Let Dugin Live

[Guide]

Only Alexander Dugin can save us.

[Mr Reasonable]

False. I can save you.

[promethean75]

i absolutely agree. dugin must live. there are many ways to produce that higher kind of man - the anarchist of the propagande par le fait type against whom everyone compared is merely 'the last man' - but fascism is guaranteed to produce the most fertile soil out of which the best of these grow.

if there is anything worth addressing here, it is whether or not such an anarchist becomes criminal out of his 'thrill of the fight', or if he is in fact stirner's involuntary egoist who puts before his love of the fight, some saced cause to justify his deed; in most cases it is 'for the benefit of the working classes', and the anarchist appears as the strong arm of the communists who haven't the gusto to do the dirty work themselves. this is unfortunate. only very rarely do we find the criminalist anarchist type who has reached those lofty stirnerite heights that nietzsche speaks about with his ubermensch. what would be a ceasar with the soul of a christ, if not such an anarchist? that middle ground between diametrically opposed theses (bourgeois and pleb) who neither desires or needs to lead or follow, but retains that love of the fight.

the political play that mankind will forever be involved in on planet earth (and space once he colonizes it) has no other divine purpose than to produce the anarchist. a million emperors and empires will rise and fall, having no more significance than to draw those smiles on the faces of the gods when the anarchist finally appears. he is the MVP, the main actor... the very reason why the script was written at all.

what i have told you is secret #26 of the universe. now don't go spreading this around, but zeus actually adores prometheus, and like kronos, so too is zeus apprehensive about relinquishing his power (which is understandable). but there is an understanding between them that political men and the 'people' they try to rule will forever be oblivious to; that zeus made a mistake when he designed man, and the only thing that can redeem this embarrasing tragedy in the mind of zeus is the total destruction of the order he created. this is why the anarchist is divine and a favorite of the gods... he is that divine dance of drunken madness that the gods have lost themselves in.

... and this is why fascism is so important. the more perfect an order is attempted to be made, the greater probability of the birth of an anarchist.

verily, i speak thus.

[Guide]

" but fascism is guaranteed to produce the most fertile soil out of which the best of these grow. "

Dugin isn't a "fascist". His thesis is explicitly against the twentieth century movements including Fascism. He's existentialist if one requires a label. Wiki drives the brain into depths of rubbish hitherto uninvented by human beings.

[promethean75]

so he isn't a fascist. well ain't that some shit. what a disappointment.

look man you need to get in there and edit that shit.

[Guide]

so he isn't a fascist. well ain't that some shit. what a disappointment.

look man you need to get in there and edit that shit.

You may be joking, but, in that case, you are an inhuman idiot deserving of utter contempt.

In any case, I have. They prefer their own "argument"/interpretation to Dugin's own self-understanding and confronting existentialist teaching. My view is, "fascist" is a synonym for evil in the usage of the now powerful thinking that permeates the wiki-sphere.

Heidegger is another case like this. Is Heidegger a "fascist" thinking because he was a member of the Nazi party, or is "Heidegger" the title of an existentialist teaching which called the Nazis "planetary criminals" already in the late thirties? And utterly detested "crude biological racism", and the scandal of planetary eugenics (which, any 'card carrying' pre-war American could as well be charged with), and Question of the ability to let philosophic work enter one's ears. Who listens these days to its echo of the human who has not grown tired of itself? Only myself perhaps. Of course, the whole issue is not completely obvious: and its vague outline itself coincides with the most pressing of existential difficulties.

Fourth Political Theory (for dummies) a short prospectus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIY1vZu ... oZEwY-_a3T

[promethean75]

you are an inhuman idiot deserving of utter contempt.

bro. that is so weird. i actually am an idiot (in the original greek root meaning of 'i make my own'). but i'm no ordinary idiot. not yet anyway. i'm aspiring to be but i have to pass through several stages first before i get there. at the moment i'm just a swaggering idiot. here, check it out.

that's so weird you knew, though. we're connected, dude. i'm telling you.

btw, that most recent thread you created is a duplicate of the 'entartung' thread.

[Guide]

"OG (original guide) wrote:
you are an inhuman idiot deserving of utter contempt.


bro. that is so weird. i actually am an idiot (in the original greek root meaning of 'i make my own'). but i'm no ordinary idiot. not yet anyway. i'm aspiring to be but i have to pass through several stages first before i get there. at the moment i'm just a swaggering idiot. here, check it out.

that's so weird you knew, though. we're connected, dude. i'm telling you.

btw, that most recent thread you created is a duplicate of the 'entartung' thread."

You sound more interested in philosophy as fashion, than in genuine philosophy.

Of course, I know the invented post-modern sense you mean. As in Ronell (a student of Lyotard).

Idiot means, by usage, layman, in ancient texts. Someone who isn't a lawyer or official is a layman, in Athenian era usage, they lack a publicly beneficial skill.

Now, if we have a skill, something learnable, this is not a "just this time" sort of accident, but a thing learned that is not recognized as useful to the country or polis. It is degeneration is the fullest sense of Max Stirner. But, this is of little enough interest to "positive" thought which aims at assimilation and superiority of the "all", as with Nietzsche.

[promethean75]

It is degeneration is the fullest sense of Max Stirner.

oh sweet, you mentioned maximus. one of THE most important. but maximus is not for everyone, as his logic is of such a higher order and cleanliness that it is generally unapproachable by most people. in a sense, too, one doesn't find the philosophy of stirner, rather it finds you... and there are not many people who become eligible for it.

in philosophy he represents a limit which sits in contradistinction to the philosophy of marx. these two can be thought of as the final possibilities for ethics, and most people sit unwittingly somewhere in the middle... this middle ground being a field of contradiction and confusion (largely due to the fault of philosophy). one is either forever approaching stirner or marx, and there is no third alternative for an honest and clear minded philosophy.

let me give you an example of a system which stopping short of that final marxist limit stands in a state of ethical irresolvability. capitalism. by virtue of its principles, it cannot be ethical in the sense that it purports to be. that is to say, it cannot stand by its own tenants and still be able to function; it requires that a number of people fail at realizing its greatest privilege so that a number of others can realize it (at the expense of those others). in this way, the classes it creates cannot share any ethical solidarity and will forever have conflicting interests. here is the collapse of principle and the direct, unavoidable line to stirner; if this particular abstraction of the 'state' cannot sustain itself through the ethical cooperation of individuals who share the same interests, it is for all intent and purposes nullified. if the social contract is nullified, there is no longer a collectivity, but a war between two classes; the bourgeois and proletariat. and if this is the case (and it is), one cannot avoid the conclusion of stirner. one either remains a confused fool somewhere in the middle, or one becomes a stirnerite or a marxist. other 'political' philosophers are irrelevant filler materials that sit somewhere on this line between stirner and marx. any possible political philosophy approaches one of the other, inevitably.

then at the other end of this spectrum is marx, who represents the correction of this irreconcilable conflict that capitalism has created, and a solution to the stirnerite conclusion (on which capitalism unwittingly rests). the great 'meanwhile' of the world is spent approaching one or the other, as there is simply no other direction it can go.

this is why the philosophies of stirner and marx are the alpha and omega of political philosophy. either absolute resolution to ethics, or absolute destruction. to resolve ethics, societies must be for, and run by, the working class. don't mistake what i say; ethics doesn't need to be resolved... but if it is going to be, this is the only way. anyone who wishes to resolve ethics and believes otherwise is confused and/or irrelevant.

contrarily, anyone who wishes not to resolve ethics, wishes not to approach marx, but does not finally reach stirner, remains an involuntary egoist. the 'cause' for which they stand - in this case the illusory notion of 'equality of privilege' in the tenants of capitalist philosophy - is a spook, an abstraction, a false idea. and it is such because of philosophy.

therefore one is, essentially, either a stirnerite (involuntary or voluntary egoist) or a marxist. you'll note that it was not for nothing that stirner's work provoked a great sense of emergency in marx and engels, who immediately responded to the danger they had discovered in stirner. they saw clearly the logical extreme that stirnerism revealed and quickly set out prevent it from happening.

the reason why you might characterize stirnerism as 'degenerate' is because you are shortsighted of its wisdom; as i said, it isn't for everyone. and i imagine stirner would be very amused if he logged in and saw that comment: 'here is another 'philosopher' running in place, not knowing from whence he came or where he's going. still believing there is any 'solution' to the world's ethical problems other than a direct approach to marx, the guy opposite me on the spectrum.'

alpha and omega, OG. everything else is just half-wit nonsense in between. the bread and butter of that eloquent babbler, the 'phi-lost-opher'.

[Guide]

This position is unclear:

let me give you an example of a system which stopping short of that final marxist limit stands in a state of ethical irresolvability. capitalism.by virtue of its principles, it cannot be ethical in the sense that it purports to be. that is to say, it cannot stand by its own tenants and still be able to function; it requires that a number of people fail at realizing its greatest privilege so that a number of others can realize it (at the expense of those others). in this way, the classes it creates cannot share any ethical solidarity and will forever have conflicting interests. here is the collapse of principle and the direct, unavoidable line to stirner; if this particular abstraction of the 'state' cannot sustain itself through the ethical cooperation of individuals who share the same interests, it is for all intent and purposes nullified.if the social contract is nullified, there is no longer a collectivity, but a war between two classes; the bourgeois and proletariat. and if this is the case (and it is), one cannot avoid the conclusion of stirner. one either remains a confused fool somewhere in the middle, or one becomes a stirnerite or a marxist. other 'political' philosophers are irrelevant filler materials that sit somewhere on this line between stirner and marx. any possible political philosophy approaches one of the other, inevitably.

“it requires that a number of people fail at realizing its greatest privilege so that a number of others can realize it”

This doesn't exclude general improvement. When the country is electrified, or when plumbing becomes generally available, in the end, even the poorest benefit.

“by virtue of its principles, it cannot be ethical in the sense that it purports to be”

Capitalism never promised “freedom for” all things for all people. Rather, its principle was “freedom from” paternalist or royal interference. For instance, there was a law forbidding the rich from selling their estates (disposition, or right to use, but not to “alienate” property) in England before laissez-faire.

That those with talent in commerce will be free to benefit from those favoured qualities.

“if the social contract is nullified, there is no longer a collectivity”

What are we to understand it as granting, that is then nullifiable? If it grants a certain freedom from arbitrary acts of the officials, to be heard in court, and “pursuit” of happiness. Or, in some cases, property rights.

In Stirner the principle of happiness or the final goal of life would be idiosyncratic. Ergo, no collective rationality, and a fortiori no collective principles. However, in Marx, the same thing is true only after History begins. Marx claims that we are not yet in human history properly. Only if history begins, after the classes dissolution into the universal human collective of “universal man”(men) as individuals (painting in the morning, riding in the afternoon, selling nude photos in the evening glow under the deep shadows of the crumpled hills).

Do you want to understand Stirner as merely “private” life? That would presuppose the “reality” of Marxist realism as truth. Stirner doesn’t do that, he says each one to their own (reality).

From this point of view, far from being opposites, the views are the same. Each to their own truth. Power comes in as one's own, because it must to make a view "positive", collective, assimilating.

Marx requires the End of History through the class conflict, he tends towards a false postion, Stirner does not. Marx Engels say, Feuerbach is “crude” as hell. Because he pushes too eagerly with big hands into the materialist view, everything is “base”, “superstructure” or Geist must be burnt away. Marx is never on solid ground with the = 'The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." He repudiates it himself many times. He “stands on his head” and dances in bewildered sympathy with Nietzsche his antipode. He keeps asking, what interpretation do we need to move the raggedy men, the vulgar hoard comprising the nations, in the right direction? Lenin settled this by telling the peasants Communism meant getting allocated some land. Simple bribery as motivation. Stirner isn’t moving in the space of “positive” power of ideology or wisdom as worldview. The “positivity” is drained out of the individual who is basically solipsistic. The solipsistic position is not related to the “the world is still there when I die”, as history, in its ascending branch (Engles), or, in its “grand style” and voracious lecherousness (Nietzsche).

[Meno_]

Sounds good, and with foundation established. However, foundation through action is the only way to earn validity , and as I understand it, the raising of the politically martyred crucified boy, whose reality is much in doubt, used as a cause celebre, as much as Marx's idea of effects beginning with the beginning of social history, must give a pause, politically speaking.

The inclusion of what reduces Stirner to the level of political stress, does create the tension caused by occultist backgrounds, or is it a matter of the sufficient conflict causing the chaotic occultist solution?

The dressed up solution within the object-subject preoccupation along the lines of the New Heglelians, is a tried concept, and Putin's indulgence in the Crimea , as proof positive of Dugin's influence, is as yet inadequate in forming a new national socialism, as built on such questionable grounds.

Perhaps political risk taking as a form of warning , used as bargaining chips, where the chips are funded by the idea of a pan- Asiatic Axis, may prove more likely. The Russia-Iran-Syria connection, may be a preview, and certainly of major concern, an allusion to the paranoid philosophy of using the risk of the the use of the
occult , where the substantiation of the possible with that of the actual tries to delete saturated all inclusiveness of a purported and upheld chaos.

This causes a necessary reduction into the basis of a dangerous neopolitic, a revision of past Marxist-Leninist dogma.
That the dogma's failure need not detract the resurfacing of ideas along the lines of Young Heglelians, particularly the adoption of ego psychology as a bridge of a much more general theory of social contractual manifestations of it.

The more poignant question of whether social devolution and political chaos presently. Is reaching a level of predictable maximum uncertainty , as world politic moves into the NWO.

The answer is no, geopolitically speaking, the actual chips are much more unevenly matched, and the Crimea is no Poland, as far as seeing it in other terms then reclaiming a very closely aligned country, with very close historically tied societies.

The same can not be said to be of Poland, because Poland has been way closer tied to Russia.
Ribbentrop's visit, forging a fake German Russian alliance was a masterstroke of prevention.

Now look at some of his back ground, :In 1986 Dugin joined Pamyat, an organization dedicated to restoring old monuments. This innocuous aim was soon overshadowed by the anti-Semitism of its leader, Dmitry Vasilyev, a paranoid actor who believed the Jews were destroying Russia’s patrimony and had sent Zionists to kill him.[14] Pamyat attracted more hooligans, crypto-fascists, and nationalists than art restorers but it stirred a patriotic sense in Dugin; he began to wear a black shirt, leather belt, and shoulder strap, the garb of the Black Hundred, a patriotic tsarist movement of the early twentieth century. The historian Walter Laqueur, who wrote a book about the Black Hundred, noted Dugin’s activities as early as 1993; with Dugin, he wrote, “we move from the realm of a quasi-rational approach to the depths of irrationality.”[15] Readers of Dugin out of sympathy with his ideas may agree.

From DARK STAR RISING: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump by Gary Lachman, published by TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, ...........

The whole structural basis and organization of character, is simply not there, in Dugin , to mirror an international , worldly concern, other than the tried Caucasus invasion, which is turning into mostly a litmus test.

On the question of the degree of seriousness with which to take Dugan, any thing is possible, yet as major Russian policy, he appears to be incidental to the old Putin preoccupation that mirrors Trump, : bring back the great Russia.
There are Islamists, as well, who longe for the return of the Ottoman Empire.

At the same token, one can not absolutely dismiss Chamberlain professing ' Peace in our Time'.

[promethean75]

This position is unclear

'fraid that's the nature of all philosophical text. one can never say enough and the product always remains open. what you can do, however, is use the tools of philosophy to sort through a text and separate statements that belong in the natural sciences, and statements that reflect fallacious (formally and informally), personal bias and erroneous reasoning. philosophy should be concerned with being critical of its own language rather than attempting to explain or even describe any 'truth'. science takes care of that. philosophy just tags along. i'm reminded of that quip by stephen hawking; the philosopher is just a failed scientist.

in any case, i guess you could summarize the paragraph you found to be 'unclear' as a statement about the limits to any attempt to establish any kind of real altruism in actual practice rather than as just another philosophical concept. what the paragraph shows is that until economics resolves that unavoidable circumstance of 'class conflict' that exists in this specific capitalist mode of material relations, no amount of ethical philosophy can be used as a defending justification for it; not utilitarian consequentialism, not virtue deontology, and not normative ethics. instead, these philosophies are conveniently 'tweaked' to fit the expectations and advantages of the person who benefits from the system in place. so, for example, you'd find a capitalist putting forth a convincing argument that kant's or mill's theory of ethics supports, and leads logically to, a capitalistic free market. it does not, and cannot, by the sheer fact that under the conditions of conflicting class interests, people cannot be said to genuinely want to cooperate. they are forced to compete, and where there is competition, there is no real social contract of ethics with the 'other' class. this indicates stirner's egoism as the default parameters of moral and ethical behavior inside such a system. on the other end of this spectrum is marxism, which symbolizes the resolution of that fundamental problem that so constitutes the conflict of interests between classes; that property should belong only to he who produces it if we wish to eliminate the circumstances that prevent any real social contract.

now we don't have to, mind you. i'm only showing the limits of this problem and how one is forever approaching one end or the other, whether they know it or not. this means that any philosophical narrative that attempts to defend capitalism on 'moral' grounds will be farcical... merely the voice of someone to whom capitalism gives an advantage, and so therefore uses philosophical language to defend and excuse that advantage. simply put, man does not want to work, and will go to any lengths to justify his not wanting or needing to... provided he is kept alive by the fruits of other's labor, to be able to make such a utterance. it's an alarming thought, really; a thousand years of philosophical nonsense from the mouth of a parasite, all for the purpose of finding a reason for not having to work. he thought he was on to something, thought he had discovered how he was 'different', above and beyond the necessity of labor. despite his attempts, the history of philosophy didn't end with a noble and aristocratic bang, but a pitiful fizzle, and that is something truly comical.

so yes, to TRULY solve the problem of ethics, we have to slay that great beast, max stirner. and one cannot do this with any ordinary sword. only marxcalibur can do it.

This doesn't exclude general improvement. When the country is electrified, or when plumbing becomes generally available, in the end, even the poorest benefit.

excellent example of what i explained above; that attempt to defend capitalism through any number of informal fallacies. pathetic fallacy; describing capitalism as an agency that is responsible for the products that come into existence in such a system. nay. what is to thank for such technological improvement is human productivity, not capitalism. this is to say that such productivity does not rely on capitalism, or even communism for that matter, to be realizable. it was only that such productivity happened to happen during such a period that we erroneously give credit to the particular system in place in which it happened. that same scale of productivity could have happened under different circumstances, as well.

here's another example. we would not be able to say that either capitalism or communism, exclusively, are necessary for the improvement of education. why not? because we see this phenomena occur in both; in capitalism we see privatized educational institutions popping up everywhere... and yet during mao's dictatorship, we watched the literacy rate of chinese people raise some 70 percent.

so we would be misGUIDEd to assume any degree of human productivity owes itself to something transcendent to human nature in general, some particular system that has to be in place for that productivity to become realized. the enormous growth that took place during the rise of industrialism and capitalism is only circumstantial, and defenders of capitalism do not hesitate to seize the opportunity to commit this pathetic fallacy in their attempt to defend it.

Capitalism never promised “freedom for” all things for all people. Rather, its principle was “freedom from” paternalist or royal interference. For instance, there was a law forbidding the rich from selling their estates (disposition, or right to use, but not to “alienate” property) in England before laissez-faire.

That those with talent in commerce will be free to benefit from those favoured qualities.

or so it appeared. certainly the transition from feudalism to mercantile capitalism marked a break from that paternalism characterized as the authority of the aristocratic class, but it took an alternative form of that same tyranny shortly thereafter. instead of the common man being a slave to the demands of his lord, he became a slave to the demands of his necessity to labor for a wage, or be ostracized, penalized, or even exiled from the land on which he dwelled. so then while capitalism certainly 'made no promises', it still transformed a previous system of tyranny into another, new form, and therefore did not avoid the essential problem it's origins were thought to be a solution for; the problem of property relations.

the rest of your post was something i couldn't make heads or tails of. i'm sure there's something in there... i just missed it.

[Guide]

"'fraid that's the nature of all philosophical text."

No. Serious philosophy is always clear. What is unclear is its subject matter. Everyone knows what justice means even without a definition. But, justice itself, the subject matter, is very vague.

Not seeing this, one falls prey to accomplished sophists and academic baby talk like the versicolour reefs seen, distorted, through thick cerulean waters.

The level of discussion here is too low for me.

Goodbye idiot scientism religious freak rhetoric fatuous websight of dreck waste of time!

[promethean75]

Goodbye idiot scientism religious freak rhetoric fatuous websight of dreck waste of time!

more churlish defalcating from the meretricious blatherskite. only a inveterate morosoph would commit to this kind of wheedling floccinaucinihilipilification with such lachrymose biliousness!

[promethean75]

c'mon, guide, don't be like this. I don't know any of those words, man. The truth is I envy your vocabulary and I just threw all that shit together to impress you. It was pretty fuckin' good though, right? You probably read that shit and was like 'malodorous pontificating sesquipedalian! Be gone!'

But no, I don't really think you're a meretricious blatherskite.

[Guide]

Due to my intransigent efforts, the vile wikimob has made a minor concession, and drawn back from their combative, vicious really, slander on the worthy and courageous thought of Alexander Dugin. Printed now, at the time of this post, is: [Alexander Dugin]" is a Russian political analyst and strategist known for his fascist views."

Now he is said to have "fascist views", rather than before when he was said to be a fascist. Placation, rather amoeba-sized, of the spiritual authority of intelligence.

or so it appeared. certainly the transition from feudalism to mercantile capitalism marked a break from that paternalism characterized as the authority of the aristocratic class, but it took an alternative form of that same tyranny shortly thereafter. instead of the common man being a slave to the demands of his lord, he became a slave to the demands of his necessity to labor for a wage, or be ostracized, penalized, or even exiled from the land on which he dwelled. so then while capitalism certainly 'made no promises', it still transformed a previous system of tyranny into another, new form, and therefore did not avoid the essential problem it's origins were thought to be a solution for; the problem of property relations.

"authority of the aristocratic class"

What is an "aristocratic class"? You don't distinguish adequately aristocracy, rule of the most educated, or, as we would call it today, rule of the most qualified, from hereditary aristocracy. Today, aristocracy is split in a further sense. Technocracy and meritocracy are the two forms it takes. In China, technocracy took the form of rule of engineers for half a century, coming to inception under Mao.

Your account is simple nonsense. There was no "aristocracy" in the sense you mean historically. There were people whose adult life was absorbed in preparing for slaughter. This was not a pleasant life. This was not the FIRST, but, rather, Second estate. The high clergy, with the intellectual authority of RATIONALITY proper, which broke down under the chaos of revolt or Protestantism, leads us to the current period. You are misled by the century of rising commerce which left war waging a defunct manner of life, and so made the second estate, the fighters, seem like parasites in the face of the financiers.

Much greater grasp of history is needed to consider these difficulties. I am a student of the German tradition, established prior to the war, and so respect, therefore, Hannah Ardent, Leo Strauss, Jaspers and Heidegger, and so on, in these matters. The American education system, of which you are the result, is systematically defective. We all must have a serious basis for the discussion in cold and hard-headed analysis, rather than ideological aspiration and political distortions, of the fundamental points of human development to discuss such issues intelligently.

[promethean75]

insofar as the concept of 'aristocracy' recognizes an inequality of intelligence and talent between people, it is legitimate. but when the content of that intelligence and talent - how/why it is put to use in society and to what ends - is found to be extraneous and superfluous, it is no longer qualified as something necessary as a legislative or administrative power. when 'aristocratic' effort becomes an effort to sustain its own power in a context in which it's absence wouldn't make any difference in the functioning of that society in which it exists, it becomes an aberration... a vestigial organ of the polis. what then follows is a gradual recognition of the superfluous nature of the aristocratic element in society, by those whom would otherwise be able to sustain the workings of that society themselves. so for example, ordinary working citizens... and this includes specialists/experts from legitimate fields that contribute to the real material relations of that society - take notice of the existing aristocratic class, and that through the mandate of laws which the aristocratic class set up, they are made exempt from any requirement of productive labor. that is to say they neither contribute to menial labor or specialized labor. well, what is it then that they do, asks the citizens. and the answer is; nothing. how then did they rise to power and take their positions as the 'rightful' proprietors of society? here's how. they set to working on a way to convince ordinary citizens that they had a special skill, and that the citizens needed them in order to preserve and organize their society. but this skill wasn't just a working knowledge of politics... it couldn't be, because ordinary citizens themselves were quite able to observe social and economic phenomena and make the appropriate adjustments when problems arise. politics and economy is a relatively simple empirical field of study... no special intelligence needed for this. no, the skill this aristocratic class had to convince the citizens they had, was something beyond the knowledge of the natural sciences (in which politics and economy would be included). enter the 'philosopher', and the philosopher was a special kind of person who had access to super-empirical truths that ordinary folks didn't have access to. the ruling class either had to become philosophers, or employ philosophers, to produce a principled mandate that would give them the authority to maintain their positions in society without requiring them to actually produce anything substantial. remember; governing is not a special 'talent', not something the ordinary classes couldn't do themselves.

we see the origins of philosophy in every culture that has advanced enough to develop a surplus of wealth, and is therefore a society in which a 'leisure' class can evolve. that is, a class that doesn't contribute directly to production. for example, shamanism and priesthood, both pseudo-scientific fields that add nothing necessary to the workings of the societies they exist in. when a society reaches a point where it is able to accumulate such surplus (these would be the agrarian cultures as opposed to hunter-gatherer cultures), it requires a more complex political organ which has as its task the organization and administration, the 'governance', of that society. it is here that the 'philosopher' slips in... the class that has been afforded the luxury of performing a 'skill' which, due to the general lack of sophistication of the working classes that do not have such luxury, is believed to be necessary in and for their culture. the task of this new class - a class who's absence wouldn't be noticed - is to lay claim to special knowledge that ordinary people can't have, and therefore convince the working classes that they are necessary in that society. every society - with the exception of the nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes in which the warrior represented every level of the hierarchy (he was worker, soldier, and spiritualist simultaneously) - one variation or another of the philosopher/priest class evolves, a class which has as it's task only legislative and governing authority. the 'aristocracy', at this point in the development of society, is equivalent to a parasitic organism. traditional philosophy since the emergence of agrarian culture has invariably been the means of preserving the existence of this parasitic organism. the first philosophers were the priests - the liaison between the gods and the people. once the atheistic and/or skeptical movement evolves, the philosopher then becomes the liaison between the 'rational order of the universe' and the people, substituting 'god' for such things as logos, for instance. the very best example of this would be in plato's 'philosopher king', a foundation for the notion of 'aristocracy'; that only the 'best' should rule, and the best have a unique characteristic that those from the lower classes cannot have; special knowledge. this special knowledge is exhibited in the uncanny ability to make a spectacular word salad out of ordinary language... and even invent words that represent nothing in the real world.

Super-Scientific Truths, which Ancient Greek Philosophers had 'derived' solely from the meaning of a set of specially-selected and surgically-doctored words, began to mirror the abstract view of reality adopted by this new layer of Theorists, just as these theories also reflected their daily experience of class society. In this way, their mode of being mirrored their view of 'Being'. The life of these theoretical drones was largely one of leisure bought (directly or indirectly) at the expense of the necessary labour-time of those whose language and experience they denigrated. In order to give expression to this form of estrangement, they concocted obscure, Idealist 'jargon' deliberately set in opposition to the 'debased' and 'unreliable' language of those who had to work to stay alive.

In earlier myths and Theogonies, conflict in this world was viewed as a reflection of the rivalries that existed between warring 'gods', struggles that took place in a hidden world beyond the reach of the senses. Their verbal wrangles and machinations became the model upon which later Idealist and Hermetic thinkers based their Super-Scientific Theories, theories that attempted to explain 'Being' -- which they then happily imposed on nature and society.

These concepts, inherited from Traditional Thought, were aimed at 'justifying' and rationalising the consolidation and reproduction of ruling-class power. Hence, if the state 'reflects' the underlying 'rational', or 'objective', order of reality (as Traditional Theorists have almost invariably maintained -- albeit modified in line with each subsequent Mode of Production, to suit the ideological priorities of contemporaneous ruling elites), then any opposition to it could be waved aside as "irrational", against "the natural order", or even contrary to "the divine order", and hence ultimately futile. The moral order of the state was thus inter-linked with the "rational order" of reality. Indeed, the ethical condition of the soul and the structure of the State weren't just accidentally linked (for example, in Plato's thought, or in Ancient India and China); they were constitutive of the entire cosmos and rightful governance on earth. The same was true of the other 'rational principles', derived from thought alone by countless generations of ruling-class hacks, albeit expressed in a different idiom as local conditions required.

take your time. i know this is a lot to throw at you at once, but i wanted you to gain a level. you now have +4 to your save-throws and the ability to regenrate mana.

I am a student of the German tradition

oh i love german philosophy, and german beer (i went to an oktoberfest once). one can come up with some pretty far-out metaphysics while drunk on german beer, as nietzsche noted. but i've always loved that pomp gregariousness of the german people... something of a personality trait that i share with them (perhaps this is the celtic-half speaking in me?). in fact, i have always thought of the world as my sofa.

[Ecmandu]

Promethean,

Your post is appreciated. It however assumes that there is a zero percent chance of a spirit world.


I'll tell you this for certain: it is really hard sometimes to judge those who appear to be parasitic.

They are in some cases, doing the entire work of the species.

A person could be outside smoking a cigarette and be doing exponentially more work than a coal miner.

Some people know a lot more than others ....

What you are judging is work. For example: someone with a panic disorder is doing 100 times the work of people who don't - simply by putting one foot in front of the other ...

It's an interesting trick you tried to pull here...

If a person is not visibly producing to YOU, there is no way they can be doing more work than you.

That is a very ignorant stance on how existence works, infantile and narcisstic.

Actually, totalitarian and nazi-ish as the end game of your thought patterns.

The unfit are those who don't do work as you perceive it.

Without proof.

I, for example, can prove married people aren't doing work. I have proofs through contradiction for this.

You're not running proofs through contradiction, you don't have them. I am absolutely certain of we run this thread for another 10 pages, that I can prove as "aristocracy" (from your perspective) as a philosopher, even to you, that you do no work whatsoever, and that I do work.

So I don't know why really, you'd want to dip your toes in that water, but, alas, you did.

[promethean75]

Your post is appreciated. It however assumes that there is a zero percent chance of a spirit world.

i in no way definitively stated that we aren't spirits in the material world. for all i know, natura naturata could very well include one such mode of being.

I'll tell you this for certain: it is really hard sometimes to judge those who appear to be parasitic.

They are in some cases, doing the entire work of the species.

A person could be outside smoking a cigarette and be doing exponentially more work than a coal miner.

Some people know a lot more than others ....

this might come as a surprise to you, but standing on your back porch smoking cigarettes and contemplating platonic hyperdimensional mirrors is not something your community, or mankind for that matter, needs you to do. you'd be a much more productive citizen if you took that job working the register at taco bell. i'll have a beefy frito buritto, a chicken soft taco, a nachos supreme, and a water cup... which i will fill with pepsi when you aren't looking.

What you are judging is work. For example: someone with a panic disorder is doing 100 times the work of people who don't - simply by putting one foot in front of the other ...

we usually define 'work' as a force applied over a distance. i'm not sure if this guy is doing considerably more work than anyone else putting one foot in front of the other.

It's an interesting trick you tried to pull here...

If a person is not visibly producing to YOU, there is no way they can be doing more work than you.

the value of production is not necessarily evaluated only according to how much 'work' is done doing it. the amount of resources employed in developing a skill as well as the demand for it, are also to be considered. this judgement is made by the people. a brain surgeon doesn't do a fraction of the work a lumber jack does, but that doesn't mean the brain surgeon is less important and valuable.

I, for example, can prove married people aren't doing work. I have proofs through contradiction for this.

refuted.

I am absolutely certain of we run this thread for another 10 pages, that I can prove as "aristocracy" (from your perspective) as a philosopher, even to you, that you do no work whatsoever, and that I do work.

i do more work in one day than you do in one month, and could out-philosophize you on a fifteen minute lunch break if i so desired. it's not to late to redeem yourself, E. subway is always accepting applications. if you want to help humanity, become a sandwich artist.

[Ecmandu]

The panic disorder example went way over your head.

Another example in that line is chronic fatigue syndrome.


There's something called existential work, working the suicide, homicide, rape angles, suffering angles above and beyond examples like the one above.

The married people are using self contradiction to vampiristically suck power from the species to not have to do the existential work of the species in order to maintain existential value. Putting one foot in front of the other with less existential effort.

What's the difference between a shaman and a psychologist? As another example to bring up?

Emotional work, dream work?

A councilor?

Working with aggressive populations, like criminally oriented teens?

Etc...

[Guide]

"no, the skill this aristocratic class had to convince the citizens they had,"

The whole of what you wrote is patently idiotic. Aristocracy is the name of the regime type where people are chosen for offices for competence rather than on the basis of property qualifications (oligarchy) or by lot (democratically).

What you write is an interpretation, claiming to be best, aristos, therefor it is aristocratic.

These problems didn't arise in antiquity because economics and politics (so far as politics, the good of the country, is non-philosophic, and not connected to a pursuit of wisdom attacking the spirit of civil-social tradition) were not theoretical pursuits, but empirical, they did not become theoretical for interested reasons, but through necessity because of essential changes in the realities of life such as the industrial revolutions and the rise of commercial societies.

" legislative or administrative power"

There must be teachers of the legislators. The depredation of the lawmaker's art, political philosophy, has produced the problem of a terrible lacuna of political intelligence, such that only interest bartering, compromise (i.e., corruption), is left. Legists cease to understand the meaning of deliberation even theoretically, not to say in practice.


PS
You make yourself laughably odious, or whatever is still worse, by cyber stalking and giving low-brow literary advice, derived from authoritative manuals produced by mediocrities (which cover you and your imbecile contempt for whatever deviates form the idiot authorities), to your betters, they who have a sense of language of their own and who, in vast contradistinction to you, can think.

[Meno_]

"then at the other end of this spectrum is marx, who represents the correction of this irreconcilable conflict that capitalism has created, and a solution to the stirnerite conclusion (on which capitalism unwittingly rests). the great 'meanwhile' of the world is spent approaching one or the other, as there is simply no other direction it can go. "



If Stirner had gone to the limit, he would have found the ego to be a spook It'self , therefore, may have supposed some kind of transcendentalism, to be of use.
It may have occurred to him, but dismissed it, to limit the concept -alienation- within a then current philosophically pregnant understanding.

As a New Heglelian, he dissolved the failing idealistic formula, for Hegel's appearant short sightedness, caused by his lack of predicting vast changes.
Never the less, it is the ego, with it's lack of insight, that is incapable to overcome it's limitations. The ethical problems, as a nod to Nietzsche, appear irreversible and as such, limit Marx's claim, to begin with history.
It may as well continue with an eye toward a vast semblance of mirrored images, hoping for a few occultist gifted to glean an intended idea.
To sustain a dressed up idealism in ways which could pass the mustard to those anarchists, who don't for a minute think that metaphysics is all sown up.

[promethean75]

I love it when you talk dirty to me, guide.

Anyway you two lads just hold tight and I'll get back to ya. Long day at work and I'm beat. I got soft sitting on the couch for two weeks and today really kicked my ass because of that. It's 7:00 here and I'm ready to crash.

[Ecmandu]

I love it when you talk dirty to me, guide.

Anyway you two lads just hold tight and I'll get back to ya. Long day at work and I'm beat. I got soft sitting on the couch for two weeks and today really kicked my ass because of that. It's 7:00 here and I'm ready to crash.

Everyone thinks better on a nights sleep, so, I look forward to it.

[Guide]

As a New Heglelian, he dissolved the failing idealistic formula, for Hegel's appearant short sightedness, caused by his lack of predicting vast changes.

This means you don't understand the thesis of Hegel. One must say, the old Hegeleans were surely correct so far as confronting the teaching of Hegel goes (his thesis, too, is obviously correct [properly understood, of course]). And Stirner was not a new Hegelian (attending some lectures of Hegel's does not make him even an unspecific Hegelian). The fiasco of the most dishonest pimple, Zizek, operating on the university crowd, to make one believe that a remark taken down in lecture notes by students proves Hegel did not believe his own principle is the secret mad passion of nihilistic frivolity come to share "the news" with all. All that can be expected of a political thesis beyond that of Hegel is the dissolution of the human being to the stage beyond civil society, where that is already understood as a stage beyond nature. Marx does not change Hegel's thesis at all, except verbally, in his claim that we are not yet in history. Since Hegel understood the already arrived at principle as the motivator (which, in the case of Engels Marx is patently true). A post-history as the emergence of another kind of being is the only thing, but then, it would no longer be rational. Also, very likely so. Of course, Nietzsche does suggest this, as does Stirner. For there is no nature (knowledge), but only essence (Denken). It is a rejuvenation of early nature (pre-theoretical phronesis, Socrates, knowing as [practical] virtue rather than principle) and encouragement for the kill shot of everything worth burning oneself down for because it is what one lives in and by. Sysypus as relief as Camus saw it ultimately. Perhaps it won't be like that at all.