Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 12:37 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 10:28 pm Are you saying that women's rights is 'The Left'?

Yes, from the "second wave" types forward, and definitely with the "third wave." First wave, no.

For fuck sake!

Immanuel Can wrote: I said: the Cultural Marxists particularly, and also their many 'useful' uninformed followers, hangers on and conformists who do what the CM's tell them, but don't even know what ideology their following with such zombie-like trust. But we can be even more specific: they include the outright Marxists, the self-declared "trained Marxists" that lead groups like BLM, the academics (mostly in the "studies" studies, and in education) who are neo-Marxists, the opportunist business leaders and politicians who see in promoting neo-Marxism the opportunity to bilk and subdue the masses (like the WEF or BlackRock), most of the legacy mass media functionaries (BBC, CNN, CBC...), and the many brainless followers they've fooled and recruited at the popular level, including former leaders in many unions and in public education...I could go on, but there's a nice little list.

Harbal wrote: Okay, so it's basically anyone whose political stance you don't like. Whether it be the BBC, or BLM, you make no distinction, they all hate concepts like reason, truth, logic, objectivity, science, history and independent judgment. I am used to your distortions when it comes to religion, but, even though it is annoying, it is relatively trivial, or at least to me it is, but politics is different. Politics affects us all, whether we are involved in it or not. You are an example of a very worrying modern trend of taking political propaganda outside of places like Russia and China to stratospheric heights of deceitfulness.

Though my help will likely not be appreciated, nevertheless I will try to help clarify some things. Perhaps it will be of benefit to those reading here.

It is incorrect to say that IC's critique is toward "anyone whose political stance [he doesn't] like". The reason is that IC is not the inventor of the critique against cultural Marxists, or those espousing Critical Theory, but rather he is one who agrees substantially with the established premises by which Critical Theory is exposed and critiqued. He participates in this critique but, of course, does not dominate it or control it. However, from what I have read of IC's position, and as all know, his personal orientation is largely that of a Christian believer. But it is a mistake to dismiss the established critique because people who are no necessarily Christians contribute to it.

It is a coherent and in this sense a *free standing* set of ideas.

BLM, BBC and dozens and hundreds of groups, media companies, as well as academics, business people, average people -- effectively our culture in the post-Sixties -- have been intensely influenced by people who have invested in certain ideas that can be encapsulated with a term like Critical Theory. That is why those who do critique mention Antonio Gramsci with his admonition to gain seats of influence and power within the cultural institutions, and from those seats of power influence and change how people think and how they view cultural issues. When those critical speak of *the march through the institutions* they are referring to a tactic and a strategy that has born fruit in our present.

However, I will admit that it does take a certain exposure and training to be able to discern this. And people without that training or exposure often seem incapable of seeing the way that culture has been influenced by activists of a certain bent (i.e. derivative of Marxian ideas and involved in Marxist praxis -- Saul Alinsky being a very good example and he is often referred to rather generally for this reason).

It is not (IMO) that those who have been intensely influenced (often without realizing the extent of the influence of course) "hate concepts like reason, truth, logic, objectivity, science, history and independent judgment" -- that would be a thoroughly outrageous thing to say, and I doubt that IC would say that, but rather it is a question of ideological influence and perhaps commitment or investment are words I could use. I think there is also an issue of conformity and group-pressure.

In this sense, Harbal, you are a simply wonderful example because you epitomize a "modern citizen" filled to the brim with opinions that came to you from directions you are unaware of. You have never engaged in serious and protracted study, and for fuck's sake you really do not care, by your own admission! You in this way can be *examined* and *questioned* because you are exemplary of an enormous class of persons running around today. Filled with all manner of opinions that seem metaphysically pure and *right*, but which they have never really questioned because they were all *received* without really engaging in a prior struggle (with difficult ideas).

Politics affects us all, whether we are involved in it or not. You are an example of a very worrying modern trend of taking political propaganda outside of places like Russia and China to stratospheric heights of deceitfulness.

Here you actually get to an important core. But the problem here is that you are not qualified to have the opinions which you seem to have. You have them but you did not really earn them. So you can be compared to a cultural parrot or a parrot of your immediate circumstances. Even though I may have differences with IC he has deeply and commitedly read widely.

So, may I politely suggest to you that you try to grasp why some regard you as part of a 'worrying modern trend' because, as I say, though you spout opinions you have never had your ideas challenged, and you have never submitted yourself to a process of self-challenging.

From the perspective of an intelligent and informed conservatism, or an upright and informed Liberalism (these have much more in common than one might imagine), your reference to *Russia* and *China* refers to the sort of consciously or unconsciously assimilated Maoism -- modified of course -- that is really quite blatantly rife in our present. It is active and determinant all around us.

Who can see this? and who can point it out with clarity? Only someone with a value-base and intellectual roots in very real and relevant intellectual traditions that are being etched away by the rise of that Mass Man I have referred to (when referencing Ortega y Gasset).

stratospheric heights of deceitfulness.

I challenge you to minimally broach what you conceive these as being: you will not be able to do it. You've picked up a phrase and like a parrot merely repeat it. I suggest that you do not know where the deceitfulness is located, nor do you know how to talk about it.

I'll be sitting patiently awaiting your buffoon-like retorts, charming but inane.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 2:06 am Critical Theory.

I think some things will never change no matter how we change the way we discuss them. In the end, each of us will die and none of us truly want to. A person can die sooner or later. A person can die surrounded by indifferent souls, caring souls or a person can die surrounded by enemies. I don't know which is better or which is worse. That is something a person must work out for themself. Though, others may make the final choice for us.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 1:45 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 12:38 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 11:27 pm White supremacists...

Who are you speaking of? Who are these "supremacist" "whites"?

Wokism is the new white supremasism.

That's an odd claim, unless you mean that it was created by, and is now primarily sponsored by, white liberals...which would be true, but it's hardly proof of their "white supremacism." Wokism might be evidence of their self-loathing racism against 'whites,' and against the South East Asian and the Chinese...they certainly seem to have complete contempt for all those folks. Along with sometimes being anti-semitic, as well, as the Democrat "Pack" has shown to be...

But I really can't see "white supremacism" in any of that. Can you help me see it?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 12:40 am

Harbal wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 10:49 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 10:08 pm
But now there's no justice in you being offended by anything anybody says about them. You say you don't even know who's being spoken about.

I am offended by dishonesty, regardless of where it is coming from, or who is intended to be disadvantaged by it.

Nobody is. There is no dishonesty. There can be no dishonest statements about fictional entities, and you insist that "the Left" is a fictional entity.

So you're swatting at shadows.

I'm sorry, IC, but I just can't be around you right now.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 6:25 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 1:45 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 12:38 am
Who are you speaking of? Who are these "supremacist" "whites"?

Wokism is the new white supremasism.

That's an odd claim, unless you mean that it was created by, and is now primarily sponsored by, white liberals...which would be true, but it's hardly proof of their "white supremacism." Wokism might be evidence of their self-loathing racism against 'whites,' and against the South East Asian and the Chinese...they certainly seem to have complete contempt for all those folks. Along with sometimes being anti-semitic, as well, as the Democrat "Pack" has shown to be...

But I really can't see "white supremacism" in any of that. Can you help me see it?

Who is more obsessed with 'race' than wokies? Who bleats ad nauseum that it's a 'great privilege' to be born white? Who decides what 'inclusion' entails ('included' in 'what' exactly?)? Who assumes that 'white' people are the 'default humans' and that it's up to them to 'bestow gifts' on lesser beings because they need 'extra help'? How magnanimous of wokies to kindly give 'lesser mortals' permission to be 'included' in the human race...

Liberals, Leftists, Democrats, Marxists, Peter Kropotkin... none of these are 'funny' anymore.

Wizard22 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 8:43 am Liberals, Leftists, Democrats, Marxists, Peter Kropotkin... none of these are 'funny' anymore.

I don't care if someone is a Liberal, Leftist, Democrat, Marxists or even Peter Kropotkin; if they say something funny, I'll laugh.

You're an idiot, Wizard.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 9:53 amI don't care if someone is a Liberal, Leftist, Democrat, Marxists or even Peter Kropotkin; if they say something funny, I'll laugh.

You're an idiot, Wizard.

I found your dunce cap earlier.

We're going to need a much smaller one...

Wizard22 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 10:13 am

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 9:53 amI don't care if someone is a Liberal, Leftist, Democrat, Marxists or even Peter Kropotkin; if they say something funny, I'll laugh.

You're an idiot, Wizard.

I found your dunce cap earlier.

We're going to need a much smaller one...

There's no getting the better of you, is there, Wizard.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 1:31 am And I can't 'love' a God who supposedly made this world the way it is. Basically, all I'm capable of doing is killing and bringing suffering to other living beings for my own survival.

The Divine is insane. Just look at the human beings, the grasshoppers, the elephants, and the whole cosmos - could a sane mind be capable of all this?

Just thank the totality of nature for only ever happening once. (ONE) ( infinity) can only happen once. Life is given to you only once. What a relief.

Nothing in existence is ever repeated, no two blades of grass are the same. Everything is fresh and unique. Everything is completely brand new in every moment. What a relief.

“Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform.
It is grotesque. ”

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 11:25 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 1:31 am And I can't 'love' a God who supposedly made this world the way it is. Basically, all I'm capable of doing is killing and bringing suffering to other living beings for my own survival.

The Divine is insane. Just look at the human beings, the grasshoppers, the elephants, and the whole cosmos - could a sane mind be capable of all this?

Just thank the totality of nature for only ever happening once. (ONE) ( infinity) can only happen once. Life is given to you only once. What a relief.

Nothing in existence is ever repeated, no two blades of grass are the same. Everything is fresh and unique. Everything is completely brand new in every moment. What a relief.

“Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform.
It is grotesque. ”

If only there were such a thing as "relief". Even once is too many for me. I really like the U. G. Krishnamurti quote at the bottom, though.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 1:06 pm
If only there were such a thing as "relief". Even once is too many for me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The once, meaning ONE lives and dies infinitely for eternity. There is no way out, for no one entered.

That's both a relief and a curse...a relief for some people, but also a curse for some people..in my opinion.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 1:41 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 1:06 pm
If only there were such a thing as "relief". Even once is too many for me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The once, meaning ONE lives and dies infinitely for eternity. There is no way out, for no one entered.

That's both a relief and a curse...a relief for some people, but also a curse for some people..in my opinion.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm just trying in vain to make the best of a bad situation, and afraid of possibly spreading my disease. Others can do what they want as far as I'm concerned. I'll do my best to deal with the results.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 1:49 pm
Yeah. I don't know. I'm just trying in vain to make the best of a bad situation, and afraid of possibly spreading my disease. Others can do what they want as far as I'm concerned. I'll do my best to deal with the results.

All you can do is endure life however it appears to you. For me personally, I turn my attention to 'thoughts' and see that I can focus on the most important thought of all which is what's wrong with right now unless I think about it. ''Thought'' seems to be the enemy here, that's what I discovered. When I'm not engaging or entertaining my thoughts, nothing is happening for me. It's only ''thought'' that says, this is 'my' suffering, or this is 'my' pain. Or this is 'my' disease.



“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” -Aristotle

If you cannot keep your mind peaceful, how can the world be peaceful? The conflicts and violence in the world are just a manifestation of the human mind.

Easier said than done though, I know. A still mind is like a still wind.