And right back at you. You know, if the manner in which I construe the “self” here might come to perturb you in turn.
What intriques me about folks of your ilk is how folks of my ilk are unable to react to a No God world that is presumed to be bereft of objective morality without being down in the hole that “I” am in, “fractured and fragmented”.
I know. It bothers you. I am not sure if you have ever considered some of the various explanations I have had for this. Could be as simple as genetic differences. Different animals will exhibit different reactions to traumatic experiences. People are different. For all sorts of reasons, some related to dasein. Some related to built in temperment.
Or, sure, it could be explained by embracing the assumption that we live in a wholly determined universe such that this very exchange we are having is only as it ever could have been. All we can do here [in my view] is to root our point of view in an explanation that comes closer to or farther away from the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein regarding those parts of our lives not able to be pinned down as the embodiment of the either/or world.
Once I was able to react to Trump [piss or no piss tape] as I imagine folks like Peter Kropotkin and Rachel Maddow still do: more or less objectively.
For them, Trump genuinely embodies all that make the world we live in such a terrible place. And once the right Democrat/liberal with the right moral and political values takes his place, the world will become a significantly better place to live.
Necessarily as it were.
I don’t think like that anymore. I’m not able to. Instead, I have come to presume that my own value judgments are basically just an existential fabrication rooted in the manner in which “I” construe the meaning of dasein.
So, I become a liberal pragmatist
Oh, look, a pragmatist, perhaps not just like me, but to this extent.
To the extent that you are able to garner and then sustain some level of “comfort and consolation” in choosing behaviors that leave you less “fractured and fragmented” than “I” am [here and now] is the extent to which [in my view] we understand the actual existential parameters of pragmatism in different ways.
Though I really don’t spend much time “bemoaning” the plight that I have thought myself into beacuse I am not politically active as I once was. Back then you were expected to toe the party line because the party line was in fact construed to be either The Right Thing To do or, at the very least, reflected the best of all possible worlds. In part I was abandoned [literally] by my own “comrades” because the manner in which I construe the components of moral nihilism simply disturbed them too much. The last thing most folks on the left [or the right] want to be is “fractured and fragmented” when confronting a political phenomena like Don Trump.
in your view all choices, behavior, attitudes, are existential contraptions.
On the contrary, the overwhelming preponderance of the choices, behaviors and attitudes that we choose from day to day revolve entirely around contexts in which the either/or world prevails. We do what we do because it is the only thing that it makes sense to do. We’re not conflicted at all.
The existential contraption part [for me] is embedded in those contexts in which we grapple with doing one thing rather than another. Either because we are not ourselves sure of what to do, or becasue others confront what we do choose and a conflict ensues.
One interesting thing is you don’t bother me anymore. What I have asserted were patterns of your communication behavior still exist and continue, but they no longer bother me. I still find the blind spots fascinating however. And as along as their is development in my reaction and as long as I am learning from the interaction, I will likely continue.
I bother people to the extent that the manner in which I perceive myself as fractured and fragmented gets closer and closer to making them feel the same way. The more they begin to think that being down in my hole is actually a rational understanding of the “human condition” in the is/ought world, the more “broken” they begin to feel themselves. The objectivists here obviously, but even the occasional pragmatist still able to hold on with a firmer grip to the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”.
It’s more me trying to figure out how they do this that keeps me in the exchange.
So, getting back to the OP, I have to settle for a reaction to Trump that “in the moment” can seem to be genuine and substantial. But then “I” pull back and recognize it more as a particular political prejudice rooted in dasein. Then, like Humpty Dumpty, I have that great fall. And I am then unable to put myself back together again.