evil, yet still feel baffled about what Nietzsche mean by pure reason. Let me briefly refresh your memory. Nietzsche first of all set himself a “line” on the matter of rationalising, philosophising, general reasoning, before he could show us how and why the prejudices of philosophers are on the wrong side of the line. If you try to demostrate that I’m on the wrond side too, then firstly must you know where the line is. Another reason for you to brood over my last post, in which I tried to draw it in plain English.
Who wasn’t? To quasi-quote yourself, sir, “who isn’t an intellectual freud”? Your nihilism is hitting home.
Is that a fact? Or merely another two-cent, made-up “facts” that you’ve been empolying for the sake desperately bombard me? Your bombs, so far in the thread, are empty shells full of mispelled grafities. They are so gunpowderless so that I feel powerless to hit them properly. The fact is that I’m not too bothered hiding from them.
My long discourse with you in this thread shall end here, hopefully with a benevolent overtone. Don’t read my previous posts, they don’t worth the sweat off Fritz’s balls, to semi-quote monooq. Read yourself instead, and see to it that your own philosophy seeks firstly, nothing but self-justification.
Guess demosthenes8907 could really use a cyber-plasma gun on us now… ah well, it’s not like his “great debate” is going too hot.
I continue to believe that unless the word “race” can be defined it is pointless to continue. If a person is using it in a casual way to point out differences, then the word is valid, but if used in the original sense then we have a problem.
Couldn’t say it any better.
I am not trying to hold a “high and mighty” position, nor am I trying to boost my ego, and please forgive me for my mistake in vocabulary earlier. I am simply trying to point out that this discussion is about the validity of race, and not religion, which you two have been doing. Your efforts to make me out as an immature person who is not capable of having rational discussion simply make you a hypocrite when you make comments such as these:
"Guess demosthenes8907 could really use a cyber-plasma gun on us now… ah well, it’s not like his “great debate” is going too hot. "
Now please, I would like to have a discussion about race, and not religion, there is a seperate forum for that, and it is not here.
Thank You
Then please tell us what you mean by race!
demosthenes8907, there was something, let’s say, a minor emotional convulsion that flashed through your mind, hence resulted in your wrathfully expressed unwillingless to expand your subject into a wider horizen. This is hardly deniable. Again, as an old poster, I would advise you that be prepared to be flexible and creativie with your mind when entering a thread, for example, one titled as “know Jesus”, for this very thread might end up into the effect of “know Moron”. There is no doubt that more than 90% of posts here develop into things which have no direct relation to the original subject. Which is good. So just eat your cake. For this particular situation, however, the thread was going nicely until you showed up and told someoneisatthedoor off, who in return, tried to enlight you that the thread was doing just fine and that maybe you should have a more positive approach here in the forums.
No, that wouldn’t make me hypocritical at all, that’d make me pleasent and cheerful. Now, have you finally had your cake? A man can’t be too solid standing on an empty stomach.
Dear Uniquorn,
Believe me when I say that I’ve been a nasty piece of work for a long time before I met detrop…
Which ‘enemy’?
Alright, if you like.
Listen, if you were content to keep silent counsel with yourself I might say that your beliefs required no faith. It is the fact of your being here, trying to convince other people of your views that makes me consider you as having faith, whether you like it or not.
No, you just claimed that rationality and science are opposed to the faith of Christian belief. You claimed that. You didn’t defend it. You didn’t justify it. I pointed out that science and rationality both require faith and so aren’t in opposition to faith unless they are contradictory. You re-asserted your position. Not really a ‘rational’ argument you’ve got yourself…
Already have.
Funny, since Nietzsche said that we lacked any way of assessing such things and as such all beliefs are superficial:
Human, All too Human, section 16
“Appearance and the thing-in-itself. Philosophers tend to confront life and experience (what they call the world of appearance) as they would a painting that has been revealed once and for all, depicting with unchanging constancy the same event. They think they must interpret this event correctly in order to conclude something about the essence which produced the painting, that is, about the thing-in-itself, which always tends to be regarded as the sufficient reason16 for the world of appearance. Conversely, stricter logicians, after they had rigorously established the concept of the metaphysical as the concept of that which is unconditioned and consequently unconditioning, denied any connection between the unconditioned (the metaphysical world) and the world we are familiar with. So that the thing-in-itself does not appear in the world of appearances, and any conclusion about the former on the basis of the latter must be rejected. 17 But both sides overlook the possibility that that painting–that which to us men means life and experience–has gradually evolved, indeed is still evolving, and therefore should not be considered a fixed quantity, on which basis a conclusion about the creator (the sufficient reason) may be made, or even rejected.”
Only if wisdom necessarily entails rationality. Which it doesn’t.
I never said that Nietzsche was an irrationalist.
“you appear” - you forget the suffix “to me” though of course you’d never admit that you are deliberately interpreting me a given way because it suits your intent to attack me…
Now you are resorting to one of the cheapest rhetorical tricks in the box by claiming something is indisputable. How dumb do you think I am? Do you honestly think I’d fall for this?
In other words ‘this is true because I say so’…
If you were truly strong you wouldn’t be telling me that, you wouldn’t have to metaphorically rank yourself in such an adolescent and simplistic way. You are a child waiting to become a lion.
I don’t think that you’ve understood Nietzsche at all. This isn’t about a little ground in a debate, it’s about your constant verbal association with a philosopher who said very clearly that he didn’t want the sort of cult following you manifest…
There’s that idle trick again. I’m not that stupid…
you mean this? hmmmm…
I don’t find any bit of that where he explicitly talks about pure reasoning or reason in general. Perhaps you’d like to highlight the section to which you are referring…
You spoke of opposites in a flippant and glib manner. Nietzsche points out that “one may doubt, first, whether there are any opposites at all”.
Also…
"Suppose we realize how the world may no longer be interpreted in terms of these three categories, and that the world begins to become valueless for us after this insight: then we have to ask about the sources of our faith in these three categories. Let us try if it is not possible to give up our faith in them. Once we have devaluated these three categories, the demonstration that they cannot be applied to the universe is no longer any reason for devaluating the universe.
Conclusion: The faith in the categories of reason is the cause of nihilism. We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious world."
I’m no nihilist, you’ve missed the mark by a long way…
Okay, that was a vague statement. But be warned, Sartre cuts no ice with me so I’m not going to be convinced or impressed by vague references to the title of one of his works…
You are the one jumping around claiming your superiority and making spurious claims about associations with Nietzsche. You are the one who has to label yourself (albeit inaccurately), you are the one who has to bang on about your own strength rather than simply showing it. Accuse me of not taking you seriously by all means but egotism? Pah, flibbertigibbets! You haven’t a clue…