Philosophy Now Forum

Lacewing wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 7:24 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 10:21 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 12:08 am The mess in American politics today is 100% Democrat, 100% Leftist.

That is possibly the most stupid thng I've read in weeks.

Agreed.

If you were to offer a description of 1) What is the mess (if there is a mess) and 2) What are the causes, what would you say?

Where is it tending? What the result?

Lacewing wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 7:34 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 6:52 pm Immanuel Can pretending to be neutral is the most absurd thing I've seen this week

Yep, another one. He's on a roll. He appears to be testing how far he can ride absurdity in every direction.

And now he's talking about the "you strategy" because he can't level the fraudulent ad hominem accusation he normally relies on any more.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 7:40 pm And now he's talking about the "you strategy" because he can't level the fraudulent ad hominem accusation he normally relies on any more.

Umm...using "you" instead of discussing the claim is exactly what the ad hominem strategy is.

You've really got to look that up.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 7:44 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 7:40 pm And now he's talking about the "you strategy" because he can't level the fraudulent ad hominem accusation he normally relies on any more.

Umm...using "you" instead of discussing the claim is exactly what the ad hominem strategy is.

You've really got to look that up.

You aren't really presenting any particular argument right now, so I'm not in a position to commit any form of fallacy.

You want to debate some point or other? I have no idea as of right now if you guys are saying that Trump should not be prosecuted because he didn't commit any crime, or that he shouldn't be prosecuted because you don't want him to be held accountable if he did commit a crime.

Wizzard made a sort of effort to argue both at once with some conspiracy theory about all the judges being Democrats including the ones on the Supreme Court that Trump appointed to it. You got some position less dumb than that?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 6:52 pmImmanuel Can pretending to be neutral is the most absurd thing I've seen this week, and this is the week where a man tried to cross the ocean in a hamster wheel...

Within a political-comprehension arena IC’s general positions are slightly right of center and quite classically Liberal. He has read probably 50 times more than you have — and that is a decided advantage.

It is not at all outrageous to locate entire ranges of present problems in shifts that occurred post-Sixties.

I am uncertain if the term Democrat is the right one since it is too general. But it is my present opinion that Left-Progressive and certainly Marxian praxes have a good deal to do with destabilizing foundations.

Some part of a sensible analysis would need to invlude the influence of so-called Neo-Conservatism radicalism, also said to be strangely influenced by Trotskyism.

noun: Trotskyism
the political or economic principles of Leon Trotsky, especially the theory that socialism should be established throughout the world by continuing revolution. Trotskyism has generally included elements of anarchism and syndicalism, but the term has come to be used indiscriminately to describe a great many forms of radical socialism.

Wiki:

Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and counterculture of the 1960s, particularly the Vietnam protests. Some also began to question their liberal beliefs regarding domestic policies such as the Great Society. Neoconservatives typically advocate the unilateral promotion of democracy and interventionism in international affairs, grounded in a militaristic philosophy of "peace through strength." They are known for espousing disdain for communism and political radicalism.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 7:37 pm

Lacewing wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 7:24 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 10:21 am
That is possibly the most stupid thng I've read in weeks.

Agreed.

If you were to offer a description of 1) What is the mess (if there is a mess) and 2) What are the causes, what would you say?

Where is it tending? What the result?

Are you talking to me?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 7:51 pm You want to debate some point or other? I have no idea as of right now if you guys are saying that Trump should not be prosecuted because he didn't commit any crime, or that he shouldn't be prosecuted because you don't want him to be held accountable if he did commit a crime.

One thing especially is very certain: he should not have been charged during the election-cycle. The whole thing looks really really political.

Lacewing wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:02 pm Are you talking to me?

Yep.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:05 pm

Lacewing wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:02 pm Are you talking to me?

Yep.

Not interested.

Lacewing wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:06 pm Not interested.

Not interested in sharing your view of what is “messed up” and how it got to be so?

Does this mean you have no interest in politics generally?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:08 pm

Lacewing wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:06 pm Not interested.

Not interested in sharing your view of what is “messed up” and how it got to be so?

Does this mean you have no interest in politics generally?

I've already explained what I think of extremist views, and why. The statement 'The mess in American politics today is 100% Democrat, 100% Leftist' is one such extremist view, which apparently you think is reasonable. I do have interest in politics, but I'm not interested in spending the time and energy to answer convoluted questions lobbed at me by people I consider to be extreme and unreasonable.

AJ you're lookin at everything all loopy in that last post. The destabilizing effects of Marxism are found only in the manifesto and other articles about worker revolution. That's neither here nor there. That part of marxism is not the historical materialism part of marxism that doesn't promote destabilizing forces but instead accurately notes and describes them, ironically (for u), in a way as close as possible to scientific and objective descriptions as u can get.

Which part of a... say, 19th century factory lockout and violent strike that ensues, would be the destabilizing force most responsible for the conflict? The conditions the workers were already in and the circumstances they faced or the nerve of them to refuse to starve to death from low wages?

And when leon trizzle says international he means the world as a single democratic proletarian class would organize itself and effectively run the world.

But when a neocon says international he means imperialism.

These two aren't even in the same book forget the same page. How in sam hill could u have made an association between those two ideologies? Absolutely shameless.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:01 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 6:52 pmImmanuel Can pretending to be neutral is the most absurd thing I've seen this week, and this is the week where a man tried to cross the ocean in a hamster wheel...

Within a political-comprehension arena IC’s general positions are slightly right of center and quite classically Liberal.

If you choose to place the centre way off to the right then sure. Any classical Liberal would criticise Trump very heavily for his attempts to close borders, restrict the movement of goods capital and people, and his imposition of tarrifs to the point of causing trade wars with strategic allies. I have criticised Trump for exactly those things, I've never really seen IC criticise Trump for anything at all except while accompanied with a whattaboutism about Biden.

I've seen him write on the subject of poverty too, and he tends to focus on absolute poverty with little regard for relative poverty and he is very very big on the biblical suggestion that he who will not work also shall not eat (which you and I, not being religious zealots, probably both associate more with Lenin!). Either way, he's not into the Adam Smith linen shirt take on poverty.

Meanwhile he has only bad things to say about globalism. So all in all I'm wondering if your take on Liberalism isn't a bit skewed, because little old neoliberal me is probably a much better example of old school liberalism than that church warden could ever be.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:01 pm He has read probably 50 times more than you have — and that is a decided advantage.

It would be an advantage for somebody with greater talent for reading than he has. But take a look at his recent conversation with Willy B about Descartes and underdetermination, and you will see that IC lacks the moves to go with his certainties - and you should be able to see that all over this forum, he just doesn't have a lot of mojo. I don't doubt for a second that Mannie has read Descartes, it's just that Willy B has blatantly read it better, or is just a more talented philosopher than IC could ever be (both are true).

The same happened when he tried to boss me around about the subject of Frege-Geach, it was clear to anyone that I am vastly better informed than he is on this particular matter. But the IC sin of pride made him blind to that fact, and he fabulised a completely stupid interpretation of the argument rather than just let me help correct his misapprehension. Learning would have been free for him, but the humility required isn't an option for him. That lack of humlity, and his consequent overcommitment to shit arguments, is his undoing in more or less every debate with a competent opponent.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:01 pm It is not at all outrageous to locate entire ranges of present problems in shifts that occurred post-Sixties.

Kind of shallow though. Perhaps to be expected of IC, but not from such a tremendous scholar as your good self.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:01 pm I am uncertain if the term Democrat is the right one since it is too general. But it is my present opinion that Left-Progressive and certainly Marxian praxes have a good deal to do with destabilizing foundations.

If the foundations are rotten enough then the tools required to destailize them don't need to be either sophisticated or strong. Wizzard and IC have been blathering over the white picket fences and Howdy Doody of some imagined lost paradise where everyone was righteous and God fearing so it was all ok. That was never true, and attempts to resurrect it are doomed.

Case in point: People like IC probably contribute significantly to the reasons why Christianity is in decline in America, they have enslaved their God to their politics and that's kind of ugly. You don't need to look to Marx to explain why Jebus is losing his value, you can look at Mannie. And I guess all those priests who touched the kiddies for decades without punishment too.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:01 pm Some part of a sensible analysis would need to invlude the influence of so-called Neo-Conservatism radicalism, also said to be strangely influenced by Trotskyism.

noun: Trotskyism
the political or economic principles of Leon Trotsky, especially the theory that socialism should be established throughout the world by continuing revolution. Trotskyism has generally included elements of anarchism and syndicalism, but the term has come to be used indiscriminately to describe a great many forms of radical socialism.

Wiki:

Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and counterculture of the 1960s, particularly the Vietnam protests. Some also began to question their liberal beliefs regarding domestic policies such as the Great Society. Neoconservatives typically advocate the unilateral promotion of democracy and interventionism in international affairs, grounded in a militaristic philosophy of "peace through strength." They are known for espousing disdain for communism and political radicalism.

Sure, but Oliver North is a pundit on Fox News these days, apparently he's unironically complaining about Iran getting missiles. So the neocons might be staging a bit of a comeback right under your noses.

Lacewing wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:40 pm The statement 'The mess in American politics today is 100% Democrat, 100% Leftist' is one such extremist view, which apparently you think is reasonable.

The view, the statement, is incomplete without more exposition.

In any case, we must understand that issues are being framed in rather crude, reductionist terms. So at the very least it is wise (for thinking people) to have greater familiarity with the framing.

I say that ICs statement seems to have plausible elements of truth or accuracy.

But my largest objective is understanding and communication, not merely unending rehearsals of impasse.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:50 pm AJ you're lookin at everything all loopy in that last post.

I am focused on Neo-Marxism and Frankfurt School Marxism and the Critical Theories in general.

(But I am no fan of 1930-30s Marxist activism, either. But I don’t exclude some of the sense in Marxian economic analysis).