Phyllo and iambiguous continued

[iambiguous]

@phyllo

Then what? You dump all of your facts on them, they dump all of their facts on you.

Then the fact that communism invariably becomes a dictatorship carries a lot of weight in an argument with a communist apologist. Or it should for anyone who cares about the abuses of dictatorships. It’s not a trivial fact. It has to be addressed by any advocate of communism.

You’re still doing the same thing. You’re assuming that all of the nasty facts pertaining to capitalism just go away because you insist that all of the nasty facts you accumulate regarding Communism…trumps them?

Pun intended.

And though many apologists for Communism accumulate arguments regarding why [historically] dictatorship was the only viable option for the Soviets in an extremely hostile world, you simply dismiss them because they are not in sync with your own narrative.

You claim that “you already talked about that” as though your own rendition is the default here. As though the other side can’t also make the same claim.

But where is the overall philosophical argument that establishes capitalism as necessarily the more rational and virtuous political economy? Instead of, as Marx suggested, an organic manifestation of “dialectical materialism” rooted in the historical evolution of production.

What’s important is that you are able to convince yourself that the “real you” is in touch with the “real truth” and that others are therefore either “one of us” or “one of them”.

It’s like with the election last night. Folks don’t want to believe that their support for either Trump or Clinton is rooted largely in dasein. No, they want to believe that it is grounded instead in who they really are. And that conflicting goods here gives way to an objective moral and political agenda that is in sync with the only “natural” or “ideal” way in which to understand the world around us. The way that they do.

All you are basically arguing here is that regardless of any particular individual’s personal experiences out in a particular world historically and culturally, it is possible – theologically? philosophically? politically? morally? scientifically? – to reason through to the optimal frame of mind regarding communism and capitalism.

@phyllo

To which you have no answer, no counterargument.

My point though is this: Where are your reasons able to establish it definitively? How are you able to demonstrate that your own ideological agenda here reflects the optimal frame of mind in such a way that you transcend mere political prejudices?

Instead, you merely insist that this is the case “in your head”. Just as those at the other end of the moral/political spectrum do the same regarding their own political agenda.

Again, the last thing you are willing to concede as that you are basically just reflections of each other. In other words, more important than establishing who is right and who is wrong is establishing that one or the other of you is.

@phyllo

…Or accusing me of antisemitism if I question anything that Israel does. Or racism if I question race policies, or homophobia if …

No, my point is that the objectivists insist that you are either “one of us” [right] pertaining to Israel, or race, or homosexuality, or Trump, or Clinton etc., or you are “one of them” [wrong].

Right?

Either from the left or from the right, you don’t/won’t/can’t even recognize just how similar you are. Nor will most of you ever really probe the inevitable gap between the simplistic world as you imagine it “in your head” and the far, far, far more complex and convoluted world that we all actually live in in the course of surviving [precariously more often than not] from day to day.

@phyllo

Just to be clear … you see the world as it actually is and the objectivists imagine a simplistic world in their heads.
Well aren’t you great.

Incredible. Over and over and over again I note that my own argument here is no less an existential fabrication/contraption. Something that I have come to believe [here and now] “in my head”. Something that contradicts many of the things I once believed before “in my head”.

I’m not arguing that all rational men and women are obligated to think like me. Instead, I am pointing out that, given the actual existential trajectory of my life, I am predisposed [politically] to think and to feel and to behave as I do.

But that, given a new experience, a new relationship or contact with a new way of thinking about all of us, I may well change my mind again.

But: Folks like you just don’t want to believe that this frame of mind is one that may well be applicable to them too.

There’s just too much at stake, isn’t there?

[phyllo]

You’re still going the same thing. You’re assuming that all of the nasty facts pertaining to capitalism just go away because you insist that all of the nasty facts you accumulate regarding Communism…trumps them?

I’m not assuming that any of the facts “go away” - that’s your expectation of what should happen. I’m saying that some facts are more nasty than others.

And though many apologists for Communism accumulate arguments regarding why [historically] dictatorship was the only viable option for the Soviets in an extremely hostile world, you simply dismiss them because they are not in sync with your own narrative.

One could analyze the historical situation and determine whether dictatorship was a necessary response or not. How reasonable was that response?
A pragmatic approach is to admit that all nations exist in “an extremely hostile world” - if communism can’t sustain itself without turning into dictatorship then it’s not a viable system in this “hostile world”.

You claim that “you already talked about that” as though your own rendition is the default here. As though the other side can’t also make the same claim.

I just explained my reasoning. I did the same before. State why my reasoning is flawed instead of simply saying that I’m putting forth “a default rendition”.

What’s important is that you are able to convince yourself that the “real you” is in touch with the “real truth” and that others are therefore either “one of us” or “one of them”.

It’s like with the election last night. Folks don’t want to believe that their support for either Trump or Clinton is rooted largely in dasein. No, they want to believe that it is grounded instead in who they really are. And that conflicting goods here gives way to an objective moral and political agenda that is in sync with the only “natural” or “ideal” way in which to understand the world around us. The way that they do.

This has to be one of your most bizarre ideas … relating everything to a “true self”. I’m attempting to separate the reasoning from all versions of myself so that it is objective reasoning.

My point though is this: Where are your reasons able to establish it definitively?

Yes, your point is always to shift the burden of the argument onto someone else instead of presenting your own counterargument. Thus the endless questions.

Instead, you merely insist that this is the case “in your head”. Just as those at the other end of the moral/political spectrum do the same regarding their own political agenda.

As I said above, I’m attempting to get it out of my head and into a common human experience by referring to objective historical facts.

Again, the last thing you are willing to concede as that you are basically just reflections of each other. In other words, more important than establishing who is right and who is wrong is establishing that one or the other of you is.

That’s your idea, not mine. I want to know who is right even if I’m wrong. It’s not be possible to do that in every situation. But it’s a reasonable goal.

No, my point is that the objectivists insist that you are either “one of us” [right] pertaining to Israel, or race, or homosexuality, or Trump, or Clinton etc., or you are “one of them” [wrong].

More of your stereotypes.

Incredible. Over and over and over again I note that my own argument here is no less an existential fabrication/contraption. Something that I have come to believe [here and now] “in my head”. Something that contradicts many of the things I once believed before “in my head”.

You think that by adding “unless I’m wrong” at the end of your posts, you change the attitude that clearly comes across in the posts? Think again.

I’m not arguing that all rational men and women are obligated to think like me. Instead, I am pointing out that, given the actual existential trajectory of my life, I am predisposed [politically] to think and to feel and to behave as I do.

You rationalize your decisions and actions by using dasein to claim that you could not have done otherwise and that you made no mistakes.

In contrast, I concede that I made mistakes. Objective mistakes. I fucked up my life and the lives of other people. I can’t change that. I own it. I use it to be better now and in the future.

[iambiguous]

@phyllo

You’re still going the same thing. You’re assuming that all of the nasty facts pertaining to capitalism just go away because you insist that all of the nasty facts you accumulate regarding Communism…trumps them?

I’m not assuming that any of the facts “go away” - that’s your expectation of what should happen. I’m saying that some facts are more nasty than others.

No, I’m merely pointing out that all of the “goods” ascribed to capitalism don’t make all of the “goods” ascribed to socialism any less reasonable. Not if you start with the set of assumptions that the socialists do. And don’t those in both camps insist that the other side’s “bads” are nastier?

My point is only that the political philosopher is not able to devise an argument that makes any of this – the conflicting goods – go away. Or, rather, that I have not come upon this argument.

And though many apologists for Communism accumulate arguments regarding why [historically] dictatorship was the only viable option for the Soviets in an extremely hostile world, you simply dismiss them because they are not in sync with your own narrative.

@phyllo

One could analyze the historical situation and determine whether dictatorship was a necessary response or not. How reasonable was that response?

Right. Like this wouldn’t devolve into conflicting political prejudices. It’s like saying that if one analyzed the presidential election correctly one could determine if [philosophically, rationally, ideally, naturally etc.] Clinton or Trump should have won.

@phyllo

A pragmatic approach is to admit that all nations exist in “an extremely hostile world” - if communism can’t sustain itself without turning into dictatorship then it’s not a viable system in this “hostile world”.

Of course many socialists argue that the world is a hostile place because competing capitalisms in conpeting nations are hell-bent on dividing up the world, precipitaing endless conflicts over the acquisition of cheap labor, natural resources and markets.

But, again, as though something like this could actually be reduced down to “true or false”.

You claim that “you already talked about that” as though your own rendition is the default here. As though the other side can’t also make the same claim.

@phyllo

I just explained my reasoning. I did the same before. State why my reasoning is flawed instead of simply saying that I’m putting forth “a default rendition”.

And around and around we go. If I don’t accept your reasoning I am either wrong or I have failed to note how your own reasoning is wrong.

With objectivsts there is always only one correct “reasoning”. Whereas I will note time and again that my own frame of mind is nothing more than an existential contraption – a subjective/subjunctive fabrication – rooted in dasein and conflicting goods.

What’s important is that you are able to convince yourself that the “real you” is in touch with the “real truth” and that others are therefore either “one of us” or “one of them”.

It’s like with the election last night. Folks don’t want to believe that their support for either Trump or Clinton is rooted largely in dasein. No, they want to believe that it is grounded instead in who they really are. And that conflicting goods here gives way to an objective moral and political agenda that is in sync with the only “natural” or “ideal” way in which to understand the world around us. The way that they do.

@phyllo

This has to be one of your most bizarre ideas … relating everything to a “true self”. I’m attempting to separate the reasoning from all versions of myself so that it is objective reasoning.

Okay, cite an actual example of this. Choose a particular value judgment of your own and note how you arrived [over the course of your life] at the perspective you now embrace.

Also, do you acknowledge that “I” as you understand it today with respect to this value judgment may well reconfigure such that you come to embrace a conflicting point of view given new experiences, new relationships and contact with new information and ideas?

Or are you insisting that, re socialism/communism, this “I” can never change because it reflects who you really are now and forevermore.

In my view, objectivists simply refuse to think of their values in this manner. They are who they are now with respect to abortion or capitalism or Trump etc., because that is the one and the only way in which the rational “I” can be. Indeed, if they begin to doubt that then “I” itself does become this existential contraption that I speak of re dasein.

This in my view is simply too disorienting. To not have a foundation on which to anchor “I” brings so much of their life into question. Instead of being able to insist that I am who I am because this is who I needed to be in order to proudly call myself a liberal or a conservative, they come to recognize as I do just how problematic and precarious the “self” really is here.

You simply tack on God here for even greater stability.

Again, the last thing you are willing to concede as that you are basically just reflections of each other. In other words, more important than establishing who is right and who is wrong is establishing that one or the other of you is.

@phyllo

That’s your idea, not mine. I want to know who is right even if I’m wrong. It’s not be possible to do that in every situation. But it’s a reasonable goal.

Again, you’re missing my point. This one: That it is precisely in wanting to look at the behaviors that we choose in terms of Right or Wrong that, in my view, makes one an objectivist.

It’s not that capitalism is better than socialism or that socialism is better than capitalism but that [b]either[/b] one [b]or[/b] the other can in fact [b]be[/b] determined as better.

And please note some examples of what you mean by “not being able to determine” if some particular behavior is right or wrong.

Here in my view is your mentality in a nutshell:

@phyllo

…I concede that I made mistakes. Objective mistakes. I fucked up my life and the lives of other people. I can’t change that. I own it. I use it to be better now and in the future.

Yes, you can behave in ways that make your life better or worse. You can become addicted to heroin, for example, or turn to crime, or choose to become a selfish bastard and drive people away. Or you can join a church and find peace of mind or become an investment banker and make a lot of money or join a socialist political action group and condemn capitalism.

Here it is clear: you did something as an individual and in so doing it you perceived your life to be either better or worse.

But again it always comes down to what you do and in what partiocular context viewed from what particular point of view. Is there a way to demonstrate that if others do what you do they will necessarily make their life either better or worse. And what of those who do what you did and react to the consequences in a very different way. Is there a way for philosophers to successfully argue how one is obligated to behave and how others are obligated react.

Suppose for example Jane chooses to abort her baby. Afterward she reacts to it in such a way her life is filled with terrible guilt and shame. She is never the same.

So, what does that tell us about other women who choose to do the same thing?

Is there a deontological agenda here or are our individual reactions embedded more in the manner in which I construe dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.