post-modernism is steeped in irony… It is satirical, it is self-annihilating, it is simulacrum, it is repetition, it is difference, it is condemnation of past, it is affirmation of past, it is all of these things and more - it is man losing his mind! Too many paths, too many avenues, too many cities, too many planets, too littel time. It is post-modern because modernism refers to Descartes *early modernism (rationalism) to the end of the 60s - 70s - the affirmation of quantum physics, and the rise of counter-culture (and subsequent assimilation of counter-culture into mainstream society - normalisation) It is marked by the fall of communism (china as a capitalist venture) it is marked by the subsequent disillusionment of the west - it is the individualisation (but mass-marketing led to similarities) of the masses throughout the 20th century.
Post-modernism is the rejection and acceptance of everything that has gone before - it is a phase, and it is ‘contemporary’ not ‘modern’ (it is ‘post’-modern).
Faust,
perhaps you missed my point here, Faust. I am not opting for doing away with moral systems…all I was saying is that they can serve a much greater purpose than just as a counterbalance for some silly short-term selfish gain. I was not bringing magic into the issue at all, if you re-read the way my statement was worded - if that was what you were implying!
Anyway - as far as your above magic statement goes 
- i beg to differ with you here. Of course, only hypothetically speaking, if there were such a thing as magic, there would be a very strong need for a system of legality/morality or at the very least, principles. Among those practicing magic, there would have to be some kind of a social contract set up to do no magic which would harm anyone. Even the policy of non-interference would have to defined. Those practicing magic also would have to have a set of their own rules and principles which they live by.
Power in the wrong hands may beget all kinds of destruction and chaos, which we all know - which of course, may not always be a negative thing. but that is something else. Anyone who digressed from the rules would be punished, just as they are within our own society and legal system. Just a thought.
Yes, of course, one that comes to mind would be the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments, which would be a moral system. I suppose that also be considered a social contract - an understood agreement between a god and the jewish people. Then there is the Code of Hammurabi, a legal and societal set of laws, contributing to a moral system also. The Hippocratic oath, which would be both an ethical and a social oral contract set up to protect that larger family of society that you spoke about. The thought just occurred to me - could laws be considered social contracts since they are not actually agreed-upon oral or written contracts - though to disobey them brings repercussions.
Your first sentence above was my point. But moral systems/rules/principles, are real, Faust, not in the sense of the physical, but philosophically speaking, and as a case of what is they do exist – they are not magic – otherwise there would be no repercussions for the breaking of the rules and the laws. If they were not real, they would not have been observed for thousands of years. well, that might not be a good argument, as in the case of illusions or delusions, but insofar as moral systems go, they are real.
Your penultimate statement above actually refutes, at least to me, your last statement. What cannot be destroyed is also by its very nature real at least by my perspective.
I never said that I do not see the beauty and the wisdom of moral systems…or social contracts…I only recognize that they are not a perfect system but then what is!! I do not believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I do think that at some point morality can become imbred in us, just as amorality can – just as the discipline of weightlifting has an effect on the muscles. But I may be wrong.
At the same time, perhaps it is those emotions, and not our reason and logic, that can make those moral systems and social contracts, vulnerable and imperfect.
Thank you Faust
arcturus -
Like what?
I didn’t mean individuals practising magic. I meant a magic that makes us all behave a certain way, which is what I thought you meant. Let’s leave this aside. You seem to be defending a position you didn’t mean to take. Either way, it’s entirely ancillary.
The Social Contract, in this context, refers to a comprehensive set of fundamental rules. All laws of a given society, taken together, comprise a part of the social contract’s ramifications, but they are too specific to be a social contract in themselves. A Social Contract is the basis for laws. Natural Rights, for instance, is a basic assumption of some SC theories. These will influence and even dictate some laws. The SC is fundamental to laws, but is not those laws.
If the laws of the land are truly dictated by God, then they are ramifications of a SC only if viewed without God. Which is my view. The SC is an alternative to God-given laws. It replaces God as the authority, and puts the matter in our own hands. This is complicated by the fact that some SC theorists include God, but they also appeal to reason, for instance, which the Hebrews did not have to do - all they had to do was to obey.
Guns, police, jail, beheading - these are real. People, or classes, in power are real. There are repercussions because these people say there are. That is different from what you are saying. Your formulation allows for rationalism, for instance, and mine does not.
I’d like to see an argument for that. Unicorns cannot be destroyed.
Okay.
“Inbred” means “congenital”. Weightlifting is not genetically passed along. I don;t understand the parallel.
Their imperfection is only bad if perfection is sought. It’s a flaw if we say it is. Absolutists, such as yourself, will always be disappointed.
…as a completely superfluous tangent, it’s interesting to note here that the Bon people (early Tibetans, and very bad ass) apparently outlawed astral projection because they could no longer administrate such social issues as murder, due to persons temporarily inhabiting corpses to do their dirty deeds. This would imply they had to get together as a group and agree that such was to all of their long-term self interest. Thus, they had to learn collectively how not to do “magic”, so as to enjoy the more stable social benefits of a pejoratively natural lifestyle. This, again, would nonetheless be a matter of “second nature”.
Sorry (yes, arc, I’m apologizing again), go on as you were…
you need a special unicorn bazooka, but unicorns can be destroyed…
-Imp
Not at all, Oughtie. That was actually pretty interesting.
Imp - easy enough to say - if only the New Age liberals hadn’t outlawed unicorn bazookas. And that whole crap about unicorns being an endangered imaginary species…
Dammit Hobbes!
I have to admit though, sick point.
Even though a complete philosophy is illusive. Though this might be of merit, it seems to me the world is divided between Ultra Efficient Chinese people and stupid ass, waste of life, animal rights activist.
Typed from the fingers of an animal rights activist. Amazing.
Fml?
I think you got me here . . . not about not reading the authors themselves, I have (albeit many years ago when I actually made a career out of philosophy, though not in ethics) but about overly-generalizing SCT when I probably just had Hobbes in my head when writing this post.
I can understand that, rasava. The memory of Hobbes’ work will haunt me to my grave.