:cool:

I know you have a cherished dislike of emojis, so I’ll translate: cool.

Yeh, I forgot you already responded to that post.

this sounds all post-modernist and self-referential and stuff — T Clark

Yep, I like that kind of thing.

It seems like it might be fun and funny, but I could also see it might be tedious and obvious. From your emojis it seems like it's not that. — T Clark

I loved it, but I gather that several other intelligent readers do indeed find it tedious and obvious.

EDIT: Incidentally, I posted something about it in the Shoutbox a few hours ago. It’s also relevant to your discussions of literary interpretation.

Current
Jorge Luis Borges, Fictions :up: :sparkle:

Recent
Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller :up: :sparkle:
Christopher Priest, The Dream Archipelago :up: :sparkle:
Robert Silverberg, Downward to the Earth :up: / :meh:

Day in Autum

BY RAINER MARIA RILKE
TRANSLATED BY MARY KINZIE

After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time
to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials
and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.
Direct on them two days of warmer light
to hale them golden toward their term, and harry
the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.

Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter;
who lives alone will live indefinitely so,
waking up to read a little, draft long letters,
and, along the city's avenues,
fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen. — Tom Storm

This hits hard for me. It encapsulates my own mixed feelings about autumn. The third stanza expresses the feeling that it's now too late for projects, for any positive change. The year's production is done and all you can do is fitfully wander as life is gradually drained away around you.

Talking of poems about poems--and apologies to Moliere if this is off-topic--I recently read the "The Thought Fox" by Ted Hughes. It's a poem about writing poems, or about creativity, and foxes:

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

Nevertheless, and knowing that a complete bias free reporting is not possible, what sites are you all using? — Manuel

Meduza, Al-Jazeera, Reuters, AP, Deutsche Welle, France 24, BBC world news, NPR.

No source is free of bias, but some are more reliable and professional than others.

The Grayzone is a far-left news website

known for misleading reporting and sympathetic coverage of authoritarian regimes, in addition to its denial of the Uyghur genocide

Yes, they're tankies all right. But I'd like to address "far-left". While I'm not denying that it's a far left website in some sense, or even that tankies are far left, I'd like to point out that one can be far left but also against authoritarian regimes like China's or Russia's. It's sad that so many on the left fall for the pro-or-soft-on-Putin crap, but not all do.

Although it's true that people like Isaac do have a serious problem:

On the international left, almost nobody knows Russian, and even less Ukrainian; so when the left wants to know what is happening in Ukraine, it finds itself in a catastrophic situation. So as not to depend on the Western media, it is condemned to have recourse to the English-language propaganda of the Putin regime and to that of the so-called “anti-imperialist networks” which are pro-Russian (often “red-brown” or downright brown) — Zbigniew Kowalewski

This is quoted in an article on anti-Stalinist far left website libcom.org, which traces the history of red-brown alliances (alliances of the far left and far right). I'm not unreservedly endorsing the view that pro-or-soft-on-Putin leftists are necessarily in alliance with fascists, or that there's much of a link between, say, Aleksandr Dugin and Western Leftists, but the article is at least an example of a left-wing history and critique of the authoritarian tendencies on the left. (Though to be honest it's too boring and full of links to read in full)

This seems like a pretty good article on Grayzone and Blumenthal:

Grayzone, Grifters and the Cult of Tank

Jamal do you have any sense about sentiment in the Russian population? Some "resistance" seems quite well organised but no clue how big or small it is. — Benkei

My geographical location unfortunately gives me no special knowledge. I have a sense that people are increasingly scared (for example, many of my wife's colleagues originally came from distant parts of the country and have young male relatives there who now face the prospect of going to war), but I don't really know how people are thinking because those who openly express their opinions are usually either supporters of the war or critics of the government from an even more bellicose nationalist position. Opponents of the war and the depoliticized bulk of the population are mostly silent, or else they're in another country.

Having said that, there is a strong sense that debates are heating up. The mere fact that pro-Kremlin politicians are voicing their frustration and anger is probably a sign of a roiling mass of resentment and fear (there has been open criticism of the way the mobilization has happened).

But I don't know to what extent the mobilization is actually causing the hitherto indifferent majority to change their minds about the war. That may develop. So far the anger is about the fact that the government has messed up and might be losing control; they've always tolerated Putin because he's strong and stable.

The other thread has plenty of music that's not rock and pop. Maybe you've just been looking at the last few pages.

Be that as it may, I was just listening to "The Creator has a Master Plan" by Pharaoh Sanders.

Yes, the referendums will be used as propaganda. But that doesn't make them a real democratic referendum. And that's my point. — ssu

We know that's your point. It's such an obvious and uninteresting point that I question what you're in this discussion for.

Obviously the referendums are not legitimate.

I’m not a big fan of boethius’s view, but I have to say, your reaction to his statements of fact is just bizarre. Whether or not the referendum results are legitimate, they will be used by the Russian regime to justify further escalation of the conflict. This seems to be what boethius was saying, and I don’t know why you’d object to it.

A significant sentence in that article comes after it says that the authorities, according to law, cannot just round people up in airports, train stations, or on the streets, and send them to the front:

"Still, what’s unlawful is not always impossible"

But a lot of the commentary is that he seems to actually believe in Eurasianism and suchlike these days — apokrisis

I’ve found it difficult to tell. Vlad Vexler—who you linked to above and whose videos I think are pretty good—plausibly says no, Putin has no ideological commitment to that stuff; he just wants more territory (that he genuinely believes that acquiring Ukrainian territory is in some sense defensive is beside the point here, incidentally).

Putin has been struggling against nationalists for at least ten years. In the Russian context he’s centre-right, and wants to neutralise opposition from the left and the right, either by direct repression or appeasement.

This doesn’t contradict his use of nationalist rhetoric, but note that his variety of nationalism is opposed to the extreme ethnic nationalism that characterises his right-wing opponents. He’s always been careful to prevent anything that risks a breakup along ethnic lines.

But right now, extreme nationalist opposition to Putin is quite vocal in Russia, and is tolerated perhaps partly because it currently serves the aggressive aims of the regime, but maybe also because the regime will seem reasonable and moderate to the bulk of the population, who are not extreme nationalists.

Stating the obvious: Putin’s allergy to extreme nationalism does not imply that he and his regime are not imperialist or do not reject Ukrainian nationhood. Even more obvious: I am not defending Putin. The main point is that Benkei’s quote about nationalism doesn’t contradict apokrisis or ssu.

:lol:

Murun Buchstansangur.

No, but those who practice it according to their traditions, while the partnerships are not legally recognised, are not committing a criminal offence. Muslims are 10% (maybe much more) of the population and some of them belong to cultures in which polygamy is customary. Some Caucasian (from the Caucasus) and Mongol peoples practice it, I believe.

What are logic and mathematics? How are they related? How do they relate to human reason and to the world? — Amity

I've since realized that's an inadequate description for the category. It's also, perhaps primarily, for problems in logic itself.

Current
Christopher Priest, The Dream Archipelago

Recently read
Christopher Priest, The Glamour :up: :sparkle:
Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sun :confused:
Robert Silverberg, The Book of Skulls :up: :sparkle:
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake :meh:

Soon to read
Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Thomas M. Disch, Camp Concentration
Michel Houellebecq, Submission
José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon
Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
Bob Shaw, The Palace of Eternity

Most interesting.

What are you getting at? Do you suspect that ’ is a tiny glimpse of the language of the universe?

I suppose you've got a bad epub conversion, one that couldn't deal with curly quotes.

A poignant moment

Hi everybody, I'm new to the forum so I'm dropping an introduction post. I hope I've found the right subsection for it. — Astro Cat

Welcome!

The Lounge is an okay place for an introduction but it's not as active as the main forum so you might not get many responses. Don't conclude that we're just unfriendly :grin:

Posting in the Shoutbox would work too.

Good to have you on board.

:up:

I'll ask him to tone it down. Otherwise he's a good mod.

Despite my initial post here, it wasn't really the aggression that got him banned, more so the response to my very polite request. He was trouble.

Xtrix is a good mod and I haven't noticed anything untoward in his posts.

Thank you for alerting me to that problem :up:

Don't be shy Yohan. It's a fair question.

I wanted to prevent the Salman Rushdie discussion from degenerating into insults like the Ukraine thread did, so when Adamski started getting aggressive towards Hanover, without cause as far as I could tell, I sent him a PM asking him politely not to.

He completely rejected my request, so I reiterated that he was being too aggressive and said I wasn't going to discuss it further.

He responded with this:

"You know what,you do you and I will do me.
This is a new level of cowardice from you.
A "discussion forum"!"

This is always a sign of a problem member. Not only that but he's pretty clearly a returning banned member, as he mentioned Streetlight and the Ukraine thread and said things that suggested he knew me.

As to what I mean by "aggressive", it was the accusations of ignorance, evasion, and "mealy mouthed" something or other. It wasn't ban worthy in itself, but the bad attitude in the PMs and the fact that he was probably a returning banned member combined to provoke my ban hammer.

After initially putting on a good show of being polite and reasonable--including in the email he sent that persuaded me to invite him to the forum a couple of days ago--he quickly began to turn nasty.

Banned @Adamski for being aggressive and refusing moderation.

I've removed the completely irrelevant personal attacks, because this discussion has been civil for a good four pages and I don't want it to degenerate like the Ukraine discussion did.

:up:

So what's his philosophy of language here? What's his intentionality? — universeness

He has not made any contributions to the philosophy of language that I’m aware of, and note that intentionality in philosophy is not about intentions as commonly understood.

https://iep.utm.edu/lang-phi/
https://iep.utm.edu/intentio/

I’m not trying to be a smart arse. It’s just that you’ve carried on with your conviction that what you’re discussing is relevant to the philosophy of language even though I told you it isn’t.

Feel free to ignore me, of course.

Anyway, any comments on the clash between Matt, Jimmy and Jordan? — universeness

I don’t have any, no. I’m not interested.

Do you think Jordan should be allowed to make transphobic quotes on twitter? — universeness

No. The debate, as I see it, is about what counts as transphobic.

Do you think he is transphobic? — universeness

I don’t know. I stopped paying attention to him after some initial interest, because of his ignorance when it came to Marxism and postmodernism, and his apparent slide into right wing crap.

If Jordan claims the title of philosopher at times then surely a philosophy forum can comment on what he claims to be true? — universeness

Only if what he says is philosophically, psychologically, politically, or culturally interesting. Note that there have been a few discussions about JP over the past few years.

BTW, posts in the Feedback category are only lightly moderated, if at all, so that folks can have their say.

I watched the video of Matt Dillahunty and Jimmy Snow on Jordan Peterson and based on the language involved and the fact that the issues under discussion were important and emotive, It was, I felt a good comparator with some of the language used in the antinatalist threads. That's why I used it as I wanted to offer a comparison between exchanges on TPF and other sites — universeness

Yes, I understand. But as I say, it was a distraction from the point of the post. Although, the point still isn’t clear, probably because you’re trying to make too many.

Philosophy of language is a topic allowed on TPF so that is why I landed there also as it seemed important to analyse the reasons why people choose to employ certain language in certain situations and how that is currently being moderated on discussion websites in general. — universeness

That’s more linguistics and psychology than philosophy of language, but even then, it’s rather too casual and vague for those disciplines too.

If the staff opinion was that my thread and its OP was cumbersome and 'all over the place,' and it needed restructuring, then why was I not offered an opportunity to do this? — universeness

It’s time-consuming to do this kind of thing all the time. What I’d suggest now is just to post in the Feedback category, something like “Do aggression and strong language have a place in TPF discussions?” In which you could make the case that they do, citing your own experience with moderators. I agree it’s up for debate, and some mods are more tolerant than others.

So why play the ban threat card so quickly, why not 'why are you being so insulting and you just seem to be ranting' as a PM communication — universeness

I can’t remember how things went, but I seem to recall it was me and Xtrix who were involved. Maybe the ban warning came after you had refused to comply with the first warning message.

I would be interested in your general opinion of the usefulness of angry exchanges between people to YOU as a reader and observer. Do you get a 'bigger buzz,' if there is more 'honest anger'/emotional terms used/clever puns/humourous putdowns etc during an exchange?
Is everybody on their absolute best politically correct behaviour the only way to go and the main standard that must be enforced?
Regardless of the topic under discussion and regardless of how a person truly feels about a topic, is the most important rule, the rule of being nice/respectful to your opposition, especially when you have an audience watching/reading? — universeness

This seems to be the core of the OP. The trouble is that it’s buried in the middle, between the stuff about Peterson and some gesturing towards the philosophy of language. The trouble starts with the title, which is all over the place. The result is a very unclear post, lacking in focus. It also looks like it might be a complaint about the staff of TPF, which is a separate issue that belongs in the Feedback category.

If the OP had been pared down to the above quotation, without the Peterson distraction, then it might have been ok for one of the main categories. Having said that, it’s not philosophy. That’s not to say it’s not interesting, of course. It might have worked in “Politics and Current Affairs”. I’m not sure though; it’s still quite Loungey.

As for your own issues with moderation, it wasn’t just about being nasty or angry or what have you. It was the fact that you were just ranting, so there was nothing much of substance there anyway.

This post is somewhat off-topic but it’s the Lounge so I went ahead. I can remove it if you like.

I've been casually reading this discussion and from my point of view this is the post that most clearly solves the problem. :up:

Ego is not a philosophical but a psychological term. Most probably it has been created by Freud.
In my opinion, it is a useless term. It has so many facets and nuances that it can only produce confusion, except maybe among (old) psychologists who speak in the same terms and on the same level.

It is better to use the word "self", which is both a psychological and a philosophical term, because it much more simple as a concept and has a more restrictive meaning and use — Alkis Piskas

Just a quick note to say that Freud himself used das Ich, which means “the I”. Not too far from “self”.

It was the translator James Strachey who chose “ego” (and “id” and “super-ego”).