Philosophy Now Forum

Nick_A wrote:... The value of philosophy is too important to sacrifice it in fear of secular bias. ...

I won't take cheap attempts at intimidation out of you any more than i would take them from F4. The value of philosophy is too important to sacrifice it in fear of secular bias.

That's simple. The experience described by Needleman and many others cannot be repressed. It's not a decision on your part that by some means of "metaphysical repression", whatever that means, you decide not to have it.

What I find disgusting is that you attempt to imprison such experiences within your own mental dungeon and then attempt to make some kind of perverse dogma out of it. What does "metaphysical repression" mean anyways? Why would anyone want to repress, metaphysically or otherwise, such rare experiences of these other unworldly levels of reality?

……………I recovered quite well, but I had to find a few other people who shared my hunger. It is the hunger you're speaking of. That is what Plato called eros—a word that's come down to us which has taken on a sexual association. But for Plato it had to do, in part, with a striving that is innate in us, a striving to participate with one's mind, one's consciousness, in something greater than oneself. A love of wisdom, if you like, a love of being.

Eros is depicted in Plato's text, The Symposium, as half man, half god, a kind of intermediate force between the gods and mortals. It is a very interesting idea. Eros is what gives birth to philosophy. Modern philosophy often translates the word "wonder" merely as "curiosity," the desire to figure things out, or to intellectually solve problems rather than confronting the depth of these questions, pondering, reflecting, being humbled by them. In this way, philosophy becomes an exercise in meaningless ingenuity.
I did learn to play that game, and then to avoid it.

My students at SF State were very hungry for what most of us, down deeply, really want from philosophy. When we honor those unanswerable questions and open them and deepen them, students are very happy about it, very interested in a deep quiet way.

RW: It is really very hard to find that, I believe.

JN: Some years ago I had a chance to teach a course in philosophy in high school. I got ten or twelve very gifted kids at this wonderful school, San Francisco University High School. In that first class I said, "Now just imagine, as if this was a fairy tale, imagine you are in front of the wisest person in the world, not me, but the wisest person there is and you can only ask one question. What would you ask?" At first they giggled and then they saw that I was very serious. So then they started writing. What came back was astonishing to me. I couldn't understand it at first. About half of the things that came back had little handwriting at the bottom or the sides of the paper in the margin. Questions like, Why do we live? Why do we die? What is the brain for? Questions of the heart. But they were written in the margins as though they were saying, do we really have permission to express these questions? We're not going to be laughed at? It was as though this was something that had been repressed.

RW: Fascinating.

JN: It's what I call metaphysical repression. It's in our culture and It's much worse than sexual repression. It represses eros and I think that maybe that's where art can be of help sometimes. Some art…………….

I'm not ignorant of writings which describe these extraordinary temporary flights into "other realms" none of which mentions the secular as having any substance within the context of the experience. The word simply doesn't apply. You seemingly read so much on the subject yet somehow it all went infra-red once it reached your CPU. You're able to read the words but not comprehend its meaning and so you create your own completely impervious to others who may have understood the message better than you which includes, paradoxically enough, the very ones you actually read as given by your quotes.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2017 10:26 am Nick _A wrote:

I won't take cheap attempts at intimidation out of you any more than i would take them from F4. The value of philosophy is too important to sacrifice it in fear of secular bias.

But habitual timidity is a cause of stubborn intransigence like yours .You may be too timid to venture elsewhere. You may be too timid to admit when you are wrong. If you are properly sceptical you can be sceptical about your own motivations.

(Nick quoted Prof Needleman) JN: It's what I call metaphysical repression. It's in our culture and It's much worse than sexual repression. It represses eros and I think that maybe that's where art can be of help sometimes. Some art…………….


(Nick) [/code]The negativity of secular intolerance represses eros. It intimidates the young into repressing their basic psycho/spiritual instincts attracting them to a quality of reality greater than themselves. What is worse is that secular intolerants are proud of it and justify it as education.

A person either supports the detrimental effects of secular intolerance or they oppose them. You choose to support them and I oppose them.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2017 1:50 pm Nick wrote:

(Nick quoted Prof Needleman) JN: It's what I call metaphysical repression. It's in our culture and It's much worse than sexual repression. It represses eros and I think that maybe that's where art can be of help sometimes. Some art…………….


(Nick) [/code]The negativity of secular intolerance represses eros. It intimidates the young into repressing their basic psycho/spiritual instincts attracting them to a quality of reality greater than themselves. What is worse is that secular intolerants are proud of it and justify it as education.

Oh Nick! Don't you notice that Prof Needleman says "art can be of help sometimes---" ?

Some art is secular in content and some art is religious in content. Surely you know that. You are not devoid of eros but have got yourself stuck inside one hypothesis and you cannot get out.

Nick wrote:

A person either supports the detrimental effects of secular intolerance or they oppose them. You choose to support them and I oppose them.

I don't tolerate some things. I hope to and try to inform myself so I know what I should tolerate, and what not tolerate. I suppose you would
call me "a secular" according to your own nomenclature. So it's true that I am "a secular" and am sometimes intolerant.

Why do you tolerate what you do tolerate?

Why do you tolerate what you do tolerate?

As I was going through my initial inner growing pains I was introduced to the idea that the cause of insult is in me, not in another. This was hard to swallow since I can think of many reasons why it is the fault of another. One of the most respected progressive values is catering to those deemed worthy of being insulted. There is a lot of money in insult. I am hit with the idea that the cause of insult is within me and what keeps me in psychological slavery. As people practice self knowledge there are ways a person can learn the dynamics of this slavery within their personalities and become gradually less a victim of it. This isn’t tolerance but simply outgrowing a personal weakness that denies a person their humanity.
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Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2017 12:01 pm Nick, I don't understand

As I was going through my initial inner growing pains I was introduced to the idea that the cause of insult is in me, not in another. This was hard to swallow since I can think of many reasons why it is the fault of another. One of the most respected progressive values is catering to those deemed worthy of being insulted. There is a lot of money in insult. I am hit with the idea that the cause of insult is within me and what keeps me in psychological slavery. As people practice self knowledge there are ways a person can learn the dynamics of this slavery within their personalities and become gradually less a victim of it. This isn’t tolerance but simply outgrowing a personal weakness that denies a person their humanity.
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What has feeling insulted to do with what you do or don't tolerate? Personal insults are par for the course.

The capacity to pay attention to an afflicted person is something very rare, very difficult; it is nearly a miracle. It is a miracle. Nearly all those who believe they have this capacity do not. Warmth, movements of the heart, and pity are not sufficient…….. Simone Weil

I was describing my experiences with tolerance in relation to what this thread is about. We often become intolerant because of puffed up opinions of ourselves and our beliefs so become intolerant and insulted by ideas which oppose these “educated” opinions. I’ve outgrown this to a great extent. What good is one idiot calling another idiot an idiot in Plato's cave?

However I still am intolerant of being open to experience the realities of life. This is really a separate and offensive topic since it requires admitting limitations in my ability to consciously witness. We cannot impartially witness affliction. Our conditioning makes it intolerable. This isn’t the result of a puffed up opinion but of the inability to witness a potential for ourselves.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2017 4:45 pm Nick wrote:

I was describing my experiences with tolerance in relation to what this thread is about. We often become intolerant because of puffed up opinions of ourselves and our beliefs so become intolerant and insulted by ideas which oppose these “educated” opinions. I’ve outgrown this to a great extent. What good is one idiot calling another idiot an idiot in Plato's cave?

However I still am intolerant of being open to experience the realities of life. This is really a separate and offensive topic since it requires admitting limitations in my ability to consciously witness. We cannot impartially witness affliction. Our conditioning makes it intolerable. This isn’t the result of a puffed up opinion but of the inability to witness a potential for ourselves.

I think you are right that "We often become intolerant because of puffed up opinions of ourselves and our beliefs so become intolerant and insulted by ideas which oppose these “educated” opinions." I too have had my feelings hurt and I suppose so has everybody, and it's natural to want to guard against hurt feelings .Besides traumatic other people, other existential hurts are diseases and other natural traumas. Some of us are luckier than others.

This thread purports to be about "secular intolerance". You and I agreed that 'seculars' and religonists can both be intolerant. I had said that I am intolerant when I want to be intolerant. Intolerance is a very Good Thing. I asked you what you tolerate and what you don't tolerate.

Your reply is confined to personal traumas which you find intolerable. The thing is, we all experience traumas and then we die of the biggest trauma of all. Some die one way and some die another way. I suppose that fantasising and believing fantasies is one way to avoid traumas. It won't save you though.There are bigger traumas that will drown any fantasies. It was with regard to those bigger traumas, which extend far beyond Nick or Belinda, that I asked you what you will or will not tolerate.

Some issue like the hydrogen Bomb sent by North Korea to Japan or the USA. Or the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people of Myanmar. Or whatever inspires one to look outside of one's hurt feelings. What do find intolerable ? And one's hurt feelings don't matter a lot.

Albert Einstein ... “Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.

Q: How does our present confusion about the concept of God reflect a widespread psychological or spiritual starvation? How would you guide someone who is confused about the concept of God?

A: Every human being is born with an intrinsic yearning to understand, to contact and, eventually, to serve something higher in ourselves and in the universe. Plato calls this yearning eros. It defines us as human beings—even more than our biological nature, our social conditioning or our ordinary reasoning capacity. Our modern world-view tragically misperceives and wrongly defines what it is to be human. We are conditioned by our society to believe happiness comes from pleasure, or from getting things or power over people or money or fame or even health and survival. None of these sometimes very good things can bring ultimate meaning to our lives. We are born to be deeply conscious, inwardly free and deeply capable of love. The longing for these things is the definition of what it means to be human. At the present moment in our culture this yearning for meaning and consciousness, this yearning to give and serve something higher than ourselves, is breaking through the hard crust of our widespread cultural materialism and pseudo-scientific underestimation of what a human being is meant to be together with an equally tragic overestimation of what we human beings are capable of in our present everyday state of being. The intensity of the present confusion about the nature and existence of God is a symptom of this yearning within the whole of our modern culture.

Tolerance can only be just a word if we live by hypocrisy. We can say we are intolerant of bombs and genocides but the reality of bombs and genocides persist. Since we are as we are, everything continues as it is. No speeches will change our vulnerability to hypocrisy. it has become normal.

These are all people professing tolerance. The trouble is that all these good intentions professing higher values are vulnerable to hypocrisy. We say one thing and do another. What do you believe would be necessary for people in general or society itself to become tolerant free of hypocrisy?

Under these circumstances I don’t know what I wouldn’t tolerate other than a physical attack by man or beast I would have to run from.

Hypocrisy in leaders is an excellent place to begin. I myself have no influence except as a voter. I can inform myself, and 'pray ' for a better world. I presume that you yourself are not influential either.

How do we identify hypocrisy in leaders? Is political protest effective? I find it intolerable that some politician, churchmen, and other leaders become rich on public funds, and I believe that those leaders who do so are hypocrites.

I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him--he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes...

As to how I would guide someone who is confused about the idea of God, I would suggest that he or she begins identifying what one might called “philosophical friends,”—people with whom one could seriously examine our thought about God through listening to each other, reading important and useful books together and trying to think for oneself while familiarizing oneself with the ideas of some of the world’s great thinkers. Cultivate openness without gullibility and skepticism without cynicism.

And, as soon as possible, be on the lookout for someone whose whole manner of speaking and being makes, as it were, a “sound” that draws your mind and heart. And then, little by little, try to see if that person can be of real help on the way to genuine self-knowledge and insight about what God is and is not. In this realm, more than any other even, the paradoxical marriage of both openness and scepticism is essential.