I know, labels can blind us to things as they really are, as much as help us understand them.
Perhaps the key is to continually postconceptualize (empiricism), rather than preconceptualize (dogmatism), or not conceptualize at all (philosophical skepticism/zen).
I understand that point, it’s a fair position to take.
Just be yourself, and to hell with what people think.
That’s cool, you have a style and it works for you.
Myself rather than dispense with labels altogether, I try to make them more dynamic and sophisticated, but yea, labels can only get you so far, at some point we just have to be, not overanalyze things, which’s easier said than done on a philosophy forum.
I was merely basing that probability on the gun thread where you may have concluded I’m conservative because I defend gun rights, but I’m now relieved to learn that those odds were poorly calculated
“Just be yourself, and to hell with what people think.”
^ Exactly.
I stopped giving a fuck about what anyone else thinks about me a long time ago. Anyone who doesn’t like me as I am can go fuck off and I am better for it.
My own radical honesty and not giving a fuck is a very nice litmus test of others. Saves me a lot of time and effort not having to sort through the shit.
True, progressivism does seem an entity. Although, that’s what the progressives say about the white men. And that’s what the nazis say about the jews. Men say it about the feminists.
The Jews are an entity.
The Nazis are an entity.
The white men are an entity.
The progressives are an entity.
So ideologies are personified into entities and there is probably some evolutionary advantage for doing that since it’s better to assume the rustling leaves is a lion stalking us rather than just the wind.
Well, progressivism is a natural consequence of prosperity because when the desperate struggle for food and shelter is behind us, we can focus on other sources of pain and truth. So when life becomes too easy, people find new ways to complain: before, it was starving in the street, but now it’s having hurt feelings that’s the big deal.
Progressivism is as old as prosperity and generally precedes the fall of empires. Check out feminism and the fall of rome heartiste.wordpress.com/2010/12 … l-of-rome/ Look into the Weimar Republic (discounting WWI effects) and see the condition that enabled the rise of Hitler. Or just accept it as sensible if you need no convincing since strong values build strong societies which engender prosperity which causes people to question the continuing need for those strong values and that precedes the erosion of prosperity until it falls apart and someone rises from the debris once again with strong values to restart the cycle.
Yes, I see what you mean. If they can’t control the gov, then fine, they’ll control private industry and that’s even better because who can question Dick’s right to choose not to sell the AR15? Hey, private industry can do what it wants and not only are the conservatives forced to support their own disarming despite the cognitive dissonance of on one hand supporting freedom of their disarmers and on the other desiring to own guns, but they couldn’t do anything about it anyway since since private industry isn’t put up to a vote. Try arguing with a capitalist about declaring google a public utility and suddenly the “deplorables” are totally defending their enemy; it’s hilarious!
Hahaha yeah exactly. “You are so racist that you cannot even mention how you are not racist! How dare you try to claim to not being racist, that proves you are so racist!”
By necessity. In my experience anyway, you simply have no choice left because you are surrounded by so much shit and death and nonbeing trying to value you in its own terms, holding you down, sucking the life out of you… eventually you reach a point where you either keep letting that happen and die, or you stop letting it happen and live.
For myself, it became an addiction. Once I realized how it feels to be myself and not prioritize the silly nonsense and totalitarian demands made on me by others, I was hooked. This is being, this is freedom, this is existence. Be yourself, because you will attract other people who are also being themselves. The truly great people will respond to you and you will be drawn together with them, while the shit people will fall away from your life.
It is a rabbit hole, looking into all this shit and how it has come about so quickly. And seeing where it is going. Not very healthy because so depressing. And not much you can do about it.
I’ve done that work, enough to satisfy myself in the truth of things. Such work is a test of strength, and of one’s own character because you must do it, must wade through these putrid lowly truths because somehow they have come to determine much of the world we happen to live in. But after you do the work long enough you no longer need to, you can free yourself to better things.
I will always fight for truth and freedom, in every way possible. But there is no reason to keep swimming in the shit, and in fact we fight far better when we don’t do that. This is why I do not talk to leftists anymore.
So it’s realizing futility then. The faster one can get to the point of realizing that caring is futile, the sooner he can get on with life. Then it would seem the answer is to care obsessively until I either die or finally break. I wonder why I can’t just cognitively decide to stop caring. Maybe because I’d be desiring to stop desiring and now I’m on the Buddhist dialog.
You are reacting emotionally, dismissing my point. The physical attack and violation of rape is not the same as badmouthing someone with a lie. I don’t disagree that the liars should suffer, my beef is with your equating the two as if they are one in the same when they’re not. My reaction is the same as I had with Carleas equating racism with murder in terms of contemptability. If murder is abhorrent due to it being the most heinously damaging crime, racism cannot actually be argued as equally abhorrent but rather something less detestable, removing it from the top of the same category. My beef must be with the way people use adjectives to align two disparate terms onto the same ballfield. It’s the same with the leftists who scream Nazi at people who wish to protect their national borders, the way they misequate labels and the punishment that follows.
Has there ever been a more accusatory/confrontational time in history where a mere statement changes people’s lives so dramatically? It’s like the Salem witch trials in some ways.
It is because this isn’t merely a cognitive “choice” you can make, it has to be a deeply felt, instinctive change. You cannot think this into being. You are right, you will need to push this to the absolute excess point of dying or finally breaking; only at that point will you finally learn which way it will go, must go, for you.
Well, I suppose it must come to pass because: strong men make good times, etc, etc I’m sure you know the rest. It’s a cycle and there’s not much we can do about it other than have some laughs I reckon.
Yes, I’m sure you are completely right. That’s what William Blake meant when he said “A fool who persists in his folly will become wise.” For instance if one believed the earth were flat, he’d walk diligently and consistently due east until he came to the place where he started and it will be by that persistence in his folly that he will eventually become wise to the fact that the earth is round.
=D> I had a good laugh at that
