The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => Philosophy & Science => Topic started by: BeardFisher-King on October 30, 2018, 08:22:24 pm
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The comment section is unusually civil.
Here's an article on the Jordan Peterson phenomenon, largely focussed on the animosity towards JP from the Left.
https://quillette.com/2018/05/22/jordan-peterson-failure-left/?fbclid=IwAR1rVi1aSETD4aR6022qbyV93i2k8FHk245TQVKB9toctqh1_f8Tek80GG4
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The comment by Jack B Nimble gets into some of my issues with Peterson, though I doubt he and I are cut from the same cloth exactly either.
When I dig into Peterson I find myself nodding sometimes in agreement, and cringing at the silliness in other cases...That said it is hard to pin down exactly what Peterson has said and what has been misconstrued about what he has said. Extending him charity - by which I mean trying to be factual without ascribing motives - I'd say while I guess our politics differ he's not wrong in a "meta" sense, that the Ground of democracy is rooted in Myth - specifically for the West this is a Judeo-Christian Mythos, though as the Greeks and others have shown this isn't necessary.
However an attempt to grind away at the Mythos that the Ground has so long relied on hurts liberalism as much as, if not arguably more, than conservatism as those two poles are defined in American politics. The rights of the historically marginalized were furthered through the idea of a "right" as transcendent/universal.
p.s. Quilette's claim to "free thought" does amuse me, unless I missed the parapsychology and intelligent design stuff they've published...
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The comment by Jack B Nimble gets into some of my issues with Peterson, though I doubt he and I are cut from the same cloth exactly either.
Well, that guy's post really doesn't seem to offer much, except a seemingly spurious notion that the word "predator" didn't exist until 1920, or, even if that were true, that this preclude our premodern ancestors from having cognitive categories of things that want to eat/kill them? Peterson's point is that the idea of "dragons" is as real as any other thought. In this sense, "dragon" is as real as any other mental representation of anything at all. The fact is that you, anyone, as a creature capable only of interaction with the world through the means of mental representation, necessarily exist because mental representations are real. If they were not, you couldn't be conscious at all and I don't see how you would consciously ever do anything.
He links to an article which does raise some good points, but ultimately falls into the same trap. For example:
Peterson extolls classic Disney movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as upholding primordial gender roles, but objects to Frozen for violating those norms. “It might be objected (as it was, with Disney’s more recent and deeply propagandistic Frozen) that a woman does not need a man to rescue her,” Peterson writes in 12 Rules of Life. “That may be true, and it may not. It may be that only the woman who wants (or has) a child needs a man to rescue her—or at least to support and aid her. In any case, it is certain that a woman needs consciousness to be rescued, and, as noted above, consciousness is symbolically masculine and has been since the beginning of time (in the guise of both order and of the Logos, the mediating principle).”
The argument here is that Frozen is propaganda because it violates mythical tropes that have existed since “the beginning of time.” But are myths really so unwavering and static?
Even the quoted portion of Peterson's book flatly states "That may be true, and it may not" yet, the article just plows right along, as if Peterson (in expressing his opinion that Frozen is akin to propaganda) said this was an absolute fact. Instead, what Peterson goes on to say is that archetypally speaking, women need men. This is plain to see every day. The same goes for men needing women. It's rather easy to frame that as being misogynistic, if one chooses to do so. But then we are going to have to define existance as misogynistic, by the very nature of biology, being that a women needs a man to have a child at all. I don't see where this reductionist thinking brings us though. That is Peterson's point, really. That we can, "liberally" choose than women should not need men at all, but where does that put us as a society comprised of men and women then? This is where Peterson, conservative leaning, is concerned with liberalism going "too far." And it's a valid question to ask, can liberalism go too far?
Not only that part, but the article goes on:
Blake re-wrote the Bible, just as Frozen re-wrote the Disney princess by making the traditional witch figure (the magic-powered Elsa) into a heroine. That’s the way culture works. Myths are not just handed down in unchanging fashion; they are repurposed, tweaked, and sometimes inverted. Contra Peterson, witches aren’t real. More importantly, the cultural meaning of witches changes over time (as with the feminist effort to reclaim witches as heroines).
Well, I think the author of the article of off the rails now. One, Elsa is not the hero in Frozen. She nearly kills everyone, including her own sister who was only trying to save her. It's Anna, who is the hero. Anna who saves everyone. So, yes, Frozen is an "inversion" of sorts, but not of what this person is trying to say at all. Anna does have a "feminist" role as hero, but what Peterson is trying to get at (not in a well articulated way though) is that this role is actually somewhat antithetical to femininity. Note that I say, "somewhat" though. Because Anna does, in the end, display something that could be construed as "feminine virtue" in her sisterly love. But it is through the method of taking the "traditionalist masculine" role. That is to say, Anna isn't really a paragon on feminine virtue, but rather, is a woman who willfully takes on the masculine role.
There isn't anything wrong with that, per se, but Peterson's concern (I think) is that if we take the line that women should "heroically" be more masculine, then what do we say to men? Be hyper-masculine? Or are we saying that men should then be more feminine? Why is the masculine role to be aspired to and the feminine one not? This is the violence to femininity that feminists rightly decry. Yet, a "feminine" hero, like say the new Wonder Woman movie, does not really show her embody much by way of feminine virtue, rather, she is just a female who displays masculine virtue.
Not only this part, but this small bit also goes directly against the very idea the author posited earlier. "Witches aren't real" but then goes on to describe how the idea is pervasive enough to be included into mainstream movies, have femanists want to reclaim it, and have it be representative of "heroines." You can't have it both ways, unfortunately. Either the idea isn't real, then we can dispense with it all together, or it is and it can be re-purposed.
When I dig into Peterson I find myself nodding sometimes in agreement, and cringing at the silliness in other cases...That said it is hard to pin down exactly what Peterson has said and what has been misconstrued about what he has said. Extending him charity - by which I mean trying to be factual without ascribing motives - I'd say while I guess our politics differ he's not wrong in a "meta" sense, that the Ground of democracy is rooted in Myth - specifically for the West this is a Judeo-Christian Mythos, though as the Greeks and others have shown this isn't necessary.
If you can, read Peterson's Maps of Meaning. It's far better than him trying to apply what he talks about in there to politics. And I think it's more Peterson's point that it is less that democracy is rooted in Judeo-Christian Mythos, but rather that Western culture itself is.
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The comment by Jack B Nimble gets into some of my issues with Peterson, though I doubt he and I are cut from the same cloth exactly either.
Well, that guy's post really doesn't seem to offer much, except a seemingly spurious notion that the word "predator" didn't exist until 1920, or, even if that were true, that this preclude our premodern ancestors from having cognitive categories of things that want to eat/kill them? Peterson's point is that the idea of "dragons" is as real as any other thought. In this sense, "dragon" is as real as any other mental representation of anything at all. The fact is that you, anyone, as a creature capable only of interaction with the world through the means of mental representation, necessarily exist because mental representations are real. If they were not, you couldn't be conscious at all and I don't see how you would consciously ever do anything.
He links to an article which does raise some good points, but ultimately falls into the same trap. For example:
Peterson extolls classic Disney movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as upholding primordial gender roles, but objects to Frozen for violating those norms. “It might be objected (as it was, with Disney’s more recent and deeply propagandistic Frozen) that a woman does not need a man to rescue her,” Peterson writes in 12 Rules of Life. “That may be true, and it may not. It may be that only the woman who wants (or has) a child needs a man to rescue her—or at least to support and aid her. In any case, it is certain that a woman needs consciousness to be rescued, and, as noted above, consciousness is symbolically masculine and has been since the beginning of time (in the guise of both order and of the Logos, the mediating principle).”
The argument here is that Frozen is propaganda because it violates mythical tropes that have existed since “the beginning of time.” But are myths really so unwavering and static?
Even the quoted portion of Peterson's book flatly states "That may be true, and it may not" yet, the article just plows right along, as if Peterson (in expressing his opinion that Frozen is akin to propaganda) said this was an absolute fact. Instead, what Peterson goes on to say is that archetypally speaking, women need men. This is plain to see every day. The same goes for men needing women. It's rather easy to frame that as being misogynistic, if one chooses to do so. But then we are going to have to define existance as misogynistic, by the very nature of biology, being that a women needs a man to have a child at all. I don't see where this reductionist thinking brings us though. That is Peterson's point, really. That we can, "liberally" choose than women should not need men at all, but where does that put us as a society comprised of men and women then? This is where Peterson, conservative leaning, is concerned with liberalism going "too far." And it's a valid question to ask, can liberalism go too far?
Not only that part, but the article goes on:
Blake re-wrote the Bible, just as Frozen re-wrote the Disney princess by making the traditional witch figure (the magic-powered Elsa) into a heroine. That’s the way culture works. Myths are not just handed down in unchanging fashion; they are repurposed, tweaked, and sometimes inverted. Contra Peterson, witches aren’t real. More importantly, the cultural meaning of witches changes over time (as with the feminist effort to reclaim witches as heroines).
Well, I think the author of the article of off the rails now. One, Elsa is not the hero in Frozen. She nearly kills everyone, including her own sister who was only trying to save her. It's Anna, who is the hero. Anna who saves everyone. So, yes, Frozen is an "inversion" of sorts, but not of what this person is trying to say at all. Anna does have a "feminist" role as hero, but what Peterson is trying to get at (not in a well articulated way though) is that this role is actually somewhat antithetical to femininity. Note that I say, "somewhat" though. Because Anna does, in the end, display something that could be construed as "feminine virtue" in her sisterly love. But it is through the method of taking the "traditionalist masculine" role. That is to say, Anna isn't really a paragon on feminine virtue, but rather, is a woman who willfully takes on the masculine role.
There isn't anything wrong with that, per se, but Peterson's concern (I think) is that if we take the line that women should "heroically" be more masculine, then what do we say to men? Be hyper-masculine? Or are we saying that men should then be more feminine? Why is the masculine role to be aspired to and the feminine one not? This is the violence to femininity that feminists rightly decry. Yet, a "feminine" hero, like say the new Wonder Woman movie, does not really show her embody much by way of feminine virtue, rather, she is just a female who displays masculine virtue.
Not only this part, but this small bit also goes directly against the very idea the author posited earlier. "Witches aren't real" but then goes on to describe how the idea is pervasive enough to be included into mainstream movies, have femanists want to reclaim it, and have it be representative of "heroines." You can't have it both ways, unfortunately. Either the idea isn't real, then we can dispense with it all together, or it is and it can be re-purposed.
When I dig into Peterson I find myself nodding sometimes in agreement, and cringing at the silliness in other cases...That said it is hard to pin down exactly what Peterson has said and what has been misconstrued about what he has said. Extending him charity - by which I mean trying to be factual without ascribing motives - I'd say while I guess our politics differ he's not wrong in a "meta" sense, that the Ground of democracy is rooted in Myth - specifically for the West this is a Judeo-Christian Mythos, though as the Greeks and others have shown this isn't necessary.
If you can, read Peterson's Maps of Meaning. It's far better than him trying to apply what he talks about in there to politics. And I think it's more Peterson's point that it is less that democracy is rooted in Judeo-Christian Mythos, but rather that Western culture itself is.
Yeah my problems are in line with the articles though more in spirit than letter, but with Peterson it is hard to know what he said vs what people interpret. I've seen even his admirers give different descriptions of his political views - just yesterday someone told me he was a classic liberal but for myself I see him as a traditionalist conservative or at the least leaning that way.
I find myself thinking this is partly the political climate - whatever Peterson is doesn't align with our usual way of putting people on political compasses. But I think part of this is Peterson having a lack of clarity even as I think some of this is people interpreting him in the least charitable way at every instance. I mean does he actually think women who don't want to be harassed but wear makeup are hypocrites? Or is that a gross misinterpretation from critics?
Part of the problem is the (ironic?) reactionary jump some liberals have made. The man is simply a conservative, I doubt he's much different than David French of the National Review or Edward Feser the Scholastic Christian Apologist. Probably to the left of both, so treating him as an evil buffoon that is hoping to sell a gateway drug to Nazism comes off as ridiculously paranoid.
But where I agree the most with what I think Peterson is getting toward is that the defense against far-right movements is, in fact, an offering of a Political Right that speaks to transcendent values that find their Ground in religion. I may disagree with such people in political matters like gay marriage or trans rights, but I do think pretending there's some New Atheist Ground that can slide in and replace the Mythos that underlies the common ground from MLK Jr. to Gandhi to Sen McCain (pick any other conservative liberals don't hate) is delusional.
As you say the Ground of Western Civilization, or really any civilization that has been brought into accord with democracy, isn't going to be baited & switched with some vague New Atheist attempt to cross the Is-Ought chasm.
I'll try to get into Maps of Meaning, but admittedly might be awhile.
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Yeah my problems are in line with the articles though more in spirit than letter, but with Peterson it is hard to know what he said vs what people interpret. I've seen even his admirers give different descriptions of his political views - just yesterday someone told me he was a classic liberal but for myself I see him as a traditionalist conservative or at the least leaning that way.
Well, I think part of the problem is that he believes that he is necessarily aligned against the far-left. He really doesn't have much of an issue with "liberalism" in general, but he does believe that liberalism can go too far. He is more conservative than liberal, but his stance against what he views as "extreme" or "radical" liberalism is what is almost always cited as his views against liberalism in general. I think this is probably the greatest fault of his general rhetoric, not making that distinction clear.
I find myself thinking this is partly the political climate - whatever Peterson is doesn't align with our usual way of putting people on political compasses. But I think part of this is Peterson having a lack of clarity even as I think some of this is people interpreting him in the least charitable way at every instance. I mean does he actually think women who don't want to be harassed but wear makeup are hypocrites? Or is that a gross misinterpretation from critics?
Correct, I agree, his stances aren't easy to put into a box, because, in general, he has thought about most things and tried to come to a reasonable conclusion (not necessarily the "right or wrong" one though). As such, he really doesn't fir the bill as a "slate" Conservative, or liberal for that matter. In that way, he often gets criticized by both sides who see him as not "whatever" enough. You can see this any time he posts something on social media that could even vaguely be construed as "liberal." People crawl out of the woodwork to howl how he is kowtowing to liberals by even considering their position, let alone entertaining the idea that they might have a point.
As for that comment about women and make-up, I have my doubts about it, but without reading what was actually said, I don't know what he was trying to say. I've read/listened to a lot by Peterson, so I really don't think he is a misogynist. That being said, he, like anyone, does somethings say things that aren't very well thought out. So, in just googling this "interview" I think he is trying to say that the "issue" of mixed gender workplaces and sexual politics in the workplace are not very "settled" social norms, compared to many of the others we have. In this sense, it's unclear what make-up is exactly a signifier for, really. I think he goes a bit far in saying they'd be hypocrites, but his line of thinking is: if women wear make-up, in general, to appear more appealing to men, and if women if women get attention from men but then don't want it, that is hypocritical. It's sounds logical, but it fails to address the nuances of the situation. That is, harassment isn't just attention. And it isn't necessarily so clear that women only wear make-up to attract men.
Part of the problem is the (ironic?) reactionary jump some liberals have made. The man is simply a conservative, I doubt he's much different than David French of the National Review or Edward Feser the Scholastic Christian Apologist. Probably to the left of both, so treating him as an evil buffoon that is hoping to sell a gateway drug to Nazism comes off as ridiculously paranoid.
Right, that's about the gist of it, I think.
But where I agree the most with what I think Peterson is getting toward is that the defense against far-right movements is, in fact, an offering of a Political Right that speaks to transcendent values that find their Ground in religion. I may disagree with such people in political matters like gay marriage or trans rights, but I do think pretending there's some New Atheist Ground that can slide in and replace the Mythos that underlies the common ground from MLK Jr. to Gandhi to Sen McCain (pick any other conservative liberals don't hate) is delusional.
As you say the Ground of Western Civilization, or really any civilization that has been brought into accord with democracy, isn't going to be baited & switched with some vague New Atheist attempt to cross the Is-Ought chasm.
In theory, yes. In actual practice, most Conservatives here only invoke religion when it's convenient to do so. Of course, New Athiests are a whole other prblem, which is what Peterson was "debating" with Harris. Harris even admits that there are good things bout religion that aren't true in the strict objective sense, but are something like "universal goods." The idea that we can dispense with these and supplant it all with "The Truth" is farcical at best, even if we could find what that Truth was.
I'll try to get into Maps of Meaning, but admittedly might be awhile.
Well, it's a bit of a tome, but I think you might like it. Basically, if I understood correctly, it's that we only gain meaning through values and values through focus and focus through heuristics. So the idea that we can rely on facts alone really isn't going to supplant all those things, because it's not how our minds work. Something like that.
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In theory, yes. In actual practice, most Conservatives here only invoke religion when it's convenient to do so. Of course, New Athiests are a whole other prblem, which is what Peterson was "debating" with Harris. Harris even admits that there are good things bout religion that aren't true in the strict objective sense, but are something like "universal goods." The idea that we can dispense with these and supplant it all with "The Truth" is farcical at best, even if we could find what that Truth was.
I'll try to get into Maps of Meaning, but admittedly might be awhile.
Well, it's a bit of a tome, but I think you might like it. Basically, if I understood correctly, it's that we only gain meaning through values and values through focus and focus through heuristics. So the idea that we can rely on facts alone really isn't going to supplant all those things, because it's not how our minds work. Something like that.
Ah I'd agree that many Conservatives, like many Liberals, are inconsistent in what Principles are applied where and what Authority should be invoked when.
My point was that there is a Ground on which Liberal/Conservative argumentation happens, and that the liberal/libertarian gains that were made in terms on convincing those on the other side of issues (gay rights being the most prominent and recent) came from argumentation on this Ground.
This is why Peterson, despite having conservative views in opposition to my liberal ones, still gets point in my book - because we recognize the Ground of the debate is the acceptance of Transcendent Morality. (Harris, in rejecting Materialism, should explain his criticism of the Ground I refer to b/c it seems he cherry picks his metaphysical absolutes.)
In fact this would also be why Quilette irks me despite the fact I read and enjoy a lot of what's published. They seem to have a very definitive world view -> Atheist + Centrist + Liberal/Libertarian + Materialist. My guess is they're happy to use the dramatic reaction to Peterson by those further left than them but will not entertain the ideas Peterson has that go beyond their own promoted world view.
I've got a few things I want to read about Whitehead/Russell, after some of that is dealt with I will make an honest effort with Maps of Meaning.
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Ah I'd agree that many Conservatives, like many Liberals, are inconsistent in what Principles are applied where and what Authority should be invoked when.
My point was that there is a Ground on which Liberal/Conservative argumentation happens, and that the liberal/libertarian gains that were made in terms on convincing those on the other side of issues (gay rights being the most prominent and recent) came from argumentation on this Ground.
This is why Peterson, despite having conservative views in opposition to my liberal ones, still gets point in my book - because we recognize the Ground of the debate is the acceptance of Transcendent Morality. (Harris, in rejecting Materialism, should explain his criticism of the Ground I refer to b/c it seems he cherry picks his metaphysical absolutes.)
Well, I too am a good bit more liberal than conservative. I like Peterson for a number of reasons, but his politics are not really foremost there though. I do think he tends to be right in asserting that it is possible for the left, for liberalism, to go too far. And I agree with him that it isn't at all clear how far is too far. It's generally pretty clear when conservatism goes too far though.
In fact this would also be why Quilette irks me despite the fact I read and enjoy a lot of what's published. They seem to have a very definitive world view -> Atheist + Centrist + Liberal/Libertarian + Materialist. My guess is they're happy to use the dramatic reaction to Peterson by those further left than them but will not entertain the ideas Peterson has that go beyond their own promoted world view.
Well, like pretty much everything else, Quilette is composed of people and people are heavily biased, even when they are aware they are biased.
I've got a few things I want to read about Whitehead/Russell, after some of that is dealt with I will make an honest effort with Maps of Meaning.
If you want, when you take a crack at it, make a thread. I was making my way through it, but got sidetracked by work and real-life stuff. I think we'd probably be able to mutually makes heads or tails of most of it, if either of us got confused.
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Well, I too am a good bit more liberal than conservative. I like Peterson for a number of reasons, but his politics are not really foremost there though. I do think he tends to be right in asserting that it is possible for the left, for liberalism, to go too far. And I agree with him that it isn't at all clear how far is too far. It's generally pretty clear when conservatism goes too far though.
Ah yeah I personally barely care at all about Peterson's claims about Postmodernism, Cultural Marxism, etc.
I do think he does play a valuable role though - better the conservative that wants to protect women than the misogynist who would tape them in a bathroom or worse, even though I'd agree with Steinem that pedestals are prisons just like any other small enclosed space.
I think liberals underestimate the incredible societal value Judeo-Christian religiosity has in preserving the Ground that liberalism has made its gains on. Our conservatives, for example, aren't throwing gays off roof tops.
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Ah yeah I personally barely care at all about Peterson's claims about Postmodernism, Cultural Marxism, etc.
I do think he does play a valuable role though - better the conservative that wants to protect women than the misogynist who would tape them in a bathroom or worse, even though I'd agree with Steinem that pedestals are prisons just like any other small enclosed space.
Well, I do think that some of his point on post-modernism is salient, in the sense that moral relativism can be taken too far if there is no limit. What that limit is or should be though is up in the air.
I think liberals underestimate the incredible societal value Judeo-Christian religiosity has in preserving the Ground that liberalism has made its gains on. Our conservatives, for example, aren't throwing gays off roof tops.
Well, the radical left has no real idea of boundaries at all. So, in their mind, basically, if some liberalism is good, more must be better, and so there simply cannot be a limit. While that's a nice idea, it isn't at all practical for the real world. Naturally too, those same sort of people are the same people who cannot see the ground they stand on, because they imagine it beneath them, morally. As if they could be anywhere else...
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Ah yeah I personally barely care at all about Peterson's claims about Postmodernism, Cultural Marxism, etc.
I do think he does play a valuable role though - better the conservative that wants to protect women than the misogynist who would tape them in a bathroom or worse, even though I'd agree with Steinem that pedestals are prisons just like any other small enclosed space.
Well, I do think that some of his point on post-modernism is salient, in the sense that moral relativism can be taken too far if there is no limit. What that limit is or should be though is up in the air.
I think liberals underestimate the incredible societal value Judeo-Christian religiosity has in preserving the Ground that liberalism has made its gains on. Our conservatives, for example, aren't throwing gays off roof tops.
Well, the radical left has no real idea of boundaries at all. So, in their mind, basically, if some liberalism is good, more must be better, and so there simply cannot be a limit. While that's a nice idea, it isn't at all practical for the real world. Naturally too, those same sort of people are the same people who cannot see the ground they stand on, because they imagine it beneath them, morally. As if they could be anywhere else...
I'm wary of using the term "radical left" b/c it becomes confusing. Is Vox radical left, some of the Quilette readers seem to think so but is that a fair assessment? Where does that leave the "tumblrinas", or the New Agers?
I do agree Post-Modernism is a problem in that it eats at all Grounds but is it really fostering the "radical left"? It seems to me this group believes in moral absolutes more so than, say, the target Quilette audience. It's just they are the mirror to extreme conservatism?
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I'm wary of using the term "radical left" b/c it becomes confusing. Is Vox radical left, some of the Quilette readers seem to think so but is that a fair assessment? Where does that leave the "tumblrinas", or the New Agers?
That's part of the problem though. How can we identify when liberalism goes too far? When group identity is more important than personal identity? Where do we stand to get the proper perspective? I think the answer has to be somewhere in the middle, but who can be in the middle and then judge? They'd just be decried as too conservative. That's the problem when everything is too polar, there is no middle to mitigate extremism on either side. But it serves both sides to rip anyone in the middle to shreds because the polarity is the source of power.
I do agree Post-Modernism is a problem in that it eats at all Grounds but is it really fostering the "radical left"? It seems to me this group believes in moral absolutes more so than, say, the target Quilette audience. It's just they are the mirror to extreme conservatism?
Or is extreme conservative the mirror of extreme liberalism? Well, it's a two way street, I'd think. If one is going to entrench, the other has to, or give ground. No one wants to give ground at all.
I think it's fair to be critical of what role post-modernism is playing, but I think you are right to assume it's not the "whole story." No one thing is, I don't think.
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I'm wary of using the term "radical left" b/c it becomes confusing. Is Vox radical left, some of the Quilette readers seem to think so but is that a fair assessment? Where does that leave the "tumblrinas", or the New Agers?
That's part of the problem though. How can we identify when liberalism goes too far? When group identity is more important than personal identity? Where do we stand to get the proper perspective? I think the answer has to be somewhere in the middle, but who can be in the middle and then judge? They'd just be decried as too conservative. That's the problem when everything is too polar, there is no middle to mitigate extremism on either side. But it serves both sides to rip anyone in the middle to shreds because the polarity is the source of power.
I do agree Post-Modernism is a problem in that it eats at all Grounds but is it really fostering the "radical left"? It seems to me this group believes in moral absolutes more so than, say, the target Quilette audience. It's just they are the mirror to extreme conservatism?
Or is extreme conservative the mirror of extreme liberalism? Well, it's a two way street, I'd think. If one is going to entrench, the other has to, or give ground. No one wants to give ground at all.
I think it's fair to be critical of what role post-modernism is playing, but I think you are right to assume it's not the "whole story." No one thing is, I don't think.
Yeah, I don't want to make it seem like we're miles apart. We're pretty much aligned it seems, as far as any two people can be without going into policy specifics that I think would be a severe tangent.
I think a lot of us who are liberal but no longer "left enough" struggle how to respond to those left of us who seem happy to drive potential liberals into the arms of the alt-right. It's like watching a suicide pact made just as the Western World seemed to be turning a corner toward what we might temporally define as "90s style Liberalism".
It's amazing how Manicheanism has infected the populace, and on that front I do have a bone to pick with Peterson and some of his rhetoric...
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Yeah, I don't want to make it seem like we're miles apart. We're pretty much aligned it seems, as far as any two people can be without going into policy specifics that I think would be a severe tangent.
I think a lot of us who are liberal but no longer "left enough" struggle how to respond to those left of us who seem happy to drive potential liberals into the arms of the alt-right. It's like watching a suicide pact made just as the Western World seemed to be turning a corner toward what we might temporally define as "90s style Liberalism".
Well, I honestly think we are almost the same person, except you are actually smart and I just pretend to be.
That's something of the issue though, because even as people who have liberal sensibilities, we have some notion of limits. Yet, there is no real way to impart to someone who is almost pathologically opposed to limits their necessity. Then you are just some member of "the patriarchy," "Illuminati, or whatever other nonsense people want to throw in there.
I think Peterson is also minorly correct in that if you play identity politics too much, what you get in the end is not good.
It's amazing how Manicheanism has infected the populace, and on that front I do have a bone to pick with Peterson and some of his rhetoric...
This is an interesting idea, but I have to cut this post a bit short. Tomorrow, perhaps?
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Yeah, I don't want to make it seem like we're miles apart. We're pretty much aligned it seems, as far as any two people can be without going into policy specifics that I think would be a severe tangent.
I think a lot of us who are liberal but no longer "left enough" struggle how to respond to those left of us who seem happy to drive potential liberals into the arms of the alt-right. It's like watching a suicide pact made just as the Western World seemed to be turning a corner toward what we might temporally define as "90s style Liberalism".
Well, I honestly think we are almost the same person, except you are actually smart and I just pretend to be.
That's something of the issue though, because even as people who have liberal sensibilities, we have some notion of limits. Yet, there is no real way to impart to someone who is almost pathologically opposed to limits their necessity. Then you are just some member of "the patriarchy," "Illuminati, or whatever other nonsense people want to throw in there.
I think Peterson is also minorly correct in that if you play identity politics too much, what you get in the end is not good.
It's amazing how Manicheanism has infected the populace, and on that front I do have a bone to pick with Peterson and some of his rhetoric...
This is an interesting idea, but I have to cut this post a bit short. Tomorrow, perhaps?
Heh no you are the smart one! <<insert appropriate emoji>>
But yes, I will look for your post coming at dawn from whatever direction the riders of Rohan came from to relieve Gandalf when he faced the Witch King. <<insert appropriate emoji>>
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Each side is blind, but each contributes. Conservatives think too linearly, too simplistically and try too hard to maintain consistency across their spheres of reality – laws limit freedom, taxes are bad, assault on those you disagree with is valid behavior, the powerful are legitimate, deny yourself social program assistance though you may really need it, assaulting those who differ in opinion is valid. Liberals think too abstractly, too preachy, too judgmental and too stubborn – people who don’t recycle are part of the problem, the weaker “group” is always on the correct side of truth/justice, forcing/shaming people into better behavior is valid, giving money away soothes suffering. Both suffer from trying to leverage the social layer of society to get what they want – spreading propaganda, boycotting businesses, trials by tv. The extremes are very politically active, which highlights both their weakness ( the fight for power overwhelms their good intentions to help society ) and their strength ( enjoy saturated political participation ). Conservatives are better at understanding how humans really are and are better at driving solutions that work ( or do the least harm, lowest cost, efficiency ). Liberals are better at identifying systemic problems. So, we need both to drive effective solutions which will be embraced by the public. Currently the two sides are in a death match and carelessly sabotage democracy for advantage. The “middle” is not politically active enough to stop it. Examples of a functioning democracy would yield solutions like programs that provide avenues out of poverty in lieu of handout and an amendment that allows States to determine when life begins in exchange for a robust initiative for renewable energy ( dead pregnant women don’t care about the rights to their bodies ). Instead, we have character assassination, non-stop propaganda warfare, political sabotage and a complete disregard for those sporting different cosmologies to ourselves. This destabilization has opened the door for any entity to influence the country as the enemy are other Americans, not foreign aggressives.
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That's part of the problem though. How can we identify when liberalism goes too far? When group identity is more important than personal identity? Where do we stand to get the proper perspective? I think the answer has to be somewhere in the middle, but who can be in the middle and then judge? They'd just be decried as too conservative. That's the problem when everything is too polar, there is no middle to mitigate extremism on either side. But it serves both sides to rip anyone in the middle to shreds because the polarity is the source of power.
I really like this explanation, on what I think is the entire problem with politics in the U.S..
I won't pretend to be smart enough to add anything significant enough other than my opinion. But, if I have ever stated that my views lie in the center (relative to the far right & left), I HAVE been viewed as having no real opinion. Which I find to be bullocks. Because, if I can look at an issue and see both sides does that mean that I have no real view on it? I do. It's only that I know the only way to reach a sensible solution is to meet somewhere in the middle. Hopefully, with a little more swinging your way. If not, we're left at a standstill. Exactly where politics stand today. No one willing to budge on their viewpoint, not willing to meet in the middle. It will be the downfall of us, I'm sure, if it doesn't change.
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That's part of the problem though. How can we identify when liberalism goes too far? When group identity is more important than personal identity? Where do we stand to get the proper perspective? I think the answer has to be somewhere in the middle, but who can be in the middle and then judge? They'd just be decried as too conservative. That's the problem when everything is too polar, there is no middle to mitigate extremism on either side. But it serves both sides to rip anyone in the middle to shreds because the polarity is the source of power.
I really like this explanation, on what I think is the entire problem with politics in the U.S..
I won't pretend to be smart enough to add anything significant enough other than my opinion. But, if I have ever stated that my views lie in the center (relative to the far right & left), I HAVE been viewed as having no real opinion. Which I find to be bullocks. Because, if I can look at an issue and see both sides does that mean that I have no real view on it? I do. It's only that I know the only way to reach a sensible solution is to meet somewhere in the middle. Hopefully, with a little more swinging your way. If not, we're left at a standstill. Exactly where politics stand today. No one willing to budge on their viewpoint, not willing to meet in the middle. It will be the downfall of us, I'm sure, if it doesn't change.
I don't think our current politics are all that dire. Remember, the hardcore right thought America wouldn't survive the Obama presidency. Now the hardcore left thinks we won't survive the Trump presidency. All of it .... complete nonsense.
Centrists such as MSJ may not be politically influential at this moment, but it is that centrist, bridge-building impulse that holds a society together. The wise among the hardcore politicos recognize that truth, and they know that they need to attract the centrists, to be open to that bridge-building impulse.
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I don't think our current politics are all that dire. Remember, the hardcore right thought America wouldn't survive the Obama presidency. Now the hardcore left thinks we won't survive the Trump presidency. All of it .... complete nonsense.
Centrists such as MSJ may not be politically influential at this moment, but it is that centrist, bridge-building impulse that holds a society together. The wise among the hardcore politicos recognize that truth, and they know that they need to attract the centrists, to be open to that bridge-building impulse.
Apocalypse, appropriately enough, is always just beyond the next perceptual horizon. That really isn't anything new, recall how all-out nuclear war seemed just off the radar? The list goes on throughout human history. It's eschatology and I don't think there has ever been a time where humans didn't have a sense that the end could be near. Because it is a fact that it always could be.
Heh no you are the smart one! <<insert appropriate emoji>>
Ha, no way, like 0% chance there.
But yes, I will look for your post coming at dawn from whatever direction the riders of Rohan came from to relieve Gandalf when he faced the Witch King. <<insert appropriate emoji>>
Well, it's an interesting point about Manicheanism you bring up, because on the one hand, our generally post-modern sensibilities point us toward the idea that it is absolutely false. If all morality is relative, there is no light or dark, no good or bad, we only imagine opposites because of our perspective. While this is logical, I don't really think this is how our brains work. Not how our heuristics work. Is it really the case that this is "new" though? Hasn't it always been the case that people imagined themselves as the light against the darkness?
I don't really know that the issue is Manicheanism, per se, but rather, like we talked about earlier, with overwhelming polarization. Maybe that is the same thing though. The question then is why now?
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It could simply be a change in politics, which means a change in nothing, really. If it's "just" a fight for power, well that's good news as much/all of the crazy talk is just rhetoric - it's about winning elections and not about really doing anything ( harmful ). That said, there has been, what I think has been an awful mistake, change in direction in foreign policy.
What Trump has done is make a very clear line between political speech and policy and that may be a good thing. People crave that daily interaction ( reality tv, twitter ) and love him for it. But our bureaucracy has rightly ignored it and will only act on "properly communicated directives" before doing anything. Trump has fired Muller a thousand times, but has yet to fire him. Up til now, political and policy speech were woven into the same presentation - which confused the direction with lies. Now we have clearly what the President is doing ( executive orders, policies, bills ) and political speech ( twitter, rallies, tv interviews ). So the fight for power and what that power does have been segregated which makes it easier to understand what an administration is really up to.
Don't know how this "blue wave" is going to pan out for liberals/leftists/democrats as they still haven't wised up to what's going on with the Trump experience. They're baffled why so many would follow such a person, someone who perpetually lies and more so lies on purpose even when it's not necessary. Trumpians LOVE pissing off liberals. So Trump with all of his made up stuff is doing exactly what his base wants him to do - drive liberals off a cliff in a fit. The left will have to learn how to fight back before they can thwart Trump/Trumpians. Trumpians are all in politically and love partisanship and not just validate, but encourage their leaders to embrace propaganda. The Left has to understand this phenomena before they'll win elections. The view 80% of the country are victims of "the rich" won't cut it. The big lies the Left are riding on is running out of gas: the "middle/lower classes" are some poetically morally beautiful struggling people ( as opposed to individuals acting in their self interest ) and the "conspiracy" of the rich are out to get them ( as opposed to individuals acting in their self interest ). We saw this in the failure of the Obama Administration - they went after to help the poor in the great recession and missed the message of the middle class: us first. Alternative energy and infrastructure was the path demanded, but they went after health care. I think they did this as they were "tired of cleaning up after conservative administrations" as Clinton had to do and haven't had a good chance to impose their agenda. Well, they did and it came at a terrible cost to Democrats.
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I don't think our current politics are all that dire. Remember, the hardcore right thought America wouldn't survive the Obama presidency. Now the hardcore left thinks we won't survive the Trump presidency. All of it .... complete nonsense.
Centrists such as MSJ may not be politically influential at this moment, but it is that centrist, bridge-building impulse that holds a society together. The wise among the hardcore politicos recognize that truth, and they know that they need to attract the centrists, to be open to that bridge-building impulse.
Apocalypse, appropriately enough, is always just beyond the next perceptual horizon. That really isn't anything new, recall how all-out nuclear war seemed just off the radar? The list goes on throughout human history. It's eschatology and I don't think there has ever been a time where humans didn't have a sense that the end could be near. Because it is a fact that it always could be.
Heh no you are the smart one! <<insert appropriate emoji>>
Ha, no way, like 0% chance there.
But yes, I will look for your post coming at dawn from whatever direction the riders of Rohan came from to relieve Gandalf when he faced the Witch King. <<insert appropriate emoji>>
Well, it's an interesting point about Manicheanism you bring up, because on the one hand, our generally post-modern sensibilities point us toward the idea that it is absolutely false. If all morality is relative, there is no light or dark, no good or bad, we only imagine opposites because of our perspective. While this is logical, I don't really think this is how our brains work. Not how our heuristics work. Is it really the case that this is "new" though? Hasn't it always been the case that people imagined themselves as the light against the darkness?
I don't really know that the issue is Manicheanism, per se, but rather, like we talked about earlier, with overwhelming polarization. Maybe that is the same thing though. The question then is why now?
I look at the polarization as Manicheanism b/c what we have is appeals to the converted over argumentation and desire to convert. People either hit all the checks on the limit test or they are Evil, people slip up and do/say the wrong thing and they are Evil or at the least worthy of deep condemnation.
I suspect this has less to do with any real moral outrage, regardless of politics, and more about the feeling of self-righteousness. Of course as Bakker says people, if they recognize these defects, recognize them as belonging to others.
It's not even Trump, or the flip of his characteristics on the Left, as the problem extends to things like non-political hoaxes about floods and child kidnappers on WhatsApp in my motherland (India).
I don't necessarily think this is an inevitable alignment, even though some days I wonder if Social Media is our Great Filter, but for the time being it leaves things in a poor state as there are lots of problems like the death of the environment that aren't waiting around for the bread & circus to end.
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I look at the polarization as Manicheanism b/c what we have is appeals to the converted over argumentation and desire to convert. People either hit all the checks on the limit test or they are Evil, people slip up and do/say the wrong thing and they are Evil or at the least worthy of deep condemnation.
Is it really a desire to convert though? I think it's beyond that. These ideologies aren't comparable to religion in that sense. Often, religious proponents are actually looking at saving someone from some (real or imagined) moral crisis if they are looking to convert them (although, of course, not always). But I don't think any one on one political side is looking to save someone on the other. They are looking to prove their opponent's view wrong, because then that means their view is right. That seems to be the only way of doing so, because who can prove that liberal ideas are inherently "more correct" than conservative ones? It simply can't be done systematically. Because it is a valve judgement, not a factual debate.
I suspect this has less to do with any real moral outrage, regardless of politics, and more about the feeling of self-righteousness. Of course as Bakker says people, if they recognize these defects, recognize them as belonging to others.
Indeed, that is just classic psychological projection. We all do it, every day. This is partly why I think Bakker misses a lot by not actually considering psychology to a greater degree. He thinks that humans are reducible to machines, essentially, but I don't think that is quite true.
It's not even Trump, or the flip of his characteristics on the Left, as the problem extends to things like non-political hoaxes about floods and child kidnappers on WhatsApp in my motherland (India).
I don't necessarily think this is an inevitable alignment, even though some days I wonder if Social Media is our Great Filter, but for the time being it leaves things in a poor state as there are lots of problems like the death of the environment that aren't waiting around for the bread & circus to end.
They do that here in the US too. It's fear manufacturing and someone is reaping a benefit from it. Be it psychological or practical. It's largely a difference of the "world-as-it-is" and "world-as-it-should-be." It isn't that simple though, because the "world-as-it-is" the world of facts, is not the "world-as-it-seems-to-us-psychologically." So, we have this competition going on, between three different worlds that intersect in places, but no one wants to look there, because almost everyone is convinced that those three worlds are one and the same.
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Don't know how this "blue wave" is going to pan out for liberals/leftists/democrats as they still haven't wised up to what's going on with the Trump experience. They're baffled why so many would follow such a person, someone who perpetually lies and more so lies on purpose even when it's not necessary. Trumpians LOVE pissing off liberals. So Trump with all of his made up stuff is doing exactly what his base wants him to do - drive liberals off a cliff in a fit.
Well, you are right, but see my above point to Sci, really. There would seem to be multiple things at play here. A lot of it is the fact that a great deal of people don't care if someone lies. In fact, they expect it of politicians. So when one obviously lies, it isn't a big deal, it's not contrary to anything really. This is really a moral failing, more than anything. But it's deeper, because it's also a revolt against facts. Again, because people do inherently intuit that the world is not reducible to facts. And so why should they care about just facts?
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Don't know how this "blue wave" is going to pan out for liberals/leftists/democrats as they still haven't wised up to what's going on with the Trump experience. They're baffled why so many would follow such a person, someone who perpetually lies and more so lies on purpose even when it's not necessary. Trumpians LOVE pissing off liberals. So Trump with all of his made up stuff is doing exactly what his base wants him to do - drive liberals off a cliff in a fit.
Well, you are right, but see my above point to Sci, really. There would seem to be multiple things at play here. A lot of it is the fact that a great deal of people don't care if someone lies. In fact, they expect it of politicians. So when one obviously lies, it isn't a big deal, it's not contrary to anything really. This is really a moral failing, more than anything. But it's deeper, because it's also a revolt against facts. Again, because people do inherently intuit that the world is not reducible to facts. And so why should they care about just facts?
Social coherence simply weighs higher than facts in most humans, especially when those facts don't impact them directly. Climate change, evolution, GMOs, physics, Trump's lies etc. have a negligible if any impact on the average city dweller. Adhering to ingroup beliefs even if they clash with whatever facts is simply the shortest path.
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I look at the polarization as Manicheanism b/c what we have is appeals to the converted over argumentation and desire to convert. People either hit all the checks on the limit test or they are Evil, people slip up and do/say the wrong thing and they are Evil or at the least worthy of deep condemnation.
Is it really a desire to convert though? I think it's beyond that. These ideologies aren't comparable to religion in that sense. Often, religious proponents are actually looking at saving someone from some (real or imagined) moral crisis if they are looking to convert them (although, of course, not always). But I don't think any one on one political side is looking to save someone on the other. They are looking to prove their opponent's view wrong, because then that means their view is right. That seems to be the only way of doing so, because who can prove that liberal ideas are inherently "more correct" than conservative ones? It simply can't be done systematically. Because it is a valve judgement, not a factual debate.
I suspect this has less to do with any real moral outrage, regardless of politics, and more about the feeling of self-righteousness. Of course as Bakker says people, if they recognize these defects, recognize them as belonging to others.
Indeed, that is just classic psychological projection. We all do it, every day. This is partly why I think Bakker misses a lot by not actually considering psychology to a greater degree. He thinks that humans are reducible to machines, essentially, but I don't think that is quite true.
It's not even Trump, or the flip of his characteristics on the Left, as the problem extends to things like non-political hoaxes about floods and child kidnappers on WhatsApp in my motherland (India).
I don't necessarily think this is an inevitable alignment, even though some days I wonder if Social Media is our Great Filter, but for the time being it leaves things in a poor state as there are lots of problems like the death of the environment that aren't waiting around for the bread & circus to end.
They do that here in the US too. It's fear manufacturing and someone is reaping a benefit from it. Be it psychological or practical. It's largely a difference of the "world-as-it-is" and "world-as-it-should-be." It isn't that simple though, because the "world-as-it-is" the world of facts, is not the "world-as-it-seems-to-us-psychologically." So, we have this competition going on, between three different worlds that intersect in places, but no one wants to look there, because almost everyone is convinced that those three worlds are one and the same.
Sorry I was unclear - i mean argumentation and attempts at conversion are a good thing. It means you can see some humanity in the other side. For example I don't agree politically with most if not all of Edward Feser's views. However I can see where he has taken the time to show the value of Indian philosophy/theology while also honestly saying he thinks the Church is the true (only?) path to Salvation.
He wants the Hindu (and other believers) to be credited for being - in his view - partially correct, and he also sees every person on earth as potentially saved.
That's the Theist based Ground that even Liberalism is based on. There's a right way to believe, and everyone can be turned toward it. It's this kind of push toward transcendent values while recognizing at least the conditioning if not the valid argumentation of the other side. (Valid as in worth engagement, since neither side thinks the other is ultimately valid which is fine so long as the Ground is preserved.)
However with Manicheanism the Other is irredeemable/deplorable beyond hope, unless of course they do a moral 180 and prostrate themselves before their new "friends" on the Right/Left. Gnosticism makes this worse, because now there is some kind of boogeyman that is an Anti-Semitic conspiracy or All White People are Racist mentality, and so not only are you in a battle of Platonic Good/Evil you have the "right" to abuse b/c you're Neo in the Matrix killing the too-far-gone sleepers.
Oh I also agree Bakker's attempts to have eliminativism and liberalism coincide is doomed to failure. Another reason Peterson at least brings us back to the correct Ground.
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Don't know how this "blue wave" is going to pan out for liberals/leftists/democrats as they still haven't wised up to what's going on with the Trump experience. They're baffled why so many would follow such a person, someone who perpetually lies and more so lies on purpose even when it's not necessary. Trumpians LOVE pissing off liberals. So Trump with all of his made up stuff is doing exactly what his base wants him to do - drive liberals off a cliff in a fit.
Well, you are right, but see my above point to Sci, really. There would seem to be multiple things at play here. A lot of it is the fact that a great deal of people don't care if someone lies. In fact, they expect it of politicians. So when one obviously lies, it isn't a big deal, it's not contrary to anything really. This is really a moral failing, more than anything. But it's deeper, because it's also a revolt against facts. Again, because people do inherently intuit that the world is not reducible to facts. And so why should they care about just facts?
Social coherence simply weighs higher than facts in most humans, especially when those facts don't impact them directly. Climate change, evolution, GMOs, physics, Trump's lies etc. have a negligible if any impact on the average city dweller. Adhering to ingroup beliefs even if they clash with whatever facts is simply the shortest path.
Yes, and this is not easy to go beyond understanding, but actually incorporating it into your every day psychology. For example, when Trump said Muslims were dancing on the rooftops in Jersey across the river during 911, that in itself was a lie, but many who agree with him think it true in the sense that they believe a plurality ( at least, if not a super majority ) of Muslims "enjoyed" 911 or at the very least, don't feel the event as deeply as "the rest of us". Pundits struggled with this concept, coming up with the awkward verbiage "truthiness". Forget the facts, the feelings about the world Trump exhibits make him "authentic". The facts not adding up is small not because they're inconvenient, but simply unnecessary to validate internal beliefs/prejudices/biases - I can't prove it, but I know it to be true. And it's muddier still as just because you present something you label "facts" doesn't mean you punctured through all of my protections from allowing you to manipulate me ( are you lying and they're not really facts, are you mistaken about the fact, was the source of your fact lying or make mistakes, are you including all relevant facts for which if comprehensive would draw a different picture and lastly, even if I concede the fact is accurate, do I agree with you on what that fact means and best course to proceed ). The irony is by protecting oneself from being manipulated by opposing views/people/facts, you're opening yourself up to being manipulated by in kind "allies".
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Social coherence simply weighs higher than facts in most humans, especially when those facts don't impact them directly. Climate change, evolution, GMOs, physics, Trump's lies etc. have a negligible if any impact on the average city dweller. Adhering to ingroup beliefs even if they clash with whatever facts is simply the shortest path.
I don't think it is necessarily as simple as just social coherence though. I mean, that is certainly part of it, because it stands to reason that one of the roles of ideology itself is so that we can figure out, in general, who to trust. That is, who shares our values and thus could be considered an ally in achieving them. If we don't garner values from facts, then it stands to reason that we don't need facts to justify our values. Our values, it is often assumed, are simply just self-evident. Who cares about facts? So, then why not just put "facts" to work for our values? This is likely why, if you share values with someone telling lies, you are apt to not care that they are lying. Because they share the aim of trying to achieve what you value.
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Sorry I was unclear - i mean argumentation and attempts at conversion are a good thing. It means you can see some humanity in the other side. For example I don't agree politically with most if not all of Edward Feser's views. However I can see where he has taken the time to show the value of Indian philosophy/theology while also honestly saying he thinks the Church is the true (only?) path to Salvation.
He wants the Hindu (and other believers) to be credited for being - in his view - partially correct, and he also sees every person on earth as potentially saved.
That's the Theist based Ground that even Liberalism is based on. There's a right way to believe, and everyone can be turned toward it. It's this kind of push toward transcendent values while recognizing at least the conditioning if not the valid argumentation of the other side. (Valid as in worth engagement, since neither side thinks the other is ultimately valid which is fine so long as the Ground is preserved.)
Well, that is one of the reasons why unbridled liberalism really isn't something to be aspired to. I mean, despite what some far-left people think, conservatism isn't just some irrational feeling based on fear and stupidity. We should be right to have some degree of apprehension as to what the hell we are doing to ourselves socially. Because we don't know, as a fact, that every liberal agenda is bound to make for a successful society. If you imagine that all of the "societal ground" we stand on is contemptible and dispensable, and so toss it, what are you left standing on? So, you are right to question the moral erosion of common ground.
If you take the Harris line though, that we can simply ground ourselves in facts, you are going to arrive in a hellish place sooner or later, because we are not equipped to derive values in such a way. Values need to be transcendent, or else we have no defense against nihilism. Mainly because nihilism is a truth. But it need not be The Truth.
However with Manicheanism the Other is irredeemable/deplorable beyond hope, unless of course they do a moral 180 and prostrate themselves before their new "friends" on the Right/Left. Gnosticism makes this worse, because now there is some kind of boogeyman that is an Anti-Semitic conspiracy or All White People are Racist mentality, and so not only are you in a battle of Platonic Good/Evil you have the "right" to abuse b/c you're Neo in the Matrix killing the too-far-gone sleepers.
Oh I also agree Bakker's attempts to have eliminativism and liberalism coincide is doomed to failure. Another reason Peterson at least brings us back to the correct Ground.
Ah, I was missing where you were taking Manicheanism there. I think there is a more pragmatic issue at hand though and it isn't so much Manicheanism itself, so much as it is the problem of psychological projection writ large. Which means, again, something that Peterson points out, that the problem with the "other side" is actually the problem with ourselves. So, if we imagine the other side "evil" it is because we project outwards the very potential evil inside ourselves, ascribing it to those we disagree with. So, what then is "the problem?" A failure, societally, to be fully psychologically "whole."
This is likely why neither "side" can bear to even consider issues from the other's point of view. How could they, less they open the Pandora's Box of thoughts, feelings, and other unsavory psychological chimera that they have specifically and deliberately excised in constructing their persona?
Indeed, in a Jungian sense, this is the psychological Manicheanism of everyone's mind played out.
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Well, that is one of the reasons why unbridled liberalism really isn't something to be aspired to. I mean, despite what some far-left people think, conservatism isn't just some irrational feeling based on fear and stupidity. We should be right to have some degree of apprehension as to what the hell we are doing to ourselves socially. Because we don't know, as a fact, that every liberal agenda is bound to make for a successful society. If you imagine that all of the "societal ground" we stand on is contemptible and dispensable, and so toss it, what are you left standing on? So, you are right to question the moral erosion of common ground.
If you take the Harris line though, that we can simply ground ourselves in facts, you are going to arrive in a hellish place sooner or later, because we are not equipped to derive values in such a way. Values need to be transcendent, or else we have no defense against nihilism. Mainly because nihilism is a truth. But it need not be The Truth.
I think we're on the same page here. Interlocutors must conceive of each other - to some degree - as rational animals who genuinely at least feel that their beliefs are justified. It's a challenge because so much of our media, and now our politics, tells stories that are Manichean or Gnostic. Even when conversion happens it's through some emotional event, rather than through rational argumentation (or that seed of Goodness was inside the villain all along).
The story we tell about the world, along with. the story we tell about ourselves, is then picked from the story telling mechanisms we've saved up. This is where I fear Peterson falters to an extent - he seems to recognize the problem but also seems inclined to exacerbate it.
Harris seems to think we can gain rights when someone has "no reason" to discriminate. This seems rather naive, but then the entire New Atheist project - along with its predecessor in academia - seems entirely faith based to me. Trying to cross the Is-Ought chasm leads to the kind of political "me first" tribalism that threatens us in at least the short-term time window.
So I'd say Peterson is flawed in the way we all are, but Harris is just twiddling around in some New Atheist fantasy land completely adrift from the way we interact with the world through our Myth-built interfaces (or to borrow from Robert Anton Wilson, our Reality Tunnels).
Ah, I was missing where you were taking Manicheanism there. I think there is a more pragmatic issue at hand though and it isn't so much Manicheanism itself, so much as it is the problem of psychological projection writ large. Which means, again, something that Peterson points out, that the problem with the "other side" is actually the problem with ourselves. So, if we imagine the other side "evil" it is because we project outwards the very potential evil inside ourselves, ascribing it to those we disagree with. So, what then is "the problem?" A failure, societally, to be fully psychologically "whole."
This is likely why neither "side" can bear to even consider issues from the other's point of view. How could they, less they open the Pandora's Box of thoughts, feelings, and other unsavory psychological chimera that they have specifically and deliberately excised in constructing their persona?
Indeed, in a Jungian sense, this is the psychological Manicheanism of everyone's mind played out.
I see what you mean - I'd use Manicheanism as a short hand descriptor, a "what" but your stuff about psychological projection is the "why" & "how" of the problem.
The problem with hearing the other side is to risk becoming un-woke or a cuck...Hundred Heavens forbid...Admittedly this "danger" of blasphemy is something from the religious-based Ground we probably should've dropped...seems like we ditched the baby and kept the dirty bathwater. <<insert appropriate emoji>>
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I think we're on the same page here. Interlocutors must conceive of each other - to some degree - as rational animals who genuinely at least feel that their beliefs are justified. It's a challenge because so much of our media, and now our politics, tells stories that are Manichean or Gnostic. Even when conversion happens it's through some emotional event, rather than through rational argumentation (or that seed of Goodness was inside the villain all along).
The story we tell about the world, along with. the story we tell about ourselves, is then picked from the story telling mechanisms we've saved up. This is where I fear Peterson falters to an extent - he seems to recognize the problem but also seems inclined to exacerbate it.
Well, I think we actually go wrong right at the point at which we attempt to ascribe rationality to others. Because there-in, we make the value-judgement that rational explanation is preferable. Maybe it often is preferable, but that is still bias. We don't really arrive at transcendent values through rationality. Again, that is the Harris pit-fall. Rather than assume (and irrationally expect) rationality from everyone else, we can realize that we, ourselves, are not rational and so dispense with the idea that we can bludgeon the other side with facts (because we never chose anything based on facts anyway).
Peterson, as you point out, doesn't defuse this. And I think you are very right on that. But I think it's mainly because, one, he doesn't know how, I don't think anyone does. And two, because I think his line of thinking is akin to: the story of the world is the story of our psychological development, writ large; if we tell ourselves better stories, we can act out better stories; if we act out better stories, the story of the world will be better.
He might be wrong, but I don't think his premise is all that fundamentally flawed. That isn't to say he couldn't do a better job at things, because he, like anyone and everyone else, is flawed and makes mistakes. At least though, from what I've seen, he is often willing to admit when he does.
Harris seems to think we can gain rights when someone has "no reason" to discriminate. This seems rather naive, but then the entire New Atheist project - along with its predecessor in academia - seems entirely faith based to me. Trying to cross the Is-Ought chasm leads to the kind of political "me first" tribalism that threatens us in at least the short-term time window.
So I'd say Peterson is flawed in the way we all are, but Harris is just twiddling around in some New Atheist fantasy land completely adrift from the way we interact with the world through our Myth-built interfaces (or to borrow from Robert Anton Wilson, our Reality Tunnels).
Yeah, Harris is basically in the intellectual wish-fulfilment bussiness. Like, wouldn't it be great if we were supremely rational beings who could ponder something and then come up with the best possible course of action for everyone? Yeah, but none of us are God and aren't likely to think ourselves to become Him.
I see what you mean - I'd use Manicheanism as a short hand descriptor, a "what" but your stuff about psychological projection is the "why" & "how" of the problem.
The problem with hearing the other side is to risk becoming un-woke or a cuck...Hundred Heavens forbid...Admittedly this "danger" of blasphemy is something from the religious-based Ground we probably should've dropped...seems like we ditched the baby and kept the dirty bathwater. <<insert appropriate emoji>>
Well, there is good reason to consider blasphemy, though. If we state too long at the Devil, perhaps we consider his view too much and then become devils ourselves! There is something to be said about what I coin (in my own deluded mind) as "dread knowledge." That is, something that once known, actually makes your life worse. I got this idea mainly from Bakker's use of The Inverse Fire. But really, anything the pushes you toward the trap of nihilism fits the bill. It isn't that it isn't true, because blasphemy isn't just untruth, it's something that strikes at The Ground. If you do that too often, you'll have no where to stand.
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Well, I think we actually go wrong right at the point at which we attempt to ascribe rationality to others. Because there-in, we make the value-judgement that rational explanation is preferable. Maybe it often is preferable, but that is still bias. We don't really arrive at transcendent values through rationality. Again, that is the Harris pit-fall. Rather than assume (and irrationally expect) rationality from everyone else, we can realize that we, ourselves, are not rational and so dispense with the idea that we can bludgeon the other side with facts (because we never chose anything based on facts anyway).
Peterson, as you point out, doesn't defuse this. And I think you are very right on that. But I think it's mainly because, one, he doesn't know how, I don't think anyone does. And two, because I think his line of thinking is akin to: the story of the world is the story of our psychological development, writ large; if we tell ourselves better stories, we can act out better stories; if we act out better stories, the story of the world will be better.
He might be wrong, but I don't think his premise is all that fundamentally flawed. That isn't to say he couldn't do a better job at things, because he, like anyone and everyone else, is flawed and makes mistakes. At least though, from what I've seen, he is often willing to admit when he does.
I'd agree with you, there is more to us than just our comprehension of the rational. Perhaps better to say that we should always see our political opponents as persuadable. They are not incarnations of a view, but they may stridently hold a view that can, with persuasion, be changed.
Where I think the rational aspect of our nature comes into it is I'm not sure how one can deal with argumentation without recourse to reason and still maintain a healthy politic. Admittedly one can make an emotional appeal for compassion, and perhaps that appeal to humanity is more central to a good discourse than pure reason...or perhaps there needs to be balance.
I think this is central question, how to establish the proper Ground in a meta-political sense rather than any particular issues.
Yeah, Harris is basically in the intellectual wish-fulfilment bussiness. Like, wouldn't it be great if we were supremely rational beings who could ponder something and then come up with the best possible course of action for everyone? Yeah, but none of us are God and aren't likely to think ourselves to become Him.
I'm not sure Harris is making an appeal to reason so much as attempting to enshrine his views - and his own mental ability - as the Highest Rational. But this leads to a variety of questions - he debases compatibilism but then tries to reinvent the wheel of that very concept, he talks about an "Obvious Good" without getting into the question of the Source, he dips his toes into immaterialism & Buddhism ego-death while trying to skirt around the metaphysical questions.
Well, there is good reason to consider blasphemy, though. If we state too long at the Devil, perhaps we consider his view too much and then become devils ourselves! There is something to be said about what I coin (in my own deluded mind) as "dread knowledge." That is, something that once known, actually makes your life worse. I got this idea mainly from Bakker's use of The Inverse Fire. But really, anything the pushes you toward the trap of nihilism fits the bill. It isn't that it isn't true, because blasphemy isn't just untruth, it's something that strikes at The Ground. If you do that too often, you'll have no where to stand.
But then everything Bakker has written on Three Pound Brain would be blasphemous? I'm not in complete disagreement with you, it's a complicated question - is everyone able to handle the nihilism inherent to a variety of world views?
Of course what is Nihilistic varies between people. If I was told God knows the future of my life and all my choices that seems pretty depressing but others would be elated to be convinced of such a thing.
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I'd agree with you, there is more to us than just our comprehension of the rational. Perhaps better to say that we should always see our political opponents as persuadable. They are not incarnations of a view, but they may stridently hold a view that can, with persuasion, be changed.
Where I think the rational aspect of our nature comes into it is I'm not sure how one can deal with argumentation without recourse to reason and still maintain a healthy politic. Admittedly one can make an emotional appeal for compassion, and perhaps that appeal to humanity is more central to a good discourse than pure reason...or perhaps there needs to be balance.
I think this is central question, how to establish the proper Ground in a meta-political sense rather than any particular issues.
Well, you are probably right. However, if we can acknowledge that action, an more importantly stances, are largely taken on irrational grounds, we might stand a better chance? Then again, maybe not.
I think the whole issue of polarization is the issue of the insistence of no common ground. That is, the active denial of common ground. Can we rationally convince people it exists, if they willfully disbelieve? I think this might be why Peterson is somewhat right, it probably needs to be narratively delivered instead.
I'm not sure Harris is making an appeal to reason so much as attempting to enshrine his views - and his own mental ability - as the Highest Rational. But this leads to a variety of questions - he debases compatibilism but then tries to reinvent the wheel of that very concept, he talks about an "Obvious Good" without getting into the question of the Source, he dips his toes into immaterialism & Buddhism ego-death while trying to skirt around the metaphysical questions.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Harris said that any moral philosophy just bores him so he pays no mind to it. With that kind of stance, is it any wonder he blithely disregards the metaphysical?
But then everything Bakker has written on Three Pound Brain would be blasphemous? I'm not in complete disagreement with you, it's a complicated question - is everyone able to handle the nihilism inherent to a variety of world views?
Of course what is Nihilistic varies between people. If I was told God knows the future of my life and all my choices that seems pretty depressing but others would be elated to be convinced of such a thing.
Well, maybe? But the thing is, what knowledge breaks me or you might plausibly edify someone else? Because it depends on what their values were before and what their values become after? So, it's hard to say, definitively what really would be universal blasphemy. I don't think that precludes it not existing though.
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I'd agree with you, there is more to us than just our comprehension of the rational. Perhaps better to say that we should always see our political opponents as persuadable. They are not incarnations of a view, but they may stridently hold a view that can, with persuasion, be changed.
Where I think the rational aspect of our nature comes into it is I'm not sure how one can deal with argumentation without recourse to reason and still maintain a healthy politic. Admittedly one can make an emotional appeal for compassion, and perhaps that appeal to humanity is more central to a good discourse than pure reason...or perhaps there needs to be balance.
I think this is central question, how to establish the proper Ground in a meta-political sense rather than any particular issues.
Well, you are probably right. However, if we can acknowledge that action, an more importantly stances, are largely taken on irrational grounds, we might stand a better chance? Then again, maybe not.
I think the whole issue of polarization is the issue of the insistence of no common ground. That is, the active denial of common ground. Can we rationally convince people it exists, if they willfully disbelieve? I think this might be why Peterson is somewhat right, it probably needs to be narratively delivered instead.
Regarding Common Ground I think most people would agree on some basic moral Principles, even if how they prioritize these tenets in different situations shifts.
One valuable thing would be the recalling of such Principles, wherein the set of Principles you have should transcend tribalism and should ask something of you. When people's Principles end up asking much of others but little of the Principles' advocates you're likely to see disintegration of Ground. (As one conservative whose name escapes me said, if one wants to spread the idea of strict constitutionalism one should find places where it gives liberals what they want at the cost of conservative desires.)
Now the conviction we have for these Principles is, in some sense, irrational in that it can go against a Reasoned course of action. But even our recognition of Reason/Rationality is intuitive, a kind of personal gnosis shared amongst our species. IIRC Schelling calls Reason the Groundless Ground -> Perhaps our Principles also lie in that mysterious Darkness?
I agree with you that narratives have value here -> Fostering these Principles is likely accomplished by Myths - hence why fairy tales and comic books are useful means of promoting good values. Perhaps what we need are Myths that speak to those older as well, compelling enough to recall the necessity of applying Principles with a minimization - if not elimination - of caveats.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Harris said that any moral philosophy just bores him so he pays no mind to it. With that kind of stance, is it any wonder he blithely disregards the metaphysical?
I think I recall him saying something similar - it's easy to dismiss ethics if you think we can use the right combination of brain-scans and computers to bring about a moral society I guess.
Well, maybe? But the thing is, what knowledge breaks me or you might plausibly edify someone else? Because it depends on what their values were before and what their values become after? So, it's hard to say, definitively what really would be universal blasphemy. I don't think that precludes it not existing though.
Well it may not be universal blasphemy but hard to see how any humanism survives materialism...At the very least we should balance out that which is life-negating with that which is life-affirming, maybe some Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead for starters...
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Regarding Common Ground I think most people would agree on some basic moral Principles, even if how they prioritize these tenets in different situations shifts.
One valuable thing would be the recalling of such Principles, wherein the set of Principles you have should transcend tribalism and should ask something of you. When people's Principles end up asking much of others but little of the Principles' advocates you're likely to see disintegration of Ground. (As one conservative whose name escapes me said, if one wants to spread the idea of strict constitutionalism one should find places where it gives liberals what they want at the cost of conservative desires.)
Now the conviction we have for these Principles is, in some sense, irrational in that it can go against a Reasoned course of action. But even our recognition of Reason/Rationality is intuitive, a kind of personal gnosis shared amongst our species. IIRC Schelling calls Reason the Groundless Ground -> Perhaps our Principles also lie in that mysterious Darkness?
Well, it isn't just Principles and prioritizaion though, it's how those principles are used to "reason" through the cypher of Values. So, we can almost all agree that murder is wrong, but then what do we define as murder? Is killing in war murder? Is abortion murder? How we evaluate these things definitely lies, to some degree io the "Groundless Ground" of Reason, but I don't think it is 100% by any means. Where do our Values come from then? I think they are "pre-Reason" and do originate somewhere in the preconscious mind, but since we don't often delve in there, it's murky at best.
I agree with you that narratives have value here -> Fostering these Principles is likely accomplished by Myths - hence why fairy tales and comic books are useful means of promoting good values. Perhaps what we need are Myths that speak to those older as well, compelling enough to recall the necessity of applying Principles with a minimization - if not elimination - of caveats.
Perhaps something of the issue is that we are full on allegories, now-a-days, but distinctly light on myths?
I think I recall him saying something similar - it's easy to dismiss ethics if you think we can use the right combination of brain-scans and computers to bring about a moral society I guess.
I think he also wrote it at the end of his book, The Moral Landscape. It's a "nice" idea, that we could "science" our way out, but likely then the "way out" is worse than the problems at hand.
Well it may not be universal blasphemy but hard to see how any humanism survives materialism...At the very least we should balance out that which is life-negating with that which is life-affirming, maybe some Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead for starters...
Could it be that "The Truth" itself is rather life-negating, because the fundamental principles of the Universe are basically agnostic to life itself?
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I think the struggle in this conversation lies in how challenging it's been to determine if we have free will. If we have free will, then we will be unable to find the source of thought. If we don't have free will, then evolution/cause and effect will eventually explain everything you're talking about. These layers of consciousness, ground, culture all being a result of pool balls after all - just because the same ball can be in all locations at once doesn't mean you're still not playing pool. And I have some ideas on why the ball appears in all locations it could be at the same time while in only 1 position when observed.
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I think the struggle in this conversation lies in how challenging it's been to determine if we have free will. If we have free will, then we will be unable to find the source of thought. If we don't have free will, then evolution/cause and effect will eventually explain everything you're talking about. These layers of consciousness, ground, culture all being a result of pool balls after all - just because the same ball can be in all locations at once doesn't mean you're still not playing pool. And I have some ideas on why the ball appears in all locations it could be at the same time while in only 1 position when observed.
Well, I don't think it can simply be reduced to a binary though. As in, I don't think it's as simple as their being 100% free will, or 0%. Because Dataism has largely proven "correct enough" to be highly predictive and effective. Meaning, we are not 100% free o of from influence, suggestion, or determinism, even if our Will is free to some degree. I think the Will could function as if free, but largely does not.
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I think the struggle in this conversation lies in how challenging it's been to determine if we have free will. If we have free will, then we will be unable to find the source of thought. If we don't have free will, then evolution/cause and effect will eventually explain everything you're talking about. These layers of consciousness, ground, culture all being a result of pool balls after all - just because the same ball can be in all locations at once doesn't mean you're still not playing pool. And I have some ideas on why the ball appears in all locations it could be at the same time while in only 1 position when observed.
Well, I don't think it can simply be reduced to a binary though. As in, I don't think it's as simple as their being 100% free will, or 0%. Because Dataism has largely proven "correct enough" to be highly predictive and effective. Meaning, we are not 100% free o of from influence, suggestion, or determinism, even if our Will is free to some degree. I think the Will could function as if free, but largely does not.
Apologies, don't mean to drag this back into that long thread on Free Will, we all expressed ourselves ad nausea back then. BUT - if we're anything more than a mobile pile of chemicals, then we have free will. If we're not, then it's just a function of capacity to discern all that's discernible - which would be everything. Just a matter of time and evolution. If at any time in your life, you made at least one decision outside of programming/evolution/conditioning/manipulation/societal norms/DNA/, then you have free will as it just takes one time to exercise it to prove it. We're not there yet, we cannot tell if we've ever done that conclusively, it's still just a guess one way or the other. The capacity to exercise Free Will, genuine autonomous agency, is Free Will even if never leveraged.
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Apologies, don't mean to drag this back into that long thread on Free Will, we all expressed ourselves ad nausea back then. BUT - if we're anything more than a mobile pile of chemicals, then we have free will. If we're not, then it's just a function of capacity to discern all that's discernible - which would be everything. Just a matter of time and evolution. If at any time in your life, you made at least one decision outside of programming/evolution/conditioning/manipulation/societal norms/DNA/, then you have free will as it just takes one time to exercise it to prove it. We're not there yet, we cannot tell if we've ever done that conclusively, it's still just a guess one way or the other. The capacity to exercise Free Will, genuine autonomous agency, is Free Will even if never leveraged.
Well, we don't really need to get into a debate about if it actually exists or not. The question really is, how determinable and able to be manipulated is our will, generally. Not individually. Of course, any individual is capable of deciding whatever. But, the fact that people are generally predictable and so generally manipulable, must speak to something.
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Well, we don't really need to get into a debate about if it actually exists or not. The question really is, how determinable and able to be manipulated is our will, generally. Not individually. Of course, any individual is capable of deciding whatever. But, the fact that people are generally predictable and so generally manipulable, must speak to something.
If we wanna turn this into a thread on manipulation, well I have scores of stories. None good.
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Well, we don't really need to get into a debate about if it actually exists or not. The question really is, how determinable and able to be manipulated is our will, generally. Not individually. Of course, any individual is capable of deciding whatever. But, the fact that people are generally predictable and so generally manipulable, must speak to something.
If we wanna turn this into a thread on manipulation, well I have scores of stories. None good.
If you want, make a new one. I'm sure we'll collect some thoughts on it.
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Well, it isn't just Principles and prioritizaion though, it's how those principles are used to "reason" through the cypher of Values. So, we can almost all agree that murder is wrong, but then what do we define as murder? Is killing in war murder? Is abortion murder? How we evaluate these things definitely lies, to some degree io the "Groundless Ground" of Reason, but I don't think it is 100% by any means. Where do our Values come from then? I think they are "pre-Reason" and do originate somewhere in the preconscious mind, but since we don't often delve in there, it's murky at best.
Perhaps something of the issue is that we are full on allegories, now-a-days, but distinctly light on myths?
I think he also wrote it at the end of his book, The Moral Landscape. It's a "nice" idea, that we could "science" our way out, but likely then the "way out" is worse than the problems at hand.
Could it be that "The Truth" itself is rather life-negating, because the fundamental principles of the Universe are basically agnostic to life itself?
I agree that there will always be disputes, but the part of the Ground that we can stand on is "Murder is wrong." Even if there are caveats just having some established values like that is important. But even more trivial concerns than murder are part of the Ground, specifically how we believe we should interact with each other when in disputes over the correct direction for society.
I think you might be on to something with the heaviness of allegory...but if you could go more into detail that would be much appreciated...
For myself I think the mythic resonance is being leeched out of our institutions, so the unifying power of being blessed to be in a democracy is downgraded. I also think the notion of having to sacrifice for your Principles is leeched away, the priority given to demanding someone else acquiesce to the Principles you hold.
Additionally we have to admit the good of reality tunnels we dislike - so for my liberal self better the conservative who wants to be a guardian for women as daughters of God than the misogynist who thinks women are cum dumpsters that can be raped with impunity, or the one who is against gay marriage but not throwing gays off rooftops. A sustaining of the Ground is the proper cultivation of the opponents who we prefer and could respect - but of course if the bar is set so no one to the right/left is of value then the Ground itself is chipped away.
As for Truth being life-negating...perhaps, perhaps not. But has enough mind-share been given to the Life Affirming side? Quilette doesn't seem to care, they seem intent on expounding about free thought even as at least a few of the authors cut at the fabric that gives words like "Freedom" and "Thought" value in this life.
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I agree that there will always be disputes, but the part of the Ground that we can stand on is "Murder is wrong." Even if there are caveats just having some established values like that is important. But even more trivial concerns than murder are part of the Ground, specifically how we believe we should interact with each other when in disputes over the correct direction for society.
Right, but the problem comes in in how we take the "fact" of "murder is wrong and operationalize it to the real world. In other words, how do we define it and identify it. It's plausible to call any killing murder. It's also plausible to consider some killing not murder. And so our values, that is our judgement, will determine where to apply it and where not to.
I think you might be on to something with the heaviness of allegory...but if you could go more into detail that would be much appreciated...
Well, it was something that just sprang to mind while I was typing. It's something about an allegory being a sort of, I guess you could say, a story where characters embody abstract principles and then play out scenarios. The myth though, is based in more archetypal content. Still "abstract" in a sense, but in a far less "rational" manner. So, an allegory would more be able "freedom" and a myth about "self-love." I mean, it makes sense, because now-a-days, we fancy ourselves all fully rational, fully conscious creatures. So we tell ourselves stories about how rational and conscious we are. But the truth is far closer to the fact that we really aren't. So we ditch any stories that don't fit our paradigm.
For myself I think the mythic resonance is being leeched out of our institutions, so the unifying power of being blessed to be in a democracy is downgraded. I also think the notion of having to sacrifice for your Principles is leeched away, the priority given to demanding someone else acquiesce to the Principles you hold.
Well, we are pretty sacrifice averse now too. Because we live lives, generally, for those of us who are at liberty to type this kind of shit out on the internet, that feature very little sacrifice. Pretty much whatever we need, we go to the store and buy. In fact, the very conception of sacrifice is largely lost of people now, I think.
Additionally we have to admit the good of reality tunnels we dislike - so for my liberal self better the conservative who wants to be a guardian for women as daughters of God than the misogynist who thinks women are cum dumpsters that can be raped with impunity, or the one who is against gay marriage but not throwing gays off rooftops. A sustaining of the Ground is the proper cultivation of the opponents who we prefer and could respect - but of course if the bar is set so no one to the right/left is of value then the Ground itself is chipped away.
Well, this might well be an effect of our "global culture" that is easily the worst aspect of it all: the idea that there can be only one right way to live. There simply cannot be any other ways which might work. This isn't my idea, it one from Daniel Quinn's works (for better or worse). It isn't something explicitly ever stated, but is implicit in every single aspect of these kinds of disagreements. Liberals are sure it is only correct to be liberal, and conservatives that it is only correct to be conservative. It cannot be the case that it might be OK to live a life on either side.
As for Truth being life-negating...perhaps, perhaps not. But has enough mind-share been given to the Life Affirming side? Quilette doesn't seem to care, they seem intent on expounding about free thought even as at least a few of the authors cut at the fabric that gives words like "Freedom" and "Thought" value in this life.
Well, that I'm not sure about. But if it's true, perhaps fundamental truth is a bad aim. Perhaps something more like inter-subjective truth, or better yet, lived systems of what works and what doesn't.
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look at what i foud on the site.
https://quillette.com/2018/08/18/the-forgotten-story-of-how-punching-up-harmed-the-science-fiction-fantasy-world/
I've never forgotten the story mind you ;)
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^lol
Take a look at this article too https://quillette.com/2018/10/23/the-unspoken-homophobia-propelling-the-transgender-movement-in-children/
This site must not have many readers or it would probably have been taken down by rampaging SJWs LOL
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Right, but the problem comes in in how we take the "fact" of "murder is wrong and operationalize it to the real world. In other words, how do we define it and identify it. It's plausible to call any killing murder. It's also plausible to consider some killing not murder. And so our values, that is our judgement, will determine where to apply it and where not to.
Well, it was something that just sprang to mind while I was typing. It's something about an allegory being a sort of, I guess you could say, a story where characters embody abstract principles and then play out scenarios. The myth though, is based in more archetypal content. Still "abstract" in a sense, but in a far less "rational" manner. So, an allegory would more be able "freedom" and a myth about "self-love." I mean, it makes sense, because now-a-days, we fancy ourselves all fully rational, fully conscious creatures. So we tell ourselves stories about how rational and conscious we are. But the truth is far closer to the fact that we really aren't. So we ditch any stories that don't fit our paradigm.
Oddly enough it seems to me the sacredness of Life extending to one's political opponents is not a rarity but definitely something being eaten away at. It's a bit crazy to say but "Murder is Wrong" may become a lodestone for the remaining sane among us regardless of our political inclinations.
Hmmm...I do think you are on to something about needing to cultivate the "irrational" part of ourselves, that deeper-Darkness/higher-Light.
There's definitely something to be said about our inner narrator, our connection to stories and how this impacts our consciousness, and how this all ties into the deeper self.
Well, we are pretty sacrifice averse now too. Because we live lives, generally, for those of us who are at liberty to type this kind of shit out on the internet, that feature very little sacrifice. Pretty much whatever we need, we go to the store and buy. In fact, the very conception of sacrifice is largely lost of people now, I think.
Ah I just mean that when one expounds some principle it should be applied in such a way as to show one is as bound by the Principle as one demands other be morally bound.
But your reply does make me wonder if the idea of Sacrifice as part of our relationship with the numinous does falter and affect the Ground.
Well, this might well be an effect of our "global culture" that is easily the worst aspect of it all: the idea that there can be only one right way to live. There simply cannot be any other ways which might work. This isn't my idea, it one from Daniel Quinn's works (for better or worse). It isn't something explicitly ever stated, but is implicit in every single aspect of these kinds of disagreements. Liberals are sure it is only correct to be liberal, and conservatives that it is only correct to be conservative. It cannot be the case that it might be OK to live a life on either side.
Yeah I think is a challenge, after all one has preferences and one has moral imperatives. The former can accept diversity but the latter by definition - or so it seems to me - cannot save as either a temporary state or one forced by some higher moral principle.
Why the Ground is of so much importance, finding the transcendent (or at least agreed upon) principles and promoting them - comes back to the cultivation of opponents. Media should do a better job of showing people who disagree able to argue peacefully - where I think Reason/Logic has the important but not necessarily preeminent role.
Well, that I'm not sure about. But if it's true, perhaps fundamental truth is a bad aim. Perhaps something more like inter-subjective truth, or better yet, lived systems of what works and what doesn't.
I think the challenge here is people are more than willing to try systems that are immoral, to see if they work. Or even being willing to go back to systems that failed but offer a false promise of working.
Without transcendent Ground there is no human society, possibly not even a robotic/android one either. Though I sometimes wonder if our future synthetic children might be the better inheritors of the future than humans could be...
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Oddly enough it seems to me the sacredness of Life extending to one's political opponents is not a rarity but definitely something being eaten away at. It's a bit crazy to say but "Murder is Wrong" may become a lodestone for the remaining sane among us regardless of our political inclinations.
Indeed, it's something that I think is definitely slipping away though. Basically, a new story every day at how this erodes though.
Hmmm...I do think you are on to something about needing to cultivate the "irrational" part of ourselves, that deeper-Darkness/higher-Light.
No one wants to really explore that, because it is antithetical with the idea that we are fully rational.
There's definitely something to be said about our inner narrator, our connection to stories and how this impacts our consciousness, and how this all ties into the deeper self.
Well, condsidering that the aim, now-a-days seems to be to get a materialistic as possible, via neuropsychology and the like, something so abstract is not regarded as particularly true, let alone particularly important.
But your reply does make me wonder if the idea of Sacrifice as part of our relationship with the numinous does falter and affect the Ground.
Sure, but even as our relationship to the practical. There is practical pay-off for sacrifice. In fact, that is plausibly why we regard it with a numinous quality. Society would not work, if not for our "compact with the future" and that compact is largely sealed with sacrifice.
Why the Ground is of so much importance, finding the transcendent (or at least agreed upon) principles and promoting them - comes back to the cultivation of opponents. Media should do a better job of showing people who disagree able to argue peacefully - where I think Reason/Logic has the important but not necessarily preeminent role.
Media only reflects what makes money, not what is necessarily real or true though.
Without transcendent Ground there is no human society, possibly not even a robotic/android one either. Though I sometimes wonder if our future synthetic children might be the better inheritors of the future than humans could be...
I certainly hope they are, for our sake.
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Oddly enough it seems to me the sacredness of Life extending to one's political opponents is not a rarity but definitely something being eaten away at. It's a bit crazy to say but "Murder is Wrong" may become a lodestone for the remaining sane among us regardless of our political inclinations.
Indeed, it's something that I think is definitely slipping away though. Basically, a new story every day at how this erodes though.
Hmmm...I do think you are on to something about needing to cultivate the "irrational" part of ourselves, that deeper-Darkness/higher-Light.
No one wants to really explore that, because it is antithetical with the idea that we are fully rational.
There's definitely something to be said about our inner narrator, our connection to stories and how this impacts our consciousness, and how this all ties into the deeper self.
Well, condsidering that the aim, now-a-days seems to be to get a materialistic as possible, via neuropsychology and the like, something so abstract is not regarded as particularly true, let alone particularly important.
But your reply does make me wonder if the idea of Sacrifice as part of our relationship with the numinous does falter and affect the Ground.
Sure, but even as our relationship to the practical. There is practical pay-off for sacrifice. In fact, that is plausibly why we regard it with a numinous quality. Society would not work, if not for our "compact with the future" and that compact is largely sealed with sacrifice.
Why the Ground is of so much importance, finding the transcendent (or at least agreed upon) principles and promoting them - comes back to the cultivation of opponents. Media should do a better job of showing people who disagree able to argue peacefully - where I think Reason/Logic has the important but not necessarily preeminent role.
Media only reflects what makes money, not what is necessarily real or true though.
Without transcendent Ground there is no human society, possibly not even a robotic/android one either. Though I sometimes wonder if our future synthetic children might be the better inheritors of the future than humans could be...
I certainly hope they are, for our sake.
There does seem to be a need, at least among moderns of the West, to argue that their pre-rational/irrational commitments are (or will be) satisfied by evidence. That's what Quilette and what one takes as its liberal counterforce, Vox, seem to run on.
But I wonder if that's true beyond the confines of the dedicated interlocutors in Internet spaces. Does your average moderate or even conservative/liberal worry too much about the importance of Reason? I suspect there may be a silent majority more interested in being Reasonable which includes but isn't exclusive to the easily manipulable claim of Rationality.
Re: Sacrifice I do think even going back to the 90s there was something accepted about the archetypal importance of giving something. The Ancients seem to figure its importance more deeply than we do. Perhaps that is why a sacrifice made for the support of a Principle on one's own part is so convincing, or at least I feel it used to be.
And along those lines that is the problem with media, Patreon pundits, and the like - they tell their readership what they want to [hear], b/c to do otherwise is to sacrifice readership, monthly payments, etc. Quilette, Vox, National Review, to say nothing of Youtube punditry, all seem to engage in this gaming.
I'd love for someone to come along and do this sort of thing with a promise to never ask for money, but then again I'm not doing it either so...
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Article about the creator of Quilette:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/11/intellectual-dark-web-quillette-claire-lehmann-221917
I'd say that it's in line w/ how I thought of the publication so no surprises for me overall. It's a liberal magazine largely based around criticism of liberals, though I'm glad she wants to expand that.
But I think it's odd to not talk about the elephant in the room, that the atheists arguing with each other about liberalism/conservatism doesn't touch on the broad dividing question of God's place in academia as well as society at large.
Or, if not God, the Transcendental Good / Platonic Mathematics / Irreducible Consciousness.
You can't be a publication for Free Thought if that thought isn't exploring the question of things (arguably) more than material.
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There does seem to be a need, at least among moderns of the West, to argue that their pre-rational/irrational commitments are (or will be) satisfied by evidence. That's what Quilette and what one takes as its liberal counterforce, Vox, seem to run on.
But I wonder if that's true beyond the confines of the dedicated interlocutors in Internet spaces. Does your average moderate or even conservative/liberal worry too much about the importance of Reason? I suspect there may be a silent majority more interested in being Reasonable which includes but isn't exclusive to the easily manipulable claim of Rationality.
Maybe I am just off, but I don't think either "side" is too apt to consider their position is plausibly rooted nearly totally in irrationality. In fact, it's levied at the other side time and time again. No one really seems to realize the implications of that simple fact, or no one really care to try to address it. Probably because it's near impossible now.
Re: Sacrifice I do think even going back to the 90s there was something accepted about the archetypal importance of giving something. The Ancients seem to figure its importance more deeply than we do. Perhaps that is why a sacrifice made for the support of a Principle on one's own part is so convincing, or at least I feel it used to be.
Yeah, maybe it's just me romanticizing the past though?
And along those lines that is the problem with media, Patreon pundits, and the like - they tell their readership what they want to [hear], b/c to do otherwise is to sacrifice readership, monthly payments, etc. Quilette, Vox, National Review, to say nothing of Youtube punditry, all seem to engage in this gaming.
I'd love for someone to come along and do this sort of thing with a promise to never ask for money, but then again I'm not doing it either so...
That's part of the issue though. If you are going to do it, you need to do it full-time. If you do it full-time, how else do you make any money to survive if not monetizing your position. And that inevitably means pandering, most probably.
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Article about the creator of Quilette:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/11/intellectual-dark-web-quillette-claire-lehmann-221917
I'd say that it's in line w/ how I thought of the publication so no surprises for me overall. It's a liberal magazine largely based around criticism of liberals, though I'm glad she wants to expand that.
But I think it's odd to not talk about the elephant in the room, that the atheists arguing with each other about liberalism/conservatism doesn't touch on the broad dividing question of God's place in academia as well as society at large.
Or, if not God, the Transcendental Good / Platonic Mathematics / Irreducible Consciousness.
You can't be a publication for Free Thought if that thought isn't exploring the question of things (arguably) more than material.
It could be that I am misunderstanding, but it seems that this is exactly what that Chomsky video, about the Ghost and the Machine, gets at. In that, we've taken that something like Materialism is "good enough" and so we run around in circles inside that little box we imagine the world could/should/would fit into. It's not really a shock, I mean, take what Harris says about things like transcendentalism or whatever, how boring it is. Is it really a shock that no one wants to write on something so abstract, complicated and plausibly unprovable as the nature of God?
Sure, the site is about "Free Thought" but our thought now-a-days has many unspoken, given assumptions to it. No one is suppressing thought outside of it, just no one is really even considering it, at least, not academically. Our times Thomas Aquinas we have not. Plausibly even rightly so, because maybe the question isn't actually an academic one at all.
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Deleted my last post which I made while half-awake, realized I was just repeating myself lol
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There does seem to be a need, at least among moderns of the West, to argue that their pre-rational/irrational commitments are (or will be) satisfied by evidence. That's what Quilette and what one takes as its liberal counterforce, Vox, seem to run on.
But I wonder if that's true beyond the confines of the dedicated interlocutors in Internet spaces. Does your average moderate or even conservative/liberal worry too much about the importance of Reason? I suspect there may be a silent majority more interested in being Reasonable which includes but isn't exclusive to the easily manipulable claim of Rationality.
Maybe I am just off, but I don't think either "side" is too apt to consider their position is plausibly rooted nearly totally in irrationality. In fact, it's levied at the other side time and time again. No one really seems to realize the implications of that simple fact, or no one really care to try to address it. Probably because it's near impossible now.[/quote]
Having thought about this a bit more, but isn't a symptom of this "appeal to rationality" belied in both side's penchant for labeling the other as "stupid?" As in, their side has the onus of Reason behind it, while those other's, well, they are just not smart enough to grasp the superiority of The Argument.
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Having thought about this a bit more, but isn't a symptom of this "appeal to rationality" belied in both side's penchant for labeling the other as "stupid?" As in, their side has the onus of Reason behind it, while those other's, well, they are just not smart enough to grasp the superiority of The Argument.
Hence, conspiracy is attractive as it includes the "smarties" from the other side. If the other side is "wrong", either they're just not getting it or they're suffering from it or they're in on it.
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Hence, conspiracy is attractive as it includes the "smarties" from the other side. If the other side is "wrong", either they're just not getting it or they're suffering from it or they're in on it.
Right, plus that also appeals to "individuality" and "differentiation" in that it allows people to stake out ground that marks them as "special" or "unique."
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Hence, conspiracy is attractive as it includes the "smarties" from the other side. If the other side is "wrong", either they're just not getting it or they're suffering from it or they're in on it.
Right, plus that also appeals to "individuality" and "differentiation" in that it allows people to stake out ground that marks them as "special" or "unique."
Yup, see New Atheist conception of "Bright"...sadly I've met a lot of stupid atheists whose non-belief didn't magically make them geniuses or rational in any other aspect of life...
On the flip side the association with being religious and being moral...lotta hypocrites there too...