It’s not even restricted to value or value judgements any more, in this thread.
In other threads you would write about the distinction between the statements “Obama was president of the USA” and “Obama was a good president”. You have completely lost that distinction in this thread (and others).
I can go to school, take a history class and learn whether Obama was president or not. I can learn about events that occurred during his administration - rates of unemployment, economic growth or decline, etc. I can learn facts about capitalism and communism in school.
But you don’t think so, which is why you write this :
This is the idea that there is no right and wrong to be learned about history or economics … that there are no fact in history or economics.
You reinforce the idea with this statement:
It ought to be possible to determine whether the external threat was real and whether a dictatorship was a reasonable response. But again, you are suggesting that it is impossible to reason about these historical events.
So in your view, history is entirely the product of dasein and perspective and there are no objective fact or “essential truths” in it.
If that is true, then how can the statement “Obama was president of the USA” contain any truth? One only needs to find some radical anarchist who claims that “Obama was not a legal president” and you have two equally legitimate truths. Which may be taught in two separate schools.
If you completely give up on reason and if you don’t agree that there is an objective foundation for reason, then any statement, no matter how bizarre, can become true. Even outright lies are the product of dasein.
The statement “Obama was president of the USA” requires the use of objective reason. The word “Obama”, "president"and “USA” don’t make sense without reason.
So if you say that everything in history is "“just particular existential fabrications/contraptions rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy”… if you don’t have “reason” to fall back on … then you are purely living in your own head, unconnected to any outside reality.
Okay, you have your collection of facts about capitalism and socialism. And you have the life that you have lived precipitating a particular set of personal experiences with both as well.
Others, however, with a political prejudice in conflict with yours, have their own collection of facts, their own personal experiences.
How then is the distinction that I make here “lost”?
In the links I noted above both sides have facts about the other side that don’t just go away when one or the other rendition of “one of us” prevails politically.
And, again, where is the philosophical argument that, having taken into account the components of my argument – of my dilemma – is able to provide us with a frame of mind that all reasonable/rational men and women are obligated to share?
In other words, the argument that makes my dilemma go away?
Come on, when this is translated into the arguments of the moral/political objectivists we get this…
“If you examine the arguments of those who are not ‘one of us’ you will discover that their arguments are less reasonable.”
If not completely irrational.
No, history is a series of events that either are or are not able to be demonstrated as having unfolded in a particular way.
And then [culturally, experientially] history is a series of particular folks interpreting these events as either “good” or “bad”; as events that either ought to have unfolded as they did or ought not to have.
And that’s the distinction I focus on. What is in fact true objectively and what is more a matter of one’s subjective opinion.
After all, what else, “for all practical purposes”, can we fall back on when discussing…anything?
You believe something. Are you then able to demonstrate that what you believe all others are obligated to believe in turn?
Instead, you argue…
Well, if it is in fact determined that Obama was born in Kenya and was not legally presdient, then that does become a historical fact. But it doesn’t make his administration, his policies over the course of 8 years go away. And it doesn’t get us any closer to determining if any particular policy was more or less reasonable, more or less ethical.
But what reasonable man or woman would argue that he did not in fact occupy the White House for those 8 years?
What particular lie though? Pertaining to what particular context out in what particular world? I am not “giving up on reason”, I am suggesting that, given the components embedded in my dilemma, there are limits beyond which reason cannot go.
But even here I note [time and again] that I am myself unable to demonstrate this beyond the fact of my believing it “here and now”.
In fact, polemics aside, I participate in exchanges like this precisely in order to bump into arguments that might persuade me otherwise.
In other words, you say that I am saying “that everything in history is just particular existential fabrications/contraptions rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy…”.
I am not saying that at all. Instead, I go back to the distinction I make between that which folks believe [or claim to know] “in their heads” is true, and that which they are able in turn to demonstrate that all other reasonable folks are obligated to believe in turn.
I didn’t say anything about interpreting the facts learned about history as good or bad. But you already jumped here:
and here:
In both of which, you wrote about facts - not value judgement or interpretations of good and bad.
So, it’s clear that you are treating facts and value judgements in the same way - as being subjective judgements.
And again, you are evaluating the arguments about the historical facts through the perspective of personal feelings - us versus them.
Is there some context in which the lie is true?
If you need to ask these questions … if you can justify asking these questions … then you are living in a fantasy world in your head - a world without a true/false of any sort.
If John is about to be executed for murdering Jim, those on both sides of the political divide can agree on the facts: that at such and such a time under such and such a set of circumstances John did in fact kill Jim.
They all agree on the objective facts here. John flat out admits to murdering Jim; and it is captured on camera and in front of numerous witnesses.
But, given these undisputed facts, is it in fact then moral or immoral for the state to execute John? What set of facts would/could be collated by the ethicist into an argument that settles it once and for all?
Is capital punishment in fact moral or immoral?
Now, it is a fact that if John is executed many of his loved ones may suffer. And it is a fact that if he is not executed, many of Jim’s loved ones may be outraged. Both sides have conflicting renditions of what constitutes justice here.
And, again, both sides have arguments that can be said to be reasonable: deathpenalty.procon.org/
Arguments, in other words, that contain facts about the death penalty as it pertains to issues of race and class. As it pertains to the issue of possible innocence. As it pertains to mitigating and aggravating circumstances. As it pertains to particular political prejudices.
[b][i]Note to others:
Is this clear to you as well? What am I missing here regarding the point that he is making?[/i][/b]
No, a real answer [from my frame of mind] is one in which abstract assertions such as these are taken out into world of actual conflicting human behaviors, and shown to be relevant/applicable.
For example, with respect to the context above – John killing Jim, conflicting arguments that he be executed/not executed for it – how are your four instances pertinent?
So, what do you think? Does this reflect a reasonable response to the point I raised?
Or, instead, is this but one more example of how any number of “serious philosophers” here avoid altogether bringing their dopey scholastic contraptions “down to earth”.
It’s very simple. Can I go to school and learn objective facts about capitalism, socialism and communism?
Can I learn that the Soviet Union quickly became a dictatorship? Can I learn that communist governments inevitably descend into dictatorship? Can I learn about the abuses of power which are common under a dictatorship?
If the answer is yes, then I can use that objective information to make value judgements. If I find the abuses unacceptable, then I won’t pursue communism.
Sure, some people see no problem with dictatorship, murder, concentration camps, etc.
I will work against these people. I will attempt to prevent them from creating a communist dictatorship. I will use the resources available to me.
But it’s clearly not as you frame it : “us versus them” knowledge or “each side has it’s own facts”.
Sure you can. Just as the apologists for socialism can go to school and learn all of those nasty things about capitalism.
Then what? You dump all of your facts on them, they dump all of their facts on you.
And, again, that’s before we get to the hardcore political ideologues who argue that historically we have never really seen true communism or true capitalism.
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.
For example, your own frame of mind.
And that all of those folks who don’t think about it exactly like you do are wrong.
Maybe even evil.
Only [of course] there are all of those objectivists out there who actually share this frame of mind but who insist instead that it is you that is wrong.
Indeed, that’s what constitutes a “demonstration” for objectivists of their ilk.
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.
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.
I already talked about that.
To which you have no answer, no counterargument.
Instead you have a vague accusation of impropriety against me:
Kind of like asking me to answer the question : “When did you stop beating your wife?”
Or accusing me of antisemitism if I question anything that Israel does. Or racism if I question race policies, or homophobia if …
I just spent a bunch of time pointing out that there are objective historical facts that can be used to ‘demonstrate’ what a person is saying about communism and capitalism.
Your answer is to blow it off with a standard rant about ‘objectivists’.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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”.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
More of your stereotypes.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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, 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:
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.
