Philosophy Now Forum

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pm Esteemed Iambiguous, there is not much to be gained from responding to you.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmWhat you have done, the content you have responded with, is nothing more than a repeat (cut'n'paste) of what you always say and what you will always say.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmBut I think your purpose, as you state it, is important to emphasize: You will either be converted by those who 'prove' to you that set of things yo require to be proved; or you will go down ever further into what you describe as a *pit*: that place where you reside intellectually and perceptually. Meaning that you will never be convinced and will remain exactly where you are!

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmMy desire is that you remain in that pit and that you go ever more down into it.

And, again, being down in the "pit" is not without its compensations. For one thing, in eschewing moral and political objectivism, your options increase considerably. In other words, unlike with objectivists of AJ's ilk, you don't always have to behave solely in accordance with your own arrogant, autocratic and authoritarian dogmas. AJ no doubt has his own rendition of "what would Jesus do"? He is always obligated to behave as one must in order to be deemed rational and virtuous by those who might judge him as less so.

Think Ayn Rand and those around her who ever feared that they might say or do something not wholly in sync The Master. Same with AJ. He will always be judged by those like him so as not to be accused of being "one of them".

That's why I was interested in him taking on Satyr. Yes, they seem to share the same views regarding things like race and ethnicity and gender and homosexuality and Jews.

But what if they don't? What if AJ is not nearly as fierce and fanatical in regard to those things as The Master there??

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmHowever, in contradistinction to you, and though I can see some benefit from objectifying a non-objective and ever-slippery ethical and moral stance (which is how I interpret you), it is obvious to me that you will never be able to arrive at any sort of conviction. Therefore, your influence will always be as it essentially is: to act as an acid against any objective decisiveness.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pm There are some further points. I do not think you have read what I have written very well. Your reading, it seems to me, is contaminated by your numerous a prioris and substantial prejudices. That is one thing. The other thing is that I do not think you are sufficiently informed (as informed as you could be) about the issues that I wrote about. You keep reverting to a testing or a challenging of my views of homosexuality and cross-dressing (drag queens) but I do not focus on that. Homosexuality, and by extension transvestitism and other 'deviancies' do exist and they will (I surmise) always exist. So as I directly and unequivocally say: they must be accepted.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmBut that is not the issue. The issue is something that you, and those who come here to a forum like this to read and learn (about other perspectives, other realms of consideration, and much else), must investigate under your own steam. I do not have the time or the inclination to *convince* you of anything. And indeed I have no problem a) that you remain exactly where you choose to be, and b) am even willing to help you dig yourself more deeply into it. But here is the thing (as I see it): You are destined to go to your grave, as indeed Kropotkin is, carrying with you exactly the negating perspective that you are invested in. And that for which you can see (discover, realize) no way out of. But instead of believing that you are *determined* to have the views that you do have I say that you are actively choosing them and in that sense creating them.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmYou say [my paraphrase] "If I had been raised in some other circumstance or time I'd see, think and believe differently". Meaning that you'd have been determined differently. But with the set of ideas you present to me, and by extension to all who read you, you are simply saying "My present perspectives are determined". It is something to look into in any case.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmIf you wish to create arguments that validate a no-moral and no-ethics position in any of these realms, you are entirely free to do so. If you wish to invalidate any moral and ethical perspective (objective perspectives is your term) because you cannot see how these can be validated objectively, that you are also free to do. It is not that I do not recognize the philosophical problem of universal objectification though.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmSo, you ask "What would you do if you had the power to influence culture". What I would do is exactly what I am doing: encourage discussion of the questions and the problems. Specifically, I would encourage communities of concerned people (parents) to become active in insisting that state actors cease presenting this sort of material in schools. It is a question not only of cultural mores but of law. Just as people may become influenced by progressive/perverse sexual attitudes, similarly they may recoil from such permissiveness or unconcern (or perversion) when they notice (and if they notice) destructive results in our social life, community life, even national life.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:22 pm I'm talking, in the present, to a particular person who has lived a particular life. What do I care about some imagined alternate life?

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:22 pmSure, if Biggus was raised by Nazis then Biggus might be a Nazi supporter.

But Biggus was not raised by Nazis.

So Biggus ought to respond based on his current situation.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:16 pmYou proceed to pummel us with yet another of your legendary "wall of words"...sermons?

Your task is to demonstrate that AJ himself never makes the same arguments over and over and over. Point out for us all of the instances in which he notes something here that never once has he posted before.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:30 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:22 pm So Biggus ought to respond based on his current situation.

But saying that makes you an objectivist Nazi ...

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pm Esteemed Iambiguous, there is not much to be gained from responding to you.

Right.

So, what do you do?

You proceed to pummel us with yet another of your legendary "wall of words"...sermons?

Or are you just another run-of-the-mill pedant?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmWhat you have done, the content you have responded with, is nothing more than a repeat (cut'n'paste) of what you always say and what you will always say.

Note to others:

Your task is to demonstrate that AJ himself never makes the same arguments over and over and over. Point out for us all of the instances in which he notes something here that never once has he posted before.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmBut I think your purpose, as you state it, is important to emphasize: You will either be converted by those who 'prove' to you that set of things yo require to be proved; or you will go down ever further into what you describe as a *pit*: that place where you reside intellectually and perceptually. Meaning that you will never be convinced and will remain exactly where you are!

That's how it works here. Either one believes that their own argument regarding drag queens and homosexuality is the optimal, most rational and moral assessment, or they are willing to concede that those on both sides of the issue are able to make reasonable points; and then find themselves drawn and quartered...unable to conclude deontologically what all rational men and women are obligated to think and feel about them. Fractured and fragmented as I call it.

Also, either one believes that, in using the technical tools of philosophy, one is able to arrive deontologically at a set of behaviors pertaining to drag queens and homosexuality that in fact all rational men and women are obligated to emulate, or they suggest instead that, in a No God world, philosophers and ethicists are unable to agree on the "wisest" course of action when confronting them. That our own personal value judgments here are "for all practical purposes" rooted historically and culturally and existentially out in particular worlds understood in particular ways. And given a world that, re the Benjamin Button Syndrome, is awash in contingency, chance and change. We never really know what new experiences, relationships, information, knowledge, etc. we might encounter around that proverbial next corner.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmMy desire is that you remain in that pit and that you go ever more down into it.

Okay, but then this part:

And, again, being down in the "pit" is not without its compensations. For one thing, in eschewing moral and political objectivism, your options increase considerably. In other words, unlike with objectivists of AJ's ilk, you don't always have to behave solely in accordance with your own arrogant, autocratic and authoritarian dogmas. AJ no doubt has his own rendition of "what would Jesus do"? He is always obligated to behave as one must in order to be deemed rational and virtuous by those who might judge him as less so.

Think Ayn Rand and those around her who ever feared that they might say or do something not wholly in sync The Master. Same with AJ. He will always be judged by those like him so as not to be accused of being "one of them".

That's why I was interested in him taking on Satyr. Yes, they seem to share the same views regarding things like race and ethnicity and gender and homosexuality and Jews.

But what if they don't? What if AJ is not nearly as fierce and fanatical in regard to those things as The Master there??

Then [of course] straight back up into the intellectual bullshit clouds...

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmHowever, in contradistinction to you, and though I can see some benefit from objectifying a non-objective and ever-slippery ethical and moral stance (which is how I interpret you), it is obvious to me that you will never be able to arrive at any sort of conviction. Therefore, your influence will always be as it essentially is: to act as an acid against any objective decisiveness.

Again, what I am most curious about regarding you and homosexuality revolves around exploring what embodying "objective decisiveness" means to you in regard to things like gay marriage and drag queens and transgenders. What behaviors would be tolerated/permitted in your own "best of all possible communities"? As opposed to the Nazis and those like Satyr.

Bringing this all down out of the didactic clouds.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pm There are some further points. I do not think you have read what I have written very well. Your reading, it seems to me, is contaminated by your numerous a prioris and substantial prejudices. That is one thing. The other thing is that I do not think you are sufficiently informed (as informed as you could be) about the issues that I wrote about. You keep reverting to a testing or a challenging of my views of homosexuality and cross-dressing (drag queens) but I do not focus on that. Homosexuality, and by extension transvestitism and other 'deviancies' do exist and they will (I surmise) always exist. So as I directly and unequivocally say: they must be accepted.

Note to Satyr and any Nazis here:

Would they be "accepted" in your own most rational and virtuous communities?

Then back to your "issue":

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmBut that is not the issue. The issue is something that you, and those who come here to a forum like this to read and learn (about other perspectives, other realms of consideration, and much else), must investigate under your own steam. I do not have the time or the inclination to *convince* you of anything. And indeed I have no problem a) that you remain exactly where you choose to be, and b) am even willing to help you dig yourself more deeply into it. But here is the thing (as I see it): You are destined to go to your grave, as indeed Kropotkin is, carrying with you exactly the negating perspective that you are invested in. And that for which you can see (discover, realize) no way out of. But instead of believing that you are *determined* to have the views that you do have I say that you are actively choosing them and in that sense creating them.

Right. And absolutely none of this is applicable to you. Why? Well, I have yet to learn that what your reactionary ilk believe -- consider -- about race and gender and homosexuality and everything else under the sun, is simply as rational as any "serious philosopher" can possibly be.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmYou say [my paraphrase] "If I had been raised in some other circumstance or time I'd see, think and believe differently". Meaning that you'd have been determined differently. But with the set of ideas you present to me, and by extension to all who read you, you are simply saying "My present perspectives are determined". It is something to look into in any case.

No, what I suggest in regard to value judgments at the existential intersection of identity, conflicitng goods and political economy is that the ideas I explore in the OPs of these threads...

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

...would be best explored by watching these two films:

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... a#p2366489

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... y#p2476698

These movies explore existentially how dasein as "I" understand it "here and now" subjectively functions in our lives given truly dramatic contexts.

As far as homosexuality and children are concerned it depends on what any particular state or school or teacher has done in advocating one frame of mind rather than another. Note more examples of what disturbs you. If children are taught that gay marriages are now permitted in their community what would you advocate regarding this? Would you opt for tolerance here or not?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmIf you wish to create arguments that validate a no-moral and no-ethics position in any of these realms, you are entirely free to do so. If you wish to invalidate any moral and ethical perspective (objective perspectives is your term) because you cannot see how these can be validated objectively, that you are also free to do. It is not that I do not recognize the philosophical problem of universal objectification though.

Again, that's you putting words in my mouth. I don't argue for no morality. How preposterous is that? That's basically a "might makes right" frame of mind. Instead, I argue for "moderation, negotiation and compromise" -- democracy and the rule of law -- pertaining to things like homosexuality. Laws, in other words, that take into account the values of those on both sides of the issue.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:57 pmSo, you ask "What would you do if you had the power to influence culture". What I would do is exactly what I am doing: encourage discussion of the questions and the problems. Specifically, I would encourage communities of concerned people (parents) to become active in insisting that state actors cease presenting this sort of material in schools. It is a question not only of cultural mores but of law. Just as people may become influenced by progressive/perverse sexual attitudes, similarly they may recoil from such permissiveness or unconcern (or perversion) when they notice (and if they notice) destructive results in our social life, community life, even national life.

Okay, then you personally wouldn't go further...all the way to, say, the Satyrs and the Nazis of this world? Homosexuality would not be taught to children as something that is irrational and immoral in your community's schools? Going to drag shows would be seen as neither necessarily good nor bad...but as something liked or not liked by each of us as individuals?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:42 pm Iambiguous, I am curious about your continual use of the "we" when you should be using an "I". Are you the elected spokes-nihilist for the group? When you have a comment or some sort of "question" is it you asking the question or is it the group?

Why do you make it the group's task to point out anything in particular? Look, I luv a good grandstanding manoeuvre but really, c'mon man!

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 6:07 pm The topic of Mass Formation has been circulating widely. Also described as mass formation psychosis.

It may be wise to think about it in respect to social psychology especially in the United States.

Brett Weinstein would certainly be interested in the phenomenon given his experiences with mob psychology at Evergreen College.

[If at least one or two of the most notorious nut jobs who rant on this forum would please come forward here to recount how they first fell into madness it would be helpful. Did vitamins help? And did excessive masturbation lead to the first episodes?]

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:40 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:22 pm I'm talking, in the present, to a particular person who has lived a particular life. What do I care about some imagined alternate life?

Fine, think that way.

But most of us can recall instances in our past where, had that happened instead of this, our lives might have been very different. The only reason it has to be imagined is because this instead of that happened.

For me it always comes back to being born on March 23rd. Why? Because in being born on that day I was eligible for the draft. Had I been born on March 22nd or March 24th I might never have been drafted at all.

And being drafted changed everything. That resulted in my being sent to Vietnam and meeting soldiers there that completely upended my own value judgments. I went over there a devout Christian, a political conservative, a born in the belly of the white working class racist, a gross sexist and fiercely opposed to all "faggotry". I came back an atheist and an Marxist-Leninist.

That's how dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome works. And they work that way in both the either/or and the is/ought world.

Or, as I was just noting to AJ above, if you want to grasp how I construe the meaning of dasein given the existential parameters of actual lived lives, watch these two films:

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... a#p2366489

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... y#p2476698

Then come back and explain why that could never happen to you. You'd always have the capacity to grasp objectively the most rational and virtuous point of view regarding things like homosexuality.

I mean, here's a guy who tells Jane that whether her mother had free will or not makes absolutely no difference.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:16 pmAgain, what I am most curious about regarding you and homosexuality revolves around exploring what embodying "objective decisiveness" means to you in regard to things like gay marriage and drag queens and transgenders. What behaviors would be tolerated/permitted in your own "best of all possible communities"? As opposed to the Nazis and those like Satyr.

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:18 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:40 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:22 pm I'm talking, in the present, to a particular person who has lived a particular life. What do I care about some imagined alternate life?

Fine, think that way.

But most of us can recall instances in our past where, had that happened instead of this, our lives might have been very different. The only reason it has to be imagined is because this instead of that happened.

For me it always comes back to being born on March 23rd. Why? Because in being born on that day I was eligible for the draft. Had I been born on March 22nd or March 24th I might never have been drafted at all.

And being drafted changed everything. That resulted in my being sent to Vietnam and meeting soldiers there that completely upended my own value judgments. I went over there a devout Christian, a political conservative, a born in the belly of the white working class racist, a gross sexist and fiercely opposed to all "faggotry". I came back an atheist and an Marxist-Leninist.

That's how dasein and the Benjamin Button Syndrome works. And they work that way in both the either/or and the is/ought world.

Or, as I was just noting to AJ above, if you want to grasp how I construe the meaning of dasein given the existential parameters of actual lived lives, watch these two films:

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... a#p2366489

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... y#p2476698

Then come back and explain why that could never happen to you. You'd always have the capacity to grasp objectively the most rational and virtuous point of view regarding things like homosexuality.

It's like he has never read a single word that I have written.

Totally talking to some figment of his imagination.

I mean, here's a guy who tells Jane that whether her mother had free will or not makes absolutely no difference.

If I'm talking to Jane, then that means she's alive and yeah, free-will or determinism made no difference.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:18 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:16 pmAgain, what I am most curious about regarding you and homosexuality revolves around exploring what embodying "objective decisiveness" means to you in regard to things like gay marriage and drag queens and transgenders. What behaviors would be tolerated/permitted in your own "best of all possible communities"? As opposed to the Nazis and those like Satyr.

You are a tiresome chap. Whew! You keep going over and over the same stuff. This is why I say *you are stuck in a loop*. I will offer my final comment here.

In regard to the important issues of our day, and in our culture, I do not have the power to make autocratic decisions nor do you. We are members of a society that has a republican/democratic governing system. Therefore, if I am opposed to the State sponsoring sexual content in schools through for example explicit sexual material in school libraries, or presentations in school rooms, the only way that I could work toward attaining me desired end is through persuasive power and political activism

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:18 pmAnd this is exactly why I make a suggestion, not a command: I say that homosexuality should be, and indeed must be, accepted.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:18 pmBut I also say that it is best if heterosexual, child-producing union be granted a higher status than a non-productive relationship. When I say 'granted' such a status I mean granted by conviction. My conviction, your conviction.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:18 pmTake for example the issue of gay marriage. Not too long ago it was not popular. It was, perhaps, 'engineered' to be popular through a range of means. Since that is so it could come about that social attitude toward it change. Unlikely but not impossible. If it were to change it would change because people's ideas and attitudes toward it changed. I refer here to attitude change and gay marriage is only an example.

Similarly, if society were to become *more conservative* in social attitudes, which I certainly recommend for sound reasons, it would only come about because people realized, at an internal level, that excessive liberalism in the sexual domain had negative effects. Do you capture the simple ideas I am expressing here?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:18 pmBut since I am not an activist I work in the realm of ideas. As I am expressing here.

Objective decisiveness means, obviously, arriving at a solid expression of an idea. It means becoming decided in respect to an objective issue.

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:33 pm You got nothing to say.