Philosophy Now Forum

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:Get with the program, girl!

You mean YOUR program?

Uh, no, I think I've made it clear that I'm not interested in anything as unconscious and self-promoting as that.

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:Your 'questions' were not real questions. They were all statements. In that game one is presented questions that appear so very reasonable, but by interacting with them, there is only losing.

I don't see how you would "lose" by explaining how they were NOT representative of what you think. I think you would only "lose" by admitting that they DO represent how you think. So perhaps that's why it appears to you that you could only lose.

I have a different plan, overall, to proceed into this most interesting territory of examining (if I may be so pretentious) our 'base predicates'. Again, I am writing on an iPad with no keyboard (which may be a blessing insofar as my posts are shorter).

Patience, Lacewing, patience.

Conflict, contempt and enmity can be amazingly fun if we just allow it to be so without getting all life-and-death about it.

(This must not be taken to mean that the bourgeois Occident will be spared a just beheading by God's ISIS enactors. Let there be no mistake ...)

I'm having fun!

Lacewing wrote:I'm having fun!

Well I'm bloody not. This is not a lively exchange of ideas between people who happen to disagree. This is an example of a free-speech forum being taken hostage by a psychopathic narcissist peddling a truly dangerous ideology. I'd rather take my chances with Bob Evenson.

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:I crawl back to my slime to recharge ...

Be so good as to stay there.

Hmmm. She makes a strong point, Lacewing. How can you, and still be in integrity with consciousness and goodness, effectively enter entente cordiale with Satan, the original Psychopathic Narcissist?

Even I am stumped.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Lacewing wrote:I'm having fun!

Well I'm bloody not. This is not a lively exchange of ideas between people who happen to disagree. This is an example of a free-speech forum being taken hostage by a psychopathic narcissist peddling a truly dangerous ideology. I'd rather take my chances with Bob Evenson.

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:I crawl back to my slime to recharge ...

Be so good as to stay there.

I have to agree with Leo.
I think Narcissist probably describes him best. What he actually says is of no consequence. Whether or not he believes himself is less important to him than the attention he gets by saying this shite. He should not be fed.

...and this is called "playing the troll card".

::: yawn :::

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:How can you, and still be in integrity with consciousness and goodness, effectively enter entente cordiale with Satan, the original Psychopathic Narcissist?

Even I am stumped.

Whatever stories you tell yourself... whatever imagery/ideas you try to get off on... it's all made-up. All potential is available -- so it's more about what you do with that, than the stories you choose to be intoxicated with. That's my guess.

I agree with Leo. I was giving you a chance to demonstrate something more than you had so far... but, nope, nothing more there.

::: sigh :::

I guess it was all in vain.

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:::: sigh :::

I guess it was all in vain.

Indeed it was. You are in the company of folk who enjoy being stimulated by thoughtfully constructed ideas but who prefer to do their own thinking with respect to such ideas. You bring nothing to the table except hubris and contempt for the other members of the forum and you do so in an unforgivably offensive manner. Fuck off.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:::: sigh :::

I guess it was all in vain.

Indeed it was. You are in the company of folk who enjoy being stimulated by thoughtfully constructed ideas but who prefer to do their own thinking with respect to such ideas. You bring nothing to the table except hubris and contempt for the other members of the forum and you do so in an unforgivably offensive manner. Fuck off.

Yeah. Fuck the fuck off! You bloody wind bag

This is Philosophy NOW!

Lacewing wrote:I was giving you a chance to demonstrate something more than you had so far... but, nope, nothing more there.

You are a most excitable bunch of folk! Have you considered letters to the authorities? You have no idea how perfect you are for all this ...

Lacewing wrote:Whatever stories you tell yourself... whatever imagery/ideas you try to get off on... it's all made-up. All potential is available -- so it's more about what you do with that, than the stories you choose to be intoxicated with. That's my guess.

I am always interested in these large, metaphysical, declarative statements that come from one who knows and understands the nature - the very nature - of this reality. Again, it requires a 'master metaphysician' to be able to see our own outlining, determining, metaphysical structure. The term 'master metaphysician' is one I got from Basil Willey in his 'The Seventeenth Century Background - Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion' (1957) The gist is that we look upon antique metaphysical and cosmological systems as if we ourselves are outside of a very real, and a very dominant one. So, when you put together this 'question':

• "That you think you have figured things out, in general, to a more accurate degree than those who see differently than you do",

I would answer no, not necessarily, and anyway that is not the real point. The issue extends from the primary question, which touches on how Christians distinguish right from wrong. To be able to say anything about Christians and Christian belief, one has to understand 'how it functions', what are its tenets, and that is the reason why - IMO - one has to trace back over the Medieval conceptions.

And as when one learns a second language, the first stage is to learn how one's own language is constructed (at a grammatical level), so to examine another metaphysical system makes one aware of the one that one has, that one uses and as I say that one 'operates'.

Ethical systems - such as for example inform those who hold and adhere to, say, 'radical liberalism' and the formulations that inform many Westerners in our present, is an intertwined and complex set of beliefs (and a metaphysic, and a cosmology) which, generally speaking, is one that is not seen and recognized by the holder of it. It is seen, rather, as 'the way it is', 'the truth', and 'self-evident fact'. And thus, and for this reason, when one engages in 'conversation' with one holding ultra-modern, radical liberal beliefs, one speaks to a person who is extremely opinionated, totally convinced they are in the right, etc. And as we have seen in these recent (hilarious) exchanges, capable and at least somewhat adept at weilding a bludgeon. And the primary element of that bludgeon is guilt and guilt-slinging. Radical liberals are experts at operating coercive emotional tools.

They also operate in small 'packs' where they rehearse and bolster their self-evidently true assertions (for example: 'narcissism', 'too good for awareness', 'no one at the controls', 'entrenchment', 'unconsciousness', 'self-promotion', a full emotionally-laden weight of condemnation). It literally goes on and on and on. As I say, radical liberals, and those inclined in this direction, have the right to use all the shaming and insulting tools at their disposal because they understand themselves as being on the side of 'ontological good'! I mean something that functions at a primary level, at the platform of being. It is a way of seeing oneself in-the-world. I suggest that it is post-Christian but still very tied to a fading, a re-organized, or a collapsed Christian viewstructure. That also fascinates me.

If you look over these fascinating exchanges holding this critique in mind, you may understand what I am getting at. What 'radical liberals' have done is they have done away with a divine agent (God, or a metaphysical moral pole) and assume that role for themselves. Then, they look round them and 'brand' the evil demons that surround them according to a group of tenets derived from certain strains and branches of political philosophy, but quite notably the Marxian school. Generally, they do all this without understanding they are doing it, and it functions in a tremendous, self-energizing circle.

Now, I will point this out - clearly, coherently, and in solid prose - and no part of this will be acceptable to you. The devil (that is The Other that is the sworn enemy of Truth - Hobbes explained it as being an 'enemy of humanity'), and I really am the devil, cannot talk back, cannot instruct. The devil receives lessons from the radical liberal, not the reverse. The devil is condemned and sentenced (tortured and insulted, that sort of thing), he does not condemn and sentence. That is a 'metaphysical impossibility'.

What I do here is simply open up a chink as it were in the wall and offer a view. That is really all that I have done so far. And that is frankly (and as I say) what interests me the most.

Gustav Bjornstrand wrote:You are a most excitable bunch of folk! You have no idea how perfect you are for all this ...

Lacewing wrote:Whatever stories you tell yourself... whatever imagery/ideas you try to get off on... it's all made-up. All potential is available -- so it's more about what you do with that, than the stories you choose to be intoxicated with. That's my guess.

I am always interested in these vast, metaphysical, declarative statements that come from one who knows and understands the nature - the very nature - of this reality. Again, it requires a 'master metaphysician' to be able to see our own outlining, determining, metaphysical structure. The term 'master metaphysician' is one I got from Basil Willey in his 'The Seventeenth Century Background - Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion' (1957) The gist is that we look upon antique metaphysical and cosmological systems as if we ourselves are outside of a very real, and a very dominant one. So, when you put together this 'question':

• "That you think you have figured things out, in general, to a more accurate degree than those who see differently than you do",

I would answer no, not necessarily, and anyway that is not the real point. The issue extends from the primary question, which touches on how Christians distinguish right from wrong. To be able to say anything about Christians and Christian belief, one has to understand 'how it functions', what are its tenets, and that is the reason why - IMO - one has to trace back over the Medieval conceptions.

And as when one learns a second language, the first stage is to learn how one's own language is constructed (at a grammatical level), so to examine another metaphysical system makes one aware of the one that one has, that one uses and as I say that one 'operates'.

Ethical systems - such as for example inform those who hold and adhere to, say, 'radical liberalism' and the formulations that inform many Westerners in our present, is an intertwined and complex set of beliefs (and a metaphysic, and a cosmology) which, generally speaking, is one that is not seen and recognized by the holder of it. It is seen, rather, as 'the way it is', 'the truth', and 'self-evident fact'. And thus, and for this reason, when one engages in 'conversation' with one holding ultra-modern, radical liberal beliefs, one speaks to a person who is extremely opinionated, totally convinced they are in the right, etc. And as we have seen in these recent (hilarious) exchanges capable and at least somewhat adept at weilding a bludgeon. And the primary element of that bludgeon is guilt and guilt-slinging. Radical liberals are experts at operating coercive emotional tools.

They also operate in small 'packs' where they rehearse and bolster their self-evidently true assertions (for example: 'narcissism', 'too good for awareness', 'no one at the controls', 'entrenchment', 'unconsciousness', 'self-promotion', a full emotionally-laden weight of condemnation). It literally goes on and on and on. As I say, radical liberals, and those inclined in this direction, have the right to use all the shaming and insulting tools at their disposal because they understand themselves as being on the side of 'ontological good'! I mean something that functions at a primary level, at the platform of being.It is a way of seeing oneself in-the-world. I suggest that it is post-Christian but still very tied to a fading, a re-organized, or a collapsed Christian viewstructure. That also fascinates me.

If you look over these fascinating exchanges holding this critique in mind, you may understand what I am getting at. What 'radical liberals' have done is they have done away with a divine agent (God, or a metaphysical moral pole) and assume that role for themselves. Then, they look round them and 'brand' the evil demons that surround them according to a group of tenets derived from certain strains and branches of political philosophy, but quite notably the Marxian school. Generally, they do all this without understanding they are doing it, and it functions in a tremendous, self-energizing circle.

Now, I will point this out - clearly, coherently, and in solid prose - and no part of this will be acceptable to you. The devil (that is The Other that is the sworn enemy of Truth - Hobbes explained it as being an 'enemy of humanity'), and I really am the devil, cannot talk back, cannot instruct. The devil receives lessons from the radical liberal, not the reverse. The devil is condemned and sentenced (tortured and insulted, that sort of thing), he does not condemn and sentence. That is a 'metaphysical impossibility'.

What I do here is simply open up a chink as it were in the wall and offer a view. That is really all that I have done so far. And that is frankly (and as I say) what interests me the most.

According to a dreadful German tradition, thoughts which swear allegiance to the theodicy of Evil and Death figure as profound. What is silenced and swept under the rug is a theological terminus ad quem, as if its result, the confirmation of transcendence, would decide the dignity of thought, or else the mere being-for-itself, similarly for the immersion into interiority; as if the withdrawal from the world were unproblematically as one with the consciousness of the grounds of the world.
This does not void the criticism of abstract morality, however.
With particular and universal still unreconciled, this morality suffices no more than does the allegedly material value ethics of norms that are eternal at short range. Picked as a principle, the appeal to either one does an injustice to the opposite. The depracticalization of Kant’s practical reason—in other words, its rationalism—is coupled with its deobjectification; it must have been deobjectified before it can become that absolutely sovereign reason which is to have the capacity to work empirically irrespective of experience, and irrespective of the leap between action and deed. The doctrine of pure practical reason prepares for the retranslation of spontaneity into contemplation which occurred in the later history of the bourgeoisie and was consummated in political apathy, a highly political posture. Thus Gustav Bjornstrand is a wind-bag. The semblance of a noumenal objectivity of practical reason establishes its complete subjectification; it is no longer clear how its intervention across the ontological abyss may reach anything that is at all.

This is also the root of the irrational side of Kant’s moral law, the root of what he called “given”—a term that denies all rational transparency and halts the advance of reflection. Since freedom, to Kant, amounts to reason’s invariant identity with itself even in the practical realm, it loses what in common usage distinguishes reason from the will. Due to its total rationality, the will becomes irrational. The Critique of Practical Reason moves in a delusive context. It has the mind serve as a surrogate for action, which is to be nothing but the sheer mind of Gustav Bjornstrand makes him a wind-bag. Thus freedom is sabotaged: its Kantian carrier, reason, coincides with the pure law. Freedom would need what Kant calls heteronomous. There would be no more freedom without some element of chance, according to the criterion of pure reason, than there would be without rational judgment . Gustav Bjornstrand is a wind-bag with the absolute split between freedom and chance is as arbitrary as the absolute split between freedom and rationality. An undialectical standard of legality will always make some side of freedom seem contingent; freedom calls for reflection, which rises above the particular categories of law and chance.

I like mine better ...