It’s too bad that contrarianism is so lost on my countrymen in North America or the particular ability to understanding irony, hubris, and absurdity when one is confronted by it. I like to think of myself as a kind of maenad here that although I am wild, naked, crazy, chaotic, and maddening there is tidbits of wisdom or enlightenment to be found from my ramblings for the mentally initiated. Those that are not initiated don’t concern me for they are like drift wood floating on the sea within a hurricane.
I mean how obvious does one must be? I would think an educated eight year old could understand my latest shift in posts especially if they had a rudimentary understanding of history, philosophy, and reflected absurdity. I cannot make it any more simpler.
I like parody. Inside it feels like sarcasm, which can be pleasant. It also allows me to express my own internal minority opinions. It’s taboo, often, which is a plus…
I mean you in the general sense, anyone. If you try to get your preferences agreed to by others, you face resistence. If you try to get your morals faced by others, you face resistence. I think when presenting morals, one feels like this is stronger than preferences. YOu are arguing what is good, objectively. But in the end you will face everyone’s preferences and ideas and resistence, just like a nihilist would.
Excellent you understand contrarianism, there’s hope for you yet. You know if they ever censor the entire internet eventually which is their dream contrarianism might be all we’re allowed to have left. Maybe I am starting a trend in advance anticipation? Who knows?!
Of course, resistance is everywhere! I like resistance, conflict, debate, and disagreement for it is the only way we learn, grow, or evolve. Only children shun and shy away from such particularly adult sized children. Only children cannot withstand a jab here and there, philosophy is a blood sport.
Sure, I mentioned Colbert. Likely you dislike him in the extreme, but he is skilled. I love watching him with Bill O’reilly. O’reilly was a skilled bully Fox News interviewer, but he was utterly confused by Colbert who was agreeing with him, but in a way that made it clear he was parodying. It was too much for O’Reilly to deal with. He couldn’t figure out a way to deal with the extra layer.
Right, but I was responding to…
you responing to a nihilist merely having preferences and complaints. But I don’t see this as a disadvantage: 1) you meet resistence regardless 2) the nihilist can pretend to have morals or use moral arguments.
You know sometimes it take’s a mirror reflection of somebody to disarm their own ignorance and stupidity. You just need to hold a mirror right in front of their faces making it impossible for them to take their eyes off of their own reflection. You destroy them with the potency of their own reflection.
A nihilist ought to believe in nothing for nothing is objectified, true, and real therefore their preferences, wants, or ideals outside of themselves is irrelevant.
A nihilist most certainly can pretend to be moral and ethical amongst others but a skilled moral or ethical philosopher who is also a tactician of the mind can see right through all of that. You’re probably thinking because I am an ex nihilist that I must be an impostor but that is not true at all for I see a variety of things in a new light where I very much embrace morality or ethics albeit in a very unconventional manner of course. I have seen various revelations that makes it where I no longer uphold nihilism or anarchism anymore. It is of course very complicated to talk about in one thread alone of course.
Since all your responses indicate that you don’t think you said anything different than what you have already said a few hundred times, there is no point in pursuing it.
So there are many possible games of morality that can be played. Moralities constructed just as games are constructed. Not arbitrary creations, but based on human interests, needs and abilities.
You got born into a situation where people are playing “basketball” morality. Your parents, teachers and acquaintances taught you how to play the game. If you were born somewhere else, then you might be playing “soccer”.
If you don’t like “basketball”, then you can try to force another game on the other players or you can try convince them to adopt other rules. You might be successful and you might not.
There are always going to be people who would prefer to play a different games. That’s not going to “go away”.
If an ‘objectivist’ insists that the rules of “basketball” be enforced when you are playing “basketball”, then there is nothing wrong with that or wrong with the ‘objectivist’.
Objectivists personally prefer a particular game. Nihilists personally prefer a particular game. Objectivists and nihilists have different reasons for their preferences.
None of this is new or astonishing. It’s not incompatible with nihilism. I don’t even think that it’s incompatible with objective morality.
So what exactly is your issue?
Why criticize objectivists when they try to enforce the rules of the current game?
Why criticize objectivists or nihilists when they try to change the game?
Why are you in a “hole”? Why is this somehow upsetting?
It can work like that. It is also just harder to track. Someone is agreeing with you. How do you disagree? And the moment you disagree, they just agree more with what you say and take it further.
I think your mirror would be stronger if it focused less on Jews. You and I disagree about Jews, though not Israel. But even setting that aside, I think it is a distraction. So many people buy and work for the kinds of policies and ideas you hate, and the Jewish thing acts just as a distraction. They won’t notice the mirror. Fixed Cross will, but that’s a minority.
A nihilist can believe in all sorts of phenomena, it’s just morals the nihilist doesn’t believe in.
Well, that certainly narrows things down. And a skilled tactician will always be a problem, regardless.
No, I am not thinking that. I suppose it’s possible, but I just took you at your word. We are our words here. Of course sometimes I think people are bsing, but I can’t really see why you would do it about this.
Sure. My views have changed over time. But feel free to start a thread. I’d be interested to know what the core reasons were for hte change. As in experiences, meeting certain people, contact with books or other media. It’s a fairly big change, at least potentially, so it would be interesting to know the source. You could reincarnate an old membership here, one of JOkers, if you think it would take away from your current persona.
Okay, but, once again, how is this entirely abstract “assessment” of human morality actually relevant to the point that I made above?
This one:
[b]…I explore [or seek to explore] the actual existential parameters of those who do “create morality where none existed before”.
In other words, in any given context, why one set of [behavioral] prescriptions/proscriptions and not another? And how is this related to the manner in which I construe “I” here as basically an existential contraption rooted in dasein?
Indeed, how are your own values not the embodiment of this? [/b]
More abstract bullshit. More flailing accusations about my irrelevance here.
Meanwhile you and Wendy and all the other generally right wing political objectivists here – re race or gender or sexual preference or Trumpworld – huff and puff about the scumbag liberals who are too fucking stupid to see things exactly the way you do.
You go though all these political reconfigurations here – nihilist, anarchist etc. – but always in the end it is the “I” that you are “here and now” that finally – finally! – has everything all figured out.
Well, sure, if we’re talking about those at the very top of the political economy food chain — those who own and operate the global economy — you’ll get no argument from me.
But where do men and women like this fit into your current assessment of “human reality”? Instead, by and large, they have succeeded in creating a world in which the working class stiffs who all flock to Trump’s wall, are still being stomped on by the ruling class and their crony capitalists superstructure.
And if that’s not Trumpworld, it is certainly in the vicinity.
And, come on, what on earth does any of this really have to do with your abstract assessment of ethics and morality here?
Or is the “real Joker” somehow entangled in this:
It’s too bad that contrarianism is so lost on my countrymen in North America or the particular ability to understanding irony, hubris, and absurdity when one is confronted by it. I like to think of myself as a kind of maenad here that although I am wild, naked, crazy, chaotic, and maddening there is tidbits of wisdom or enlightenment to be found from my ramblings for the mentally initiated. Those that are not initiated don’t concern me for they are like drift wood floating on the sea within a hurricane.
On the other hand, that basically covers any moral and political narrative/agenda.
Once one wades through the several layers of irony.
I’ve never understood this frame of mind. Philosophers have grappled down through the ages with that which we could really, really,[b]really[/b], [b][u]really[/b][/u] know beyond all doubt is true for all of us.
Everyone draws the line here in different places. “I think therefore I am” is as good a place to start as any. But how do I know that what I think I am is not just part of some sim world, or a dream world, or a wholly determined universe, or an understanding of reality/existence that the human mind does not even have access to?
God maybe? Or whatever brought into existence the existence of existence itself?
Still, as we go about the business of living our lives from day to day, most of us are willing to take an epistemological leap to mathematics and science and the laws of nature and the rules of language.
Sure, we have no way of knowing if ontologically and/or teleologically all of even that is objectively true, but it certainly does seem to be, right? Objectively true for all of us. 24/7. 365 days a year.
At least so far.
No, instead, for me, nihilism revolves far, far more around the extent to which we can ascertain with certainty that our moral, political and aesthetic values are true for all of us; or, perhaps, only thought to be true by some of us.
I am a moral nihilist intent on examining the philosophies [in a place like this] of those who claim not to be.
But: if we do choose to interact with others what can this…
“…their preferences, wants, or ideals outside of themselves is irrelevant”
…possibly mean? In other words, for all practical purposes. And, for all practical purpose, our values have ever and always been derived from within the existential parameters of the lives that we actually live with others.
I don’t call choosing my own behaviors “pretending” so much as taking a political leap embedded existentially in the life that I have lived. As opposed to the lives that others have lived.
Ah, but when I do broach “choice” in this manner, however skilled the moral or ethical philosophers might be, I find that their chief concern often revolves around having to conclude that the manner in which I have come to broach the question “how ought I to live?” here may well be applicable to them too.
Indeed. And I would certainly encourage those who have come to this conclusion to avoid responding to anything that I might post here in the future.
And [as we all know] many already have.
And, sure, someday you too may well be one of them.
Okay, but then what? How might this be applicable to you when your own moral narrative and your own chosen behaviors come into conflict with others? All I can do here is to probe the extent to which whatever examples you give [re Communism, abortion etc] seem able to yank me me up [more or less] out of the hole that I’m in when “I” consider them.
Indeed, yet all I can do [as a moral nihilist] is to suggest that there be as much tolerance as possible within any particular human community. No one should be permitted to force others to play his or her game [using his or her rules] because that game is said to be the one that all rational and virtuous people ought to play.
But even here this frame of mind is no less an existential contraption.
Instead, you prefer this rendition of an objectivist:
Not much in the way of a moral quandary here, right? And how would nihilism be applicable at all?
Well, when the “game” is abortion or Communism, there are those who insist that the rules of discussion and debate must revolve entirely around their own set of assumptions.
Again, the more relevant question for me here is still this: How are you not down in that hole with me?
All I can surmise is that somehow “in your head” the political contraptions that you have managed to sustain over the years in regard to issues like abortion and Communism are just enough in sync with the “real you” in sync with “the right thing to do”, that you are not able to grasp why and how “I” have not managed to accomplish the same thing.
And, lucky for you, in having accomplished this, you have managed to accumulate a considerably larger portion of “comfort and consolation” than I have.
So, maybe you really should quit while you’re ahead.
It’s hard to tell whether to don’t read the posts or your reading comprehension is just poor. Either way, you don’t get my point yet again.
I already explained it - they try to convince you or force you and/or you try to convince then or force them.
“As a moral nihilist” surely you must see that intolerance is just as reasonable. You really have no grounds for suggesting tolerance besides the feeling that you like it.
“As a moral nihilist” why should it not be permitted to force “to play his or her game”?
Do you have any reasons besides that you don’t like that?
So? They can insist. There is nothing inherently wrong with that insistence. It can’t be immoral or unethical from the point of view of a moral nihilist.
Why would you ask that? By your own philosophy, you can’t possibly understand my life because you have not lived it. Therefore, you need to ask questions about yourself. That’s how you would make progress.
See. You don’t understand my thoughts about that stuff at all. “Real you”, “the right thing to do” - what a load of shit.
My questions to you were "why do the consequences of moral nihilism bother you? " and “why do you keep hounding ‘objectivists’ when they are doing nothing wrong”?
Your response was directly somewhere else.
You should really think about those questions because they seem critical to getting out of your “hole”.
I suppose it is possible that it is all you can do as a moral nihilist, as long as you realize that doing that, what you describe above, is not remotely all a moral nihilist can do, and in fact it is rather odd for a moral nihilist to do.
Come on, on thread after thread and post after post here at ILP, folks are leveling this accusation at each other. But almost without exception the discussions revolve around “reality” in the is/ought world.
But that’s my point. Unlike with relationships that unfold in the either/or world, where “the truth” is actually able to be established, value judgments are embedded far more in the existential contraptions of particular individuals living very, very different lives.
Now, in the either/or world, obstetricians can live lives far, far removed from the lives of other obstetricians. But the part about human biology and human sexuality begetting unwanted pregnancies is the same for all of them. “I” here is embedded in a set of facts.
But, when the focus shifts to morality, what are “the facts” equally applicable to ethicists who pop up all along the political spectrum?
But [from my frame of mind] those who are “one of us” and those who are “one of them” convince/force each other from a subjective/subjunctive perspective that is no less an existential contraption rooted in political prejudices rooted in dasein. And thus ever subject to change given new relationships, new experiences and access to new ideas. And the conflicting goods don’t go away, right? And the reality of acquiring the political power necessary to enforce one set of rewards and punishments will always remain the bottom line in any particular community.
You left out this part: But even here this frame of mind is no less an existential contraption.
In other words, I’m admitting right from the start that either with respect to means or ends, “I” is an existential contraption rooted in dasein rooted in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts.
Then it’s back to the extent to which philosophers can put more than just a dent in that assumption.
I’ll just toss the same accusation back to you here: "It’s hard to tell whether [you] don’t read the posts or your reading comprehension is just poor. "
My being a “moral nihilist” is no less an existential contraption. So any assumption I make here is in turn rooted in the political prejudicies “I” have acquired existentially over the course of having lived my life.
In other words, for those who do insist that others play their game by their rules, they might do so based on their assumption that it is the most rational thing to do; or on the assumption that good and bad here always revolve around “what’s in it for me?”
And “I” am no more effective than anyone else here in demonstrating that they are wrong. Philosophically or otherwise.
But games here [as sports or contests] usually have a minimal of ethical content. Few will argue that one is morally obligated to play baseball rather than foorball, or to play chess rather than checkers.
Thus:
But why do some insist on one thing while others insist on something else? How is this part embedded more in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
That’s the discussion I always nudge the exchange toward.
Except with abortion and Communism the stakes can be excruciatingly high for some.
Also, I never argue that any particular point of view here is either inherently right or wrong. On the other hand, for all “I” know it might well be. Here all we can do is to communicate to the best of our ability what we think and feel “here and now”.
But what the objectivists cling [in my view] to is the assumption that what they do think and feel “here and now” is somehow in sync with the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”. The part embedded psychologically in this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296
True. But, really, what else is there? All we can do is to connect the dots here between what we have come to think [philosophically or otherwise] regarding the relationship between “in my head” and “out in the world”, and how that may or may not be embedded existentially in the life that [so far] we have lived.
But: Communication breakdowns here are bound to be more the rule than the exception. In a way that communication between mathematicians, scientistists and/or logicians is likely to be considerably less so.
Then this:
Indeed, and that’s why the moral and political objectivists are so intent on shoving all that shit aside. Whether others actually understand their thoughts doesn’t change the fact [for them] that when it comes to moral and political narratives/agendas, what they think is in sync with the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”.
Go ahead, ask them.
I’m just ever groping to understand how, with more intellectually sophisticated folks like you and karpel and gib and others, this all plays out “for all practical purposes” when your own values come into conflict. What have you managed to accomplish here that “I” still cannot?
They bother me because over and again “I” am drawn and quartered when confronting conflicting goods. I no longer have access to the psychological comfort and consolation embedded in the objectivism that I once knew.
So, “I” am bothered, but only in a fractured and fragmented way. And while sometimes that can actually be comforting [like believing in a wholly determined universe] other times it is really and truly wrenching.
But: only inside this existential contraption that I have come to think of as “me”.
And, look around you, the world is bursting at the seams with a staggering amount of human pain and suffering. But I no longer have access to a frame of mind convinced that much of this would go away if only everyone would live as they ought to. As I once thought that they should.
Well, I assume that even my own psychological defense mechanisms are largely existential contraptions…the embodiment of dasein.
We come into this world equipped by nature to rationalize our behaviors. To defend the ego. But how does the life that we actually live impact on what it is that we choose to rationalize about?
For example, now that it is becoming increasingly clear that Trump may well have in fact colluded with Putin to get him into office, his supporters are rationalizing this by insisting that, even if true, it’s not a crime.
My problem though is that I can no longer convince myself that his behavior here is either a good thing or a bad thing. It’s all predicated subjectively on a set of assumptions that both sides are able to defend.
In other words, nothing “I” am able to come up with “here and now” stops me from feeling less fractured and fragmented. My defense mechanisms are therefore “for all practical purposes” effectively blunted.
So, yes, it’s true:
That’s how it works when you have managed to reconfigure “I” into an existential contraption ever and always subject to change given new experiences, new relationships and access to new ideas. It’s a life bursting at the seams with ambivalence.
It’s the part the objectivists seek to avoid at all cost.
Again, this is far too abstract. We need to name a particular game in a particular context. And then note the extent to which value judgments become applicable in discussing it. And then note the extent to which “I” here can be rooted in an assessment/analysis able to be demonstrated as applicable to all rational men and women.
Let’s bring this down to earth. A context please. One in which we examine our respective narratives regarding what it is that we think a moral nihilist can and cannot do.
As I pointed out to phyllo above, in noting the manner in which I have taken my own existential leap here to moderation, negotiation and compromise, that is no less an existential contraption in and of itself.
It reflects the political prejudices that I have come to embody over the years given the life that I lived as a political activist. And, in particular, as a Marxist, a socialist, a democratic socialist, a social democrat, a liberal, a progressive.
And now as a moral nihilist.
But: as a profoundly fractured and fragmented moral nihilist.
You said something very specific which seemed to be different from your usual statements. But as soon as I quoted it, you denied saying anything new or different.
Fine. There is nothing to discuss about that particular quote. Done.
No, the conflicting goods don’t go away.
But you’re the one insisting that they ought to go away. Does anyone else expect that to happen?
I left it out because it’s not relevant. A “moral nihilist” has to see that tolerance and intolerance are morally the same whether they are part of an “existential contraption” or not. Dasein and contexts has nothing to do with it unless you are defining “moral nihilist” in some strange way based on context.
So who said that they can’t use those assumptions? Obviously, they can.
And there is nothing inherently right or wrong with that assumption. :-"
(And why not cling to it?)
Tending your own garden. Examining your life.
So what? They can think whatever they want. There is nothing that can stop their thinking.
But it really bugs you.
I don’t expect conflict to go away. I don’t expect a tidy solution. I don’t expect to control other people.
Human pain and suffering will remain. I don’t expect them to go away. One can act to remove some of it, if one chooses.
You’re using “existential contraption” like a “Get of jail free card”. It seems to permit you to make contradictory and illogical statements with impunity. You can’t be held accountable simply by calling everything that you write and think an “existential contraption”.
But we are actually talking about you … a self-described “moral nihilist” with a university degree in philosophy.
Yet you post as someone who is not a “moral nihilist”.
There is that “existential contraption” again … the one which lets you be inconsistent.
Far too abstract???
I pulled it almost directly from your statement: “No one should be permitted to force others to play his or her game [using his or her rules] because that game is said to be the one that all rational and virtuous people ought to play.”
The context was this particular philosophical discussion, here one earth. A self-identified moral-nihilist made a general statement about what is moral.
I quoted that statement. We don’t need any narratives beyond your identification as a moral nihilist and the very odd statement you made, odd given that you are a moral nihilist. Odder still that you saw it as the only possible way of reacting as a moral nihilist.
I’m a moral nihilist. I don’t think I know what people should do. I don’t think tolerance is good (or bad). I find it odd that your being a moral nihilist seems to necessarily entail believing what you wrote.
You could address that.
And despite its being an existential contraption and you are aware of it, you state it as the only one you can have or make and present it as if it is inevitable given that you (one) is a moral nihilist.
Sure, those people might make a moral generalization like you made. but
A moral nihilist is a very odd source of that. That you think it necessarily follows from moral nihilism is confused.
Perhaps a better way to put it is a NOT INTEGRATED person. One who is sometimes a moral nihilist, sometimes not. Someone whose beliefs, reactions, morals and lack thereof shift over time.
In the end, given your sense of yourself as fractured and doubts about a unified self in anyone, identifying as a moral nihilist is a misrepresentation.
You can understand why Phyllo and I react to these things. It’s very cake and eat it too.
But further to say that moral nihilists can only conclude what you concluded means that you do not understand moral nihilism. Or did not when you wrote that.
It would be lovely if you could say ‘Ah, shit, you’re right. That was poorly written and completely self-contradictory. I am fallible.’ But you can’t seem to do that kind of thing.
We are always wrong if we point these things out, or serious philosophers, or epistemologists or confusing what you write with some real you or objectivists.
Jesus Christ, can’t you just fucking admit you mispoke and made no sense and move on? I would drop it in an instant.
Do or do not the objectivists argue that the only reason that conflicting goods exist at all is because the folks in the “one of them” camp refuse to accept the moral narrative/political agenda subscribed to by those in the “one of us” camp?
I’m just still confused regarding the extent to which your own assessment of things like Communism falls into the objectivist frame of mind. And, in turn, how God fits into all of this “in your head”.
Yes, a moral nihilist who is adamently convinced that moral nihilism reflects the most rational understanding of the “human condition”. But that’s not me. Moral nihilism as “I” understand it is no less an existential contraption. Despite that fact that some insist that “in reality” I am no less the objectivist than those I accuse of it.
Again: whatever the context might be, a doctor who performs abortion is constrained by the objective facts inherently embedded in human biology and human sexuality producing an unwanted pregnancy. That isn’t an existential contraption so much as a human contraption applicable to all of our species. Dasein here revolves around whatever actual facts can be established.
Yes, but in any particular community, there will be those with conflicting assumptions. Then what? My argument [re this thread] always revolves around those who insist that only their own assumptions are the rational and virtuous ones.
Then [in a venue such as this] are philosophers, ethicists, political scienctists etc., able to establish which set of assumptions are in fact the correct ones?
If so, then why shouldn’t the philosopher-kings determine what the laws ought to be with respect to prescribing or proscribing particular behaviors here?
Why leave it up to “the voters” in elections who may or may not be in sync with the most rational assessment?
Exactly! But that’s my point. Unless of course philosophers are in fact able to establish what in fact is inherently right or wrong here.
Isn’t that what all us [objectivists or not] do? More or less. But what does that have to do with actually critiquing the components of my own arguments here? After tending their garden and after examining their lives why are they not down in the hole with me?
Yeah, but then some of them are in positions of power such that they are able to enforce their own agenda [socially, politically, economically, legally] on others.
And you still haven’t really addressed the manner in which I speculate that why they think what they do is embodied largely in dasein. Including what you think. About Communism and everything else relating to conflicting goods.
But: from within an existential contraption that is “I”. From within the perspective of a fractured and fragmented frame of mind embedded subjectively/subjunctively in conflicting goods derived from dasein.
