Dialectics is a way of thinking that actively traces the contradictions and movements within concepts and things, and avoids freezing them into definitions and treating things as fixed and complete. — Jamal

@Joshs can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think by concept, we mean an overarching category. So we have the idea expressed by the word up. But this idea is not yet a concept. The concept is vertical direction, made up of the opposition between up and down. What makes vertical direction a concept is that its parts have no meaning except relative to one another. Ultimately, up is the direction that is not down, and vice versa.

With a lot of logic, we just follow along with intellectual necessity. Dialectic is not like this. It's a little startling to grasp that all the things you think of as having some kind of... positiveness, concreteness, weight, substance.. it's hard to pick the word that describes it. But it's that you always thought a word like masculinity gets its meaning from the things that are unique to masculinity. This would be a positive definition. When you see that it's actually one face of a two-sided coin, that it can't exist independently of that coin, it's like you've fallen into an idealist world. In other words, understanding dialectics should be accompanied by an "Oh shit!"

Based on SEP, something like Hegelian dialectic, or just that, appears to be Adorno's target. — NotAristotle

I also turned to the SEP after a while. It looks like he's going to take a deep dive into German Idealism.

In the opening lines of the prologue, we're told that we've inherited a tradition that says dialectics leads to something positive. An example would be this:

A: masculinity
not-A: femininity
synthesis: gender

You can see how masculinity gets its meaning (ultimately) as the negation of femininity, and vice versa. They're two parts of a whole. For instance, imagine you're on a spaceship with all men. They have a device they use to create people and they've been travelling for millennia, so there's no femininity in their world at all. What does "masculinity" mean to them? Since there's nothing to compare it to, it doesn't mean anything. All they have is humanity, even though from our point of view, they're male.

So it's not just the positive traits of a thing, such as masculinity, that lend it meaning. It's also the presence of its opposite. This would appear to be pervasively true: that rationality depends on oppositions. Ultimately, you are the negation of everything that's not you. This insight goes back to Plato, and is present in the cyclical argument in Phaedo.

For Hegel, Gender is the concept. It's made up of an opposition: male and female. But we can also see dialectic as a kind of journey. For instance:

A. Everything is united
B. Everything is discrete

This is an ancient opposition that played out in Greek philosophy. The tradition Adorno mentioned suggests to us that this opposition has to be resolved in a synthesis, and in fact, that synthesis is part of the mystical domain Hegel was introduced to by Franz von Baader.

Adorno suggests that the teleology present here blew up during the Enlightenment. We're going to have a better world by way of reason. This is particularly interesting to me, because there are fairly recent writers who have rejected this teleology, but not because of the Holocaust.

If anyone would want to correct my way of understanding the prolog, please do.

:up: It would fit with Aristotle's finitism.

I have begun to suspect that, because he starts without the true (good) infinite already actual it not only fails to actually be a true infinite, but radically destabilizes his whole outlook — Count Timothy von Icarus

If you think of actuality as the infinite's Other, then it's an outpouring down into actuality, and then a return journey to the infinite.

Not a physical wave. — jgill

That doesn't mean it's not real. It's just not physical. Likewise energy is real, even though it's a construct.

But is also possible or to conceive of ethical ideals which don’t rest on notions of injustice and blame. — Joshs

I doubt it.

Except that Nietzsche is no pessimist. — Joshs

That's a complicated issue. In a way he was. He was saying, "I see a way out of this." He never made it out himself though.

A metaphysical, theoretical or perceptual interpretation about an aspect of the world commits itself to certain expectations about the way things should be. What lies outside of the range of convenience of that interpretive understanding may not be seen all, it may be seen as confused or non-sensical, or it may be construed in social terms as an ethical violation of accepted standards. — Joshs

What would be an example of this?

In this way, all understanding is normative, defining its own limits of the acceptable and intelligible. — Joshs

That's true, but this normativity isn't ethical in nature. As you say, it's a matter of expectations.

He's expressing Schopenhauer's pessimism. He's saying consciousness itself is dependent on dissatisfaction. The only place where wholeness and perfection exist is in oblivion.

The drive to answer the unanswered question is ontic here. The one will drives everything from where it is to somewhere else. This shows up in consciousness as dissatisfaction.

This is a hard deterministic picture though. There are no choices and "ought" does not have meaning relative to some external Good. There are no metaphysical oughts. The drive to move is all that exists.

It illustrates , without recognizing it , that built into the assumption of norms of neutrality, objectivity and non-bias (like Rawls’ veil of ignorance) is a metaphysical ought. — Joshs

What is a metaphysical ought?

I think Hegel believed there was something sleeping in humanity. Something that would eventually awaken and become conscious of itself. Hegel thought it was unfolding according to its own inner logic.

This is related to what Trotsky says in his history of the Russian revolution, that the global proletariat uprising was supposed to happen all by itself. There was no need to make it happen, yet the revolutionary government acted with bloody ruthlessness to clear the way for the new era of human history. Trotsky doesn't really explain why.

Did it ever occur to you that human beings might have decided through processes of reasoning that liberalism actually made sense as way to guide their interactions with others? — Joshs

I think it was natural selection. Aristocracy got old and worn out. And poor.

care. The investigation is the punishment in American jurisprudence. It can bankrupt people. — NOS4A2

I did not know that. Why would it bankrupt somebody?

Until she's charged nobody cares.

In particular, many GPs require everything to be done on-line and requiring certain apps. Not everyone can access such resources or use them, especially the most vulnerable groups, meaning that they are in danger of being marginalised, or even excluded. — Jack Cummins

I'm guessing they make exceptions for people who can't do digital. You could probably just call them and tell them.

As I see it, so much is being rushed through by the government. Such haste may be extremely disastrous and costly, leading to potential collapse of the NHS. — Jack Cummins

I think they'll be ok. Probably just need a progressive property tax on the rich to pay for it. Small revolution maybe.

child that is abused such that they do not develop self-awareness at least surpassing a pig can be killed without issue — Count Timothy von Icarus

That pretty much does happen.

But they haven't said anything about requiring co-payment from patients. That's a good thing.

The most notable example is Rome — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the Romans left conquered cultures intact. People wanted to be Roman citizens, and that had a Romanizing effect. The same was true of Islam. On the other hand, just about all traces of pre-Christian Europe were destroyed.

Now there are no facts on how much one coffee will be next year. — ssu

:grin:

Neo-liberalism just continued the trend. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Plus the British financed their industrial revolution by their involvement in the Atlantic Slave Trade. They were the second biggest participant behind Portugal.

It would be easier to accept that all these crimes happened because nobody was teaching virtues in schools, except the only thing new about any of it was the scale. And that scale was a result of technological advancements directly stemming from liberalism's hot economies.

Another effect of liberalism: the small pox vaccine, which has been estimated to have saved 200 million people. Which of liberalism's crimes compares to that good?

This is particularly true because liberalism has been extremely evangelical, spreading itself through hard economic coercion, military funding, supporting coups, and even invading foreign countries to set up liberal states by force, while also generally refusing to recognize the legitimacy of any competitor systems. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The preferred method of Americans was to loan money to a country, wait until they were about to default, and then reorganize their economy so as to create an elite class and a destitute underclass. This is neo-liberalism.

I think you know very well that you're over generalizing

.. Oh. Sorry, I misunderstood.

wasn't speaking to religion, I was speaking any conception of human nature that strays from liberalism's volanturist Homo oeconomicus, and the "buffered self" who can achieve dispassioned reason without any need for training in virtue. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You appear to be saying the state needs to provide virtue training. I was once in a Kiwanis club meeting and this woman came to get the community's support for going into public schools to talk about drugs from a "God centered approach."

This wording signifies a right-leaning thingy where people believe everything should be approached with a sense of sacredness. I couldn't be more thumbs-up to that whole idea. That would really help people. Yet, it would be over my burned and rotting corpse that any religious group would step a foot into a public school in my area to talk about anything. Public schools are not for religious indoctrination. The answer is no.

Suppose for a moment that the sectarian, extremely exclusivist soteriology of the era preceding Locke's is true. Belonging to the wrong church puts people at a very high, perhaps certain risk of eternal suffering. On this view, simply "going along to get along" is completely abhorrent. It is to consign children to eternal torment to avoid finite, temporary strife. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:meh: So the belief is that God is a psychopath. I'm supposed to protect my neighbors by forcing them to also believe God is criminally insane. A liberal society isn't going to do anything to me until my behavior starts getting scary. Then they'll either put me in jail or in a psych ward. I probably belong in the latter on a buttload of anti-psychotics.

It doesn't just adopt a skeptical outlook, but presupposes the ignorance of others and then forces the conditions implied by this ignorance onto society writ large. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If your religion can't survive in an environment of religious tolerance, it's not much of a religion.

The thing about stagflation, is it is different in different circumstances — Punshhh

By definition, unemployment is high during stagflation. It's very rare. As I'm sure you read, it baffled economists when it happened in the 1970s. They ended up re-engineering parts of the standard economic view to accommodate it.

Also an inflationary recession is like stagflation, — Punshhh

Correct, but there wouldn't be a labor shortage during a recession, which by definition includes high unemployment.

I’m not convinced that a labour shortage can’t happen while an economy is stagnating. In the circumstances I’m referring to the shortage (a limited shortage in certain areas) is happening alongside a so called stimulation of the economy (the purpose of introducing tariffs). So the stimulation will fail due to a labour shortage. Hence a stagnating situation. — Punshhh

Ok. I'm not familiar with any cases where a limited labor shortage has any significant impact on the economy.

Want to bet on that? Perhaps one virtual coffee? Especially something like coffee can be tricky — ssu

I think your assessments are based more on sentiment than on facts.

Take a picture what the coffees cost now in your local coffee shop and compare it to the prices same time in 2026. Take also a measurement of the coffee cup that is medium or large. Now, do you think the price and the cup size will stay the same until April 2026? — ssu

It will cost 10% more.

The point wasn't to help the economy. Do you remember what Trump actually said the point of the tariffs was?
— frank
I thought the reason was to have domestic manufacturing come back to the US and the US "not to be ripped off by foreigners". (Whatever that second thing means) — ssu

So helping the economy wasn't the point.

Let's remember that changes in the economic cycle take time. So we cannot be certain what will happen. Only many months into a recession we will understand how bad it will be. — ssu

Yes. You still can't have stagflation with a labor shortage. That doesn't make any sense.

it’s starting to sound like a South American economy. — Punshhh

What's wrong with South American economies?

You can't have stagflation and a labor shortage at the same time. What could happen is an inflationary recession, where the US economy contracts due to poor consumer confidence and supply chain issues. That would be terrible, especially for the generation whose start in life was impacted by the pandemic. All we'll need is a serious war after that, and we will have another "silent generation" (a generation that could never catch a break).

It must be comforting to have such certainty. But I don't think it moral. — Banno

It leads to inquisitions where heretics are rounded up.

Hawaii cannot produce your coffee, for example. — ssu

Yea. Americans will just pay more for coffee. We're going to have that coffee though. We can't function without it.

So I think that this isn't just a reddit crowd, this is just common sense. — ssu

Yes, but they're like economics professors, so a tad more reliable than average.

Besides, if everything that is imported is for Americans will be at least 10% higher, how would that help the economy, where the American consumer already has doubts about the future? — ssu

The point wasn't to help the economy. Do you remember what Trump actually said the point of the tariffs was?

So much is being spent, especially on ideas of returning the sick to work, even though unemployment is rising as job losses are proposed in the NHS and civil service. — Jack Cummins

The US went through the same thing. My old hospital, which had struggled for a while, finally went under after the pandemic. It was bought out by a bigger system. Then that whole system was bought by an even bigger one. The central office for the mega-entity I work for is several states away now. It was actually beneficial for me, because I had been through many waves of austerity (hiring freezes, no vacation) while my hospital was independent. That seems to have passed now.

It's not really a bad thing to restructure from time to time. The whole history of medicine since WW2 has been one of backing off unnecessary testing, replacing invasive interventions with non-invasive ones, and placing a super high priority on protecting patients from hospital acquired infections. All of that has been assisted by financial pressure (in our case from Medicare). What's happened is that during those decades of intensive testing, physicians learned a lot about various disease mechanisms. They discovered that once that knowledge went into successful strategies, all the testing wasn't really necessary anymore. I'm sure the UK has been on that same trail for a while, but it's an evolving thing. There may still be some changes in priorities that have needed to happen.

Lefebvre is clear: liberalism doesn’t pretend to be metaphysically deep. What it offers instead is an ethic of mutual forbearance — Banno

I think John Locke's point was that if we believe that the One Truth is discoverable by rational means, we'll never be at peace, because people come up with different formulations. It's better to start with mutual respect. If you're a protestant, it's none of your business what Catholics think.

Yes and the only way is down from now on. Until he’s kicked out of office. — Punshhh

What do you mean "down"?

It's been noted (by the reddit crowd) that tariffs can't bring in revenue and simultaneously increase incentives to manufacture in the US. Those are the two things the administration identified as the goals of the tariffs. If some entity wants to negotiate better access to the American market, they can, but that doesn't really work as a goal of the tariffs. From the US's point of view, it doesn't matter how an entity is paying for access, with tariffs or by smooching Trump's butt. They're still paying more than they were.

As a longtime observer of American shenanigans, I can tell you that the first step is always to look on the surface. Look at what the president actually says. If you look too deeply, you'll miss it. There is no deep state.

Here's the rub: What's the alternative? — Banno

Dictatorship

He said this 6 days ago:

Speaking at a Republican Party dinner in Washington, Trump acknowledged the 104% rate for China "sounds ridiculous" but insisted that Beijing wanted to "make a deal" to avoid it.

But here, he's not saying that the point of the tariffs was to make a deal with China. He's saying that China wants to end the trade war. I honestly don't think he has framed the latest tariffs as a method of extortion. I think he truly wants to shut down imports. But I learn something new everyday. :cool:

That's precisely the sort of irrationality and intransigence that justifies dismissal. — Leontiskos

What do you think counts as acceptable justification for belief?

Having sound arguments is only one kind of acceptable justification. There are others.
— frank

I think you're nitpicking. — Leontiskos

Having sound arguments is only one kind of acceptable justification for belief.