moral philosophy in the lives that we live

[iambiguous]

If there is one thing I am clearly preoccupied with at ILP, it is relationship between moral and political value judgments and the existential tajectory of the lives that we live.

And, in almost every thread in which I post about this relationship, I eventually get around to this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my "tour of duty" in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman's right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary's choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett's Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding "rival goods".
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

This because in it are embedded two experiences that were of fundamental importance in shaping and then reconfiguring my own moral and political narratives.

Over the years, I have gone from an objectivist frame of mind [right vs. wrong, good vs. evil] to a way of thinking about morality in human interactions that basically revolves around moral nihilism.

And, then, in turn, this resulted in my tumbling down into a philosophical "hole" such that for all practical purposes, "I" became increasing more fragmented.

This hole:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

In other words, I am no longer able to think of myself as being in sync with the "real me" in sync with "the right thing to do".

So, I decided to create this thread in order for others to at least make the attempt to describe their own value judgments existentially. Values as they became interwined over the course of their lives in "experiences, relationships and information, knowledge and ideas."

The part where theory is tested in practice out in particular contexts out in particular worlds.

This thread is not for those ever intent on providing us with "general descriptions" of human interactions. Interactions that are then described almost entirely using technical or academic language.

Instead, this thread is for trying to explain [to the best of your ability] why you think you came to value some behaviors over others. Linking both the experiences you had and the ideas that you came upon that shaped and molded your thinking in reacting to them.

From time to time I will bring it back to the top in case any new members might have an interest in this.

[Ecmandu]

Iambiguous got into his scared mode when I posted this, so he made a thread to ignore it

viewtopic.php?p=2711095#p2711095

[iambiguous]

Iambiguous got into his scared mode when I posted this, so he made a thread to ignore it

viewtopic.php?p=2711095#p2711095

Beat it Kid.

Please...?

[Ecmandu]

Iambiguous got into his scared mode when I posted this, so he made a thread to ignore it

viewtopic.php?p=2711095#p2711095

Beat it Kid.

Please...?

Why? Because you don't want to hurt me?

I am willing to accept the pain of being defeated on objective morality for the entire cosmos, are you prepared to lose a debate that makes no meaning, and thus you have nothing to hold the pain of the cosmos for ?

It's a good deal for you

[iambiguous]

[Why? Because you don't want to hurt me?

Okay, Kid, I challenge you to beat it!

[Ecmandu]

[Why? Because you don't want to hurt me?

Okay, Kid, I challenge you to beat it!

Alright, make it official with Carleas in the debate section.

[iambiguous]

[Why? Because you don't want to hurt me?

Okay, Kid, I challenge you to beat it!

Alright, make it official with Carleas in the debate section.

Oh, well. I was hoping to get some actual substantive posts here pertaining to, among the other things, the OP. But it looks like it is going to be you all the way down.

So, let's get it over with:

[Peter Kropotkin]

What has come of interest to me of late has been the relationship
between the individual and the state. That the conflict between the
state and the individual over such aspects of life as rights, obligations,
needs, desires, morals... to name a few conflicts between the state
and the individual. What rights do individual have within the state?
What obligations does the state have to individual and what obligations
does the individual have to the state? Which human needs are
to be procured by the state and what needs are to met by the
individual? What exactly is the role of morals in a modern state
between an individual and the state?

to be sure that much of what we call morals are really just actions and
interactions between individuals and nothing to do with the state.
for example, the politeness between individuals, saying please and thank
you and excuse me, are interactions, customs between people that don't
require any state intervention. But at what point does the state need
to intervene in relations between two people? Violence of actions or
violence of words? or at what level of disagreements need intervention
from the state?

At what point does the state have the right to dictate and
interfere with our actions and beliefs? This change in
our understanding of what point does the state intervene becomes
apparent with our rapidly changing attitude toward Marijuana.
From arresting people to having a joint to arranging for
cannabis stores in dozens of states. A slightly different
change in the state and individual relationship is
the changing attitude toward homosexuality. From the state
attack upon individuals right from Oscar Wilde to Alan Turing and the change to
acceptance of individuals rights such as Rosie and Elton John.

This movement of changing attitudes toward social actions leads
me to suggest that our society is still in the process of changing
and this is a good, a very good thing. We haven't become a static society
like Egypt and China and as long as change is possible within our society,
we are still a society that has a chance to have success and advance toward
some goal. Because of this movement of changing attitudes, it gives me hope
that we still can achieve and progress and continue the process of becoming
human, fully human. Once we stop growing and stop the process, we
begin the death of our society. And part of our continuing efforts
to change and grow is this ever changing process between the
the relationship between the state and the individual.

We must begin to understand this process and become
alert and aware of the process of change between the state
and the individual.

Kropotkin

[Ecmandu]

Again, it's iambiguous with either a wink or dancing banana telling me that objective morality is off topic to him. Ironic.

Post in debates that you accept the debate ...

Then you can really show those objectivist !

[lordoflight]

Morality is objective. Whatever gives me pleasure is good. Whatever gives people the most pleasure is good.

The old fashioned objectivists will call me a degenerate or hedonist. But then I say this. If I party all day, do heroin, and never do math or science, then overall there will be less pleasure in the future. There will be no roads. No food. People will starve to death. Also, radio music. It is simply not pleasurable to begin with, so it can't even be called hedonistic. I would say classical music is pleasurable and hedonistic and gives energy. Giving energy is pleasurable therefore good.

Imagine it in the reverse. Every good deed you did caused pain. Eating food was disgusting. Having sex was traumatizing. Instead of feeling healthy after exercise, you felt sick. Then life would not even be worth living. What would be the point of life without pleasure?

Now you may argue that cleaning your room gives back pain, is boring and sucks and painful. Cleaning your room is not natural, it is not in nature. So if it gives you back pains dont do it. Hire a maid, then have sex with the maid for pleasure. That is natural and good.

[Ecmandu]

This is getting absurd ....

Obviously, if iambiguous refuses to debate me, to render objective morality or not, once and for all, then him following everyone into every replied thread with his gig, is just trolling.

Iambiguous, go to the thread in debate an accept my challenge.

I can refute everything you say in every thread, but you are such a troll with your winks and bananas that I'm not going to waste my time with you in an ordinary thread, it has to be a debate in the debate section

[iambiguous]

I asked folks here to focus in on a particular value judgment of their own. Then to take us back over the course of their life [as I did above re abortion] and to intertwine their experiences and their encounters with ideas raised by philosophers. Such that they explore how and why "I" here came to embody one moral and political narrative rather than another.

The whole idea being that, in using the tools of philosophy, one is either able to subsume dasein, conflicting goods and political exonomy in an argument that transcends these existential contraptions, or one can explain how, in confronting their own conflicts with others [or reactions to specific contexts from the news] they do not themselves believe that their own "I" here is down in the hole that mine is.

Instead, in ny view, we basically get more "general descriptions" embedded in intellectual contraptions predicated on the particular definition and meaning they give to particular words placed in a particular order.

That's not the "I" that I am intent on exploring here.

[Ecmandu]

I asked folks here to focus in on a particular value judgment of their own. Then to take us back over the course of their life [as I did above re abortion] and to intertwine their experiences and their encounters with ideas raised by philosophers. Such that they explore how and why "I" here came to embody one moral and political narrative rather than another.

The whole idea being that, in using the tools of philosophy, one is either able to subsume dasein, conflicting goods and political exonomy in an argument that transcends these existential contraptions, or one can explain how, in confronting their own conflicts with others [or reactions to specific contexts from the news] they do not themselves believe that their own "I" here is down in the hole that mine is.

Instead, in ny view, we basically get more "general descriptions" embedded in intellectual contraptions predicated on the particular definition and meaning they give to particular words placed in a particular order.

That's not the "I" that I am intent on exploring here.

I made a very simple challenge, a challenge that you feel threatened by because it bring you out of your troll hole!

Objective good is non zero sum, 100% consensual realities

Objective bad is non consensual zero sum realities

I define this reality as evil.

Then I go to further state that in an evil reality, anything that is more consensual and less zero sum is the good, and the opposite, the bad.

For example: abortion

The anti abortionists say there are two lives instead of one, and both must be protected.

Then there's consent.

The mother is not consenting to a being that's part of her body until the umbilical cord is cut, since it's a part of her body still, it is her choice... once the child is no longer a part of her body, it is no longer her choice.

[iambiguous]

For example: abortion

The anti abortionists say there are two lives instead of one, and both must be protected.

Then there's consent.

The mother is not consenting to a being that's part of her body until the umbilical cord is cut, since it's a part of her body still, it is her choice... once the child is no longer a part of her body, it is no longer her choice.

This certainly crushes the arguments of the anti-abortionists!!!

So, if they still insist that the unborn have a natural right to life outside the womb, they are clearly being irrational.

And this is necessarily true because the assumptions made by you above are wholly in sync with the very ontological and teleological foundations of existence itself.

Indeed, only the existence of God Himself can trump it.

[iambiguous]

As promised...

"From time to time I will bring this thread back to the top in case any new members might have an interest in this."

This being an attempt to connect the dots between the moral and political values that you subscribe to here and now and the extent to which you attribute them more to either 1] the lessons that you've learned in exploring ethics philosophically or 2] a particular experiential trajectory such that, given the life you've lived, you were basically predisposed [for all practical purposes] to embody one set of values rather than another.

For example, think of Donald Trump's children and the children of Barack Obama. Clearly, their own moral and political values were or are going to shaped and molded "at home". On the other hand, imagine them acknowledging this and then wondering what specific knowledge can be garnered using the tools of philosophy. Knowledge accumulated allowing one to concoct a moral narrative and a political agenda most in sync with that which all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to embrace.

That's what most intrigues me about value judgments. The parts embedded existentially in dasein more or less than the parts embedded essentially in one or another deontological/objectivist assessment.

Now, if you wish to explore this here with me, be prepared to bring your own value judgments "down to earth". And not just embedded in "general descriptions" or in the abstract technical jargon of Will Durant's "epistemologists".

Please read the OP first in other words.

[iambiguous]

As promised...

"From time to time I will bring this thread back to the top in case any new members might have an interest in this."

This being an attempt to connect the dots between the moral and political values that you subscribe to here and now and the extent to which you attribute them more to either 1] the lessons that you've learned in exploring ethics philosophically or 2] a particular experiential trajectory such that, given the life you've lived, you were basically predisposed [for all practical purposes] to embody one set of values rather than another.

For example, think of Donald Trump's children and the children of Barack Obama. Clearly, their own moral and political values were or are going to shaped and molded "at home". On the other hand, imagine them acknowledging this and then wondering what specific knowledge can be garnered using the tools of philosophy. Knowledge accumulated allowing one to concoct a moral narrative and a political agenda most in sync with that which all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to embrace.

That's what most intrigues me about value judgments. The parts embedded existentially in dasein more or less than the parts embedded essentially in one or another deontological/objectivist assessment.

Now, if you wish to explore this here with me, be prepared to bring your own value judgments "down to earth". And not just embedded in "general descriptions" or in the abstract technical jargon of Will Durant's "epistemologists".

Please read the OP first in other words.

[iambiguous]

"From time to time I will bring it back to the top in case any new members might have an interest in this."

If there is one thing I am clearly preoccupied with at ILP, it is relationship between moral and political value judgments and the existential tajectory of the lives that we live.

And, in almost every thread in which I post about this relationship, I eventually get around to this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my "tour of duty" in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman's right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary's choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett's Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding "rival goods".
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

This because in it are embedded two experiences that were of fundamental importance in shaping and then reconfiguring my own moral and political narratives.

Over the years, I have gone from an objectivist frame of mind [right vs. wrong, good vs. evil] to a way of thinking about morality in human interactions that basically revolves around moral nihilism.

And, then, in turn, this resulted in my tumbling down into a philosophical "hole" such that for all practical purposes, "I" became increasing more fragmented.

This hole:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

In other words, I am no longer able to think of myself as being in sync with the "real me" in sync with "the right thing to do".

So, I decided to create this thread in order for others to at least make the attempt to describe their own value judgments existentially. Values as they became interwined over the course of their lives in "experiences, relationships and information, knowledge and ideas."

The part where theory is tested in practice out in particular contexts out in particular worlds.

This thread is not for those ever intent on providing us with "general descriptions" of human interactions. Interactions that are then described almost entirely using technical or academic language.

Instead, this thread is for trying to explain [to the best of your ability] why you think you came to value some behaviors over others. Linking both the experiences you had and the ideas that you came upon that shaped and molded your thinking in reacting to them.

From time to time I will bring it back to the top in case any new members might have an interest in this.

[Karpel Tunnel]

OK. One broad category of behavioral activities I have come to value above others is the creative arts with an emphasis on that first word. Take that broadly, since I have engaged in photography, music, theater, various forms of written products and more. Let's focus on music.

My parents were musicians, though nor professionally. So I grew up in an environment where music listening and playing was a regular part of my days. I heard them comment on music - including popular music - on their own efforts to play well, and on musical artists they liked and why. Interestingly neither of them was particularly focused on the creative side, themselves. That is neither composed or wrote songs. So where did my interest in writing songs come from?

In addition to dasein, I would like to add in built in temperment, though it gets very hard to say how this plays a role in music creation. I just want to say it is there. My parents commented that unlike them I took an interest in creating in ways they did not, despite the fact that their parents also included musicians. IOW I seem to have had a tendency to make my own art and in my own way, rather than say wanting to faithfully recreate the music composed by others.

This later got intensified by my group of friends, coming in from ages 8-12 and staying into my thirties, with some still friends from t his group. These were people who through humor, physical creativity, and then within traditional categories of art, were always exploring new ways to do these things. It was a very playful group of males adn their was some drive to do things in our own way, together and separately. Any tendencies I had in that direction got increased in their company.

I found some pleasure in being able to play the songs of someone I liked. But not much. I always saw it as an excerise in learning how to create myself. The concept of a cover band or the nailing a guitar solo I thought was great was of very little interest in an of itself. I loved the feeling of making something that did not exist before I made it. Of course I wanted it to be good.

Later I found out that one of my parents had wanted to be a composer, but had thought it would entail too much ruthlessness in relation to his family. Perhaps this was in the air at home. This denied urge. And I picked this up by osmosis.

I went to Montosorri school when quite little. While not particularly more focused on creativity, at least, I don't remember it being so. It is a very physical pedagogy. The pedagogy itself is quite creative and multimedia and this may have given me more of a sense of possibility regarding doing things in generally. Creativity is founded on being open to possibilities. So perhaps this acted as a cultural quality that at least allowed it to be more likely I would focus on creativity.

Since my parents were talking about creative people - though also on technical artists like other musicians - I may also have thought that there is value in being that kind of person. One of my friend's fathers was vastly more focused on creative people and was a clearly frustrated creator in a number of arts - he did want to make his living off art. He became a kind of extra father figure, though chicken and egg issues come up in determining if my built in interest drew me to him or he helped create my interest.

I had a short attention span for things I was not directly interested in. I probably would have gotten a diagnosis - ADD, ADHD - if it was nowadays. Creating I find interesting. Rote learning I do not. I often did assignments in school in ways the teachers did not intend and this was for me to make it interesting for myself. This started very early and was noted - both as a postive and negative by teachers. Usually negative. Where did this impatience come from? Well, I went through some serious traumas as a kid. This can make some people want more instant gratification and also to not being willing to suffer their way through details and be disciplined in certain ways, since they are already suffering. Or it could have been genetic - my mother had similar tendencies, though she also went through similar traumas as a child. But then it also could have been that I was normal. That we all find sitting in rows learning things out of context, keeping still, to be a kind of torture. The difference is I allowed my reaction to take more space. Perhaps due to parenting - I was an only child, one parent had hippyish tendencies - perhaps due to genetics. Maybe stubborness was built in to me.

To keep things interesting I was creative. Or tried to be. Once this made things more interesting then all boring situations were essential triggers for me to train creativity - as well as I could, given the general hatred for hte creative in the education system and elsewhere.

Anyway, that's a bit of an attempt to satisfy the request of the OP. I can say more, but perhaps am not doing it correctly. I did not choose what it generally consider a moral value. Though I think it is one. Or since I do not grant morals some kind of objectivity, anything that leads to behavior is in the same category: values. Perhaps I should be doing something else. Perhaps other people should be. I value creative behavior more than other behavior. Not all behavior, but much of it. I prioritize it.

[iambiguous]

OK. One broad category of behavioral activities I have come to value above others is the creative arts with an emphasis on that first word. Take that broadly, since I have engaged in photography, music, theater, various forms of written products and more. Let's focus on music.

My parents were musicians, though nor professionally. So I grew up in an environment where music listening and playing was a regular part of my days. I heard them comment on music - including popular music - on their own efforts to play well, and on musical artists they liked and why. Interestingly neither of them was particularly focused on the creative side, themselves. That is neither composed or wrote songs. So where did my interest in writing songs come from?

In addition to dasein, I would like to add in built in temperment, though it gets very hard to say how this plays a role in music creation. I just want to say it is there. My parents commented that unlike them I took an interest in creating in ways they did not, despite the fact that their parents also included musicians. IOW I seem to have had a tendency to make my own art and in my own way, rather than say wanting to faithfully recreate the music composed by others.

This later got intensified by my group of friends, coming in from ages 8-12 and staying into my thirties, with some still friends from t his group. These were people who through humor, physical creativity, and then within traditional categories of art, were always exploring new ways to do these things. It was a very playful group of males adn their was some drive to do things in our own way, together and separately. Any tendencies I had in that direction got increased in their company.

I found some pleasure in being able to play the songs of someone I liked. But not much. I always saw it as an excerise in learning how to create myself. The concept of a cover band or the nailing a guitar solo I thought was great was of very little interest in an of itself. I loved the feeling of making something that did not exist before I made it. Of course I wanted it to be good.

Later I found out that one of my parents had wanted to be a composer, but had thought it would entail too much ruthlessness in relation to his family. Perhaps this was in the air at home. This denied urge. And I picked this up by osmosis.

I went to Montosorri school when quite little. While not particularly more focused on creativity, at least, I don't remember it being so. It is a very physical pedagogy. The pedagogy itself is quite creative and multimedia and this may have given me more of a sense of possibility regarding doing things in generally. Creativity is founded on being open to possibilities. So perhaps this acted as a cultural quality that at least allowed it to be more likely I would focus on creativity.

Since my parents were talking about creative people - though also on technical artists like other musicians - I may also have thought that there is value in being that kind of person. One of my friend's fathers was vastly more focused on creative people and was a clearly frustrated creator in a number of arts - he did want to make his living off art. He became a kind of extra father figure, though chicken and egg issues come up in determining if my built in interest drew me to him or he helped create my interest.

I had a short attention span for things I was not directly interested in. I probably would have gotten a diagnosis - ADD, ADHD - if it was nowadays. Creating I find interesting. Rote learning I do not. I often did assignments in school in ways the teachers did not intend and this was for me to make it interesting for myself. This started very early and was noted - both as a postive and negative by teachers. Usually negative. Where did this impatience come from? Well, I went through some serious traumas as a kid. This can make some people want more instant gratification and also to not being willing to suffer their way through details and be disciplined in certain ways, since they are already suffering. Or it could have been genetic - my mother had similar tendencies, though she also went through similar traumas as a child. But then it also could have been that I was normal. That we all find sitting in rows learning things out of context, keeping still, to be a kind of torture. The difference is I allowed my reaction to take more space. Perhaps due to parenting - I was an only child, one parent had hippyish tendencies - perhaps due to genetics. Maybe stubborness was built in to me.

To keep things interesting I was creative. Or tried to be. Once this made things more interesting then all boring situations were essential triggers for me to train creativity - as well as I could, given the general hatred for hte creative in the education system and elsewhere.

Anyway, that's a bit of an attempt to satisfy the request of the OP. I can say more, but perhaps am not doing it correctly. I did not choose what it generally consider a moral value. Though I think it is one. Or since I do not grant morals some kind of objectivity, anything that leads to behavior is in the same category: values. Perhaps I should be doing something else. Perhaps other people should be. I value creative behavior more than other behavior. Not all behavior, but much of it. I prioritize it.

Yes, your own personal experiences with music were very, very different from my own.

The members of my own family [like the neighbors around us] were of two kind: top forty or country.

It was only in being drafted into the army and [fortuitously] bumping into soldiers who introduced me to additional genres that I was able to expand my horizons.

But: music isn't really something that most associate with "conflicting goods". Sure, there were folks like Ayn Rand who held in contempt those who did not listen to the music that she sanctioned. And I have a song on my music thread that explores the contempt that both the Nazis and the Communists had for jazz music. And we all know of those who have contempt for "pop music". Those who refuse to consider anything other than "serious" music.

But my thread is more about connecting the dots between your own personal experiences and the value judgments -- moral narratives, political prejudices -- that we come to acquire. And the manner in which they come to collide with the values of others. And the manner in which those collisions precipitate all manner of human pain and suffering.

And while that can come to revolve around "creative behaviors" that go in different directions, it rarely reaches the level of contention that we see with respect to issues like abortion or gun control or animal rights.

[Karpel Tunnel]

FAir enough, and I realized it might not quite fit. But let me make a last statement on it. I think actually it does underlie and is connected with political and moral narratives and conflicting goods.

In fact to say these values here are moral values and these values over here are values but not moral ones is a kind of objectivism. Because it is deciding that this set of behaviors is good or bad and these others are neutral, don't matter. Only an objectivist, can, in the end, say that these are behaviors and attitudes that have a moral dimension and those are behaviors that do not.


I think creativity is hated by some, both on the right and the left. The right often view creatitivity as threatening because it means change, but also because creative people are questioning things that should only be one way. This can involved political issues - and so liberals are seen as being creative where one should be traditional - or it can be even down to how one walks, what clothes one wears...how hippies or bohemians or jazz kids or hip hoppers would be viewed by conservative people, with more acceptance by some libertarian types. The left at least if you get far enough out there an the communist end (but not on the anarchist end) can see creativity as bourgeois and too individualistic and norms get created for art, that should have political we focus and often should be realistic. Creativity also runs counter to corporatism, which certainly wants to eat specific creative products and sell them, but the actual working environment stifles it, with highly restricted channels for what might lead to money.

So being a creative person is political, does lead to conflicts that are considered moral, if that creativity affects anything from communication to dress to behavior to interpersonal dynamics, which it tends to if it is a prioritized value. It's like an ur-moral value. Of course creative people can be at odds, morally or valuely, with each other. It is not a specific moral position that can be labeled like religious right wing. On the other hand I think there are tendencies created by it. They are less likely to do well in extremes of the right and left right off the bat, since these are highly morallized societies with more clearly laid out right ways to be, and in all facets of life.

Creativity also wold lead to tendencies, I would guess, to see with skepticism at things like duty, career, restrictions on expression in general, conformism, and authority. I think that in general if creativity was prioritized, say in schooling and parenting, society would move in a certain political direction, one that would be seen as immoral by various groups and then moral by others.

It does not resolve conflicting goods, and nothing does, though in specific cases the conflicts can disappear. But it is a kind of ur-moral value.

I suppose I am raising the issue of whether the objectivists can draw a distinction between moral values and other values. Any value can and does lead to conflict.

But I've said my piece and since it seems to you tangential to your topic, I'll leave it here.

[iambiguous]

FAir enough, and I realized it might not quite fit. But let me make a last statement on it. I think actually it does underlie and is connected with political and moral narratives and conflicting goods.

In fact to say these values here are moral values and these values over here are values but not moral ones is a kind of objectivism. Because it is deciding that this set of behaviors is good or bad and these others are neutral, don't matter. Only an objectivist, can, in the end, say that these are behaviors and attitudes that have a moral dimension and those are behaviors that do not.

My point is that a value judgment, relating either to moral and political issues or to personal likes and dislikes, is rooted by and large in dasein.

Or, rather, the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein "here and now".

It's just that with some particular propensities, there is very little in the way of conflicting goods. And one is able to pursue the things they like [like music] with litle or no fear that the political power of others will come into play.

Each individual context is entirely unique from different points of view.

Thus when you note...

I think creativity is hated by some, both on the right and the left. The right often view creatitivity as threatening because it means change, but also because creative people are questioning things that should only be one way. This can involved political issues - and so liberals are seen as being creative where one should be traditional - or it can be even down to how one walks, what clothes one wears...how hippies or bohemians or jazz kids or hip hoppers would be viewed by conservative people, with more acceptance by some libertarian types. The left at least if you get far enough out there an the communist end (but not on the anarchist end) can see creativity as bourgeois and too individualistic and norms get created for art, that should have political we focus and often should be realistic. Creativity also runs counter to corporatism, which certainly wants to eat specific creative products and sell them, but the actual working environment stifles it, with highly restricted channels for what might lead to money.

...my reaction is that, yes, given the particular trajectories of particular lives some will find themselves predisposed toward the conservative/rightist narrative, others the liberal/leftist narrative.

They are both able to make points that the other side is not able to simply dismiss. It all comes down to the initial assumptions one makes about "the human condition". But how is this not in turn embedded existentially in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts ever and always evolving of time given the persistence of contingency, chance and change.

My point is always that there does not appear to be a way, using the tools of philosophy, to pin down that which it is said that all truly rational human beings are obligated to think and feel about all of this.

[Ecmandu]

Iambiguous,

I can just treat you like you treat everyone else and just post links like this:

viewtopic.php?p=2727444#p2727444

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194942

Those are my refutations of your thoughts on this matter

[surreptitious75]

My point is always that there does not appear to be a way using the tools of philosophy to pin down that which it is said
that all truly rational human beings are obligated to think and feel about all of this

Philosophy is not mathematics in that it cannot be objectively demonstrated to the satisfaction of absolutely everyone
There are always going to be alternatives to any proposition so universal agreement is virtually impossible to guarantee

[promethean75]

And I have a song on my music thread that explores the contempt that both the Nazis and the Communists had for jazz music. And we all know of those who have contempt for "pop music".

when you're involved in a very serious and urgent political battle for the hearts and minds of the people, you gotta propagandize everything, including art. it's especially because jazz music is relaxed, playfully experimental, quick and free spirited that it was condemned by these parties. these folks were too rigid to understand jazz and tried everything they could to demean it. even went so far as to say some silly shit like jazz has racially inferior origins. but that's not how it works. the logic of music is already present and waiting to be realized by whoever happens to be in the right circumstances to discover it. had historical circumstances been different, the eskimos may have been the first people to recognize the language of jazz.

anyway jazz critics aren't telling us anything other than: damn this music is difficult and i'm too much of a dummy to comprehend it, so it sucks. it's a lack of loftiness of spirit and quickness of feet. the free flow of the improvisation requires greater speed and dexterity than perhaps any other genre of music, save some stuff from the classical period. jazz critics are simply dull. a different kind of listener who is unable to hear a more sophisticated language.

lounge jazz, on the other hand, is absolute bourgeois garbage ...



p.s. I smoked a joint with ike - the guy singing - behind a club in Asheville over a decade ago.

[barbarianhorde]

My point is always that there does not appear to be a way using the tools of philosophy to pin down that which it is said
that all truly rational human beings are obligated to think and feel about all of this

Philosophy is not mathematics in that it cannot be objectively demonstrated to the satisfaction of absolutely everyone
There are always going to be alternatives to any proposition so universal agreement is virtually impossible to guarantee

I disagree.
Its just even harder than mathematics.

We cant both understand and reject the will to power theory
-rejecting it is an act of will to power.

It just.. has like, zero moral value. Other than that it demonstrates what morality is.