:up:

No we must all indeed follow the money ... but I need to think before responding further - certain issues are above my pay grade and your earlier questions are deep.

where do we go from here? — Tom Storm

One of my favorite authors is Philip K Dick.

In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the author introduces the idea of the "empathy box".

The protagonist Deckard and his wife periodically plug themselves into this empathy box, like many millions of other users round the world.

The Empathy Box connects users to the televised figure of Wilbur Mercer, a Christ-like prophet engaged in an endless uphill struggle.

When a person “merges” with Mercer through the box, they literally feel the sensations of climbing the hill and being struck by stones - a kind of communal, simulated martyrdom.

The experience is explicitly painful and even self-sacrificial, but it’s seen as spiritually meaningful. It creates a sense of shared human empathy, distinguishing authentic people from the emotionless androids.

It seems to me that being trolled is kind of like being hit by one of these stones, albeit still in the medium of language.

But according to Dick what awaits us is not merely the linguistic masochism of being trolled, but a real virtual experience of masochism.

The title of the thread is intended to be a humorous illustration of what the thread is about - trolling.

In providing a title that turns out to have been nothing but clickbait, I was trying to directly link the title with the substance of the OP - and make a joke at the same time.

I'm going to have to think about how to respond well to all of those questions but for now:

The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.
- Guy Debord

What I think this author was getting at in that book is that capitalism accumulates wealth until it becomes itself a spectacle.

These days the "spectacle" has a very, very small life cycle. Trump's video on X was only a couple of seconds long. The communication process has collapsed into milliseconds.

The genealogy of Trump's video may be the political cartoons of the 19th century.

But there is something about modern media (TV and then social media) that has atomized the attention spans of their users.

The "messages" of the original political cartoons now have to be transmitted and absorbed within mere seconds, or the viewer will simply turn to something else.

Therefore the cartoons of yesteryear have become "tweets" - messages that again, have to be absorbed in tiny, micro-second long increments. Each message must be hyper-condensed and hypercharged.

Because of this, the power structures of such messages have to become even more extreme than before, otherwise the atomized attention spans of the viewers will simply move on.

Therefore the social messages that exist today are tiny but nuclear powered - they are like micro-arguments on crack. There is no longer time to hold the viewer's attention for a real argument - these days what is required is a powerful "sound bite" with "punch".

In other words, the argument, and old political cartoon, have become, in Debord's sense, a spectacle.

Trolling would not have been possible even 30 years ago. These days, given the fact that argumentation needs to be presented and digested in micro-periods of time, it is inevitable.

Are you arguing that the world lacks trust and has become cynical because of trolling and bullshit? Is this a factor in the West's meaning crisis? — Tom Storm

I'm not sure I know yet what a "meaning crisis" is, but it seems to resonate with my weariness with post-Enlightenment culture, yes.

It seems to me that when the President of the United States posts a video of himself on X defecating on his opponents, then our culture has crossed over some kind of event horizon.

We might say in fact that this is the first Trolling President in our history.

The OP is an attempt to explore this event horizon.

So yes, trolling, whether it is a symptom or a cause of the culture, is very much central to my cynicism.

I’m just skeptical about the idea that we can define ‘trolling’ as a thing, apart from the intersubjective dynamics between the alleged troller and the annoyed accuser. One person’s trolling is another’s critique. From one vantage, it is the troll which produces breakdown in trust and in cynicism. From another vantage, the troll
is merely an adaptive response to breakdown in trust and in cynicism. — Joshs

Rather, it's the other way around. The breakdown of trust and the cynicism can lead to various socially unacceptable behaviors. Tellingly, the breakdown of trust and the cynicism are not considered socially unacceptable, but reacting to them in a negative way is. — baker

Maybe it is like a feedback loop, to use a favorite concept from cognitive science. I.e. the environment shapes the behavior, the subsequent behavior feeds back into the environment.

Yes, in recognizing that all speech is strategic, self-interested, and contextual, the bullshitter or troll unmasks the illusion that language could ever really escape the play of rhetoric.

In that sense, “bullshitting” can be a more authentic stance than a pious appeal to “truth,” which often disguises its own rhetorical posture.

The nihilism only enters once Plato posits a transcendent realm of Truth. Speech must forever be measured and found wanting against that "Truth".

So the irony is the Platonic cure for sophistry creates the very disease of skepticism it wanted to prevent.

In a way Plato himself thereby invents the problem of bullshit.

It may be that we cannot finally determine the motivation for a speech act without the aid of psychology. For all we know Trump's X tweet may be a cry for help.

But while motive can diverge from the effect of a speech act, the cultural consequences of these behaviors remain ethically and socially significant.

Even if the origin of trolling is not malicious, it results in a breakdown in trust and in cynicism.

I would have thought it an idea that traditional conservatism (not the warped maga version) could get behind — Wayfarer

:up:

For example, MacIntyre's critique of Enlightenment reason is quite different it seems (and he has a different solution), but it is nevertheless still also a critique of the same phenomenon.

I was happy to read your quote from Horkheimer because it turns out I find that I can actually understand it. :snicker:

I have tried to read Adorno before, with not a lot of luck.

But that particular quote (and what little I know about Eclipse of Reason) nicely encapsulates what the "result" of the little "fusion of horizons" dialog in the OP was meant to accomplish:

The revision of "reason" from a system of "instrumental" domination which asks merely what is and is not useful (that sinister word), to more of a humble, "dialogical" reason, which is nevertheless still able to ask what is right, and good, and which preserves something of what is unique about human beings.

Then allow me to short circuit that discussion - if everyone prefers, the portion of "Genesis" in my little initial dialog can be substituted as follows:

1. There exists a transcendent source of rational order that intentionally brings forth the human being.

2. Humanity is constituted according to a paradigmatic form - a likeness or image that grounds its dignity and capacity for relation to that transcendent source.

3. The human essence is dual and relational, expressed in the differentiation of male and female.

4. Human beings possess a distinctive authority within the natural order, described as dominion or stewardship over other living beings.

5. This authority is derivative and participatory, not autonomous - it flows from humanity’s being “in the image” of the aforementioned transcendent source of rational order.

6. Human vocation includes creative fruitfulness, the extension of life and order within the world.

7. To “subdue” the earth is not merely to exploit it, but to bring it into a sphere of meaningful order, realizing potential latent in creation.

8. Ethical responsibility follows from ontological status.

9. Human flourishing and the flourishing of the world are interdependent, since both arise from the same paradigm that grounds existence itself.

There, now we have no nasty "sewage" from the Bible, no "theological" discussion we have merely a series of propositions. Is everybody happy?

"Presume the consequence" - you mean, reach a result? Is that verboten? Or must all fusions be endless? An endless, amorphous openness with no determinate result? It seems to me that as soon as a new understanding has appeared the fusion of horizons has become complete. The “fusion” is not a perpetual deferral of meaning (a la Derrida); it’s the event of meaning becoming actual.

The goal was to provide an example of what "understanding" is for Gadamer. Openness and vulnerability and certainly emphasized, which is precisely why the "result" of my little dialog was a different understanding for both horizons - Neither the "dominion" of genesis nor the "clever animal" of ecology but a fusion of humility and dignity. A new result for both horizons.

Certainly the resulting horizon remains provisional, as before, like all horizons, as long as "openness" and good faith are operative, it will always be such. But having already reached a new understanding through openness - that is is the very essence of hermeneutical experience to my understanding.

You have made a bald assertion perhaps you are the one who should provide some evidence.

Particularly in light of the fact that my OP was explicitly an application of Gadamer to the horizons of both philosophy and theology. You haven't even addressed it.

A faithful Christian cannot engage in hermeneutical reasoning. — Banno

This is taking Gadamer in a theological direction he was careful to avoid. — Joshs

Your positions are simply incorrect in the light of the history of hermeneutics after Truth and Method. A quick Google search reveals that several authors have applied Gadamer's hermeneutics to theology, making your statements seem extraordinary.

There has always been a tension between philosophy and Christianity: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem"?, etc.

For Aquinas, philosophy was the handmaid of theology.

But the final break came with the enlightenment where Christianity became just one worldview among others.

Since I am on a hermeneutical trip at the moment next on the list is Bultmann for whom both Christianity and philosophy share a hermeneutical concern: both interpret existence and meaning.

More significantly, however, I think he would say that the "subjective-objective" distinction itself is a Cartesian model which has now run its course.

An "interpretation" and a "fusion" of horizons is, as Caputo puts it, neither subjective nor objective, but a tertium quid, a third thing:

If we truly understand what an interpretation is – which is what we do in hermeneutics – we would never say ‘just a matter of interpretation’. A good interpretation is a blessed event, a wonderful thing, a tertium quid, the ‘third thing’ that shows the way out of the loggerhead that results whenever the fruitless and destructive war between absolutism and relativism breaks out.

Caputo, John D.. Hermeneutics: Facts and Interpretation in the Age of Information (Pelican Books) (p. 14). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Do you think this interpretation should be considered as being universal or absolute, or is it itself subject to continuous fusions, potentially becoming unrecognizable in the process?

In Hegelian terms, we might ask if it is absolute, or merely one of the moments of the absolute's coming into being? Or in classical terms would it be merely one form of participation in the infinite Logos, or a universal aspect of intelligibility itself? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think Gadamer would say: it's turtles (interpretations) all the way down.

The question becomes then how does Gadamer preserve some objectivity?

Something that occurs to me is that he might appeal to interpretations that have become "proven". Not in the sense of mathematical proof, but in the sense that if I have a sore throat I am going to consult a doctor instead of my crazy aunt. Doctors have "proven" themselves to be reliable in this area, in other words. Interpretations, in other words, are more or less reliable. This is something like Rorty's pragmatism.

But in terms of a Hegelian "absolute", that as far as I can tell so far is nowhere in Gadamer.

He might also say that in the fusion of horizons itself there is a kind of objectivity - the “thing itself” of the other horizon, whatever it is, the text, artwork, or phenomenon - addresses us and places a claim on us, it cannot mean just absolutely anything, we are delimited by it, just as we are delimited by our own original horizon.

I think he would also say - our prejudices themselves (pre-judice = pre-judgments) are our claim to objectivity, but they must be tested in the fire of the fusion of horizons, in genuine dialog. They can be shared, debated, and defended.

:up:

I'm still not sure why Christianity was convincing to you — Tom Storm

I am allergic to proselytism (I didn't much appreciate it when it was attempted upon me) but I will try to briefly respond in this way:

Either the guy was the messianic King or he wasn't.

As C.S. Lewis famously put it:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice.
Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.
Mere Christianity, Book II, ch. 3

For example no-one even reasonably sane could say "before Abraham was, I AM" - if they were merely some great ethical teacher.

Now if that is true, I'm not sure that whether the claim that he was the messianic King can be "convincing" in exactly the way you're putting it in your question. I am not "convinced" that I have clearly "seen", for example that Jesus is the Son of God.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1

So I am not "convinced" in the same way that I am "convinced" that 2+2=4.

But I do have faith, hope and charity - at least in a very limited way.

Some say that faith can only ever be anti-rational. I don't think that. I prefer to just ask:

"But what if it is true?"

If it is true then certain things follow - but I'll leave it there.

Why do you choose to belive this story over Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism's extraordinary stories? — Tom Storm

Well I don't want to proselytize but the classical way of answering that is that I did not choose that particular story, the story chose me.

And as far as Hinduism or Buddhism is concerned I went through periods where those traditions were (they still are) incredibly precious to me. Part of the attraction of Hinduism was that I found the "system" of Advaita to be more or less philosophical and similarly with Mahayana Buddhism, the Madhyamika thinkers like Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti were "philosophical" in that sense also. I found them to be attractive because I could get my mind around them, it wasn't just a matter of blind faith.

To attempt a more sophisticated answer to your original question about "Christian context", I think where I live (in the US) right now what we seem to be witnessing is the elimination of classical liberalism as a viable politics any more, and so what we are left with is the battleground between the two other ideologies, conservatism and leftism. Biden, for example, governed from the left.

In another thread Banno said that what was happening in the US was the "murder" of liberalism. I think honestly we are past that point at this stage, I think what we are looking at is its death-twitches. The wave of woke-ism seems to have crested and is largely over.

Hi Tom. I've just started reading this guy Caputo he has written a lot and I think I am going to love him. As far as I can tell so far his is definitely within the liberal tradition and for example has an explicit concern with respect to climate change.

I have some fairly strong conservative leanings. For me the story of the Bible and the kerygma of the "Christ event" is one of the most extraordinary, unexpected, exciting things to ever exist in history.

I also think that liberalism has produced various disasters in ethics - I have strong feelings about abortion, for example.

"Individual autonomy is the highest good" is what I identify as the root of all my disagreements, and the conception of freedom as "freedom from" rather than "freedom for" leads to a culture of relativism, where no objective moral order guides political life.

But on many other issues of the "culture wars" I am much more of a libertarian.

My position on a lot of those issues is: If it does not harm the person or property of a nonconsenting other adult, it should not be prohibited.

My position on homosexuality is basically that.

Now, this libertarian principle is complicated for a Christian - it would, for example, legalize prostitution, I suppose.

So that libertarian principle is not a "Christian context" per se, but perhaps I am being unfair to liberalism, because that kind of libertarian principle could only have ever arisen in a liberal society.

The trans thing I am much less clear about - I am not particularly a fan of trans women playing rugby with the girls, for example, I don't think that's fair.

philosophically adroit theists who are not aligned with reactionary, anti-enlightenment projects — Tom Storm

By a happy coincidence I am currently reading In Search of Radical Theology: Expositions, Explorations, Exhortations by John D. Caputo.

It is a re-telling of Western theology from the perspective of Heidegger and Derrida - quite a blast of fresh air. Stay tuned ...

conservatives can learn — Banno

Well thank you for throwing me such a nice bone from such a high table.

we can talk about our differences and reach an accomodation — Banno

I'm not sure reaching an "accommodation" is the point.

After all, if both of us are understood by the other, wouldn't that automatically transform our horizons?

“To understand is to be transformed by what we understand.”

Violence is implicit in that approach. — Banno

That's sounds a little hysterical. Reasonable people can disagree. Isn't that what you advocate? That everyone living in a state can adhere to their own traditions, but nevertheless thrive?

you conclude that there fore we cannot choose between traditions. That doesn't follow. The choice may not be objective - what choice is? - but we can so choose... — Banno

Reason is dialogical and historical. It is never "abstract". Reason is indeed a dialog, a back and forth. It requires an opnnness to being addressed and a willingness to be changed - providing real understanding can indeed be reached.

So reason is like Hegel's dialectic, it is the capacity to listen and respond meaningfully - in a dialog.

To that extent, we don't "obtain" understanding, we "undergo" it. We "stand under" something. In a dialog, that something is the (temporarily) fused horizons of two persons. Thus understanding is an “event”, not an act of control. It happens to us - through language, history, and tradition.

We are always already participants in the ongoing dialog, never outside of it. Thus reason, since it is the same as dialog, is participatory.

Rather than, that is, instrumental, which is the Enlightenment or positivistic type of reason. That is, participatory reason does not calculate or "choose" a means to an end. It does not operate by control or deduction.

That form of reason is far more prone to your "violence". That form of "choice" is a way of dominating nature.

You speak as though understanding were an act of choice, but every understanding arises from your own historical horizon.

You do not “choose” beliefs like consumer goods.

I may indeed find yourself drawn toward Islam, or away from faith - but this will not be a choice made from nowhere.

It will be an event of understanding, in which my horizon is transformed.

yet it is clear that you could become a Muslim, or an Atheist. — Banno

Yes, I could. But if I did it would not be because of some isolated “choices,” but in terms of understanding, tradition, and belonging.

We always begin within a historically effected consciousness: our language, culture, and inherited prejudices shape how we encounter possibilities like Islam or atheism.

You cannot step outside your horizon and objectively choose between belief systems as if you were shopping for one. You can only encounter them through the horizon of your own tradition

instead of by waving a gun — Banno

You seem a little fixated on this whole violence thing.

Any ideology, including your conservatism, is ideologically and normatively loaded. — Banno

That is indeed the whole point.

Always, already, loaded and situated. Always immanent, never transcendent.

Reason is immanent in tradition.

It can never be "transcendent".

you slide into the ought of loyalty. — Banno

"Ought" appears nowhere whatsoever in the list. Point it out.

The list simply describes the way things are, not the way things "ought" to be.

All human understanding is historically effected. We cannot step outside our historical and linguistic horizons.

There is no absolute or neutral standpoint outside tradition.

Neither are prejudices necessarily distortions - they can be enabling conditions of understanding.

As for "leaning on violence", I think you are drifting into a straw man.

We can also build democracy and cooperation. Which ought we do? — Banno

Understanding through tradition can be sufficient for emancipation and truth.

Real understanding always takes place within history, language, and culture; there is no pure, ideology-free space from which to critique.

You are not a realist, but an ideologue. — Banno

Those are the options?

Can I be a "hermeneutical" ideologue, at least?

Yeah, we can. And do. — Banno

Gadamer and MacIntyre, for example, seem to say otherwise.

How are we to decide between conflicting traditions?

Violence or conversation? — Banno

We cannot decide between any traditions, we remain situated within our own.

Diplomacy is always preferred at first, but if we are attacked first, then we must decide if we are to engage in a just war, or not.

Again, that is simply the realist, not utopian, position.

Well that's the first time I've encountered someone presenting a book including "spiritual" exercises in order to become more liberal.

Anyway I'd point out the obvious which is that his "17 reasons to be liberal" are mostly all modern updates of the Christian virtues. He even includes "gratitude", "avoidance of hypocrisy", "humility", "gracefulness" and "redemption"!

So instead of trying to be a liberal Ignatius de Loyola and convert us all to "liberalism", the real question is why is he not literate enough to convert himself to Christianity?

But why? Why not test Zionism against Mohism? How do you move from "This is what we do" to "this is what we ought do?" without falling to the Naturalistic fallacy? — Banno

Why do we have to choose just one? The idea of a state (at least an imperial one) is that it can contain and include many nations thriving within it.

Anyway, all of this remains mere speculation.

The fact remains that I believe that we cannot become un-situated outside of our family, tribe, congregation, community, nation.

We are unable to achieve an Enlightenment "view from nowhere" or u-topos, "no-place".

We have to work with what we have been given.

It's not as if there is but one worthy tradition. Which tradition are we to say has shown its worth by its longevity? If longevity is a mark of value, then The Dao and the Vedas ought have some weight...

So again, beyond the mere chauvinism of "my country right or wrong", what is the justification for adherence to a tradition? Has it been put to the test? — Banno

Hey, I'll take the Vedas and Upanishads any day, for sure.

I used to be quite a serious student of a Swami in the line of Sri Swami Dayananda Saraswati.

I don't have the words to describe how highly I regard that body of literature and learning.

To be honest, I almost answered your question "which one?" with this:

At this point I'll take any one.

I literally think Enlightenment liberalism has produced so many abortions at this point that following any of the world's ancient teachings would be better.

But then, extreme examples come to mind, and I don't want to mention them, because I don't want to disturb anyone or ruffle any feathers.

But which one? This question, asked multiple times, remains unaddressed. — Banno

Your own, of course. By which I mean the one shaped by you, your family, your community, and your nation.

Or, if you prefer, we could discuss the pros and cons of various traditions.

But I have a feeling if I do that I'd just be accused of living in an echo chamber.

For now, I can safely say that I'm confident you would prefer to live in certain environments and would prefer not to live in others.

It is that blacks and women occupied lower rungs in the social ladder then, and still should today. — hypericin

Please present evidence that American conservatives believe this.

I have a feeling this is the very definition of a "straw man".

And why ought we follow tradition? There's a naturalistic fallacy lurking here - "we've always done it this way, therefore we ought do it this way". — Banno

Re: naturalistic fallacy:

The historical existence of a practice is evidence of its utility, not the source of a moral obligation in itself.

Given human fallibility and the difficulty of creating social institutions from scratch, the safest path is to follow practices that have been validated over centuries.

Tradition is not sacred because it is old; it is valuable because it is tested, functional, and morally formative.

Yes, in modern liberalism, the end is freedom itself, conceived negatively (freedom from constraint), not positively (freedom for the good).

Without a substantive paradigm of the good, “freedom” devolves into the freedom to consume or to satisfy preference - what Plato or Augustine would call license, not liberty.

The liberal state produces slaves of appetite, not citizens of reason.

The massive bureaucratic state arises because many people, like all children, don’t want to be responsible for their own livelihoods and decisions. We shoot each other when in a debate, and then do not come together to rebuke the shooter, for instance. We behave like spoiled brats. — Fire Ologist

Deneen is next on my list I think his book is very a propos of this discussion as the Count mentioned.

↪Colo Millz I'd suggest re-reading Rawls. Is consistency a moral principle, and not a rational one? — Banno

Anyway If grounded in consent, deliberation, and procedural protections (as Rawls tries to do), universal moral principles are not authoritarian in practice and can coexist with liberal pluralism.