What is Dasein?

As I have always stated, we must addressed the theory first before we go into the practice. You seem to jump into practice without proper theoretical foundations. Maybe that was the thing to do thousands of years ago but that is not what is with the present. This is why we have Philosophy as the necessary base to optimize life and living.

Point is even when you try to incorporate theory, they are half-baked and bastardized ones.

When one read BT one can sense the arrogance and egoism of Heidegger in brushing off every other ‘Western’ philosophers engaging in the subject-object dichotomy and thus presenting ‘useless’ philosophy. Note Heidegger condemned only Western Philosophy since Plato to Hegel to Bergson but not Eastern Philosophy [which is admire]. Infact he was accused of plagiarizing his main theme from Eastern Philosophy. Note my main approach is from Eastern Philosophy.

Your problem is you have been brainwashed by Heidegger’s supporters, e.g. William Barrett, with the same sense of arrogance and egoism but unfortunately got stuck with his antimonies but not understanding the solutions given by Heidegger to get out of those antimonies.

With false arrogance you set out to condemn others as objectivists with useless intellectual contraptions. Note this is such a simple way out even a child can do that!

Note in modern times the most effective approach to solving whatever problems [personal or otherwise] always starts with theory and analysis then to implement practical solutions. You insist in the opposite and thus is stuck in a very deep hole.

Btw, I have already proposed with theories and supported by practical solutions but your default is whatever is presented by others are merely useless intellectual contraptions.

You seemingly have this drive of OCD i.e. ‘It is My WAY or No Way’ without any proper philosophical justification to support your urge.

Yours remind me of the various case of obese men and women who will eat themselves to death despite all the advice given by doctors, kins and friends, e.g.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3141122/A-pizza-man-key-Carers-brought-junk-food-1-000-month-benefits-65st-Karl-allowed-eat-death-taxpayer.html

Presumably these obese people [driven by Prada-Willi Syndrome] continue to do what their urges drive them to do and treat all advice and warnings by doctors and others as useless ‘intellectual contraption’ re dangers of obesity.
It is the same with religious fundamentalists who will treat whatever that do not fit their doctrine as ‘intellectual contraptions’ i.e. in this case, satanic.

Then we are stuck. To discuss Heidegger’s take on Dasein theoretically without making continuing references to actual living beings interacting out in a particular world, seems rather absurd to me.

The words interact only with other words. They become academic collaborations insisting that others must define the meaning of their words in precisely the same way.

Meanwhile out in the world existentially folks continue to come into conflict when they can’t make the words that they define theoretically one way, fit into the technical narratives of others.

Basically, it seems that you arguing that “in the future” if everyone shares your own theoretical understanding of the foundation for “progressive behavior”, then chattel slavery and smoking cigarettes will have been demonstrated philosophically to be necessarily evil.

And then much further into the future the same will have been accomplished in regard to more vexing issues like abortion, animal rights, gun control and human sexuality.

Practical solutions in what sense? Suppose others don’t share your solutions? How do you demonstrate to them that their own theoretical foundation is necessarily flawed? And wouldn’t this demonstration revolve largely around insisting that since your own theoretical understanding necessarily leads to progressive behaviors, theirs must be wrong? By definition.

And look where Heidegger’s own theoretical understanding of Dasein took him.

Where did he go wrong?

If, in fact, he was?

You missed my point again where I explained there is a load of difference between knowing and doing, e.g. a sport coach who knows a lot and teaches his trainees to be world’s best is not necessary good in the sport himself.
It is the same with religious authorities who teach others to be good spiritually but they themselves could be pedophiles, rapist, murders and other evil person.
It is the same with Heidegger who introduced a novel view with good ideas on ‘Being’ which has benefited many.

As I had said somewhere, do not rely on such immature view to counter Heidegger’s philosophy. So keep insulting your own philosophical intelligence [basically not much anyway].

Note you are also relying on the theories of Heidegger, e.g. Dasein, thrownness, rival goods, etc. but you has cherry picked merely the negative elements [inauthentic] that Heidegger condemned but ignored the solutions [authentic] he proposed on how to deal with those negatives. That is a kind of sick philosophy you are doing to torture yourself. Rather than dealing with the specific problems you are in, I have suggested you get educated [theory-practical] in the philosophical elements that is relevant.

Why is Theory Critical?
Note the current practice of effective knowledge and practical is the concept of Pure and Applied as in the various Sciences, humanities, Music even in the Arts etc. Do you deny this?

As I had stated my practical solutions are those relating to ‘Teaching one how to fish’ instead of ‘feeding someone fishes all the time’.

The practical solutions I suggested are get into ‘knowing thyself’ ‘get educated’ in the necessary principles on how to deal with problems in life, etc. These are universally accepted principles re practical solutions, only the very useless will ignore such propositions.

As for the specific practical cases you brought up, it is not practical to get involved with antinomies [till the cows come home] in this case.
It would appear that we have to veer into psychological counselling sessions [I got into that a bit with you] to deal with how to get out of the hole you have dug for yourself. It is impossible to do a proper one within a forum like this and in case I do not want to be involved in such matters.

It depend on the topic. This has to be dealt on a case by case basis in various appropriate threads.
Note my example of ‘chattel slavery’ is merely an example, albeit a good one - there are tons of examples I could introduce to support my points re ‘progress’ within humanity re the philosophy of moral and ethics.

Okay, let’s go here:

1] How would you reconcile his “good ideas” on Being with his choice to remain in the Nazi Party until the end of the war?
2] How has your own understanding of his understanding of Being benefited you in your interactions with others?

Me? Fascism [in the is/ought world] is a historical, cultural and experiential contraption rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. And Being/being is a complex intertwining of the ontic and the ontological. A particular existing man or woman out in a particular world understanding it from a particular point of view. As that is situated [embedded] in the manner in which Existence itself can be wholly understood metaphysically.

My own rendition of “sick philosophy” revolves around “general descriptions” such as this.

Let’s go here:

If Heidegger were confronted with this…

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

…how do you imagine he would react to it insofar as his own “I” does not fracture and fragment in defending his membership in the Nazi Party?

Edit:

Here there appear to be two schools of thought:

Critics, such as Günther Anders, Jürgen Habermas, Theodor Adorno, Hans Jonas, Karl Löwith, Pierre Bourdieu, Maurice Blanchot, Emmanuel Levinas, Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut claim that Heidegger’s affiliation with the Nazi Party revealed flaws inherent in his philosophical conceptions. His supporters, such as Hannah Arendt, Otto Pöggeler, Jan Patocka, Silvio Vietta, Jacques Derrida, Jean Beaufret, Jean-Michel Palmier, Richard Rorty, Marcel Conche, Julian Young and François Fédier, see his involvement with Nazism as a personal “error” – a word which Arendt placed in quotation marks when referring to Heidegger’s Nazi-era politics– that is irrelevant to his philosophy.

But then [for you] it is straight back up into the clouds of “general description”:

What on earth are you conveying here as it might be translated into a discussion/debate about/over a conflicted good most here will be familiar with?

Stem cell research, capital punishment, immigration, conscription, animal rights, the role of government, affirmative action — how would one differentiate progressive from regressive behaviors here as it relates to the distinction you make between “‘Teaching one how to fish’ instead of ‘feeding someone fishes all the time’”.

In other words, given how you claim “there are tons of examples I could introduce to support my points re ‘progress’ within humanity re the philosophy of moral and ethics.”

Let’s get started.

FYI…

Just received the latest issue of Philosophy Now.

The cover story is on Heidegger.

[b]Andrew Royle from his article “Heidegger’s Ways of Being”:

Heidegger gives two core characteristics of Dasein:
(i) Dasein exists : “the essence of Dasein lies in its existence” (p.42).
(ii) Dasein is mine : “the Being, whose analysis our task is, is always mine” (p.42).
The first, seemingly obvious point, is that Dasein, the Being that is concerned about its Being, can only be first of all if it exists: it is essential that it is.[/b]

This certainly seems reasonable. Jane exists. And, once she does, she can, as a conscious human being, speak of “mine”. But what can she then describe and encompass objectively?

In other words, so that others are able to confirm that what she does claim as “mine” is in fact hers.

She may claim to be pregnant. It is “my” baby growing inside me.

She may decide to abort the baby. It was “my” abortion.

She may say that it was moral to abort this baby. This is “my” opinion.

How then are we to understand Heidegger’s “two characteristics of Dasein” as it relates to each “mine” here.

The baby and the abortion can be demonstrated to in fact exist. But how would Heidegger reflect on Jane’s opinion as “mine” with respect to the morality of killing it?

Is it in fact moral to kill it? The pregnancy and the abortion are true for all of us. But the moral judgment is embedded in what I construe to be dasein and conflicting goods out in a particular political economy where legal prescriptions and proscriptions revolve around those with the power to both enact behavioral norms and to enforce them.

This is the distinction I always come back to. You either exist or you do not. You either behave in one way or another.

But than others may well [in fact] have conflicting opinions regarding the rightness or the wrongness of that behavior. How then using your understanding of Heidegger’s understanding of Dasein, would you yourself react to this distinction?

[b]“Heidegger’s Ways of Being”
Andrew Royle

Let us remain with our workman in his workshop, and now imagine that the workman reaches out for a hammer and finds instead an empty space. In now looking for his hammer, the workman starts to notice his workshop, which has been there, surrounding him, all the time. He casts an eye over the shelves, seeing dust; he spies a cracked window; becomes aware of a spider moving across the ceiling; he notices the detritus of uncompleted tasks and worries about deadlines. Heidegger says, in this ‘looking around’, the referential context of Being is ‘lit up’ (p.74). By virtue of the space of the missing hammer it’s as if a light switches on and Dasein sees the world that has been there all along.

The important point is that this light is not switched on ‘out there’ in the world; rather, Dasein switches on a light for him/herself, in the doing, in his/her interaction with the world. Generally, the world is categorized and created for the workman in the context of his particular concerns: he ‘sees’ a missed deadline in a half-finished barrel, or he ‘hears’ his boss’s rebuke through the space of the missing hammer. The empty space becomes a disclosing ground for Dasein to conjure and create the world. In doing this, Heidegger describes Dasein as a ‘ Lumen Naturale’ (a natural light), which lights up its Being-in-the-world “in such a way as to be its [own] there” (p.129).[/b]

This is basically how Dasein seems to be situated out in the world here. A world of things. A world in which things are understood in relationship to each other as either this or that. A hammer, a workshop, a cracked window, a spider.

A workman surrounded by factual entities in a world in which these objective “things”/“relationships” are true for everyone.

But what if, instead, the workman picks up the hammer and uses it to kill someone; and is then able to rationalize/justify it “in his head” as “the right thing to do”?

This is the part where his take on Dasein most intrigues me. The fact of his killing a perceived enemy/threat can be established.*

But how is it established that this behavior is either moral or immoral? That all rational men and women are obligated to construe it as either one or the other?

How does that not revolve around a particular context understood in particular [and often conflicting] ways by particular individuals who have come upon their own moral narrative existentially given the sequence of actual experiences they have come to encompass/embody in a particular life?

If, instead of a workman using a hammer to kill an adversary, it is a soldier using a rifle to kill a Jew – “out in a world” that Heidegger himself inhabited – how are philosophers able to establish either behavior as either necessarily right or necessarily wrong?

In a No God world?

Thus it is my contention that the moral objectivist may well be concerned more with acquiring [subconsciously?] a soothing psychological serenity that comes with believing that this can be accomplished, then in actually demonstrating that his or her own moral narrative does in fact necessarily reflect the optimal point of view.

*Though in a No God world it may never be established.

It’s also your contention that :

  • the “moral objectivist” out to be concerned with that “his or her own moral narrative does in fact necessarily reflect the optimal point of view.”

  • the “moral objectivist” ought to spend his time demonstrating it

  • the “moral objectivist” ought to demonstrate it for ALL men and women

  • the “moral objectivist” ought to demonstrate it to the point that becomes an obligation for them ALL to follow.

:-k Which seem to be a preposterous set of demands that you are putting on the “moral objectivist”.

Perhaps you have designed it so that the “moral objectivist” always fails.

On the other hand, it is also my contention that the moral objectivist may well not be concerned with these things.

And that is wrapped up in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

The point then is to make a distinction between what we are in fact able to demonstrate as true for all rational men and women, and that which seems more embedded [to me] in one or another subjective/subjunctive “existential contraption”.

Like this one for example:

[b]But what if, instead, the workman picks up the hammer and uses it to kill someone; and is then able to rationalize/justify it “in his head” as “the right thing to do”?

This is the part where [Heidegger’s] take on Dasein most intrigues me. The fact of his killing a perceived enemy/threat can be established.

But how is it established that this behavior is either moral or immoral? That all rational men and women are obligated to construe it as either one or the other?

How does that not revolve around a particular context understood in particular [and often conflicting] ways by particular individuals who have come upon their own moral narrative existentially given the sequence of actual experiences they have come to encompass/embody in a particular life?

If, instead of a workman using a hammer to kill an adversary, it is a soldier using a rifle to kill a Jew – “out in a world” that Heidegger himself inhabited – how are philosophers able to establish either behavior as either necessarily right or necessarily wrong?

In a No God world?[/b]

On the other hand, in a manner I still do not fully understand, your own narrative seems to unfold in a God world.

Using this example or one of your own, lets explore our respective narratives regarding the interaction between value judgments and identity out in a particular context.

Well, if a “moral objectivist” does not insist that ALL men and women are obligated to think as he does, then his only “flaw” would appear to be that he thinks that he can make a right and wrong decision about morals. And unless a person is curled up, paralyzed, in a fetal position, everyone thinks that he can make a right and wrong decision about morals.

For all practical purposes, what’s the difference between a moral objectivist,a relativist and a subjectivist?

I can’t help that … God either exists or God does not exist … either/or.

You call it a “flaw”, I don’t. After all, there is always the possibility that the moral objectivist’s frame of mind is not flawed at all.

Besides, how can a “flaw” be grappled with realistically in an is/ought world construed by me as an exchange of existential contraptions?

Mine being no less one. I am providing folks with my own understanding of objectivism. Here and now. And I am inviting them to explore this out in the world of actual conflicting human behaviors derived from conflicting goods derived from conflicting assessments of God and religion.

Dasein is merely a component of that for me.

I do know this: that for many years I was certainly one of them. Just not anymore.

My point here is that whether there either is or is not an objective morality, if men and women choose to interact socially, politically and/or economically, one or another set of rules must be established.

Intertwined in a profoundly complex amalgamation of genes and memes, and based on customs or traditions or folkways or mores or laws, certain behaviors will be rewarded while others will be punished. But, sans God, how are folks like philosophers able to establish moral obligations here?

What…theoretically? conceptually? analytically?

In other words, for all practical puroposes, let’s yank these narratives – embedded in any number of “general descriptions” – down out of the epistemological clouds and situate them out in the world of actual flesh and blood conflagrations.

Pick one.

Okay, but how are our individual narratives here not also embodied in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein?

How does your own “transcend” it?

I call it a flaw in order to have some sort of discussion here. There has to be some sort or starting point, some sort of point of discussion. I don’t think it’s a flaw. I also don’t make hundreds of posts about objectivists. But you do.

Sure, go in the direction of claiming that you never criticized or found fault with objectivists.

What have your posts been about? Just passing along some non-judgemental information?

Do you really think that’s how you come across?

So here you are saying what? That when you make decisions you don’t decide what is right and wrong? But you still make a decision?

Notice what you did there. I asked “For all practical purposes, what’s the difference between a moral objectivist,a relativist and a subjectivist?”.

You don’t answer. You shifted away from “practical purpose”. Then you used the exact same phrase “In other words, for all practical puroposes, let’s yank these narratives …”

… a phrase that stumped you in the first place.

Okay, neither of us think it’s inherently a flaw. Although it may well actually be one. If one or another objectivist is able to clearly establish that their moral narrative and/or political agenda does in fact reflect the optimal point of view, then those who refuse to share it would be flawed.

Right?

What I am still unclear about, however, are the components of your argument here. While I make my own abundantly clear as you point out.

What I then pursue is a discussion with objectivists in which our respective points of view are embedded in a particular context relating to clearly conflicted behaviors revolving around clearly conflicted goods. How here are arguments said to be flawed? How here is that established?

Beyond, for example, insisting that Communism is flawed because your points of view establish that. And yet [it seems] they establish this only because they are your points of view. Based in part on your own particular set of experiences.

Like any defense of Communism is inherently flawed.

But I don’t claim that. I note the historical connection between theological and secular dogmas and authoritarian/autocratic political contraptions. But I also note the dire consequences embedded in the “show me the money” political contraptions of those nihilists who own and operate the global economy in turn.

And only in harping on objectivism is there any possibility of encountering arguments [from them] that may well yank me up out of the hole that I am in. My “judgments” here are always recognized by me to be “existential contraptions”.

As I point out time and again, once you make the decision to interact with others socially, political and economically, you are going to encounter situations where values come into conflict. Now, you can construe these conflicts as “our side is right and their side is wrong”, or as “we’re right from our side, they’re right from theirs”.

But: I recognize that my own subjective/subjunctive decisions here are just political leaps of faith embedded in dasein.

Which is why I champion democracy and the rule of law: moderation, negotiation and compromise. Rather than might makes right or right makes might agendas. I just recognize in turn the role played by political economy out in the real world.

Now, how would you describe yours?

My point was that even when the discussion revolves around actual flesh and blood human interactions, many objectivists that I have come across refuse to bring the discussion down to earth. Instead they are more comfortable up in the scholastic clouds where the battles revolve more around definitions and the analytic technicalities of Durant’s epistemologists.

Now, if you do want to discuss the practical differences between them then chose a context that most here will be familiar with and let’s pursue it.

Undoubtedly for different reasons.

If a “moral subjectivist” or a “moral relativist”, takes a position then he sees those who oppose it as flawed in some way. Right?

How can that not be part and parcel of taking a position?

Therefore, in practice there seems to be no difference between the three in that respect.

Which effectively states that no reasons are sufficient to support any opinion or decision.

A completely useless and ineffective approach to life.

You just said that they are not flawed. :confused:

A ridiculous expectation. The way you have constructed your hole make it impossible for any argument to be effective.

The question was merely about how you make a decision. Your answer is beside the point.

The question was an opportunity for you to bring the definitions “down to earth”. And you avoided doing so. You shifted to the abstract and said nothing.

I now consider these to be empty invitations.

The question was merely about how you make a decision. Your answer is beside the point.

The question was an opportunity for you to bring the definitions “down to earth”. And you avoided doing so. You shifted to the abstract and said nothing.
[/quote]
This is my experience also. Further when asking about his own decision making in a specific online situation, he was incapable of addressing his own actions. This is far more concrete than what some woman should or should not do when pregnant, since all parties were actually present and the events were not general, but specific. He is happy to recount how he arrived at his current ironism, including in it some concrete experiences, yes. But refuses to bring his own behavior down to earth. He almost manages to say that he manages to cause suffering, yes, but considers this unavoidable and is not claiming that he knows this is a good thing. Even this would be an advance, though it does not explain why he would not avoid hurting others - which would fall into the is category - since he has no possible way of knowing (his position), if this suffering is for the greater good or good at all - which falls into the ought category. He is clearly proud that his cleverness presses what he calls objectivists into avoidence based on their fear (suffering), but does not seem to realize this fits rather poorly with his purported wish to know the good if it were possible. IOW he thinks other people should be concrete, but he need not be.

He further assumes that if one is not a nihilist or ironist one must be an objectivist. He cannot seem to get that one need not be either, since both positions are based on assumptions about the nature of reality that can and are challenged. Its the same old if they can’t prove they are right, then I am right fallacy. Hence his complete lack of understanding that he also is making claims he needs to justify and he has not proved his claims by not being convinced by others.

Here [again] we always get to the part where a moral narrative is in fact able to be established as the optimal point of view.

I have absolutely no illusion that in fact I can establish moral nihilism as the optimal frame of mind.

I would never argue that moral objectivists are flawed – inherently, necessarily – if they don’t share my point of view.

Instead, I would ask them to bring their arguments down to earth in discussing a set of conflicting goods we might all be familiar with.

Case in point: Trump’s wall.

There are any number of objectivists on both sides of this issue who will insist those who don’t share their own political narrative are flawed. Whereas my point is always that 1] both sides, in starting with conflicting sets of assumptions, are able to make reasonable arguments regarding immigration and national borders 2] that these arguments are often embedded existentially in their actual lived lives and that 3] the wall either will or will not be constructed depending on which side has the political power to enforce their own set of subjective/subjunctive assumptions.

Positions are taken but the objectivists insist there is ever and always only one optimal position: theirs.

Let’s just say that “for all practical purposes” I see a very important distinction that you don’t.

Not so much useless and ineffective as, for the objectivists, disturbing and discomfitting. My argument is they insist the most useful and the most effective approach to life is always the moral narrative and political agenda that is either not flawed at all or the least flawed: theirs.

As a moral nihilist [in a presumed No God world] I’m down in that hole drawn and quartered by conflicting goods, while recognizing just how difficult it is to separate a moral narrative embedded existentially in dasein from a moral narrative able to be demonstrated philosophically as within the far more exacting parameters of a deontological obligation for all folks who wish to be thought of as rational and virtuous.

In my view, it is this certainty that – psychologically – the objectivists crave. This after all is where the comfort and consolation of the “real me” grounded in an objective moral understanding of the world around me comes from. Then it’s just a matter of which font appeals more to you: God? New Age contraptions? Scientology? Ideology? Deontology? Nature?

It’s just that with respect to an actual existential context in which your own values come into conflict with others, I’m still rather fuzzy regarding the role that God and religion play in the construction of your own particular existential persona. In other words, I would need from you a trajectory similar to the one I note with regard to abortion above.

Ridiculous to you because you are not inside my head aware subjectively of all of the many experiences that I had that, no doubt, are far, far removed from the experiences that you had. I more or less expect communication breakdowns here. That is precisely why it is so crucial to be able to bridge the gap between what you think you know/believe “in your head” and what is able to be established as in fact true for all reasonable men and women.

I used to think there were no arguments that could/would ever dent any number of previous religious and political narratives I once staunchly embodied.

Can you cite just one example of a dramatic change that unfolded in your own outlook on life?

This may well be established with considerably more substance if you will focus the beam on a particular context that is well known to be flooded with conflicting moral and political agendas.

What on earth do you mean by this? Cite an example of an offline situation in which you are capable of addressing your own actions. Actions involving conflicts with others who did not share your own moral and political values.

Time and again I come back to this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

Why? Because it delineates that crucial existential juncture where unique personal experiences get intertwined in unique philosophical and political narratives.

And how exactly is this trajectory not an example of me bringing my behaviors down to earth? How is this not an example of my being “concrete”? Where is the equivalent from you?

It’s just that with regard to many other moral issues relevant to my life, the same framework applies.

For example, go here: procon.org/

There are any number of moral/political conflagrations in which both sides are able to raise reasonable points/arguments that the other side is not able to just make go away.

And common sense tells us that our own value judgments are going to be embedded/intertwined in the actual sequence of experiences that we had and on our own particular access to information, knowledge and ideas.

Meaning, in other words, it highlights in turn all of the experiences, information, knowledge and ideas that we did not have or come across.

You either think through the “for all practical purposes” implications of this as I do or you don’t. But I would never argue that all rational men and women are obligated to.

All I can do however is to note that which seems reasonable to me here and now.

I use this example in particular because it articulates that point in my life where I myself started to seriously question my own objectivism.

Clearly, to the extent that others come to sink down into the hole that I am in, they will suffer in the same way as I do. Just as those religious objectivists who came to sink down into Nietzsche’s “God is dead” narrative, came to suffer in turn. Gone was their immortality, gone was their salvation, gone was their scriptured morality.

Should that then have motivated Nietzsche to keep his opinions to himself?

My arguments here are either reasonable or they are not.

No, my aim is to bring whatever manner in which we define the meaning of these words out into the world of conflicting human behaviors.

What does it mean to be a nihilist or an objectivist or an ironist when describing a particular moral context? How might a nihilist or an ironist or an objectivist react to, say, Trump’s position regarding gun control?

Is there a narrative/agenda here that would in fact reflect the optimal set of behaviors. A nihilist and an ironist would suggest that there is not. But think how ironic it would be if he argued in turn that all rational men and women are obligated to think the same!

Maybe you should not think about the concept of “optimal” because it’s really preventing you from getting anywhere. Resolve the sub-optimal issues before proceeding to the optimal.

Repeatedly you cannot distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable arguments and reasonable and unreasonable assumptions. IOW, if we go by your philosophy, any dumbass assumptions and arguments are just fine.

That’s your biased interpretation of what “they all do”.

I thought that you could not figure out what “for all practical purposes” means.

It’s useless and ineffective for you. Leave “the objectivists” out of it and concentrate on yourself.

You don’t need that at all.

It’s a ridiculous expectation because since you see all arguments as contractions, then even if you accept an argument, you are simply substituting one contraption for another. It doesn’t get you out of your hole.
If you had some criteria which establishes when an argument is not a contraption, then that type of argument may be your ticket out. But you don’t have such criteria, do you?
You are also unable to use your intellectual contractions as tools … dropping a useless one and picking up a useful one at will. I have suggested it to you and you responded that you could not control yourself in that way.

Btw, you are still banging on William Barrett’s “rival goods” which is evident in your posts. William Barrett in his Irrational Man did discuss ‘good’ & ‘evil’ and that the ‘good’ should always prevails, i.e. the taking into account and development of the WHOLE human being rather than emphasizing and focusing on his reason.
The problem with your very narrow and shallow view is you cherry picked only the evil* bits from Barrett’s discussion and embedded those evil elements in your psyche. This is why you are trying to spread evil in dragging others into your deep evil hole.

*I define ‘evil’ as related to any acts that are net-negative to the well being of the individual, therefrom to society and humanity.

That seems to be a poor definition of “evil” because people produce net-negatives due to ignorance, weakness, errors and accidents. It’s not useful to label those acts as evil.

I would not label what Iambig is doing as evil.