Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Sep 16, 2017 5:49 pm Nick wrote:

This is the problem for the young trapped in secular schools. How do they find philosophical friends with the need for dialectic as opposed to debate and the social need to fit in? Adults free of secular intolerance will not be accepted in these secular schools so it will be really difficult to get any help from adults. Philosophy sites become dominated by secular intolerance so become useless. Fucking is fine but the young who feel that eros is more than just fucking find themselves stuck between attempts at indoctrination from secular education and secular religious institutions

It's a problem for grown-up intellectuals everywhere except when they are sufficiently well organised to find intellectual companions.

Meantime I sincerely hope that school teachers will strive to help their pupils avoid the shades of the prison-house.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

Wordsworth

Wordsworth/Rousseau meant that society formed a prison in which the child ceased to be free because his ideas were channeled and restricted by contact with others - viz. man is born free but everywhere he is in chains. For the writer the school is a much more obvious kind of prison, in which his freedom is restricted in more practical ways.

I quoted this from an opinion in online comment dated 2007

Thanks for a good post. It is a pleasure to read of others who are aware of the potential spirit killing effects of education

Don't forget that too many teachers are educated to support the prison. When they graduate they are hired to support the prison they have been trained to support. Is it any wonder why they become intolerant of that which questions the supremacy of the prison for providing a human education?

Greta

Like most Trump supporters, you need to simplify reality so it will fit with your blinkers. Given that you previously criticised my approval and adoption of asexuality in my elder years as my lacking appreciation for eros, what you have said above is simply a matter of "bait and switch". I also noted that you ignored my reference to "love".

Why this obsession with Donald Trump? When did I ever mention your asexuality? I have to worry about my own sexuality. Maybe this explains your secular intolerance but I just don’t get it.

I note that you sidestepped this. Given your hostile attitudes towards women (who are not Simone Weil) I assume that you think that what Trump did in grabbing women's private bits was okay. Just the robust expression of a real man in a politically correct world, right?

All this happens in Caesar’s world or in Plato’s cave if you prefer. These are just expressions of the human condition. You want to argue right and wrong while secular intolerance is an obstruction for leaving the cave.

It has apparently completely slipped your "mind" that I am a keen musician and cartoonist, and am obsessed with trying to understand reality. Suddenly, as far as you are concerned, I have transformed into a soulless human adding machine.

You want to justify your existence in Plato’s cave by playing music and drawing cartoons. You don’t want to understand reality; you want to be justified by your imagination. Believe me, you are not alone in this pursuit.

Why might I play music and draw cartoons? Passion. Interest. Eros. Duh. Actually, in my observation it would seem that it is you, locked in your mechanistic mindsets and Trumpian values, who lacks creative energy. This may explain your apparent overcompensation regarding eros.

That is not eros in relation to philosophy. Eros is a daimon between wisdom and ignorance which entices us to advance along the ladder of love. You re not describing the ladder of love but instead the passion of self justification. For the sake of anyone reading this I’d like to post a link to eros:

https://www.thoughtco.com/platos-ladder-of-love-2670661

The "ladder of love" is a metaphor that occurs in Plato’s Symposium. Socrates, making a speech in praise of Eros, recounts the teachings of a priestess, Diotima. The “ladder” represents the ascent a lover might make from purely physical attraction to a beautiful body, the lowest rung, to contemplation of the Form of Beauty itself.
Diotima spells out the stages in this ascent in terms of what sort of beautiful thing the lover desires and is drawn toward.
1. A particular beautiful body. This is the starting point, when love, which by definition is a desire for something we don’t have, is first aroused by the sight of individual beauty.
2. All beautiful bodies. According to standard Platonic doctrine, all beautiful bodies share something in common, something the lover eventually comes to recognize. When he does recognize this, he moves beyond a passion for any particular body.
3. Beautiful souls. Next, the lover comes to realize that spiritual and moral beauty matters much more than physical beauty. So he will now yearn for the sort of interaction with noble characters that will help him become a better person.
4. Beautiful laws and institutions. These are created by good people (beautiful souls) and are the conditions which foster moral beauty.
5. The beauty of knowledge. The lover turns his attention to all kinds of knowledge, but particularly, in the end to philosophical understanding. (Although the reason for this turn isn’t stated, it is presumably because philosophical wisdom is what underpins good laws and institutions.)
1. Beauty itself–that is, the Form of the Beautiful. This is described as “an everlasting loveliness which neither comes nor goes, which neither flowers nor fades.” It is the very essence of beauty, “subsisting of itself and by itself in an eternal oneness.” And every particular beautiful thing is beautiful because of its connection to this Form. The lover who has ascended the ladder apprehends the Form of Beauty in a kind of vision or revelation, not through words or in the way that other sorts of more ordinary knowledge are known…………………….

Eros begins with the senses and continues beyond the senses into the world of ideas. Eros doesn’t appear during self justification. The experience of what eros invites appears through a certain quality of contemplation only possible with humility. It could be said that the aim of philosophy is to become like a daimon – in-between wisdom and ignorance

Nick_A wrote:Our being is what we are. It is the unique blend of qualities of energy we are born with. ...

What does 'qualities of energy' even mean?

Forget about metaphysics. That comes later. It is you who are either incapable of or unwilling to impartially contemplate and verify the human condition which is why everything is as it is.

You are blinkered by your religious indoctrination, as such you think us flawed. Personally, I don't.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 1:27 am

Like most Trump supporters, you need to simplify reality so it will fit with your blinkers. Given that you previously criticised my approval and adoption of asexuality in my elder years as my lacking appreciation for eros, what you have said above is simply a matter of "bait and switch". I also noted that you ignored my reference to "love".

Why this obsession with Donald Trump? When did I ever mention your asexuality? I have to worry about my own sexuality. Maybe this explains your secular intolerance but I just don’t get it.

1) You said that you supported Trump. You also claim to be interested in the truth. Do you see an issue there?

2) When I said I'd given sex away in my old age and and expressed disinterest in it you accused me of lacking in eros. Then, as now. Your words mean anything you want them to, depending on whatever unhinged insults you feel compelled to mete out at the time. Just like your preferred politican, Trump.

Nick_A wrote:

I note that you sidestepped this. Given your hostile attitudes towards women (who are not Simone Weil) I assume that you think that what Trump did in grabbing women's private bits was okay. Just the robust expression of a real man in a politically correct world, right?

All this happens in Caesar’s world or in Plato’s cave if you prefer. These are just expressions of the human condition. You want to argue right and wrong while secular intolerance is an obstruction for leaving the cave.

In other words, you are fine with your preferred political candidate bragging about grabbing women by the "pussy" because it's just "Plato's cave".

I suspect you'd think differently if a big bloke grabbed your private parts in public.

Nick_A wrote:

It has apparently completely slipped your "mind" that I am a keen musician and cartoonist, and am obsessed with trying to understand reality. Suddenly, as far as you are concerned, I have transformed into a soulless human adding machine.

You want to justify your existence in Plato’s cave by playing music and drawing cartoons. You don’t want to understand reality; you want to be justified by your imagination. Believe me, you are not alone in this pursuit.

More evasiveness. Another Trump tactic - don't bother defending your position but return fire twice as hard.

Are you seriously saying that one cannot simply engage in music innocently? Why would I give a damn about justifying my existence, and to whom would I justify it, and to what end? All I did was note the wrongness of your accusation that I have no sense of eros by pointing out my own creative pleasure.

Nick_A wrote:

Why might I play music and draw cartoons? Passion. Interest. Eros. Duh. Actually, in my observation it would seem that it is you, locked in your mechanistic mindsets and Trumpian values, who lacks creative energy. This may explain your apparent overcompensation regarding eros.

That is not eros in relation to philosophy. Eros is a daimon between wisdom and ignorance which entices us to advance along the ladder of love. You re not describing the ladder of love but instead the passion of self justification.

So you deny that Plato's eros includes music? Plato would beg to differ, if that matters.

Music and cartooning are part of me, my way of living. Your superficial take on it just reveals your shallowness and cynicism. Your inability to imagine a person engaging in something innocently suggests that you believe everything done by others is to create an impression, for some social purpose. This is paranoid thinking.

Nick_A wrote:Eros begins with the senses and continues beyond the senses into the world of ideas. Eros doesn’t appear during self justification. The experience of what eros invites appears through a certain quality of contemplation only possible with humility. It could be said that the aim of philosophy is to become like a daimon – in-between wisdom and ignorance

No wonder you are a Trump fan, seemingly just as capable of misrepresenting others purely for the effect or utility - and then having the gall to lecture about humility and truth.

Nick, I am glad that you liked my post in which I copied a bit of Wordsworth's poem "Ode :Intimations of immortality" .


I have always claimed that there is some truth in your ideas. The truth is that some forms of present day schooling do tend to kill off the innate curiosity and joy of children. School teachers are very aware of this to the extent that teachers object strongly to Government's insistence upon frequent tests and grading together with insufficient funds for adequate playing fields and access to countryside, urban, and outdoor adventures. The urban environment too is not made available to children in school when they are required to sit and learn facts when they might otherwise be engaging in the real world.

Wordsworth , whose poem you like, was a pantheist and he would not have agreed with your belief in God as the top of a hierarchy. Wordsworth was mostly interested in wild nature and those often obscure people who lived and worked in the lonely countryside.

There seem to be three antagonists in your view: seculars, main- stream religionists, and gnostics. For me there are two antagonists which are not bound into your categories: liberals and authoritarians. Liberals and authoritarians are found among 'seculars', religionists, and gnostics all three.

If you read about the Pope's inquisition into gnosticism in the south of France 13th-14th centuries you will see that the gnostics(Cathars) including the parfaits are what we may call "liberals" whereas the RC authorities are oppressors. Nobody then and there was what you term a "secular".

http://www.cathar.info/cathar_beliefs.htm

Belinda

Let me try this from a different direction since you’ve misunderstood what I mean by secular intolerance. First of all there is no such thing as a secular. The word secular for me is an adjective:

adjective. 1. of or relating to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal: secular interests

.

Secular intolerance is an attitude. It is intolerant of what cannot be proven by the senses so limits itself to one level of reality I know of as Plato’s cave. Expressions of secular intolerance within secular education closes the mind to the third direction of thought or the “hidden third” previously described.

Secularism limits itself to duality; right and wrong, yes or no etc. However the hidden third asserts that we live in a triune universe based on the unification of three forces rather than the two which when reconciled by imagination taking the place of the third force of thought, leads to the prison of cave life. The idea of the three forces has been popularized through the efforts of Ken Wilber and Integral theory by developing the idea of holons:

A holon (Greek: ὅλον, holon neuter form of ὅλος, holos "whole") is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. The word was coined by Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost in the Machine (1967, p. 48).

The universalist has for whatever reason, come to experience that the world as we know itis a whole and also a part of a higher whole. The structure of the universe as I understand it is cosmological built on the lawful relationships of holons. Each cosmos is a a part existing within a higher cosmos or whole. This is meaningless for the emotional attitude of secular intolerance which restricts itself to the perceived duality of the world.

The essential purpose of a human rather than secular education is to provide the conditions within which the heart and mind of the student can consciously experience the vertical third direction of thought.

Anyone interested in these ideas can profit from reading the following link. Secular intolerance which is really an emotional reaction to a perceived offensive god concept will be closed to it. My concern again is for the young who are not closed but are in the prison of secular education bombarded with expressions of secular intolerance towards the “hidden third.”. It concludes with:

https://medium.com/indian-thoughts/educ ... 7471260c50

Plato says that philosophical education requires a reorientation of the whole self; it is a transformative experience. He believed that education is not just a matter of changing ideas or changing some practices, it is a process that transforms ones entire life because it involves the turning around of the soul. Education is the movement of the self, the transformation of the self. For example, in order for the prisoners to learn they had to not only turn their head around, but also turn their whole body around which included their soul, and passions in their mind, to educate themselves.

Therefore, education is a complete transformation of ones value system; “it requires a ‘turning around’ and ‘ascent’ of the soul — what we might call a spiritual awakening, or the finding and following of a spiritual path.”[10] By this, Plato means seeing the world in a different way, in the correct way.

In conclusion, Plato appears to be suggesting that we need to force ourselves to want to learn about the truth. Seeking knowledge is not an easy journey; it is a struggle, and once you see the world differently you cannot go back. For example, when the prisoner turned around he realised that the shadows on the wall were less real than the objects in the back that were casting the shadows; what he thought was real all his life was merely an illusion. If the prisoner did not question his beliefs about the shadows on the wall, he would never have discovered the truth. Hence, Plato believes that critical thinking is vital in education. When you try to tell others about the truth, they will not always accept it, as people are often happy in their ignorance. In the allegory of the cave the prisoner had to be forced to learn at times; for Plato, education in any form requires resistance, and with resistance comes force.
In a way Plato manipulates the reader as he implies that we are prisoners, however we believe that we are not prisoners — this makes us want to learn and search for the truth. It is easier not to challenge ourselves, and not be challenged by others. It is easier to just sit there and watch the puppet show, and not question your beliefs. It is difficult to turn around, however the rewards of making that journey are great, as the allegory of the cave tells us.
For Plato, education is personal and it is the transition from darkness to light, where light represents knowledge and truth. He believed that everyone is capable of learning, but it is down to whether the person desires to learn or not. The people in the cave needed to desire an education with their whole body and soul; thus, education is the formation of character, which involves the turning around of the soul.

Opening to the third direction of thought requires inwardly turning in the direction of the light. It is what allows a person to grow as a human being as opposed to a conditioned automaton. Teachers aware of this and capable of arousing awakening are worth their weight in gold. There are not many of them. Most just confuse it with politically correct secular conditioning. Inwardly turning towards the light requires experience. One doesn’t learn it in teacher training schools. It must be experienced before it can be taught.

Actually this thread coincides with the thread “Socratic Humility” in the articles in philosophy section. Socratic humility provokes secular intolerance since it suggests a higher reality beyond the limits of our senses. I was hoping to read some rationalizations. Nothing yet. The reality is that secular intolerance and Socratic humility are mutually exclusive and right now secular intolerance is dominant.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 4:30 pm
Secular intolerance is an attitude. It is intolerant of what cannot be proven by the senses

That's no worse than accepting any old rubbish as "the truth". I'm all for looking beyond our senses but that doesn't mean latching on to whatever whacky notion we happen to like the sound of.

This secular intolerance BS is no longer simply farce; it fell through the floor of farce 50 pages ago. Its conclusion would be that by becoming less secular we become more tolerant while history shows that the least secular periods were actually the most intolerant. A lack of secularity excludes most other options whereby humans can raise themselves. There isn't just one path to meaning or purpose if that's what one has a craving for, the secular path being at least as valid. In that respect something like theism is not an imperative but a limitation, rendered through protocol and questionable quotes, not the genuine inside-out experience of an organic inner process.

To the extent the secular is diminished in any society you have instead the Inquisitors.

Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 9:02 pm This secular intolerance BS is no longer simply farce; it fell through the floor of farce 50 pages ago. Its conclusion would be that by becoming less secular we become more tolerant while history shows that the least secular periods were actually the most intolerant. A lack of secularity excludes most other options whereby humans can raise themselves. There isn't just one path to meaning or purpose if that's what one has a craving for, the secular path being at least as valid. In that respect something like theism is not an imperative but a limitation, rendered through protocol and questionable quotes, not the genuine inside-out experience of an organic inner process.

To the extent the secular is diminished in any society you have instead the Inquisitors.

Secular intolerance is an attitude of blind denial. It isn’t a matter of becoming less secular but of outgrowing the defense mechanism of secular intolerance.

Simone Weil has observed: "There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God."
- William Robert Miller (ed.), The New Christianity (New York: Delacorte Press 1967) p 267; in Paul Schilling,
God in an age of atheism (Abingdon: Nashville 1969) p 17

This is the same idea. Secularism which opposes religious corruption is essential. However emotional secular intolerance which prohibits the experience of the sacred truths essential for the growth of human being is abuse. Intellectual doubt is essential. Blind emotional denial is a spirit killer.

Ironic for a Trump supporter to lecture others about "blind denial".

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 10:39 pm Ironic for a Trump supporter to lecture others about "blind denial".

Trump is an outsider. He's got too much money to bribe. He has the type of attitude necessary to begin draining the swamp. He is pro America. What's not to like?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2017 12:00 am

Greta wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 10:39 pm Ironic for a Trump supporter to lecture others about "blind denial".

Trump is an outsider. He's got too much money to bribe. He has the type of attitude necessary to begin draining the swamp. He is pro America. What's not to like?

He's big part of the swamp that has to be drained. What's unique about Trump, he makes it so much more obvious. Truth remains relative to what he announces from one tweet to the next renouncing one in favor of the other whenever he finds it expedient. For someone born in the U.S., he sure has a bloody poor vocabulary. He makes George W. Bush Jr. look like a dictionary aficionado. He probably wouldn't even know what that word means unless Melania told him...and she wouldn't dare.

Can one trust the simplistic conclusions of anyone who thinks that being "pro America" is ALL that's required of the POTUS!

If that's the case, why don't they keep their nose out of everyone else's fucking business?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 10:26 pm Secularism which opposes religious corruption is essential. However emotional secular intolerance which prohibits the experience of the sacred truths essential for the growth of human being is abuse. Intellectual doubt is essential. Blind emotional denial is a spirit killer.

...and what about your highly emotional perverse intolerance of the secular? You're practicing precisely the same intolerance but in the opposite direction against your presumed archenemy as you define it. Not least, virtually every single claim of yours is categorically negated when you state, However emotional secular intolerance which prohibits the experience of the sacred truths essential for the growth of human being is abuse.

It is not within the reach or concern of the secular to preclude any such experiences. It, in effect, remains indifferent whether you have them or not. None of your quotes and nothing I've read in Needleman, Simone Weil or anyone else corroborates your definition of the word SECULAR. For some reason you don't even understand, this word has baited you like a fish on a hook. A mind imprisoned is aware only of its own walls and nothing else. Plato made at least that much plain.

Intellectual doubt is indeed essential! So why haven't you practiced some as an investigation of your own conclusions? Apply that edict to yourself if you wish to avoid the two dimensional surfaces of your own thoughts. Plato's Cave analogy is not unlike the cave you're in.

I’ve posted the definition of my use of the word secular before. I’ll do it again:

adjective
1. 1.
denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis.
"secular buildings"

Secular intolerance is an attitude having the connotation of superiority with the implication that there is something wrong or naive with the pursuit of what religion offers You don’t think that these attitudes directed at the young won’t lead to metaphysical repression?

Nick_A wrote:Trump is an outsider. ...

He's got too much money to bribe. ...

He has the type of attitude necessary to begin draining the swamp. ...

He is pro America. ...

USA! USA!

What's not to like?

You for starters.