Philosophy Now Forum

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 12:14 am
Surely you are not off-base when you describe the base from which you operate. Dishonest? No, that’s not the right term. Your position is far more closed than you are aware of. I would not say you are dishonest but rather recalcitrant. You do not wish to hear (entertain) any ideas that seem unethically counter to those you’re invested in.

My view is that when people operate in closed mental spaces there is no way they will hear what another is actually saying. Is it dishonest to twist statements others make and essentially to rewrite them? I prefer the term underhanded.

When you call for declarations of “explicit positions” what you seem to ask for is for such statements as you make when you reformulate what I have said into what wish me to have said. I have a range of ideas that I entertain and work with intellectually. But I do not have a social program to be installed.

Most of “you” however (an unfortunate generalization) are activists more than philosophers.

I wanted nothing more than to hear what you actually thought were the valid concerns of accepting homosexuality! I certainly wasn't deliberately dishonest in any of my interpretations of what you said. If I got it wrong, well, that's what happens when you make "substantial allusions" to what your concerns are, instead of just saying your concerns.

I can point to quotes of yours to justify my interpretations. Reasonable people who aren't you could read my interpretations, and read your quotes, and say "yeah I can see why you thought that's what he's saying".

Again, you're spending more time complaining about the mistreatment of your ideas instead of clarifying your ideas. If you aren't concerned about lowering birth rates, and you aren't concerned about less committed heterosexual relationships, you know you could just be clarifying what you ARE concerned with.

But if it's more important to you to be a victim than to be specific, I can see why you're focusing on the things you are

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:58 am I wanted nothing more than to hear what you actually thought were the valid concerns of accepting homosexuality!

What intellectual nobility!

I am moved.

This is perhaps the third or forth time I repeat that I think homosexuality must be accepted, as well as other deviating expressions, but should ethically be generally suppressed in the sense of downplayed. They intrude far too much into the public domain. The brash need to display, to be validated, seems always to result from the ultra-liberal tendency to knock down all barriers. In the ‘90s it may have been normalizing homosexuality. But in successive decades, as now, it has advanced to the compulsion to validate, under threat of extreme guilt-slinging, sex change operations in children. Hyper-liberalism and ultra-liberalism have that tendency: there is no boundary. Sculptor, or his analog, will next month attempt to validate child-adult sex and the next phase of the unlimited advance of sex expression. What is the philosophical core that operates here? When it is articulated?

Seeds presents one notorious aspect of that brashness through a common sense argument, and though he must defend his bona fides with his a public virtue-signaling rehearsal, and has a generally unhinged personal philosophy that one gets to by ingesting entheogens, his presentation is sound.

It’s common sense — you know, like what used to be common.

The ‘slippery slope’ (a dull metaphor but the one you used) can be examined when what I’ve just referred to is considered. But ‘you’ (to refer to a generality) are obviously far more interested in transcending any borders in this domain and shoot down any argument in favor of restraint. Thus you represent a common trend operating in the social domain. The base of it is not so much in ideas but in sentiments.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:58 am Again, you're spending more time complaining about the mistreatment of your ideas instead of clarifying your ideas.

When dealing with hyper- and ultra-liberalism one has to spend some time speaking about it in itself. You have to explain the hystericism of a Sculptor or the FlashingDanger as a first effort. One has to speak to intellectual and ideological derangement.

How? It is not easy. It requires sociological backgrounding. One must examine ‘cultural engineering’. Psychological analysis is also needed but of a fair, balanced and careful sort. It is rather a delicate operation.

Not mistreatment though, and not complaining; rather clear enunciation of what, at the core, drives the tendency to validate any border-crossing that hyper-liberalism has in it sights … this week.

Clarifying ideas of the sort I deal in and am familiar with, and in an environment such as this one, and the ideological environment common today, is admittedly a fraught endeavor. What ‘you’ (a generalism) do is to place obstacles in the path of any explanatory effort. The refusal to hear, the underhanded twisting of what is said into what one is not saying, and the accusations (they are always there in the wings these heavy armaments) of Nazism and other demoniac projections. This is how your *argumentation* functions. As I say to deal with you-plural is often to deal with deranged minds.

Even belovèd Seeds, squeakily righteous, falls into this rhetorical trap. There is a ‘higher order’ of intelligences where he resides and from where he pronounces — and there is the realm of the lower order intelligences. Insert here monkey swinging through the branches / KKK associates in bedsheets.

The diagrams of the Righteous are channeled from an Angelic Realm!

I am true to my declared aims: the lens of examination is turned around. You are not the interrogators but rather the subjects of a fair-minded enquiry.

When dealing with hyper- and ultra-liberalism one has to spend some time speaking about it in itself. You have to explain the hystericism of a Sculptor or the FlashingDanger as a first effort. One has to speak to intellectual and ideological derangement.

I think a large part of that can be explained by laziness. It's easier and a lot less work to attack the person than to come up and present rational arguments.

And let's face it, it's effective because people get tired of the attacks and defending themselves and they shut up.

mickthinks wrote: ↑Mon Mar 27, 2023 4:10 pmIt is unlike you to begin constructing an argument and then abandon it part way through, Alexis.

My resourceful wife had just made halvah and my entire thrust was derailed. Cardamom & pistachios have that effect.

Is the purpose of art to push boundaries? Or is that really a modernist ideal?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 11:31 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:58 am Again, you're spending more time complaining about the mistreatment of your ideas instead of clarifying your ideas.

When dealing with hyper- and ultra-liberalism one has to spend some time speaking about it in itself. You have to explain the hystericism of a Sculptor or the FlashingDanger as a first effort. One has to speak to intellectual and ideological derangement.

Next up:

When dealing with hyper- and ultra-conservativism one has to spend some time speaking about it in itself. You have to explain the hystericism of a Alexis Jacobi as a first effort. One has to speak to intellectual and ideological derangement.

And it might pertain to any moral or political issue: human sexuality, race, gender, immigration policy, guns, abortion.

On the other hand, for some here, only when those who are "one of them" -- either hyper- and ultra-liberal or hyper- and ultra-conservative -- does the part about ideological derangement come into play.





Unless, of course, in bringing this all back around to, say, dasein, I'm just "derailing" another thread.

Nice one, Iambiguous. You agree then that derangement is possible. And you are 3/4ths on the way to agreement with my assessment.

The caveat: there is nothing hysterical in anything I write.

Some conservative ideologues do seem inclined to excesses. But who becoes hysterical in your view? the American left and the “Progressive Left” seem genuinely inclined to shrill, emotionalized reaction.

How do you explain FlashDangerPants?!?

Is my perception wrong?

Alexis Jacobi:
Some conservative ideologues do seem inclined to excesses. But who becoes hysterical in your view? the American left and the “Progressive Left” seem genuinely inclined to shrill, emotionalized reaction.

K: and that is your reaction to it... you see.. perceive the left as
being "shrill and emotionalized" and yet, those of us on the left, we
see the right as being the "shrill and emotional ones" and I see you
being "shrill and emotional" and you will disagree... and where exactly
does that leave us? you might say prove it... and no matter how much
''evidence" I put forward, I will never be able to convince you...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:08 pmK: and that is your reaction to it... you see.. perceive the left as being "shrill and emotionalized" and yet, those of us on the left, we see the right as being the "shrill and emotional ones" and I see you being "shrill and emotional" and you will disagree... and where exactly does that leave us? you might say prove it... and no matter how much ''evidence" I put forward, I will never be able to convince you...

No, not reaction. I have studied Left ideology and read extensively on left progressive concerns. I am certain I understand them better than you do. The progressive left position has an intellectual base.

In our present, again speaking generally, the Left and many Progressive concerns are no longer those they traditionally were. Labor, worker dignity, fair recompense, anti-war, anti-corporate (because corporations are anti-democratic).

They have become unhinged.

My perception of these things is not determined by reaction. That’s a false assertion on your part.

Describe to me, or better show me, who on the political right and what genuinely conservative figures are shrill and emotional. What names come to mind?

(I do not believe in strict divisions between a Left and a Right myself. It’s not the right framing for good analysis).

I might agree with you if you present some examples. But note that when I speak of conservative ideas and ideals I am thinking of actual intellectual’s and not TV personalities.

I do not ask to ‘be convinced’ but I am open to hearing who you are referring to.

Presently, I do not have absolutely defined positions or commitments. In some areas, yes, to some degree. In many others not.

and no matter how much ''evidence" I put forward, I will never be able to convince you...

Pfffffft!

A baseless assertion. Convince me of what? In what specific area? Choose one. I don’t perceive you as having evidence. You have tons of opinion and most is sentimentally based.

Peter Kropotkin : and that is your reaction to it... you see.. perceive the left as being "shrill and emotionalized" and yet, those of us on the left, we see the right as being the "shrill and emotional ones" and I see you being "shrill and emotional" and you will disagree... and where exactly does that leave us? you might say prove it... and no matter how much ''evidence" I put forward, I will never be able to convince you...

A: No, not reaction. I have studied Left ideology and read extensively on left progressive concerns. I am certain I understand them better than you do. The progressive left position has an intellectual base.

K: Convinced that you are intellectually superior to me because I am
a liberal and you are a conservative...if only Kropotkin knew what I know,
he would believe as I do..... such a shame about Kropotkin....

A: In our present, again speaking generally, the Left and many Progressive concerns are no longer those they traditionally were. Labor, worker dignity, fair recompense, anti-war, anti-corporate (because corporations are anti-democratic).

K: and why have they changed? ( although one could make the argument
that the left/liberals actually do have roughly the same beliefs that
liberals/left have had for over a century)

A: They have become unhinged.

K: from your completely unbiased and of course superior standpoint...
you might think that....at its heart, the liberal begins with a statement
from the "declaration of independence"...and that one sentence is...

"we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men/people are created equal"

everything the liberal/left holds as true begins from this statement...
and given how you seem to hate the left/liberals, I can believe
you think that holding to the statement that "all men/people are created equal"
as being "unhinged"

A: My perception of these things is not determined by reaction. That’s a false assertion on your part.

K: everything, everything is determined by reaction... the fundamental
principle of physics is action and reaction... you see something and you react..
that is being human.... to see something and not react is not human, a robot
might do that.. are you are robot? I would believe that to be true given some
of your beliefs...

A: Describe to me, or better show me, who on the political right and what genuinely conservative figures are shrill and emotional. What names come to mind?

K: YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING? right, Ron DeSantis attack on trans/
drag queens is nothing but shrill and emotional...calls for the death of
gays/trans people by the right is shrill and emotional...
for example, Robert Foster of Mississippi has called for the
death of transgender people by a firing squad..

another example, a Michael Knowles said and I quote

"for the good of society,.. transgenderism must be eradicated from
public life entirely"

and explain to me how the attack on drag queens and drag shows
is not, is not a shrill and emotional attack on drag queens...
laws are being passed banning both drag shows and drag queens...
and how is that not, not being shrill and emotional?

and the attack on abortion rights is all about being shrill and emotional,
as banning abortions make no sense medically or legally... if we
are to understand that "all men are create equal" for banning abortions
are a direct assault on the rights of women to be in control of their
own bodies...to ban abortion is to take away a women's right to her body...
and how is that not "shrill and emotional?"

A: (I do not believe in strict divisions between a Left and a Right myself. It’s not the right framing for good analysis).

K: but it is the framing/division we have.. what other framing or division do
you suggest?

A: I might agree with you if you present some examples. But note that when I speak of conservative ideas and ideals I am thinking of actual intellectual’s and not TV personalities.
I do not ask to ‘be convinced’ but I am open to hearing who you are referring to.

K: I find that hard to believe as you believe yourself to be smarter and
superior to me....

A: Presently, I do not have absolutely defined positions or commitments. In some areas, yes, to some degree. In many others not.

K: Now you are just lying to me... you are just pretending to be neutral when
in fact it is quite clear you have quite set positions and beliefs...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:06 pm K: Now you are just lying to me... you are just pretending to be neutral when in fact it is quite clear you have quite set positions and beliefs...

I said: Presently, I do not have absolutely defined positions or commitments. In some areas, yes, to some degree. In many others not.

I wonder how it can be that you have a problem reading, and understanding, clear prose? Help me out here, please.

In some areas, yes, to some degree clarifies it.

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:06 pm K: YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING? right, Ron DeSantis attack on trans/ drag queens is nothing but shrill and emotional...calls for the death of gays/trans people by the right is shrill and emotional... for example, Robert Foster of Mississippi has called for the death of transgender people by a firing squad..

another example, a Michael Knowles said and I quote

"For the good of society,.. transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely"

Oh I think you are very mistaken. First, De Santis is comparable to a Liberal of just a few years back. There is very little that is radical at all. Again, the Progressive Left has moved so far to strange extremes that even those who are Centrists now feel alienated. They cannot relate, nor accept, the radicalism of the present. And that radicalism then makes Centrism look like 'ultra-right radicalism'.

I think you would do well to understand that those who are labeled Right-Wing and Extreme Right are really not that at all. The ideas and opinions of those in your own lineage (2 generations back) likely held to ideas and opinions that would be described today as Ultra-rightist.

I also think you are wrong when you define those 'attacks' on trans-sexualism as 'shrill and emotional'. And also consider that this expressed idea: "For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely" is an idea with a sound philosophical and sociological base. I think you are confusing strongly held idea and opinions, backed up with solid and defensible reasoning, with shrill emotionalism.

The idea he (Knowles) expresses would likely be clarified in some longer statement or perhaps an essay. But those who are inclined to shrill emotionalism mis-hear or twist-hear what he has said and rephrase it as a call to 'genocide'.

Do you now understand what hysteria and shrill emotionalism do?

Now, let's take what Robert Foster said:

"Some of y'all still want to try and find political compromise with those that want to groom our school aged children and pretend men are women, etc. I think they need to be lined up against wall before a firing squad to be sent to an early judgment."

What he has made a strong statement about is directed to those who *groom* children. Grooming (of children) for sexual abuse is a real thing. It goes on a lot. And it is pretty hideous when manifest in prostitution rings. Perhaps you are of a different opinion but I think most recognize the grooming of children as 'abuse'.

Now, if an average parent discovered that someone was grooming their child I can assure you their reaction would be justifiable harsh. In former times the pervert would get shot and very few questions would be asked.

But today the 'grooming' of children takes a peculiar form. Taking children to sexually explicit shows, or allowing them to dress up in drag and to receive dollar bills from men (homosexuals I gather) in the bar or club, is presented as 'harmless' or anything else but what it actually is: sexual manipulation and grooming.

So I do not find it hard to empathize with the man's sentiments if grooming is defined as I have defined it. And I have defined it fairly, accurately, and without resorting to shrilly expressed emotionalism. The adamancy of the man's opinions is one thing. It is distinct I think from the shrill emotionalism I describe.

sexual manipulation and grooming.

Let's get down to the brass tacks, the clarification will help you. It is true, as true as rain, that some people regard drag, odd sexual practices, and sexual attitudes or behaviors that are presented to children when they are children, as being AOK. No problem! Not an issue. I see that, I understand that.

But what you will have to face is that there is a wide swath of people who do not accept that, and certainly will not accept you intruding your ideas and your *values* (such as they are) onto their children. These are issues of the Culture Wars certainly, but this has moved to another level. If you cannot register the seriousness that these parents perceive (which I personally also support) I certainly cannot help you and I will not be able to influence you.

From today's NYTs:

The Republican-dominated Kentucky legislature voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to override the governor’s veto of a bill that will create a host of new regulations and restrictions on transgender youth, including banning access to what doctors call gender-affirming health care.

The bill, described by L.G.B.T.Q. rights groups as among the most extreme in the nation, was vetoed on Friday by Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, but it was overridden in both the State House and Senate, where Republicans hold supermajorities.

The bill specifically bans surgeries, puberty blockers and hormone treatments for children under 18, and also rejects any requirements by school districts to refer to transgender children by their preferred pronouns. In addition to the new rules governing transgender youth, the bill also puts new limits on what can be discussed in schools, requiring schools to give notice to parents about any program on the subject of sexuality and stopping lessons at any grade level about gender identity or sexual orientation.

Some additional notes. The term 'shrill' when combined with 'emotional' and 'emotionalism' (in reference to a seemingly pathological (psychologically unhealthy) movement which is sweeping the nation (in America at least) is best understood when examining an example of it.

See here. You will notice that when this slightly emotionally deranged girl lets loose with her shrill screaming that the one she is opposing (I would call it a form of attack) can't do much else but go silent and remain silent. One senses that something is not right. The reaction is out of all proportion. Ironically, this had to do with Halloween costumes! That is, the 'wrong' Halloween costumes.

Shrillness and emotionalism are noted, of course, in the tantrums of children. It is a tool, is it not, used in attempts for the child to get his way. And the use of it is a peculiar employment of power. It seems to me that this issue of power, and also the use of a crowd dynamic, is very nicely illustrated in this embarrassing video. One has to ask the question What is going on here? and it becomes necessary to answer it with sociological, cultural, political but also psychological analysis.

(The other example I have examined is the really really strange phenomena that took place at Evergreen College among the student mob in their opposition to Brett Weinstein.)

I submit these two examples to illustrate my point that the traditional Left with its generally clearly enunciated values has been supplanted by something else which is quite hard to define. I mean, it is hard to define it carefully, fairly and, say, without unnecessary exaggeration. When centrist Leftists and centrist Progressives see what is going on in such shrill and emotional environments, and indeed when that environment turns on them in pack formation, it causes them to think deeply about their political and social affiliations. Take Brett Weinstein as an example. Completely dedicated to Progressive politics and a man who *walked the talk* was forced, as a result of witnessing these pathological displays, to reassess his entire relationship to the (so-called) "woke movement".

And this process of reassessment, and of having to think through what one is aligned with, what one supports and what one does not support, is on-going today among many people with a formerly committed relationship to 'progressive values'.

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:06 pm K: Convinced that you are intellectually superior to me because I am a liberal and you are a conservative...if only Kropotkin knew what I know, he would believe as I do..... such a shame about Kropotkin....

I have only read so much of what you write. I enjoy and to a degree admire that you bring out all sorts of different questions in a shotgun style, but if I had to make a basic assessment I'd use the term scatterbrained. You are all over the place and seem to have a hard time keeping to one topic until it is settled or perhaps resolved.

I said that I have a strong sense that I am better informed about the Left and progressive politics generally, so I would ask you Why did you assume that this meant 'intellectual superiority'? To be intellectually superior is generally taken to mean smarter, isn't it? But that is not what I was talking about. I was talking about how we are informed. It's a very different thing.

I would also say that you are not really a liberally-minded person, nor are you (I gather this from what you write but I cannot be certain) a Liberal in the accurate sense of that word. Or to put it another way I sense (though I may be wrong) that you are coming under the influence of a current that I call *hyper-liberal*. But real Liberalism? I don't get that impression. (I would turn to Isaiah Berlin for a solid definition of Liberalism. Are you that sort of Liberal?)

So then what is the issue? That is, what are the issues and what really is going on in the present Culture Wars and the different *camps* that are being set up? I do not think this is an easy puzzle to solve, not by a long shot.

if only Kropotkin knew what I know, he would believe as I do..... such a shame about Kropotkin....

Well, what I find interesting here is that you seem to propose that there is a knowledge-base or some set of understood definitions and values to which you are aligned. Or that in any case that you believe that we should all be aligned with them, isn't that right?

However, you *interpreted* what I did write (as often happens here) in such a way that you have, effectively, rewritten it. I did not say what you say that I say.

What is this tendency to mishear? to misinterpret? to *hear badly* and then to rephrase in an underhanded manner? Can you give me some insight? Do you recognize that you did this?

What do you think?