Well, in the words of Gandalf the grey, “Do not take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks.” I may have once been this easy to seduce by Biggy (not knowing a person that well, you tend to give them the benefit of the doubt) but I’ve been through the ringer with him (her?) enough to understand Biggy the way you do. Look up any debate between him and I, even this one, and you’ll see (on occasion) that I call him out on almost exactly the same charges you are leveling against him. Biggy is definitely playing a game, but so am I (and philosophy in general is a game). Remember, I started this thread. He didn’t egg me on. And the times when he does egg me on (elsewhere at ILP), you’ll see I usually don’t bite (my favorite is here). I have my own agenda in this thread, and it’s not a secret. I lay it out here.
I certainly hear the echoes of Marxism in Biggy’s style of debate. He sees the world as primarily driven by conflict. Everything to him is a perilous encounter with life or death at the hands of those who hold opposite political prejudices to him, even in internet forum discussions, which is how one would see the world if they were influenced by Marx. History as a perpetual struggle between upper and lower classes, between the oppressors and the oppressed, is the lens through which Marxism envisions the world–everything fundamentally funneling down to conflict and war–and for Biggy, every response he gets here at ILP is just another attack, another “existential contraption” thrown at him by another fulminating objectivist, even by the subjectivists and those who ultimately want to agree with him. You will find this pattern in almost any leftist and Marxist, the expectation that everyday human encounters are, at bottom, manifestations of conflict between an oppressor and an oppressed (themselves typically being the oppressed), so they very rarely see amicability even when it’s staring them in the face.
“Her”…using postmodern reasoning…she’s a feminine spirit trapped in a biologically male body.
Her methods are feminine. Have you ever argued with a woman?
Irrational using words to slander, and undermined confidence. Psychological warfare.
She claims one thing, thinks a second, and does a third.
Her goal is not a rational conclusion…but your surrender to her demands.
Yes…there is no objective reality so reality is a human construct - subjective.
Those with power impose their version on those without power.
Marxism.
Gender is not an extension of sexual - specialized reproductive roles - but a fabrication…as is race - begging the question: how did intelligence evolve and why did environment only affect man physically? - an end of Evolution Theory only in regards to man.
Gender is not the social application of these specialized reproductive roles…they are “human contrivances”.
Male/Female is entirely physical, and the body is evil, a prison for the individuals - divine whole - soul/spirit. Each individuation is a representation of a sacred singularity.
Back to Abrahamic superstitious tropes.
Females are entirely physical…their minds are no different than those of males.
Reproductive specialization does not require a psychological, mental component…it’s only physical.
The postmoderns will liberate man from the oppression of the body; liberating the human spirit.
There is no individual…we are all one. There is only humanity- collective. No “I” and “other” only “us and we”.
Subjectivity must be integrated into collectives - inter-subjectivity - to then come to a mutually beneficial agreement to create reality, from nothing.
Capitalists are replacing Abrahamism’s sinners, evil, infidels. In Judaism…the goy who shall pay the price for not being of the chosen.
In Marxism this role is taken up by capitalists…the system.
Postmoderns now replace capitalists with white heterosexual males and their paternalistic establishment. They are the new evil the good must eradicate.
Exploiters, colonizers, authoritarians. Nazis. Fascists. Whites, Europeans. Males, Heterosexuals.
They are the satanic tricksters that lost them their paradise/utopia, and now they will be punished - divine retribution. Armageddon.
Humanity will be unified because it has been fragmented and spread across the world - divine sparks of light eradicating darkness. Kabballah.
Americanism was infected by this messianic world-view.
1] I was basically a male chauvinist pig before Song Be
2] Danny, Steve, John, Mac
3] “the Sixties”
4] I embraced feminism
Now, had I not been drafted into the Army who knows if I would have remained a male chauvinist pig to this day.
Again, this as opposed to philosophers, ethicists, political scientists etc., discovering or inventing the most rational manner in to think about it.
Thus:
No, from my frame of mind, the crux of the problem as we both understand it is no less rooted in the existential assumptions we have come to make about feminism.
Again, way too abstract. In regard to feminism, walk us through your own current conclusions given this point that you are making. In my view, thoughts and feelings are no less rooted intersubjectively in dasein. Out in a particular world. If you disagree in regard to feminism, explain why. Given this point.
From my frame of mind, you speak of feelings here almost as though they were these “mystical” reactions to things like feminism. Religious folks might connect it to their “soul”.
For example:
“I actually observe my feelings about feminism in my mind, scientifically as it were, and I see that they are in fact there.”
I have no idea how this explains the existential intertwining of your thoughts and feelings pertaining to feminism. Your uniquely personal life brought you into contact with contexts relating to feminism. This generated subjective thoughts about it precipitating subjective feelings.
Then [for me] back to this:
“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.”
But not for you. All I can then do is to keep probing your arguments in an attempt to understand why you don’t think and feel about “I” at the existential juncture or identity, value judgments and political economy as I do.
This part, basically:
I’m sorry, but again, I don’t really follow this. Our emotions about things like feminism [which often generate fierce conflicts] can become deeply engrained in our minds. And when you include the subconscious and the unconscious “I”, it’s not like flicking a switch in your brain from “feminism stupid” to “feminism smartt”. What you’re saying here is mostly unintelligible to me.
And even your more “forgiving attitude” about those who don’t share your views on feminism is for me no less the embodiment of dasein. Some are forgiving, some aren’t. Depending on the context and what is at stake. But, again, using the tools of philosophy, is there a way to determine how forgiving one ought to be when confronting those who oppose them?
Exactly. What I call the “fulminating fanatic objectivists” here. In particular, those like Obsrvr524 and Urwrong.
On the other hand, men and women have been confronting the same “conflicting goods” now for thousands of years. No final solutions. Not even close on many issues. Other than in historical and cultural fonts: God, ideology, deontology, nature.
And how does that then not lend itself to my own conclusions above?
Okay, so what’s the most common means of avoiding these tragedies? Of course: objectivism!
Feminism is not in sync with my God, or my ideology, or my philosophical assumptions or my assessment of nature. And even if they are not, at least I know that how I think and feel about it is the embodiment of the Right Thing To Do wholly subsumed in the Real Me.
Why on earth do you suppose the objectivists here often respond to me as they do? I challenge not what they believe so much as the nature of their convictions themselves. The profoundly problematic existential nature of them. Just the thought that one day they too might beome increasingly more “fractured and fragmented” in regard to their own value judgments is enough to send some of them into Stooge mode.
Just look at how those like Satyr react to me! A part of him knows damn well what is at stake if he can’t continue to convince himself that he deserves his own clique/claque at KT. Nature becomes but his own rendition of Maia’s Goddess. The font of choice in sustaining his own comfort and consolation. Especially in a world that can truly become nasty, brutish and short. And eventually for all of us.
Well, this revolves more around the particular “rules of behavior” that any given human community must create, enforce and then sustain. Here arguments all up and down the political spectrum are debated. But my point remains the same. That any flesh and blood individual’s conclusions are largely rooted intersubjectively in dasein. Out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially. A world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change. And that there does not appear to be an optimal frame of mind to resolve all the differences.
Sure, individuals in a “mob” are likely to act differently from individuals sitting in a legislative chamber debating this or that legislation relating to things like abortion. Or arguing before a court.
But here in America the Supreme Court may well soon dismantle Roe v Wade because the 6 conservative ideologues will pretend that it is just about the Constitution and not their own moral objectivism. And if abortions are literally outlawed from coast to coast how much pain and suffering will that bring to untold number of women? Far more so than the actions of this or that mob in this or that jurisdiction.
On the other hand, “I” am still no less “fractured and fragmented” about it no matter what is decided.
Here, for me, cling revolves around how important it is for someone to sustain the belief that their own value judgments anchor them to a font that allows them to think of themselves as “one of us”. The rational and virtuous ilk.
Again, what they believe tends to pale next to that.
Yes, it can be almost anything. What’s crucial for me though is how these experiences either do or do not change the way you think about identity [in the is/ought world] itself. For the objectivists, who believe in the Real Me able to be in sync with the Right Thing To Do, all that changes is the font. Like me going from the Christian God to Marxism.
But, what if the experience is so traumatic, you come to recognize this? That such fonts are merely psychological defense mechanisms you sustain existentially in order to comfort and console yourself in an essentially meaningless and purposeless world.
You become “me” in other words.
No, when I follow the news, I often have strong emotional reactions to the things I read or hear. But “here and now” I construe them more as reactions embedded in the man I have become existentially. In other words, reactions as a result of the experiences I had. And not very different experiences instead. Thus the Song Be Syndrome. I can’t pull back from that and think, “okay, given this, is there then a way for me to determine how all rational and virtuous human beings ought to feel about the events unfolding in the news?”
Instead, now I react as I do based on years and years of being who I have become. It’s all embedded in my brain from endless conditioning given the life I lived. I just think about that very differently from my own objectivist years.
Either way, for me, it revolves more around the arguments I make about identity above and in my signature threads then in the idea that philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, etc., can come up with the optimal or the only rational resolutions such that we can know for sure if we are justified in scoffing. Here I’m in my hole. Which I examine in depth in my signature threads.
Well, from my frame of mind, she can’t speak for Maia either. Her answers are almost always contained in one or two sentences here, one or two sentences there. And barely scratch the surface philosophically.
Unless of course I’m wrong.
Any answer here for me though is no less rooted in dasein. We just think about the “for all practical purposes” implications of that differently.
You have had years and years to acquire your thoughts and feelings about feminism. How could a few exchanges with me even put much of a dent in that. It took me the longest time to reconfigure my own thoughts and feelings about value judgments in a No God world.
As long as a part of you is able to convince yourself that feminism isn’t your cup of tea because it shouldn’t be your cup of tea, you will be able at least to convince yourself that how you think about it is more reasonable than how the liberals think about it. You’ll still cling to the debate format here that your frame of mind is the better one. After all, having convictions is what comforts and consoles people. No less for the liberals than the conservatives.
The extent to which you can think of your Self as a more rather than a less solid “thing”, is the whole point of objectivism. You can read a news story about one or another feminist victory and still be able to remind yourself that at least you are on the right side of the issue. That is what is most at stake for the objectivists. That is what most threatens them about my point of view.
And I know this in part because of how threatened I was at the thought of losing that foundation I anchored my own precious Self to as an objectivist.
Plenty of room. In fact I myself am hopelessly ambivalent regarding my own thinking here. I just have not of late come up with an argument able to demonstrate that one need not be ambivalent at all. That one can anchor one’s Self to the “real deal” reality in the is/ought world.
No, like I noted above, here we basically exchange “worlds of words”. And, as a habitual polemicist, I’m never far removed from provocative “language games”. But:
“…just follow the news day after day after day for all of the endless examples of just how serious things can get when value judgments do collide.”
The gap here for me revolves around how the leap is construed by someone from a more rather than a less “fractured and fragmented” frame of mind in regard to their value judgments.
And, for me, a leap is existential in that it is derived from dasein…from the actual life that we live. And not a different one. That’s what makes it a leap. Whereas the objectivists take no leaps at all. Other than the initial one derived from their indoctrination as a child and/or the experiences that formed their own particular political prejudices as adults.
For me, though, much of this going to be “played out” in particular contexts based on all of the variables in our lives that come together over the years to produce these thought and feelings rather than others. Variables that can often be beyond either our fully understanding or controlling.
I have come to believe that in regard to conflicting goods, there is no way to correct your thinking because there is no way to determine how a rational and virtuous person ought to think. That’s embodied subjectively/intersubjectively in dasein. Emotions are just that much more murky because they come from more primitive parts of the brain. This distinction you make between thinking and feeling is just something that I do not make myself. They’re different ways of reacting but profoundly intertwined in dasein.
In a word: huh?
Yes, the differences between the meaning of abortion and the meaning of feminism are rooted in the either/or world. Jane either had an abortion or she didn’t. Jane either calls herself a feminist or she doesn’t.
But that’s not where the ferocious conflicts come from. That’s not where the lack of clarity reigns.
Instead, it’s the part where individuals who defend abortion and feminism and come into contact with those who attack them. That’s where the fracturing and fragmentation either commences or does not commence in discussions here.
Yes, even in regard to the either/or world, there can be squabbles over meaning. Jane gets an abortion and believes she is destroying a clump of cells. Joan gets an abortion and admits that she is taking a human life but sees no alternative. Mary calls herself a feminist but defends pornography. Margaret calls herself a feminist and condemns pornography.
But how would we go about determining when from the moment of conception human life begins in the womb? And how would we go about establishing that pornography is either something to defend or condemn?
How is even this not profoundly rooted in dasein?
Yes, but that’s something a philosopher might think up. What I focus on instead is going about the task of living your life from day to day to day and thinking like I do. And the only solution I have come up with is “distractions”. Behaviors and activities – music, film, books, magazines, the good stuff on TV etc. – that takes me into a frame of mind where I don’t dwell on the hole I have dug myself down into.
What, because you don’t make the same distinction, that makes my own wrong? And there are tons and tons of objective facts that we can all agree in regard to abortion and feminism. But what becomes far more important to the objectivists among us is that we all agree with their own moral narrative and political agenda. Those are the juicy discussions, right?
In regard to abortion, are we going to discuss who sits on the Supreme Court in terms of demographic factors or empirical truths that can be demonstrated beyond all doubt about them? Or is it going to focus instead on the ruling they make next year and their arguments.
Are we going to note how many words each Justice used to make their arguments, or focus instead on our own reaction to those words?
More to the point, do you? From my frame of mind, it’s like, yeah, you get some of the points I make about dasein…and you see how they are applicable to you. But you’re still able reach that point where you are comfortable making that distinction between “one of us” [the good guys] and “one of them” [the bad guys].
Well, I’m not. And, as with Maia, I believe to the extent you accomplish this it’s because you don’t think down deep enough in regard to how we acquire and sustain an identity in the is/ought world. The main difference being that your arguments are more sophisticated as philosophical conjectures.
I’ll post this for now and get back to your “on existential leaps” later…
The more I go one way I stop and realise I could have gone the other way.
My grandfather was a Marxist, his son, my father, was one as well.
My mother a Christian.
I am neither.
Go figure.
I didn’t stay where I was thrown - Dasein…I didn’t stay there.
Environment gave me options. I explored them, comparing the theory to the actuality, the ideal to the real.
In theory everything is perfect …in practice nothing ever is.
In words all is amazing…all is possible. In action it is not.
I discussed this above. You think about feminism given a particular context and it may or may not trigger a strong emotional reaction. It may make you want to cheer. It may fill you with disgust.
How is that not intertwined in dasein…in the life you lived predisposing you to react emotionally one way rather than another? And, just as importantly, is there a way using the tools of philosophy [here in a philosophy venue] to ascertain what the appropriate, most reasonable emotional reaction ought to be?
Now, the emotional “leaps” in our head are, in my view, rooted existentially in the life we lived. The manner in which both genes and memes come together to prompt us to react as we do. And how can that not be problematic given that there can be as many different reactions [to the same set of circumstances] as there are people reacting?
The state of mind derived from conflating any number of variables surrounding an event which we perceive and then think through to form an intellectual and emotional “attitude”. Why your attitude and not mine?
And the level of certainty is always going to vary from person to person as well. Here, we are either able to establish what we claim to be certain about or not. You listen to a speech by Hillary Clinton embracing her own rendition of feminism. How unwavering is your reaction to it? And how is that reaction not embedded existentially in dasein?
I care considerably less for what people claim to understand or believe about feminism and more in how they are able to back that up empirically, materially and phenomenologically. What evidence do they have? And how do they make the arguments of those who embrace feminism go away?
Okay, in regard to a context revolving around feminism, explain the behaviors you’d choose given this abstract assessment. What of “tools” and “vision” there? And how would you differentiate objectivism and subjectivism when confronting those who take the opposite point of view?
From my frame of mind this is just another “general description intellectual assessment”. You would have to bring it all down to earth by noting actual interactions you have had with others revolving around the political prejudices you have that revolve around an issue like feminism. What went through your head specifically? How did that trigger a specific emotional reaction? How sure can you be that this reaction comes closer to the objective truth rather than just a particular subjective response that was generated by the manner in which I have come to understand “I” here?
Same with this:
You will need to “illustrate the text” in regard to actual experiences that you have had if you are aiming to make a more effable point.
On the other hand, our reactions are often so complex that any attempt at all to actually describe them fully is often futile. There are just too many variables in our lives that are beyond our fully understanding and controlling.
Starting with the biggest one of all: years and years of being indoctrinated as a child. And often because this flows from the actual love that the brainwashers feel for us, it becomes all that much more engrained. As an adult, how would you really be able to yank that part out?
What can I say? Another “wall of words”/“world of words” that does not actually come down to earth.
Flesh it out contextually and make it all clearer.
Clit
Anyone got a context.
I’m looking for a context.
Something base…soap operish…
Jane went to a brothel with Mike to pick up her sister Mary…who works there as a prostitute.
Jane is propositioned, mistaken for one of the whores.
Mike is offended, since he wants to fuck Jane.
Jane accepts the offer…'cause she’s adventurous and she loves sex and Mike doesn’t do it for her.
What’s Mike to do?
Moral dilemma.
Down to Earth stuff…no skyhook philosophy.
Feminine gossip. Subjective.
Circumstantial not generalities.
Let’s dish, girlfriends… snap crackle pop… philosophy for prostituting pendants
Note to Subjective Self
Am I choosing to respond or are you Lord, guiding me?
Biggy, it’s not my fault that you won’t get a prescription for whatever cognitive defect you’re suffering from here, but this is a prime example of what I’m talking about. Here’s the full context of my question:
I’m asking how you draw the connection between 1) my admission that my thoughts about feminism are a result of the life I lived, and the conclusion that 2) I must think there was never any possibility that my life might have unfolded another way. I’m asking why could it not be that despite 1), I actually might believe that my life could have unfolded differently. I’m asking what’s the logic behind your thinking here. Why did you say this? Not, why did I end up despising feminism. ← That you interpreted it the latter way is too much of a miss to be chocked up to a simple mistake. Either you’re suffering from some kind of brain damage, or you’re being an obscurantist on purpose.
So we’re just arguing about feminism?
This has nothing to do with feminism. You do this every time someone actually comes close to the crux of the problem. It’s like your brain is a gold medalist in the blocking-things-out Olympics. ← And that’s giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Is that the issue? You’re wondering why my feelings towards feminism remain intact rather than my ‘I’ fragmenting (whatever that means)?
Because you’re suffering a cognitive defect. Sorry to make it about you again, but all roads apparently lead to Rome (you’re Rome). I’ve deciphered this about you:
The occasional inability to distinguish the meanings of different statements/explanations that others find extremely simple. ^ This for example (i.e. the difference between reporting on feelings and making assertions). Then there’s the distinction you failed to make between the question I asked above (<-- what’s the link from this and this -->) and you’re interpreting it as asking why I ended up despising feminism. And of course, the distinction between the meaning of “context” and “discussion topic” which you couldn’t make.
The shutting off of your comprehension skills when confronted with a point that poses a challenge to you, if not breaks your argument entirely. This is what you just did. On other occasions, you say things like “I don’t really follow this” or “this is just psychobabble” or “that’s just another intellectual contraption” or, everyone’s favorite, “we need a context”. Most of the stuff that you respond to with this ain’t that difficult. I don’t buy that it’s all just too abstract for you (your own philosophy is about the most abstract thing I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading). This seems more a Freudian defense mechanism on steroids. Your mind just has an unparalleled ability to block things out (or blur their meaning) when it poses a challenge to your arguments or meets your challenges and overcomes them with flying colors. This is interesting because you said on more than one occasion that your upbringing was in a right-wing religious family, and some of those kinds of environments can be especially harsh in terms of instilling the fear of God in a child’s mind. Richard Dawkins pointed out that the harm this can cause to a child could be severe enough to warrant the label “brain damage”–one manifestation of it being overly developed psychoanalytic defense mechanisms, the uncanny ability to block things out (like “sinful” thoughts).
The use of completely unjustified segways from topics you have no interest in to the ones you obsess over. You know the example I’m thinking of–the segway you used to go from talking about smears’ owning a motorcycle and being a chick magnet to his having certain political prejudices. I believe it was “Not only that but he has his own collection of political prejudices”. ← But this is a completely unjustified segway since the topic of smears owning a motorcycle and being a chick magnetic has absolutely nothing to do with his having political prejudices. It’s only purpose was so that you could steer the topic back into your own familiar waters. ← But this alone is not the cognitive defect. The defect is that you have no idea that you’re doing this. That you think the segway is completely relevant.
I could probably add at least 3 more but that would require going back through the mountains of material that exists on ILP revealing the patterns and style in your thinking, and I don’t have the time or the interest.
Don’t flatter yourself.
Do we have a way of measuring that?
Yeah, I’m sure you would be broken hearted if the bill was voted down.
This is something else we should probably explore (<-- God, I shouldn’t say that). The whole “fragmented I” or the “me” that doesn’t exist–you know, all that eastern sounding philosophy stuff–I’ve never really been able to make sense of it. That “I” don’t actually exist seems, well… stupid. What do you mean that your “I” is fragmented? How do your insights into dasein lead to that?
So I ask again, why can’t this apply to me as well?
Of course, how could it not be?! But then one questions, what answer would satisfy you? Are you expecting me to somehow reach beyond my dasein roots and miraculously find an answer that isn’t rooted in dasein? Would you even know how to recognize such an answer?
Well, that’s something, but still conjecture when you project it onto other objectivists.
Well, let me put it this way: I’ll use feminism as my example (since you love contexts so much). When it comes to my thoughts on feminism, assuming I’m trying to take it seriously, I will strive to be as reasonable, realistic, and wholistic as I can–I will strive to understand feminism apart from my personal biases and prejudices–that is, feminism as it really is (objectively as it were), feminism on all sides; but when it comes to my emotions on feminism, that can’t be separated from my biases and prejudices–you might even says my emotions towards feminism are my biases and prejudices–IOW, there is no striving to be reasonable, realistic, and wholistic with my emotions towards feminism. Why? Because emotions are all about how things affect one’s self. I’m a man. Feminism is driven by angry women, women who are angry at men, women who are vying for political power and are angry at men. ← That’s very threatening. There’s no way I can’t feel emotionally disturbed by feminism. It may be true that this is a twisted distortion of feminism–obviously, not all feminist hate men, and not all feminist are vying for political power, and not all feminists are even women. I don’t even know the proportion of feminists who are and who are not these things. But the threat is certainly there, and as a man in this feminist infected world, I feel that threat. So when I try to think about feminism as rationally and objectively as I can–putting aside my biases and prejudices to the extent that is possible–I may arrive at the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with feminism inherently, that maybe there is some weight to the feminists’ point of view, that maybe even the threat to my well being is worth the strides it would allow feminism to take in the long run (assuming it actually can make the world a better place for both men and women). But that doesn’t change the fact that as a man, my well being is (or might) be in danger if feminists, especially man hating angry feminists, got into a position of power to implement their agenda. My manhood is an immutable fact in the either/or world, and it makes my position in the world, and therefore my emotional reaction to feminism, what it is–even if my better (rational) judgment recognizes the arbitrariness of my prejudices towards feminism by virtue of their roots in dasein.
(You might consider the implications this has on dasein and the way one’s life experiences shape one’s beliefs and values–while no one can predict from birth where they will end up in life, what experiences they will have, what circumstance will befall them, how they will be raised, what community they will be integrated into, one is stuck, at birth, with certain immutable characteristics–sex, race, parents, genetic predispositions, etc.–and they aren’t nearly as arbitrary as where in this world we are thrown like the roll of a dice–meaning that sometimes our prejudices wouldn’t have been different if our life circumstances were different–or at least, wouldn’t have been as likely to change.)
Ah, I think this is stemming, once again, from your tendency to want to segway–except you didn’t do so explicitly; rather, you abruptly switched contexts before even responding to me. Let me remind you of how this strain started. It started with me asking what you mean by “context” and if it differed from “discussion topic” ← Again, a question of the meaning of words (just like those of “feminism” and “abortion”). I told you that the reason for my asking was to clarify your meaning (because it’s hard to have a discussion with you before understanding what you mean by terms like “context”). You responded saying how can we possibly clarify something that is so intertwined with a whole bunch of other stuff–science, religious, philosophy, politics, and even the whole universe, even going back to the big bang–implying that it’s a hopeless mess from which it is useless to try and draw out any clarity. ← This was a segway. You segwayed from the question of what you mean by “context” to the question of “how do we get clarity out of all these tangled messes (political, social, religious, etc.) that dasein gets us into?” You did so despite knowing full well that I needed to know what you meant by “context” in order to give you proper responses to your demand for a context, that the discussion can’t go forward (or it would be very difficult) if I didn’t understand what you mean by the terms you use first. You seem to want to discussion these real life event–these social and political predicaments, these “tangled messes” dasein gets us into–so badly that you can’t even be bothered to clarify your terms when asked. You’re so desperate to skip right away to your central topics of interest that you’ll segway (if only in your mind) before even thinking of how to respond to my request for clarity. This is why I refused to answer your question. I’m not letting you segway. You need to focus on clarifying the definitions of the words you use first. This is why I segwayed back to definitions (to give you an example). You need to stay on topic. You need to stay focused. It’s okay, we’ll get to your precious dasein in a moment, just humor me a bit; it won’t take long; help me understand your terms and then we can get to real life situations where dasein throws us to the wolves.
You should add booz to the mix.
I can make the distinction (if I feel like it), but that’s based whether or not I want to, not because it’s the truth. This is crucial. It’s, once again, the distinction between how I feel, and what I believe is the truth. You will have to understand this distinction if you are going to make any sense of it.
Well, I don’t know what you mean by “sustaining an identity”–sounds like it comes back around to the “‘I’ fragmenting” part, which I said we should explore further (although I’ll probably regret that). I just don’t feel like I have to prove (to myself or others) that I’m on the moral high ground when it comes to us/them conflicts. I can just say “I don’t like you guys, I’m going to work against you. And these guys here… I like them. I’m going ally with them.” I don’t struggle with justifying my choices here morally. I just feel comfortable in the choices I make and try to stick with them.
Oh, now you want me to clarify my terms to you, huh? That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think? Well, I’ll tell you what. What I wrote above is clear. It’s just that you’re so used to thinking of these “worlds of words” as meaningless intellectual contraptions that your mind (probably unconsciously) removes their meaning upon being filtering into your consciousness–and all you hear are the ramblings of Charlie Brown’s teacher:
It’s such a tragic thing to watch. You claim to not understand how I can admit that my emotional reactions to things like feminism are rooted in dasein and yet go on accepting my emotional reactions, and when I attempt to explain it to you, attempt to make clear why I feel like I can do this, your mind sucks all the meaning out of my explanation like a vampire, leaving behind a meaningless husk of rambling words. And then you have the audacity to continue complaining about how you just don’t understand how I can accept my emotional reactions knowing they are rooted in dasein. Oh sure, I could “bring this down to Earth” with concrete examples (bring in a context as it were) but I shouldn’t have to dignify your request with any examples given that you can, whether you realize it or not, understand everything I’m saying if you’d only snap out of this neurotic frame of mind you’re stuck in and take me, along with every other person on this board, seriously. So no, I won’t flesh out contextually and make it all clear for you. You will no doubt simply run this through your proverbial machine, your game, and play me like a fool, and it will get you no closer to understanding my “wall of words”. Sometimes, Biggy, you just gotta accept that the answers you seek are gonna be abstract. You actually have to put some effort into understanding them–don’t ignore the meaning, embrace it, actually try to parse the words and make sense of what they’re telling you. Alas, you won’t, and there’s nothing I nor anyone in this world can do to make you.
But I’ll tell you one thing. This is exactly–exactly–why people get frustrated with you, and eventually despise you–because you do this with our explanations, with the explanations you trick us into thinking you need, with the answers–the straight up answers–to your very questions–when delivered to you are transformed, by your mind, consciously or unconsciously, into the meaningless garble, the intellectual contraptions and worlds of words, that you claim to be receiving. It’s the effort we put into it, hoping to shed some light on these issues for you (because you ask us to) only to be told we’re uttering nonsense, that irritates us so. This has absolutely nothing to do with some fear we hold deep inside that maybe you’re right–maybe what you say about dasein applies to us and our political prejudices–especially with someone like me who, seemingly to your bafflement, freely admits that what you say about dasein applies to him and yet, like the rest, ends up despising you for your block headedness. We’re not afraid that you might be right, we’re frustrated with you incessant anti-cooperative approach to discussing the issues you ask for our cooperation to help you with. Sheesh!
Anyway, I can see myself getting frustrated here. This was my thread and I shouldn’t be letting it take me down like this. So I’ll try to go maybe one or two more rounds with you, but as I think I’ve gotten what I wanted (and a hell of a lot more!), I think it’s fair that I leave soon.
Iamalyingwoman’s context.
What does she mean by context?
What does she mean by “bring it down to earth”?
She means give it a moral dilemma, a scenario, like in the movies. Make it personal, subjective…you know 'cause there is no objective reality when it comes to humans.
Bring it down into her postmodern, Marxist hole.
Like this
Mary Land went to a bar and picked up Joe. she thought him a nice guy.
She fucked him.
She got pregnant.
Then Joe showed his “real face” and Mary Land changed her mind about his greatness.
Mary Land wants a abortion.
Should the collective pay for Mary Lands error in judgement?
Should her problem be collectivized?
Should Mary Land be protected from her own mind’s bad judgements?
Should the responsibility for her mistakes not be shared by a collective so that Mary can continue living her life without stress and without ever, ever, having to change?
A product of a series of choices.
Choices lead an individual towards a probability - every choice, based on his/her judgment adding or subtracting from producing a consequence…in this case a pregnancy.
Gib and I have been providing Satyr with an example of how a substantive exchange can unfold in the philosophy forum here. An exchange relating to conflicting goods that revolve around particular contexts. It includes both “straight talk” and huffing and puffing “gotcha” polemics.
But, alas, he persists in sustaining this “Mr. Fun” persona…bursting into threads here at ILP with these ridiculous posts.
Personally, I think he should be shamed for it. Though, admittedly, that can be no more than a hopelessly subjective opinion rooted in dasein.
And, true, it is only during the festive holiday season.
There you go again, assuming that the defect is from my end and not from yours. And your reaction is but a prime example of what I’m talking about.
Again, this is completely obscure to me. Joe has an opinion about feminism. He despises it. Jane has an opinion about feminism. She embraces it. Now, to what extent are these opinions derived from the aggregate experiences they had in life predisposing them existentially to despise or embrace it. The points I raise in my signature threads. The points that in my view you merely deflect to the points that you make here. The unintelligible ones.
Next, Joe and Jane take their own “conflicting goods” about feminism to the philosophers, ethicists, political scientists. Can they determine how all rational and virtuous men and women ought to think and feel about feminism?
It’s the dots you connect here that are obscure to me. My experiences in Song Be and later with John and Mary rested entirely on my draft number. Completely beyond my control. But suppose my number had not been called? No Army. No Vietnam. No Danny, Mac, Steve and John. No college. No John and Mary. No William Barrett. Back to the shipyards and a life that, before the Army, revolved around my being s male chauvinist pig.
Isn’t that the point that has generated the headlines? There are those in the feminist movement who embrace a woman’s right to choose an abortion. And those anti-feminists who argue that a woman’s place is in the home raising children. Conflicting goods. Now, how do individuals here come to be on one side rather than another? Is that rooted more in political prejudices derived from dasein…or from their capacity to grasp the optimal or the only rational manner in which to think about both feminism and abortion.
That’s not obscure to me.
Actually, it is.
Ah, of course: wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
I get that a lot here when I persist in reminding the “serious philosophers” that their abstract intellectual contraptions might become clearer if they would just bring them down to Earth. Illustrate the ofttimes wall of words text.
I’ve eeexplained that.
Then we are in two different discussions.
Because, in my view, you don’t connect these feelings more concretely to your thinking about feminism derived from the experiences that you had predisposing you to think, then feel as you do existentially.
Actually, the issue seems to be that we don’t frame the issue in the same way. I link the hole that I am in to the OP on this thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
As well as the fragmentation.
I still don’t really have a clue, however, as to how you intertwine your own personal experiences and your own personal philosophical sources in order to come to the conclusion you have regarding feminism “here and now”. How are you not fractured and fragmented given that you acknowledge that 1] your present views are rooted in the life you live and 2] that there does not appear to be a way [using the tools of philosophy] to come up with the optimal or only rational conclusion.
Then [for me] back up into the abstract clouds, the “it’s-all-about-you” and the psycho-babble:
Again, from your frame of mind, this explains the gap between how we have come to understand our own subjective assessments of feminism differently. But I don’t really have a clue as to how I can relate this to my own experiences and my own philosophical sources. It really is basically psycho-babble bullshit to me.
And in no way, shape or form, does it seem to address the points I raise in my signature threads about “I” at the existential juncture that is identity, value judgments and political economy.
And, for now, I’m sticking with this.
Again, that’s what you think I am doing here.
But I’m still no less confused as to how you manage to sustain your own “one of us” [the smart ones] vs. “one of them” [the dumb ones] mentality. You may not be as far out on the arrogant/caustic ideological limb as those like Satyr, Urwrong and Obsrvr524, but you are a hell of a lot closer to them than you are to me.
No, in no way am I doing the Buddha bit here. The Self pertaining to demographics and to the empirical, biological, social etc., facts of my life isn’t fragmented. Like you and others, I go through the bulk of my days never giving much thought as to whether I am wholly who I think I am.
The fragmentation revolves around value judgments in a world of conflicting goods; in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change. With experiences you often only have so much understanding and control over. Experiences which can nudge you or shove you into evolving frames of mind about things like feminism and abortion.
But my very point is that it does! We just think about the “for all practical purposes” implications of it – re the behaviors we choose – different.
No, my main point in regard to this is to focus the beam in on those moral and political objectivists here who self-righteously sustain their own Coalitions of Truth, their “your wrong if you don’t think like me” mentality in regard to their own value judgments.
With you it’s more about grappling to ascertain the extent to which you understand the points I raise in my signature threads, the extent to which you agree and disagree with them and, to the extent that you do, why you are not in turn as “fractured and fragmented” as I am.
Given a particular ser of circumstances that precipitate conflicting goods.
Thus…
But [again] my point is that the main reason you’ve convinced yourself it shouldn’t be your cup of tea is, in turn, rooted in thoughts and feelings that are derived existentially from the life you lived. This as opposed to having a theological, scientific, philosophical, ethical, political etc., argument able to establish that in fact all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to reject or accept feminism. Either as many conservatives do, or as many liberals do.
In other words, whether I had come to embody my Song Be experiences or not, there would still be available to me an objective assessment of feminism. It wouldn’t be just a political prejudice but a political fact that feminists are wrong.
And then the gap between how we think about this.
Then for me back up into obscure stratosphere you go…
Formal? As in Platonic? As in Aristotelian? As in “metaphysical” re Ayn Rand’s own assumptions about feminism? Howard may have raped Dominique…but not really. It’s just the most rational/natural relationship between men and women. That sort of “formal” thinking?
Let’s ask the objectivists here? If they didn’t think that their own assessment of feminism wasn’t rooted in the Real Me in sync with the Right Thing To Do, why would they become so enraged at those who don’t think as they do? Why would they invent “Coalitions of Truth”? Why would they hold in contempt those who don’t share their own fierce genes > memes convictions about race and gender and sexual orientation?
Nope. I’m just extrapolating from my vast experiences with fulminating fanatic objectivists over the years. Those who, one way or another, come to embody the “psychology of objectivism” explored by me on this thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
Okay, in regard to such issues as reproductive rights, women in the work place, child care, sexual relationships, patriarchy, social, political and economic equality, gender stereotypes, combat roles etc., what positions must one take if they wish to be thought of as being “reasonable, realistic, and wholistic” about feminism? And how are one’s thoughts about these things not profoundly rooted in dasein? And how does one make a distinction between what one thinks about them and what one feel about them…in such a way that this is not too a manifestation of dasein?
You make this distinction between ideas and emotions here as though your thoughts about feminist issues really can come closer to the objective truth than your feelings. Says who? Well, you of course. Your thinking about women in the home or in the workplace or in social relationships or in the military are, what, inherently superior to the liberals?
And when the liberals insist that, on the contrary, it is the conservative moral and political agenda that is inherently inferior…they’re just wrong?
And then for the objectivists here it just comes down to the font they use…religion, ideology, deontology, nature.
This part:
No, it seems to suggest [to me], there’s no way that this is just a subjective political prejudice rooted existentially in the life you lived…this really is as close as a human mind can come to the objective truth.
And then of course there’s the threat that many, many women feel in the presence of men who want to take them back to the 1950s. To June Cleaver and Betty Anderson and Lucy Ricardo.
But you are more nuanced and balanced in your assessment…
Now, let’s bring in the “social science” experts to sift through all of this and then, context by context, come up with the most reasonable assessment of all. Assessments such that your emotional reactions will be the least biased and prejudiced.
Then your reaction which is still largely obscure to me given my point above.
I’m assuming you mean segue here and not an “electric transportation device.”
But your assessment of my doing this simply does not sink in at all. I’m basically confused about what it is you are even accusing me of in regard to how I construe any particular individual’s reaction to things like feminism and abortion. We seem to start with very different assumptions.
From my frame of mind, that’s because you separate out thinking about things like feminism and make this something that you can be considerably more certain about than any feelings you might have. Whereas, for me, feelings are more convoluted mostly because they invove more primitive brain functions. You might not take women back to the 1950s but only because those that want to aren’t as smart as you in their thinking.
One way or another you come to embody a point of view about feminism. It could be rooted in a particular historical or cultural context. It could be rooted in your childhood indoctrination. It could be rooted in traumatic/dramatic experiences. Whichever way, the thoughts and the feelings that you have allow you to anchor your Self in what you come to construe is the most reasonable way to think about it. You are able to feel comforted and consoled that when it comes to gender roles, you know best.
And that is what you sustain. Not what you believe about feminism but that what you believe about it makes you more reasonable than those who believe something else.
Explain this part. In the US military, how are “draft numbers” picked? And what is a draft number?
No it’s not!
It’s true that supplying real world examples adds clarity to what might be a highly abstract point, but there’s no way the abstract points I’ve been making are just soooo unclear that no one can possibly make heads or tails of them. I make abstract points like this all the time, and you’re the only one who’s ever been incapable of grasping them.
And I know you’re capable of grasping abstract points. Your entire philosophy is about as abstract as it gets. And I’ve made points in discussions with you just as abstract as the ones I’m making here that happened to work in favor of your point (i.e. I was agreeing with you) and you seemed to have no problem grasping those abstract points.
I’ll grant that there’s a difference between expressing abstract points, listening to abstract points, and thinking about abstract points–each of these activities is handled by different systems in the brain–so one could conceivably be brilliant at making abstract points (say) but defective in comprehending abstract points expressed by others. But the pattern I’ve noticed with you is that your reading comprehension skills shut off when someone makes an in-depth wordy point that happens to be a good one, one that has some potency in challenging your arguments (or even supplying you with the examples/answers you always ask for). That’s not me, it’s you. It’s scary how psychoanalytic it is, how much it can be explained by psychological defense mechanisms (the Freudian kind), mechanisms that blur/distort incoming ideas or block them out all together.
^ Too abstract for you?
Ah, so you do expect my feelings towards feminism to be shut off as soon as I admit my prejudices towards feminism are rooted in dasein.
Probably shouldn’t have joined then, huh?
It is about you. Remember, Biggy, this is my thread, and it’s whole purpose, it’s reason d’etre, is for me to figure you out. The title was just bate and you took it. What you’re responding to here is me drawing some conclusions.
Would you frickin’ drop the fixation on feminism. This hasn’t been about feminism for several posts now.
But to me and everyone else, it’s pure gold.
You know, Biggy, you really are self-centered. You seem to think we’re all here to discuss the topics you want to discuss, that our primary concern is to satisfy you. This is why I’m now wondering if you’re autistic (high functioning).
Thank God.
This sounds like it’s missing a punch line. After “feminism and abortion.” what would you add starting with “Therefore…” and ending with “…and that’s why my ‘I’ fragments.” I guess I’ll have to conjecture that your ‘I’ fragments because whatever identity you imagined yourself having, however you defined yourself, that turns out to be just another intellectual contraption. The fragmenting of the self, therefore, is the fragmenting of this intellectual contraption, this identity you thought defined you, your self-image. Ok, so you no longer know who you are, what you are. I guess this is why you always mention ‘I’ in quotes–you recognize that it’s not really you but an image of yourself that you’ve hitherto held to be a faithful representation. And your ‘I’ is hopelessly fragmented because anything you erect to take its place will be but another intellectual contraption.
Fair enough, it’s just that you seem to want this to be a revelation to me, like it’s not fair if I beat you to the punch. It’s like you want me to be an objectivist denying that my political prejudices are rooted in dasein so that you can traumatize me with the sudden realization that they do. You seem to think that admitting that your arguments apply even to your own political prejudices is a good enough excuse for you to go on expressing/defending those political prejudices, but not for anyone else.
Well, Biggy, if the explanations I gave above for this were “too abstract” for you to comprehend, you have no hope in hell of ever understanding. I mean, those explanations are just the tip of the iceberg. If I really wanted to go deep, I’d bring in my theory of consciousness (it’s really high up in the clouds) and try to explain to you how it changes the way I look at a lot of this stuff, a way that makes their standing as intellectual contraptions, and how intellectual contraption related to the real world, not nearly as problematic. IOW, while I don’t deny that these are just intellectual contraption that ultimately find their origins in dasein, I think of intellectual contraptions radically differently from you (and pretty much everybody). To give you a hint: we are both subjectivists, but only one of us is a nihilist.
Bye-bye!
No, formal as in what I’m willing to commit to.
Whatever you say, homie. This is pure gold because we really get a good look at why you don’t understand my explanations. You are literally not listening (is that the right use of the word ‘literal’?). You split up my quote to interject your reactions, which itself is fine (it doesn’t indicate you’re not listening), but what you say in those interjections does. It indicates that you’re just too eager to get back to your dasein arguments, your challenges to objectivy sounding statements. I talk about a hypothetical attempt to get at the truth about feminism (in order to show you how I distinguish between formal beliefs and emotional reactions), and all you think is “Oh, gib’s talking about feminism! This is my opportunity to do my daseiny thing!” Then I talk about why I have the emotional reactions to feminism that I do (to contrast it with formal thoughts) and rather than take it as an answer to the question you asked, you dismiss it because, to you, it’s just another opportunity to let your dasein arguments and challenges out of the gate, to play your game again. Your not actually reading what I wrote, you’re just itching to do your dasein thing, like a kid peeing his pants because he’s been holding it for hours. You just read what I say until you find something that kinda, sorta remotely sounds like I’m taking a stance on feminism, like I really am making an objective statement about feminism, and then you let loose with your overly rehearsed dasein script, taking what you perceive to be another objectivist to the cleaners. It’s no wonder you don’t understand my explanations. You’re not taking them as explanations. You’re looking at them as a torrent of words in which you’re likely to find a few opportunities to do your dasein thing.
Huh? Now this, to me, is just a wall of words (or maybe just a string). Are you saying I’m trading in certainty about my feelings towards feminism for certainty about knowing the difference between thoughts and feelings (doesn’t have to be about feminism)?
So you know there’s a difference.
Another really strange jumble of words. I interpret it thus: Because I abhor feminism, I must want to take women back to the 1950s. But I can’t. However, the reason I can’t may not be what I think. The real reason is that the women who want to go back to the 1950s aren’t as smart as me (in their thinking)… so… uh… what?
Is this your attempt to psychobabble about me? Don’t try, you don’t hold a candle to me.
Sigh * Not doing a good job of trimming this down, am I Biggy. Oh well, let’s try one more round.
That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think? Well, I’ll tell you what. What I wrote above 
