You gotta respect that tenacity.
I see what you mean now. Ego blocks humbleness in simple terms.
I am still a little confused on the evidence and failure part though, the way I look at it is I won’t give up because of lack of evidence, to me that would only mean I have to search more due to being curious and loving to know. But I suppose if someone wants to stick with an answer they will destroy the wanting/needing aspect to find more evidence.
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The truthers could be mistaken. This seems a missing option. In any situation where something is supposedly secret or secret attempts to bring to light, assert that there is something secret should not be doubly blamed. IOW if they are right, obviously, there are not egoists, following Magnus’ schema. There would be something real they are upset about. If they are wrong, it might be because they simply made something up and this would be egoism. On the other hand they might be making a number of mistakes - in dealing with evidence, in there sense of patterns, etc. They need not be both wrong and egotistical, though it is possible. If a customs inspector thinks there are drugs in someone’s baggage and calls them over for inspection and then finds they did not have any, this is not now evidence he was egotistical. He mistakenly judged patterns in the behavior, clothing, whatever of the baggage owners. What he thought would turn out to be real, objective drugs in their baggage, were figments of his imagination. Perhaps he is a not very good inspector, seeing patterns of nervousness where there are none for example. This does not make him an egotist, not in the specific situation and not necessarily either if he keeps making such mistakes. He might be an egotist and this might be a factor, but not necessarily at all. And this all presuming (since this is an analogy) there were not drugs in the bags. Maybe they were hidden in a sophisticated way. Perhaps he signalled for them to be pulled to the side and the guy who physically inspected the bags did a bad job.
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Politeness. Politeness is a way of dealing with conflict and disagreement. It has advantages and disadvantages. Not being polite does also. To restrict oneself to politeness is tactically tying one’s hand behind one’s back. In complicated political action, being polite with entities that are not polite is not being moral with oneself. Further there are polite truthers. So it is not an either or situation. Having a diverse approach is often best. Think of it as a parallel to good cop bad cop.
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Building 7 collapsed from the fire is really rather obvious bullshit. Just watch polite videos and polite interviews with people who do not think the official story is correct. That’s a foot in the door.
Truthers are evidence misers. People who hoard evidence and who cannot give up on any of it. They are also known as empiricists.
As strange as it may sound, if you are an evidence miser then your mind will be limited because you won’t be able to engage those mental faculties that require certain evidence to be dismissed.
The faculty of pure reason, for example, will necessarily be out of your reach, since it demands separation of concerns, otherwise known as analysis.
An example of a truther would be an individual who thinks that monarchies are bad because history shows – and they are (probably) right on this one – that monarchies are tyrannical.
However, faculty of pure reason would tell us otherwise, and that is that only through monarchy is a great life possible. Unfortunately, without an ability to put aside historical evidence, you won’t be able to employ such a faculty, and so, you won’t be able to reach such a conclusion.
Let us make it clear that there is nothing wrong about gathering evidence per se, the problem is only when one becomes addicted to it, becoming not only unable to switch to another activity, but also motivated to deny its existence, within oneself as well as within everyone else (the latter being known as “gaslighting” in psychology.)
Whether such people are addicted to evidence or to a faculty which demands evidence hoarding is unclear. It may indeed be the case that truthers are in actuality addicted to a faculty of self-preservation which demands strict obedience to evidence. Such a faculty would aim at minimizing personal harm, which would explain why they would be attracted to, and why they would cling onto, any kind of evidence that suggests that an option in consideration will be a risk to their well-being. With plenty of historical evidence showing that monarchies are tyrannical, it is no wonder that such people are against monarchies.
A noble mind possesses both faculties. In fact, most people probably do. But in a noble mind, it is the faculty of pure reason that dominates. In others, it’s the faculty of self-preservation that does so. In some, we can imagine, the faculty of pure reason is nearly non-existent.
Regardless of the hierarchical relation between the two, a clear separation between the two faculties indicates a degree of health. There are also cases in which the two faculties have been smashed to such an extent that no clear separation between the two can be made, instead leaving one to a vague sense of multiplicity. Such people usually speak of degrees and balance, and rarely, if ever, of hierarchical structures.
Another example of truthers would be so-called race and gender realists, those who tell us, and who pride themselves in telling us, that certain races are better than other races, and that, males are superior to females, indicating to us a strong faculty of historicism and a lack of faculty of pure reason.
Another example of truthism is gender-centrism which aims to relate everything back to one of the genders. Few of the renowned truthers actually realize that if you choose as your axiom that everything can be related back to one of the genders, that you will, provided that you are skilled enough, manage to relate everything back to one of the genders. Truthers generally do not understand that we do not disagree with their ability to relate everything back to one of the genders, but with their choice of gender as a lens through which to interpret reality.
You see, truthers are rarely wrong about the kind of truths they are truthing about. It’s just that they miss the point that their decision making process, lacking in faculty of pure reason, is an inferior one, which is why, others are more likely to dismiss what they accept as truth. Not deny, but simply dismiss, as in, it’s irrelevant.
Veronika Kuzniar Clark of Tokio Hotel fangirl fame is an example of a truther whose dominant faculty of historical research clearly predisposes her to conclude that Hitler was a German supremacist. Not a universalist, but yet another relativist who thought that his own people were the best people in the world. She’s making an announcement of what-she-calls Hitler Worship Cult imploding, but the only thing that’s going to implode is her own idea of HWC imploding. If her faculty of historical research was culled by faculty of pure reason, she would have reached a different conclusion about Hitler.
The more people who lack the faculty of pure reason, the more likely such a faculty would be gaslighted out of the existence. We need to fight against this.
K: Cultural Marxist? really? Cultural Narcissists? You are young and it shows. Most of what you
wrote is nothing more than an attempt to show how smart you are, mental masturbation, I like
to call it. Instead of spewing words like they mean something, rethink your position. Take the time
to reevaluate where you stand, because you are seriously wrong about some stuff and
just confused about the rest.
Kropotkin
Are you sure it’s wise to say this to him? If he feels his assumed fantasy game hero persona is being undermined there’s no telling what he might do.
@Kropotkin
Sure, I might be wrong and I might be confused, but what you’re doing right now is called being rude, and being rude is one of the symptoms of egoism.
Traditionalism is indeed absolutist, but only in the shallow sense of the word. Its absolutism is confined to the belief that there is a standard of evaluation that must be adopted by everyone sharing the same cultural identity.
On closer inspection, however, it’s easy to realize that traditionalists are not absolutists, but merely relativists who pretend to be absolutists.
Ethnocentrism is invented in order to avoid absolutism. Fundamentally, it’s no different from multiculturalism.
Ethnocentrism develops in a group of people each one of whom does not want to be judged by objective standards, instead preferring to believe that each one of them is superior to everyone else – everyone outside of their group – simply because they belong to the same ethnic group. What absolutes they end up inventing merely serves to maintain the cohesion of such a group, and nothing beside that.
Of course, not every ethnocentrist believes that his people are better than all other people. Plenty of modern ethnocentrists readily acknowledge that every tribe has a right to preserve its own culture. Still, the purpose remains the same, and that is to shield themselves from true absolutism.
True absolutism is a belief that there is a rank in everything, and not only that, but also a duty that commands that one has to use objective rather than subjective means to determine rank.
Ethnocentrists use subjective means. For example, they never question the value of their own culture. They simply take it for granted that it is good, simply because it is their own.
Liberalism is relativism on individual level, whereas traditionalism is relativism on collective level.
Next time you decide to respond to one of my posts, I suggest you to ask questions instead of rudely complaining that I am not clear enough for you.
I didn’t say you should be polite unconditionally. Honor demands of us to be polite towards those who are polite (toward us and others) and impolite towards those who are impolite (towards us or others.) Dishonorable people are either polite towards those who are not polite or impolite towards those who are polite. Truthers would often treat polite people harshly simply because they do not have “the right truth”. See Kropotkin’s last response for an example.
I knew this when I was a kid. Then I lost it in my early-mid 20’s due to negative influence from the outside. And now I am trying to recover it.
What about people like Harbal and Kropotkin?
Is this supposed to be some kind of QED?
What about people like you?
He’s stopped dignifying my posts with a response.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the morally superior among you all?
It’s you, dear reader. Nobody is better at arguing for self-less-ness than you.
And so it says in the holy book,
Those who are the most self-less will be elevated through likes on facebook.
Narcissists never leave the confines of narcissism. Whatever they say or do, they always stay within the confines of narcissism.
They may acquire qualities they did not previously possess, and these qualities may be those qualities that are associated with everything that is opposite of narcissism, yet, they will never cease to be what they fundamentally are, and that is narcissists. In fact, in this way, they become bigger narcissists. (This is an observation that narcissists, being narcissists, often attempt to use against those who are not narcissists, or who are merely benign narcissists, and that in order to confuse them.)
Narcissists are not interested in discovering the reality of their value in relation to other beings. Instead, they prefer to choose it in advance and then fight for it.
As such, they are against finding their own place within a social hierarchy, instead believing that their job is to do anything within their power in order to come at the top of it.
They despise hierarchies, even when they say they love them. They only love them insofar they give them, or believe they can give them, the validation they crave so much. Only when they lose faith in their ability to come at the top, or to feel superior when they are not on the top, is it that they become honest about how much they hate them.
The former position is closely related to class-based aristocracy and elitism, the latter to democracy and egalitarianism.
Both positions are born out of deep hatred of hierarchies. Both positions, in other words, are positions of relativism, of unwillingness to admit that someone else might be better.
We can observe this when Arbiter of Change(/Outsider)(/AutSider) says, repeating what Satyr has said multiple times in the past, that “masculine” types are repulsed by statal authority because it is in their nature to be authority.
What they are actually saying is that narcissistic types are repulsed by statal authority because it is in their narcissistic nature to prove to themselves and others that they are the best.
Whether such a proof is truly a proof is irrelevant to them because the only thing that matters to them is fame – to be seen by others as being the best.
In other words, they do not really believe in establishing social hierarchies that are grounded in objective reality, but merely in social hierarchies that make them feel superior (without, of course, requiring to be truly superior.)
Some narcissists can only feel good if they are at the top. As such, they disobey all social hierarchies that rank them lower than that. Others, on the other hand, are fine with lower positions, so as long they make them feel good.
Arbiter’s position isn’t exactly that of traditionalism. Traditionalism is too collectivistic, which is why we can hear people like Historyboy, who are quite traditionalistic, describing people like Arbiter as anti-social and cannibalistic.
Traditionalists, in general, aren’t so preocuppied with being on the top of social hierarchy as individuals since their feelings of superiority are derived from the imagined superiority of their collective identity (such as ethnicity.) By believing that their own collective identity is superior to all other collective identities – the way Western colonialists did – they effectively justify the value of every single position within the social hierarchy of their own collective. Every single white person, for example, is to be considered superior to every single black person, no matter how poorly such a person is placed within the White social hierarchy.
Of course, not all of traditionalists have this need to feel superior to other collectives. Nonetheless, they are still motivated by the fear of questioning the value of their own collective identity.
Traditionalism is ethno-centric relativism. Arbiter’s position, we can say, is nature-centric relativism. He calls himself naturalist, so perhaps we should call his position naturalism.
Whereas ethno-centric relativism uses ethnic identity as a standard for all those who possess it, and sometimes even wider than that, nature-centric relativism uses nature as a standard and that for everyone.
Ethno-centric relativism ranks people using a standard of their ethnicity. In some cases, such as for example Western-centric relativism, ethno-centric relativism ranks people – all people – using a standard of what they consider to be the best ethnic identity.
Nature-centric relativism, on the other hand, ranks people based on how well they are “in tune with their nature”.
Both of these approaches at establishing hierarchy are flawed because both of them leave out certain aspects unquestionable. For ethnocentrism, that is the value of one’s ethnic identity. For naturalism, that is the value of one’s nature. As you can see, despite the fact that these approaches attempt to establish hierarchy, they are flawed because they are subjective.
It is not objectivism that is the problem, but subjectivism. If everyone was objective, everything would be perfect. But the reality is, most people aren’t.
With narcissists, the discussion is always confined to subjectivism, as they do not really believe in objectivism (what they call “objectivism” is in actuality subjectivism.) All of their discussion consists merely in identifying what kind of subjectivism is the best kind of subjectivism.
Subjectivism is fundamentally blind and rigid. As such, it is necessarily tyrannical. Objectivism, on the other hand, is perceptive and flexible. As such, it is respectful.
To be objective does not mean “to follow rules”. To be objective means to perceive. Following rules is often blind, hence, it has more to do with being subjective.
We are well aware of monarchs whose lack of objectivity results in a tyrannical rule. A tyrannical rule is tyrannical because it lacks perceptiveness. Such a rule need not be codified. A monarch need not follow a strict set of laws that he, or someone else, has codified in a document or a holy book. It’s enough that his own spontaneous actions lack in perceptiveness. Such a monarch, I hope you’ll agree, is clearly a narcissist.
Then we have dual kingships such as that of Sparta. Here, we had two “monarchs”. Scare quotes because if there are wto monarchs then they are no monarchs. The two monarchs may be objective individually, but the fact that there was no single intelligence choosing one of the two viewpoints means that their objectivity was necessarily corrupted. It also suggests narcissism on the part of kings, as they were apparently unwilling to duel each other, instead being content with such an ugly, and clearly ego-stroking, compromise that is dual kingship.
Finally, we have constitutional governments and democracies which further restrict perceptiveness.
The only thing that can work is an absolute rule of a monarch who is highly perceptive. Everything else is a terrible compromise that betrays egoism and narcissism on the part of those willing to defend such a government.
To conlude: the important thing to understand is that nacissists do not lack objectivity, they are just not dominated by it. No matter how objective they become, they never cease to be fundamentally subjective.
I haven’t read many of their posts. But then it is a generalization from some people in a group. Perhaps it is even a tendency in Truthers. But then it isn’t fully coupled to the beliefs of the group. Any marginalized position will be treated poorly, in general, and may in turn as a tendency be impolite or worse. My main reaction to your post was that it is arguing that a group that is wrong is also narcissistic, becuase that group is seeing a problem or phenomenon that is not there. This abstract idea could be carried to many if not all groups. Most positions can be broken down into viewing the other side as saying something is real that is not. Or not as real as they make it out to be. This means that if you are wrong you are also a narcissist, in general. It seems to me people should be viewed as simply wrong, if they are wrong. If for some other reasons they are also narcissisitic, fine, than they get that label also.
On the more specific You are polite. Sometimes amazingly polite in the face of rudeness. Kudos to you for living up to your values. But you can also be very condescending. This is a type of game played in many cultures and perhaps that is fine in yours or fits your values, but I would prefer the aggression to be direct. Otherwise you end up with a game where insults are nicely wrapped with bows and the person insulting can they cry foul when the other person responds with a direct, blunt impoliteness.
A nice little historical scene: Tecumseh is sitting at some negotiation with a US Cavalry officer. They are on the same bench. T keeps sliding over so he gets in the persoal space of the officer. The office slides away, several times. Finally the officer pushes off of T and starts yelling at him. T says calmly: ‘savage, animal.’
This is not to argue that H and K are good little posters or that nothing should be done. Or that one must put up with Truthers who are jerks. I am trying to separate out what seem like conflated issues, cut back on the generalizatino and then also explain that politeness
serves
the dominant power.
In any society those in power have mechanisms in place, inertia if you will metaphorically, that support their interests. If people with other views or who are treated poorly or lied to are polite as rule, orderly, civilly obedient, the intertia of that society will serve the interests of the dominant position. Time passes. People who might have been supportive of a minority opinion lose interest. Evidence can be hidden. More abuse takes place, more lies. More layers.
If that groups is rude, takes to the street, chains themselvse to buildings, shouts at meetings
the counters the inertia and the inevitable pull of the system to reinforce dominant positions.
The best strategy, I think, is to combine. Have polite rational negotiators with evidence and papers and videos, etc. Unflappable people, calm, logical, perhaps even occasionally condescending.
AND have disruptive, rude people. This creates the most possible pressure on dominant positions for reasons one can deduce from what I have said and from common sense.
If the truthers are wrong,t hey are wrong. Some are certainly going to be narcissitic, it’s common.
If they are right, well, then it is good they are using a diverse strategy, even if most of the rude ones may not be consciously (though perhaps intuitively) choosing to be for this reason.
If they are partially right - for example, there was a stand down by some portion of US intelligence), ditto.
Now on this specific topic I have bias. I think the official version cannot be correct. Building 7 was obviously demolished professionally, for example. There are many reasons to believe this, not just the way it fell, what happens with fires in that kind of building, but also what was heard on the street, what the owner of the building said, what police said before the collapse and more. There are other parts of the official version that just do not hold water, for me, but that seems the easiest one to sow seeds of doubt in someone who is not going to put in much time and need not have much expertise. What actually occured that day, behind the scenes as it were, I am not sure of.
But I have argued precisely along the lines i have here in defense of people who hold views I disagree with.
Another angle on this can be found in Piven and Cloward’s Poor People’s Movements. They studies how social change occurs. Being reasonable does not work. You get bureaucratized to death. Being rude and uncivil does lead to change. I think there are parallels when one moves from the sociological level to the personal level.
And don’t forget, Truthers in mainstream media are portrayed as crazy, wackos and this was done repeatedly for long periods. Truthers include for example, very large groups of demolition experts, engineers and architects who do not believe the Building 7 story. If some of these likely very anally rational people have outbursts on occasion when they are repeatedly called nutjobs and told they must be Jew haters because of their skepticism, well, it’s understandible. But then a good number of them are, like you, able to simply come back again with their reasons for disagreeing.
That’s not what I said. A man who is wrong is not necessarily a truther. And a truther is not necessarily wrong about what he’s saying. Sometimes, he is right. As I said earlier:
Many times what they say is indeed true. Here’s an example:
This is a common problem. For example, when Westerners speak of other people as being clearly inferior to them, citing that they have not achieved the same kind of achievements that Westerners did, this is an example of a “truth” that is only true when you take the premise that the Western standard of evaluation is better than that of other people as true. It’s an example of circular reasoning and of unwillingness to question the value of one’s standards.
There are many more examples. But I’m not going to cite them now.
A truther, it’s important to understand, is not simply a person who is wrong. A truther is a person who is dominated by need to prove himself to be truthful. He’s fundamentally a narcissist. Narcissists are defined by the need to prove themselves. Truthers are a special case of narcissists who compete for attention by proving that they are the most truthful of all people.
You will often find them trying to justify their narcissim by appealing to theory of evolution – the most truthful of all theories – by repeating that “men are the expandable gender”. This is based on the observation that women are more useful to the preservation of society than men are.
The question we want to ask is: how is it that people who obsess so much over truth end up being the opposite of truthful?
I am reminded of Aristotle who said the following of Spartans:
One has to note that Aristotle is the father of modern narcissism, despite what he says in the above. He was the tutor of Alexander of Macedon, the greatest narcissist of all time, and he was the founder of Western civilization. He was also a materialist and he was pro-democracy. The above has value, but it has to be kept in mind that such an insight does not necessarily make one free from narcissism.
The problem is that truthers are not interested in truth as much as they are interested in acquiring fame. When fame is one’s end, one selects based on what guarantees fame. Sometimes, that may be truth. Sometimes, that may be a lie. Sometimes, one may have to avoid having an opinion altogether. It all depends on what satiates a need to be seen as the best.
Truthers are not to be confused with objective people. The two are opposed to each other. Objective people, it is interesting to note, have a much easier time admitting they are wrong.
Side note:
[tab]Pay close attention to quotes of my own writings in this post and notice how I made a narcissistic comparison between me and Marcus Aurelius? Most truthers will quickly pick up on this clue and use it against me, as a definite proof that I am yet another narcissist. In this instance, I used it intentontionally, to deceive, but there are also times when I would use it unintentionally. In such cases, it still wouldn’t be a sign of narcissism proper, but merely of benign form of narcissism. But truthers won’t understand because they don’t care. They have a need that they have to satiate, and they will satiate it no matter what.[/tab]
Freedom is one of those confusing terms that is very hard to define. In the past, each time I tried to define it, it ended up being not quite satisfactory. This time, however, I will make one hopefully last attempt to put an end to the eternal problem of definition of the very difficult concept of freedom. Let’s hope this time I’ll succeed.
Freedom is the ability to express one’s racial type to the fullest. As such, freedom is not exclusive to any racial type. It’s what every racial type requires in order to express itself fully. This also means that every racial types sees freedom in its own particular way.
“Being true to oneself” is another phrase for “being free” which means it is another phrase for “expressing one’s racial type to the fullest”.
Racial type cannot be transcended. At least not within a lifetime. One cannot change one’s racial type. It’s what is commonly referred to as nature.
What is possible, however, is to imitate another racial type as a part of one’s own racial type.
But more importantly, what is possible is to be periodically consumed by another racial type. This phase of consumption is what is otherwise known as slavery. Not unfreedom, because unfreedom merely means that one is not expressing one’s racial type to the fullest; but slavery, because one is not merely failing to express one’s own racial type, but is actively expressing another racial type.
Though everyone belongs to a single racial type, that does not mean that everyone possesses within themselves only features of a single racial type. Rather, it’s more accurate to think of a hierarchy of features that may or may not belong to the same racial type.
A racial type may be pure or impure. This simply indicates whether all features of one’s being belong to the same racial type (purity) or whether there are features that belong to different racial types (impurity.)
A racial type may be stable or unstable. This indicates the stability of hierarchy. A stable hierarchy means that the dominant racial type is less likely to change when under pressure. An unstable hierarchy, on the other hand, means that the dominant racial type is more likely to change when under pressure.
Stable types can be pure or impure, whereas unstable types can only be impure. A type that is both stable and pure is called perfect.
The most interesting of all types are impure types as they can easily lead to confusion. For example, if an impure type consists of a dominant racial type A and a subordinate racial type B, then it becomes very easy to confuse it with another impure type that consists of a dominant racial type B and a subordinate racial type A.
Another interesting observation is that an impure racial type will find it easy to consider its dominant racial type to be superior to its subordinate racial type. This is purely on the ground that it associates its subordinate racial type with instability. By pure chance, such a conclusion might be right. But we’re rarely that lucky.
Of course, not everyone makes such a mistake, but it is a common one, especially among egoistic racial types that are heavily self-referential.
This knowledge will be very useful against naturocentrism – advocated by people like Satyr and Arbiter – that relies heavily on statistical evidence in order to gaslight out of existence the rare, and indeed, the superior racial types in order to protect from criticism their own inferior, and very common, narcissistic racial type.
Magnus.
I have been attacked by several people lately for criticising without putting forward any logical arguments for doing so. That is all very well but, when it comes to posts like most of yours, posts that consist of senseless ranting mixed in with false presuppositions and groundless conclusions, it is nigh on impossible to get a grasp onto anything that lends itself to critical analysis. In other words: Even though it is clearly rubbish it is very difficult to find a way of explaining why.
Not difficult, more like time-consuming.
Harbal, I was only referring to a couple instances from my memory … I think you do a great job as was said earlier of deflating people with little text…
Magnus is obsessed with the big words…
Truth and ego…
Magnus, apparently thinks he has no ego, even though he responds to posts…
And Truthers are people who point out that Magnus responds to his posts, and that he thus, has an ego!
The whole jist of this mess of posting…
I am Magnus, like me for who I am, no matter what!
I kid you not!
For Magnus, ego is the scourge of all … Even though he has one, a very big one!
But because he says he has none… Were all supposed to go… “Wow Magnus has mind boggling integrity!”
And then truth !! Well shit!! There’s no truth, even though Magnus states his… The Truthers are all assholes!! And were supposed to go…
“Magnus, the depth of not only your integrity, but this astonishing insight leads me to believe you are the best ever. It’s so clear now … Because you are the master of ego and truth !! How did I not see it…??? I was so stupid!”
I actually wrote a post to James about this that I think is pertinent …,
Ecmandu.
I have no complaints about any of your past comments to me and I think your assessment of Magnus is pretty well on target.
Either you want to discuss or you do not want to. I understand that if discussion is time-consuming that you won’t be willing to discuss. I too am not that happy to discuss with people such as Arbiter, Satyr and the rest. And not merely because discussing with them is time-consuming, but also because they are – that they have proven themselves over and over again – to be dishonorable people.
That said, you either discuss or you leave. Everything else is circularity.
Cyber-bullying is a sign that you’re incapable not only of discussing, but also of leaving discussion. The purpose of cyber-bullying is to make up for the confidence that you have lost. It’s about gathering fictional evidence in order to support what you used to think before you started reading what others have to say.
The moment you start cyber-bullying is the moment you admit defeat. And the rest is circular reasoning. Trying to invent reasons to justify cyber-bullying.
Harbal is one such cyber-bully. Arbiter is another. Satyr is yet another. Ecmandu also belongs to the camp, but not to the same extent.