Philosophy Now Forum

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jul 16, 2025 11:54 pm
Your comments were non sequitur.

Nonsense. You answered "What is obscene" by writing "poverty". I've offered two examples of poverty that don't seem obscene to me.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 12:04 am

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jul 16, 2025 11:54 pm
Your comments were non sequitur.

Nonsense. You answered "What is obscene" by writing "poverty". I've offered two examples of poverty that don't seem obscene to me.

Poverty . is . obscene

Poverty is situational, meaning your context is not life or spiritually sustaining, so yes, whatever the measure of poverty is, it is obscene.

Men riding naked on bicycles.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 10:41 am Poverty is situational, meaning your context is not life or spiritually sustaining, so yes, whatever the measure of poverty is, it is obscene.

Poverty is a state of mind. A wealthy man who haggles over a few bucks with John Doe, dba Optimistic Contractor, has an impoverished spirit.

Impoverishing the spirit is the obscenity, and that can sure happen when haggling around the kitchen table about who gets how many grains of rice.

The physics (natural progression of a process) behind renunciation is to place attention upon the spirit rather than upon counting grains of rice, in order to free awareness from the mundane with the very real lesson that we are not the body exclusively.

The question is, can renunciation be effective only after one has experienced wealth, or at least experienced comfort without conflict, and experienced the spiritual emptiness of ... stuff? After all, Buddha was a prince before he became a renunciate ... and he realized that renunciation is also a delusion imposed by ego, but effective for transcending attachment.

accelafine wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 12:08 pm Men riding naked on bicycles.

Women riding naked on bicycles is kinda hot, although probably not too practical.

Guys hanging around the bike rack for a scratch and sniff on the leather would be obscene,
and moreso if wearing a dress and prancing about.

The Voice of Time wrote: ↑Sat Apr 20, 2013 1:31 am While I find dirty talk mostly silly, I saw an episode of a Norwegian TV-show where among things there was dirty talk like "take your underwear off you filthy whore!", now, how many times is it appropriate to call somebody "filthy whore?", however, both in sex, in movies, and in music it could be something desirable for a variety of reasons.

You've introduced a new issue, is obscenity objective across cultures? I think not. I think culture/language matters.

I'm old enough to have listened to the angry exchange in the UN between Stevenson and Zorin during the Cuba missile crisis of 1962 and marveled at how spectacularly good the Russian to English translator. In real time, deleting the obscenity from Zorin's Russian and replacing Stevenson's icy "gentlemanly insult" with appropriate obscenity. The point being that in Russian, a certain amount of obscenity required to express angry speech.

So we had best specify the culture. I haven't a clue about Norske culture/language

Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 2:07 pm

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 10:41 am Poverty is situational, meaning your context is not life or spiritually sustaining, so yes, whatever the measure of poverty is, it is obscene.

Poverty is a state of mind. A wealthy man who haggles over a few bucks with John Doe, dba Optimistic Contractor, has an impoverished spirit.
Impoverishing the spirit is the obscenity, and that can sure happen when haggling around the kitchen table about who gets how many grains of rice.
The physics (natural progression of a process) behind renunciation is to place attention upon the spirit rather than upon counting grains of rice, in order to free awareness from the mundane with the very real lesson that we are not the body exclusively.
The question is, can renunciation be effective only after one has experienced wealth, or at least experienced comfort without conflict, and experienced the spiritual emptiness of ... stuff? After all, Buddha was a prince before he became a renunciate ... and he realized that renunciation is also a delusion imposed by ego, but effective for transcending attachment.

There is some truth to what you say, many men think they are in poverty relative to those who have more, but poverty proper is poverty that denies basic substance, read the necessities of life and well-being. Organism/humans are the measure and the meaning of all things, as subjective experience. Poverty is when one does not have the basics of survival and well-being. There is a difference between need and want, and semantics can play hell with it to no end, to no avail. Poverty is stark and measured by differing qualities, material, spiritual, emotional probably a few more. Poverty is the experience of deprivation necessary for healthy living.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 3:46 am

By that standard of healthy living, most of mankind's history is impoverishment.

Invention is the mother of necessity.

Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 2:23 pm

accelafine wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 12:08 pm Men riding naked on bicycles.

Women riding naked on bicycles is kinda hot, although probably not too practical.

Guys hanging around the bike rack for a scratch and sniff on the leather would be obscene,
and moreso if wearing a dress and prancing about.

There again Sir Mortimer Wheeler said that the reason we like full bodied French reds is because they smell like ladies bicycle seats.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 3:32 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 2:23 pm

accelafine wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 12:08 pm Men riding naked on bicycles.

Women riding naked on bicycles is kinda hot, although probably not too practical.

Guys hanging around the bike rack for a scratch and sniff on the leather would be obscene,
and moreso if wearing a dress and prancing about.

There again Sir Mortimer Wheeler said that the reason we like full bodied French reds is because they smell like ladies bicycle seats.

They* say that’s the cologne fragrance women prefer on men, minus the leather. (biological reaction)


* Women

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 4:18 pm

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 3:32 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 2:23 pm
Women riding naked on bicycles is kinda hot, although probably not too practical.

Guys hanging around the bike rack for a scratch and sniff on the leather would be obscene,
and moreso if wearing a dress and prancing about.

There again Sir Mortimer Wheeler said that the reason we like full bodied French reds is because they smell like ladies bicycle seats.

They* say that’s the cologne fragrance women prefer on men, minus the leather. (biological reaction)


* Women

I'm Martine the bearded lady at weekends. Too darn hot for the tight leather bindings!

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 4:27 pm I'm Martine the bearded lady at weekends. Too darn hot for the tight leather bindings!

Leather is cultural.

Scent is primordial, it triggers surprising memories.

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 9:21 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 3:46 am

By that standard of healthy living, most of mankind's history is impoverishment.

Invention is the mother of necessity.

Much of human history for individuals of their time life was a deprivation, a wretched existence, brutal and short. To an objective observer, this would indeed be obscene.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 6:00 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 9:21 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 3:46 am

By that standard of healthy living, most of mankind's history is impoverishment.

Invention is the mother of necessity.

Much of human history for individuals of their time life was a deprivation, a wretched existence, brutal and short. To an objective observer, this would indeed be obscene.

Why take a perfectly good word ("obscene") and change it into a generality meaning "a bad thing". Wretched existences are not "obscene". Nor were lives that were brutal and short obscene.

Obscene: (of the portrayal or description of sexual matters) offensive or disgusting by accepted standards of morality and decency:
"obscene jokes" · "obscene literature"
offensive to moral principles; repugnant:

"Der tod est gros," write Rilke. Death is huge. But it is not "obscene". Nor were human lives wretched through most of human history -- only since the advent of civilization and slavery. Hunters and gatherers lived good lives -- longer and healthier than civilized agriculturalists (until the last couple of hundred years).

Are the lives of hunters and gatherers "offensive to moral principles"? Are they "disgusting to accepted standards of decency"? Wouldn't saying that they are constitute a bigotry toward other cultures?

A recent thread about "heroism" devolved into the same kind of general piffle. "Heroes" are not only brave and "heroic", but must also be morally acceptable: Achilles and Odysseus don't qualify. Because popeye wouldn't want to live as a hunter and gatherer (because of the danger involved), these cultures are "obscene". What nonsense! WE don't need to find everything to which we object "obscene". Death is objectionable, but it is not "obscene".