gib and iambiguous don't contend

[iambiguous]

I challenge you to a substantive and substantial discussion of our respective moral and political philosophies and you ask me to give it a rest?

That's because everybody knows better than to get caught in a discussion with you.

Okay, let's explore your own right wing prejudices given the following intellectual/philosophical/political scaffolding:

1] Noting the distinction between a frame of mind that revolves around a "real me" in sync and a set of moral and political values that are said to encompass objectively "the right thing to do", and "I" embodied subjectively/existentially in dasein, in moral and political prejudices...in the arguments I make for it/this in my signature threads; and specifically in this thread: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529 .

2] Noting that when someone does change their moral and political frame of mind, they are acknowledging that they were wrong about something in the is/ought world around them. And that, once they acknowledge this, they are acknowledging in turn they may well be wrong about other things. Finally, they are acknowledging that, yes, given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information, knowledge and ideas, they might be prompted to change their minds again. And again.

3] As a consequence, what I suggest is that we focus in on a particular moral and political truth of theirs and given a set of circumstances we examine our respective moral and political philosophies.

4] Here, however, I'm less interested in simply articulating what we believe is true in the way of moral and political truths and more focused in how we would go about demonstrating to others that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to think and to feel the same.

Or, sure, one of your own.

As the exchange unfolds, you can note specific instances of why others don't get caught up in an exchange with me. Or, sure, like phoneutria, you can "foe" me to keep my arguments out of your head.

I mean, you're not just another chickenshit here, are you?

[iambiguous]

Grow a pair and let's discuss this: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=196636

Hell no!

Yo, Joker! Got us another chickenshit here!

You know, just in case you collect them.

[iambiguous]

The danger of speech is a tricky thing to pin down. What kind of speech leads to what kind of danger? And how directly? And with how much certainty? If you incite an angry mob to pillage and burn down businesses, a mob that's right on the cusp of relinquishing their anger in violent and destructive ways, and they go ahead and do as you say, you're probably guilty of incitement.

Right, like those behind political movements like Black Live Matter, in reacting to racist cops killing black citizens, were intent only on inciting mobs to loot and pillage.

But you encourage a crowd of people who are passionate about a cause, but not seething with anger ready to burst, to "fight like hell," but "peacefully" and "patriotically", staying within the rule of law, and a violent outburst occurs from within that crowd, is it your fault? The fact is, if you say yes to the latter, you have just prohibited not just a huge swath of different kinds of speech, but probably the most important kind, the kind that motivates people to make changes for the better.

Right, like those fulminating and fanatical Dittoheads on the right who stormed the capitol were not responding to those like Trump, his facsimiles in the Congress and the "cause". No, they they were actually on their own and embodying the wrong kind of speech.

And, again, my argument -- the one folks like Gib avoid like the plague -- is that the crucial point here is not what is advocated in speeches of those on the left or right [in regard to either means or ends] but the extent to which political prejudices of this nature are embodied instead in the arguments that I make in regard to moral and political value judgments.

[iambiguous]

The founding fathers of your great nation seemed to believe (though I don't have sources to back this up) that the line should be drawn, not between different forms of speech at all, but between speech and action. So long as you don't commit harm or destruction, so long as you remain within the bounds of the law, you can say whatever you damn well please.

Unless of course you were a slave. Or an indentured servant. Or an Indian. Or, in any number of contexts, a woman.

A homosexual?

Here at ILP however the distinction I make is between words and worlds. You can get up on your soapbox and post speech after speech after speech. And, at present, with no "law" around at all, there is almost nothing that you can't fulminate for or against.

But believing something is true "in your head", and using words to define and defend other words in your "speeches", where are the attempts to demonstrate how others might be able experientially, empirically to replicate your own conclusions.

Or are philosophical, ideological, theological, spiritual etc., speeches enough?

Well, this is as close as Gib seems to get to that:

I like this philosophy, but I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with it, as I do think there is some weight to the argument that one can incite violence and destruction, knowingly and on purpose, with speech, and therefore ought to bear some of the responsibility for the consequences of such speech. After all, we don't only want to punish criminal and immoral behavior but prevent it. I think Trump is faaar from that--not only because of his careful choice of words ("peacefully" and "patriotically" <-- whatever that means)--but for a whole number of reasons (his calling off of the violence once he saw it was happening, the fact that they showed the storming of the Capitol to be premeditated long before Trump's speech, and the fact that Trump urged--TWICE!!!--for the military to protect the Capitol but was denied both times), but one can easily imagine a scenario where one can take advantage of an already angry and violence-prone mob who is ready to go on a destructive rampage just by saying something that pushes them right over the edge.

Now, this "speech" is what I call a political prejudice. Those on the left have their own rendition of it as well. A political prejudice in my view is derived more from the existential parameters of the life that one lives. Rather than from any possible philosophical assessment that can pin down once and for whether Trump's speech incriminates or exonerates him in regard to the ransacking of the Capitol.

As for which behaviors ought to be deemed immoral and thus proscribed, speech or action here seem clearly to be embodied in political prejudices rather than in, say, categorical and imperative moral obligations.

The angry mob burning and looting or the angry mob saving the country from the libtards?

This part:

But the question is: where do you draw the line? Who am I to say where the line is drawn? Who is anyone?

That's the part I'd like to pursue with him and his ilk.

[iambiguous]

Who is... Jordan Peterson?

Well, I don't think Jordan possesses any more of a god's eye view than anyone else. He certainly isn't any less biased or subjective in his views than the next guy...

Here we are more or less on the same page. It's just a matter of exploring more substantively what it means to acquire a biased and subjective point of view. Is it closer to the arguments I make in my signature threads, or closer to the arguments that he makes.

Given a particular set of circumstances.

But he does have an excellent quote which I think captures the perfect place to draw the line:

"There's a difference between saying that there's something you can't say and saying that there are things that you have to say."

Okay, in regard to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the Capitol Building assault, what on earth might he mean by this?

What does Gib think that he himself can't say about them? And what does he feel that he has to say?

And, in regard to the latter, how does he go about demonstrating that in order to be construed by him as a rational and a virtuous person, others are obligated to say the same thing.

[Peter Kropotkin]

I think you are asking for the impossible for the simple reason,
gib as well as most of ILP believe in one thing and one thing only....

"everything I have learned, I learned from Youtube"

and it is very hard to get someone to be specific about their beliefs if
it is handed to them by someone else on Youtube... and not only that,
they don't even research what is told to them on Youtube... they just take
it as face value........ they aren't interested in understanding why they hold
these certain views and not other views because how do you learn that on Youtube?

no, they have no interest in knowledge or the truth... and why?

because that would take some effort and some awareness that they might,
might be wrong about what they hold to be true and dear.....

I begin with doubt and they begin with certainty that they are holders
of the truth, the one and only truth....

you can't argue with anyone who believes, truly believes that they already
are holders of the truth....and anyone who doesn't believe in their "truth" is
clearly an infidel, probably a liberal to boot......

Kropotkin

[iambiguous]

One might argue that banning certain speech acts (Searle's term) and forcing certain speech acts are two sides of the same coin. To ban a speech act just is to force the opposite speech act. If I am banned from saying "The holocaust never happened" then I am forced to say "The holocaust did happen." Well, not so fast. If you're not allowed to say X, you can always stay silent. Furthermore, you can always think of clever ways of saying the same thing in different, perhaps obscure, words--perhaps words with a double meaning so that there is deniability. Or maybe think of a completely different thing to say that achieves the same ends (ex. if your point is to show how the media and historians are corrupt liars, you might want to propose that the holocaust never happened, but you wouldn't be limited to that example... you could bring up a different example that isn't banned). The point is, when you ban certain speech, you are usually left with several alternative options. But when you are forced to say certain speech, you are effectively forced towards that one speech--no options, no alternative things to say--no "you can go anywhere but there" and instead "you must go here".

And then of course the part that gets even trickier. You are allowed to say that the Holocaust never happened. But then are you also allowed to say that if it did happen it would have been a good thing, a rational thing, a moral thing.

As, in fact, some argue.

Same with BLM and the Capitol Gang. It's one thing to argue about what did or did not happen with them. But what about the part where white racists condemn BLM based purely on racial ideology; and embrace the assault on the Capitol because, in part, they embrace the aims of those wielding the Confederate flags there.

So, for those here who seem intent on focusing more on condemning the BLM events while rationalizing the assault on the Capitol, how much of that is predicated on racism?

In many important respects, given particular contexts, "speech acts" are no less derived from dasein in my view. But, for the objectivists here, that means taking their own political prejudices to the discussion that I would like to have with them.

[iambiguous]

I know there's gonna be opinions all over the map on this one. Some are gonna say all speech should be allowed. There are some who are gonna say not only should certain speech acts be condemned, but certain thought acts as well.

Again, this is basically what I wish to explore with him. Why are opinions all over the map? How do individuals come to embrace the ones that they do? And, given the conflicted nature of the conclusions that we often come to in regard to an issue like free speech, is there a way to come up with what some call an objective "universal" truth that, re science or philosophy or spirituality, all rational and virtuous men and women would be obligated to accept?

I propose Jordan's line as a reasonable compromise. It seems right there in the middle. It seems it divides the kinds of speech limits we've lived with for a while without experiencing too much of a deterioration in daily life and the kinds we most likely will not be able to live with.

Okay, let's note a particular set of circumstances and explore Jordan's contribution more in depth.

Not everybody will be happy with this, of course, but when you've got a nation torn amongst itself, indeed a world, on the issue of what speech should be allowed and what speech shouldn't--with plenty on the fringes of each side--I think we're gonna have to compromise.

For me though, the "answer" here [rooted existentially in dasein] revolves around the extent to which the emphasis is placed on either "might makes my speech right" or "right makes my speech deserving of might" or "your right from your side, I'm right from mine...so the best of all possible world is moderation, negotiation and compromise".

If Biden is serious about "uniting" the nation, I want to propose to him that he start with Peterson's quote.

Okay, but why doesn't Gib start with it.

Given a particular context.

[Peter Kropotkin]

iambiguous:

I: For me though, the "answer" here [rooted existentially in dasein] revolves around the extent to which the emphasis is placed on either "might makes my speech right" or "right makes my speech deserving of might" or "your right from your side, I'm right from mine...so the best of all possible world is moderation, negotiation and compromise".

gib: If Biden is serious about "uniting" the nation, I want to propose to him that he start with Peterson's quote.

K: the problem I find with this is that the right feels that it is the left that should
be engaged with "moderation, negotiation and compromise" with the right.. in other
words, the left must act with moderation and negotiation and compromise.... the right
doesn't have to do a dam thing except say "yes or no"
and as we all know, the guy who gets to say "yes or no" is in charge of the negotiation
and compromise.... the left must compromise with the right and the right holds all
the power in this "compromise"....

I don't recall at any point in the IQ45 years that the right offered to act with
"moderation, negotiation or compromise"... to anything the left wanted...
it was basically "my way or the highway" during the IQ45 years....

and suddenly when the right is out of power, it is about, "moderation,
negotiation and compromise"....

as usual, the right wants it both ways...

Kropotkin

[iambiguous]

Given any one person's actions there will be many people who have influenced that person (parents, teachers, politicians, friends,...) and if any one or perhaps more of those people had acted differently, that person's behavior could have been different.

Agree/Disagree?

Yeah, I do agree. It is basically just another rendition of 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.

This is the manner in which I understand individual reactions to BLM and the Capitol gang as subjective political prejudices rooted in existential contraptions rooted in dasein.

I might have an issue with this, depending on where you're going with it. I realize you didn't mention anything of the culpability of these people, but determining how much of a cause each person was is only part of the equation. No one's blaming Trump's grade 3 teacher after all, even though it could probably be shown that she had some influence on him and *maybe* could have acted towards him in such a way that his life course never lead him to give his speech. But here I think you have to add a whole lot of other things to the equation like: how directly did his teacher trigger the siege on the Capitol? Was it his/her intent to do so (I'd laugh if it was)? Could he/she have predicted it? Could he/she have behaved differently such as to change the course of events?

My point isn't to pin down precisely the role that a third grade teacher might play given any particular behavior chosen by someone years down the road, but to note that there are hundreds and hundreds of variables such as this in our life -- experiences, relationships, access to ideas -- that in aggregation have a profound impact on the political prejudices that we come to embody.

And that many of these factors were/are/will continue to be beyond our full understanding and/or control.

Yet, in my view, the objectivists here [left and right] simply shrug all of that aside and insist that how they view BLM or the Capitol gang -- Trump or Biden -- reflects the only rational manner in which they can be viewed.

Thus their frame of mind has far less to do with what they believe than that they are able to think themselves into believing it in the first place. One or another existential rendition of the points I raise here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

And on that note, it could be argued that anyone can act differently to change just about any event. When Trump's parents were married, for example, and the priest says "If anyone here has any reason why these two should not be married..." anyone could have stood up and given any reason and tried their best to be persuasive enough to prevent the marriage, and if successful, prevented the birth of Donald Trump, thereby preventing the siege from happening. Does the entire congregation at the wedding now bear some responsibility to accept the blame?

Clearly, the manner in which he reacts to this is different from the manner in which I do.

It's not a question of blaming the congregation for the Capitol Building siege, but of recognizing this:

Identity is ever constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over the years by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variables---some of which we had/have no choice/control regarding. We really are "thrown" into a fortuitous smorgasbord of demographic factors at birth and then molded and manipulated as children into whatever configuration of "reality" suits the cultural [and political] institutions of our time.

On the other hand:

In my view, one crucial difference between people is the extent to which they become more or less self-conscious of this. Why? Because, obviously, to the extent that they do, they can attempt to deconstruct the past and then reconstruct the future into one of their own more autonomous making.

But then what does this really mean? That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my "self" is, what can "I" do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknowledging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we "anchor" our identity to so as to make this prefabricated...fabricated...refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.

I merely ask the objectivists and the "fulminating fanatics" among us to explore their own political prejudices given the points I raise here.

[iambiguous]

I'm with obsrvr, responsibility can only fall on the shoulders of agency. The gun, the trigger, the bullet have [n]o agency. I would even say the one who pulls the trigger kills the victim directly since there is no mediating acting agency between him and the victim.

"Agency [philosophy] is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. It is independent of the moral dimension, which is called moral agency. In sociology, an agent is an individual engaging with the social structure." Wikipedia

Okay, how is this applicable in regard to a riot stemming from a BLM protest demonstration in which someone is killed; as opposed to those who were killed as a result of the Capitol Gang riot on January 6th?

Agency in what sense then?

And for me it is precisely the moral and political element here that matters most. The part where "I" among the BLM folks and the "I" among the Trumpworld folks is rooted not in one or another objective moral and political assessment but in subjective moral and political prejudices rooted in dasein.

[iambiguous]

I also agree with Wendy and her example of blaming parents and grandparents. The issue isn't only how indirect those players are but how diluted and untraceable the causal connection becomes. If you give a speech that entices violence how can you possibly prove that it was caused by your parents. If your daddy hit you when you were young, do you know that was a cause of you giving the speech? Are we saying that if daddy never hit me, I would never have given that speech? <-- That's a pretty bold claim. The truth is, the more indirect the cause, the more diluted it becomes with other causes that also contribute to the end result, and the more the end result can be anything. At a certain point, the removal of the original cause bears almost no consequence to changing the end result.

Sure, you can focus in on particular experiences that you had as a child and conclude that over the years the experience has been diluted down such that it is not an important factor in your decision to join the Capitol Gang. Or to loot a business as a result of a BLM demonstration.

But my point is that 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.]

...is entangled in all of the hundreds and hundreds of experiences that you had over the years -- experiences you had little or no control or complete understanding of -- that came to shape and mold your own particular political prejudices.

And that, through education or philosophy or "critical thinking" or deep introspection, there does not appear to be a way to pin down how one ought to react [as a rational and virtuous human being] to either the BLM or the Capitol Gang.

There are only those objectivists who shrug off the points I make and sustain their own self-righteous "one of us" mentality because that allows them to anchor their own precious Self to the conviction that they and they alone truly grasp the Whole Truth here.

[iambiguous]

You can have abstract and exotic definitions of "humanity" but I don't get what's so wrong with "the community of human beings on the planet Earth". <-- I think that's the definition. Simple. Common sense. Creative and profound definitions like Kant's are fine, but I wouldn't say that most people misunderstand what humanity really means just because there are these esoteric definitions out there. <-- Those are the fringe ones.

As "general description intellectual contraptions" go, this may well be smack dab in the bullseye.

And the difficulty some have with the "creative and profound" definitions of those like Kant is that, historically, culturally and interpersonally, human communities have both prescribed and proscribed all manner of conflicting moral narratives and political agendas.

What then of "definitions"?

So, do folks in BLM or the Capitol Gang come closer to his simple, commonsensical meaning of humanity? And is there a way for the philosophers among us to pin down the political prejudices that all rational and ethical men and women are more/most obligated to embody. Such that they cease to become merely subjective prejudices and, instead, reflect an objective [demonstrable] understanding of the optimal human community?

[iambiguous]

Anyway, on the question of whether humanity is overall good or overall evil, I'm inclined to say evil--I don't have any facts to back that up, I'm just cynical--but I must also repeat this is a very heavy question with no clear yes/no answer.

Come on, falling back on cynicism is no less a component of dasein. He has this visceral, intuitive sense that, overall, humanity is evil. Still, others are about as far removed from cynicism as one can possibly be. They know -- no ifs and or buts -- how to differentiate Good from Evil.

For some here there is no cynicism whatsoever embedded in their reaction to BLM or to the Capitol Gang. Just ask them.

My point, however, isn't that some do have a clear-cut yes/no answer to things of this sort while others are more inclined to express uncertainty or ambiguity or skepticism or incredulity. No, my approach is to examine why some go in one direction and not in another. Is this because there is in fact a clear-cut answer to be had [philosophical or otherwise] and some grasp it while others don't? Or, instead, is it possible that answers of this sort are derived more from [or only from] political prejudices rooted existentially in the arguments that I make?

How does one even measure the overall good or evil that comes out of human beings? And shouldn't one have to define "good" and "evil" first?

Sure, for those who insist that technically -- logically, epistemologically -- we must first define Good and Evil, by all means, note your own. Then take that definition and plug it into your reaction to BLM or the Capitol Gang. Note "categorically and imperatively" how one would go about evaluating the behaviors chosen here as either Good or Evil.

Get some consensus from a reasonable number of people? And should we be judging the overall good/evil of humanity as a whole, or would such a judgment be meaningless in light of the fact that individuals are good/evil?

Yeah, yeah, do that first as well. Then focus in on your own reaction to BLM or the Capitol Gang. Explain why you yourself are, perhaps, considerably less cynical than others.

[iambiguous]

As you can probably tell, I'm having a hard time trying to articulate what I want to say. I do have other things to say, but I don't feel like typing it all out here. I think I'll just start with this. In a nutshell, I'm sick and tired of Buddhism continually knocking at my door saying "I am the way." I keep wanting to tell it: "No, you're just another religion; why can't you be just another religion?" But it's persuasive in a way that no other religion or science is.

And yet isn't that basically what the political objectivists here do in regard to BLM and the Capitol Gang? It's ever and always their own description of them...and their own reaction to the behaviors that they choose. It's just that some will then link their own self-righteous "one of us" mentality to a particular religious path.

Again, the irony here being that in regard to BLM and the Capitol Gang, it is often the same God! The Christian God.

And how persuasive they make this God in defending their own moral and political prejudices revolves almost entirely around how persuasive they are in being able to convince themselves that this need be as far as they go in defending their beliefs.

And never ever take that conviction to the discussion that I propose, right?

[iambiguous]

One of the main gist I got out of this interview was that the black community, or BLM members at least, feel that the American system does not work for them, that when it promises opportunity and a chance for a good life for anyone, blacks (and other races I guess) are the exception. So they feel they have to overthrow the system entirely and build a new one--presumably not a replica of the American system as they say it just doesn't work for blacks.

Where this always gets tricky is the part where any particular black man or woman acknowledges that being black in America is often such that it is futile to suggest that "identity politics" is not relevant to their lives. As though institutionalized racism is still not more or less the reality in any actual set of circumstances in any particular human community in America. But then the part where their own individual experiences can be vastly different from that of others. Black, white, red, yellow or brown.

The part I root in dasein confronting conflicting goods given the reality of political economy.

Then the part where, even if some agree that the "system" has to be overthrown, what would be put in its place? In regard to those situations where ethics are derived from political prejudices derived from the arguments I make here:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382

The part where Gib and others, chickenshit or not, seem reluctant to go in terms of their own value judgments.