Philosophy Now Forum

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 1:46 am

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 12:19 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 9:24 pm …

Might interest you.

...In my youth, America was far closer to civil war than it is now, and far more divided than it is now.

Alexiev, when was that?
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Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 1:46 am I watched about 5 minutes. I agree that identity politics are silly and counter productive. But civil war is unlikely. In my youth, America was far closer to civil war than it is now, and far more divided than it is now. Also, the "identity politics" in the time of our actual civil war were far more dramatic.

England is in a very different position, or stage, than is the US. I have a feeling that England definitely, and other European countries very likely, are truthfully moving in the direction outlined by that researcher.

My impression? Those of your generation, who believe nearly religiously in that Sixties idealism, tend to have your heads in the sand.

Also, the "identity politics" in the time of our actual civil war were far more dramatic.

I don’t see it. I spent some time examining America’s civil war and I can’t see it as a war based in identity politics. What do you mean?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 7:41 pm Fair enough. You do understand, though, a great many Americans are not married to Right & Left distinctions, yes? Theirs is an American sensibility which I've described in-forum as distinctly libertarian (lower case, non-political, non-ideological), a mind your own business, keep your hands to yourself...or else frame of mind.

I see your point. I agree mostly. What you describe is what my outlook has always been.

seeds wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 2:13 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 1:46 am

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 12:19 am
Might interest you.

...In my youth, America was far closer to civil war than it is now, and far more divided than it is now.

Alexiev, when was that?
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The 1970s. I wasn't quite old enough to be drafted -- by the time my student deferment ended the draft and the war was over. But in the late 1960s and early 70s America was very divided.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 7:41 pm
Fair enough. You do understand, though, a great many Americans are not married to Right & Left distinctions, yes? Theirs is an American sensibility which I've described in-forum as distinctly libertarian (lower case, non-political, non-ideological), a mind your own business, keep your hands to yourself...or else frame of mind.

That may be for some Americans but that's not how America itself operates. Perhaps the West has learned a lesson: never trust or believe any promises made by Americans again.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 3:56 am

seeds wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 2:13 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 1:46 am ...In my youth, America was far closer to civil war than it is now, and far more divided than it is now.

Alexiev, when was that?
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The 1970s. I wasn't quite old enough to be drafted -- by the time my student deferment ended the draft and the war was over. But in the late 1960s and early 70s America was very divided.

Yeah, that's the era I assumed you were referring to.

I too was of college age at that time (freshman at Eastern Michigan University in '67).

I and my family lived in a suburb of Detroit Michigan, and I remember being home (just a few miles away) from the '67 Detroit race riots.

My point is that there's no way we were far closer to civil war at that time than we are now, for at that time, the civil unrest was mostly focused on African Americans (and the Vietnam War) and wasn't nearly as broad as it is now.

In other words, America's bigots weren't that concerned with Mexicans, or Muslims, or other types of immigrants, nor was there much (if any) conflict and concern over sexual or gender issues (which were still mainly closeted).

But, most of all, the political divides were nowhere near as polarized then as they are now, especially with the freakin' Antichrist in the Oval Office stoking the flames of hatred and division.
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seeds wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 4:46 am But, most of all, the political divides were nowhere near as polarized then as they are now, especially with the freakin' Antichrist in the Oval Office stoking the flames of hatred and division.

A long trajectory of events, and an entire causal chain, evoked as it were the manifestation of Donald Trump. You could say he is a manifestation from within the psyche of America. And that is a confused psyche and even a sick psyche.

The “flames of division and hatred” were, in truth, stoked by the presidency of Obama. The origin of “anti-whiteness” for example and an activist’s program for the redefinition of America.

A real conversation about what is happening and why would be intensely interesting and certainly worthwhile. Sad though that there is no one available who can see beyond the tip of their nose or that has any genuine interest in honest analysis.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 1:46 am

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 12:19 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 9:24 pm …

Might interest you.

I watched about 5 minutes. I agree that identity politics are silly and counter productive. But civil war is unlikely. In my youth, America was far closer to civil war than it is now, and far more divided than it is now. Also, the "identity politics" in the time of our actual civil war were far more dramatic.

Cultural diversity promotes creativity and change. I was in Toronto on business 20 or so years ago on the day Quebec almost voted to cecede. Driving my airport cab driver was a Pakistani immigrant. "Ah, it is the weeping time for the Canada," he told me. Could a native Englush speaker have been more eloquent? The francophones were worried that their language would evolve and become corrupt. So what? Why is that a bad thing? Why do we want to preserve Western culture unchanged? Perhaps foreign influences can be positive.

"Evolve" or evaporate or erase?

If you look at Europe, there used to be more diversity. There were 'local' customs, dress, music, dance, language. Much of that has been lost. It took effort and intention to preserve what little remains.

The forces at work do not promote diversity, they promote a uniform consumerism. Uniformity is more profitable than diversity because the market is bigger.

One should not passively accept this as an inevitable evolution.

Ah but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about importing diversity from elsewhere. Because foreign diversity is better than local diversity??

The biggest concern is that this imported diversity is completely at odds with the local ... attitudes about religion, attitudes about women, attitudes about democracy, attitudes about science.

There is a potential for conflict and loss for the West.

What are the positives?

ᛟ

That is the “odal” rune.

Othala (ᛟ), also known as ēðel and odal, is a rune that represents the o and œ phonemes in the Elder Futhark and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc writing systems respectively. Its name is derived from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic *ōþala- "heritage; inheritance, inherited estate". As it does not occur in Younger Futhark, it disappears from the Scandinavian record around the 8th century, but its usage continued in England into the 11th century, where it was sometimes further used in manuscripts as a shorthand for the word ēðel ("homeland"), similarly to how other runes were sometimes used at the time.

I suggest understanding a very real and a consequential shift in perspective and outlook that is what “stands behind” what is termed identitarianism and therefore “identity politics”.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 11:31 am

seeds wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 4:46 am But, most of all, the political divides were nowhere near as polarized then as they are now, especially with the freakin' Antichrist in the Oval Office stoking the flames of hatred and division.

A long trajectory of events, and an entire causal chain, evoked as it were the manifestation of Donald Trump. You could say he is a manifestation from within the psyche of America. And that is a confused psyche and even a sick psyche.

The “flames of division and hatred” were, in truth, stoked by the presidency of Obama. The origin of “anti-whiteness” for example and an activist’s program for the redefinition of America.

A real conversation about what is happening and why would be intensely interesting and certainly worthwhile. Sad though that there is no one available who can see beyond the tip of their nose or that has any genuine interest in honest analysis.

Whatever Obama did, his presidency couldn't have had an impact this big. The main cause of the chaos in the US ahs to be 9/11 which was staged. Ther US government killed 3000 of its own people, lied to hundreds of millions, and the whole world.

When we examine the thinking and perspective of Alexiev and Seeds, we discover at the core a deeply internalized universalism. It is impossible for these men to think, see or feel in terms that give validity to anything identitarian.

This is the universal attitude that is part-and-parcel of America’s ‘civil religion’ and it is expressed though all aspects of Americanism as that Americanism became the expansionist, deeply moralized, expression of “what is right and good” for the world.

Along with this — perversely! — is the normalization of the “globo-homo” ethos.

To understand the rebellion and reaction of the present (in Europe and America) one must become familiar with those ideologues that define anti-liberal positions which resist this spirit of universalism.

One quote from a talk by Jonathan Bowden is interesting because it calls for a metaphysical redefinition:

“Belief [metaphysical, religious belief] is an understanding that there are truths outside nature and outside the contingent universe that's in front of us that are absolute. The left-wing view that it's all relative or we make it up as we go along, is false. And the the more primordial we are, the more we live in accordance with what we might become, the more we link with those concepts which are eternal and that exist outside us.”

Atla wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 7:14 pmthe clear majority of Americans support Ukraine over Russia

No. Overwhelmingly, Americans support the Ukrainian people (as they do the Russian people). As I say, the nation (the people) is not synonymous with the State.

Trump should have paid attention to them.

Seems to me, by seekin' sumthin' other than war or total surrender for Ukrainians, he has demonstrated he did.

The folks he's ignorin' (as he can) are those in and out of America who profit from the conflict (that being iterations of the State, its agents, and corporate interests).

You make them sound like infiltrators with a shared purpose.

They do share a purpose: to remake hosts countries.

to say that they are willingly raising non-Europeans is nonsense.

That is what seems to be what's happening.

Trying to use Trump to get rid of the Western establishment

I didn't say, or hint at, that.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Mar 09, 2025 7:30 pm

France's support had way more to do with its hatred of Britain than any love for proto-America.

Atla wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 2:06 pm You should know that whatever Obama did, his presidency couldn't have had an impact this big. Keep digging.

You deliberately — or is it unconscious? — desire to twist what I suggest. I point out that behind Obama’s public TeeVee face, that another “face” operated. His activism, whether understood as good or bad, set many currents in motion. And in a certain sense his activism evoked Donald Trump.

Atla wrote: ↑Mon Mar 10, 2025 2:06 pm Whatever Obama did, his presidency couldn't have had an impact this big. The main cause of the chaos in the US has to be 9/11 which was staged. The US government killed 3000 of its own people, lied to hundreds of millions, and the whole world.

Hoo boy! Atla I knew the “true you” would jump out at some point!

Next are you gonna reveal that it was a Mossad op?