If we look at what capitalism presents us with as 'reality' and ask, 'is that IT?' we will inevitably feel the huge urge to find something other, I think.

Exactly. 'Superior' at what, by whose standards?

I'm agnostic about everything myself, and can't see why that implies that one accepts anything as particularly 'reasonable'. All things are possible, I'd suggest, but anything a great number of humans 'believe' is especially dubious, always, because 'reason' is a very specialised game indeed.

Yes, wholeheartedly I am agreeing. But, I am saying that the moral solution is not to kill the child as some sort of act of mercy, but to heal the parents who make the child's life misery. As I mentioned, the problem is systemic, and authorities being uneducated and ignorant of the causes, unable to discern right from wrong, thereby using their power to oppose true justice, are empowering the evil to thrive upon the world — Serving Zion

I think the problem is systemic in a wider sense: it is the economic system we live under that often makes abortion the kinder choice.

If you condemn a child to a life of unwanted unhappiness in this dreadful society, you are surely evil beyond serious belief, at least to those who know something about what happens to children.

It seems to me that the question is about women's rights. Without the possibility of abortion you condemn a woman to a kind of slavery in order to produce an unwanted child, whose life is unlikely to be worth living.

I've read the various theories about language-development, and I think we'll never know. What I think is unarguable is that the various languages entrap us in archaic thought-world and make it extremely difficult to get out. Take the world 'I' for a start, and think how that concept shapes so much of our thought.

3.5k

↪iolo
If we are social creatures, it's about propaganda. — schopenhauer1

Most things are, I suppose!

Humans are an animal species, and animals tend to produce young. Since evolution gifted them with consciousness, which proved an effective if dicey evolutionary weapon, they have some doubts about it, but not enough to make a serious difference: there should still be plenty of the species around to pay for the way it has crapped up the world. :)

'A change is as good as a rest'. Best wishes in your new project.

Anything that leads us to think carefully about what we do and why we are doing it is bound to help, I suppose.

Why does someone have to be 'to blame' for anything? Don't you think it might be an idea to relax into a little humility? Here we are, so we might as well get used to it, surely?

It seems to me that everyone is wasting time on this nonsense. How can you base any policy on a vote three years ago on a woolly question, which close on half opposed anyway? Nobody bothered to ask about the detail of 'leaving the EU' because it was all about feuds in the tory party and no-one seriously expected it to pass. People, however, were in a bloody-minded, totally irresponsible mood. It is like a Beckett play, only more depressing.

Cymro dw'i. My Wife always tells me English isn't my native language, which is sort of right, because I was brought up in a bit of a mixture. I always forget that we must in no circumstances ever make jokes about the poor, persecuted Master Race! :)

I don't think we are in disagreement.

It is an extremely minor one - an evolutionary development to suit particular climates.

I mean stuff like skin colour. 'Race' has very little indeed to do with actual genetic differences between people, surely?

Yes it is, but obviously the way you think about the word “race” precludes any such distinction. I don’t think of race that way. There are obvious physical differences between humans from different areas of the world, when these physical differences are passed on to offspring they are being passed along by genes. Thats genetics, though maybe not in the same sense you mean.
Anyway, I don’t have much more to add that I didnt say already, so address any of that or do not at your discretion. — DingoJones

The 'racial' distinctions, of course, are very superficial indeed.

I am wondering if others who have lost their religion have found a path out of this sense of loss and underlying chaos and would care to share. — dazed

Marx helps: we know who is lying to us. and why, and we know we won't have a cat's chance in hell of making sensible evaluations till we get the leeches off our backs, which gives one a sensible purpose.

Why don't we divide people up by their gloop? If we believe strongly enough, we can quite easily impose gloopal divisions on humanity - then, if we really want to, we can decide what gloop might mean.

I found the list of possibilities given didn't fit me at all. As I think I said before, my English teacher quoted Aristotle (I think he said) to the effect that philosophy was a study for old men, and all I read suggested it was a fairly tedious study in linguistics. As part of my degree I had to take a paper called 'English Moralists', and I had a deep dislike of both groups, though, in fairness, the persons studied tended to be neither. I hold a Degree as a Doctor of \Philosophy, however, which has always seemed to me bizarre!

It doesn’t happen. It’s statism all the way down. Socialism is merely the siren song of despots. — NOS4A2

It doesn't happen because, so far, the capitalists have murdered those who try to bring it about. If it doesn't happen the species, however, is finished.

Right, the worst excesses of socialism was really capitalism. Even if they never quite reached “true socialism”, they did it in its name, and here are the results. — NOS4A2

Socialism is control by the working class. Where does this happen, please? Where it has been attempted the capitalists murder people in very large numbers.

Look at Korea. The south developed with capitalism, while the north developed with socialism. One is prosperous, the other is impoverished and despotic. The same in west and east Germany. It’s really as simple as that. — NOS4A2

One developed monopoly capitalism under a dictator, the other state capitalism under a dictator. It was the war with the centre of world capitalism that impoverished the state capitalist bit, obviously. You take labels too seriously, don't you?

Here is a list of states, both past and current, that claim socialism in their constitutions. Which of these in particular would you says has the accepted the human need as a human right? — NOS4A2

How many capitalist states that claim Christianity have ever shown the slightest sign of having heard anything that Jesus said? Capitalist states claim all sorts of things, but all they actually do is rob the mugs, surely? A capitalist government is the central committee of the local boss class.

We know perfectly well why Victorian people said 'as cold as charity'. We also know why Jesus said, 'The poor you have always with you'. Charity is about the bad conscience of the rich, and it does nothing to deal with anyone's problems: What's needed is a simple acceptance of human needs and an acceptance of the human right to have these met - which means not a capitalist welfare state but socialism.

The point about national sports teams is that their activities are a substitute for war.

Atheism sounds anachronistic because it defines itself in terms of anachronistic religion, surely?

Natural rights can be prevented, including legally, but it's seen as morally wrong to prevent them.

Legal rights can be prevented--physically, for example, but it's illegal to prevent them. — Terrapin Station

I find that sort of thinking baffling. What can 'moral' mean in such circumstances, or - if you can present their being exercised - 'illegal'? It seems to be a sort of dream world, and I think we'd be better working on the one we live in.

Surely a right is something no-one can prevent? Except for the totally infirm, who can be stopped from killing themselves?

On the stuff about 'nationalism' and 'race', I thought the following was interesting as a comment on our own wicked culture:


Rugby World Cup: Wales v Fiji for a divided couple

Emma and Tevita Manaseitava will be divided for 80 minutes

When Wales play Fiji in the Rugby World Cup on Wednesday, there will be split loyalties at the Manaseitava home in Bridgend.

Emma is Welsh but her husband Tevita is Fijian - and the Fiji captain is one of his relatives.

Even their 15-year-old son Dominkio's loyalties are divided.

"Wales are gonna win, part of me for Dom wants Fiji to come out on top, but my heart is Wales," says Emma, who adds that their son is "Fiji all the way".

She added: "He's actually Welsh speaking, Welsh through and through. His [Fiji] flag is hanging out the window, his shirt will be on and I think for bragging rights in school he's hoping Fiji will come out on top."

And Tevita laughs: "My heart says Fiji and, my head says Fiji."

He moved to Wales in late 1980s to play for Pyle Rugby Club, where he is now a coach.


Of the match, which starts at 10:45 BST, Tevita said: "I think both camps are nervous. It is a big game for both teams, Wales will be on a defensive to try and win all the pool games, Fiji will be attacking more.

"It will be a good game - both teams you could say have nothing to lose, but Fiji need to do more to get the game under their hat."

And what of Wales' famous loss to Fiji in the World Cup in France in 2007?

"It could happen again, watching them [Fiji] back last week, they are quite dangerous, it is a worry, but Wales are on top form so I think it's going to be a good game," Emma said.

I liked the bit in the I this morning comparing the whole sorry saga to Blackadder - it had been very funny, including Cummings' cunning plans, but we were now in the final episode: the whistles were blowing, and it was time for us all to be sent over the top.

The widespread use of the word 'white' to describe human groups has always seemed to me extremely odd, since the only humans I've ever seen who looked remotely that colour were dead ones, and they not very. When faced with these ludicrous questionnaire-things about 'ethnic background', when I'm asked about 'race' with such baffling possible answers as 'white British', I usually put 'human (sort of pinkishy-grey)', or, if really pushed and since it is one of the few choices lacking this colour-coded hogwash, 'Chinese', since I once spoke Jwo-Yeu reasonably well. But what on earth is the point of all this pretend, I wonder.

↪iolo I'm pointing out there isn't a clear line between various cultures and you reply with "our culture", "our language" and us vs. them and how it shouldn't change: that is a interpretation of culture as monolithic par excellence.

I'm not answering your question because I'm not going to speak for an entire "culture" as to what they should do. That would be hubris. — Benkei

Who asked you to reply for 'an entire culture'? To instance the other two languages/cultures I know passably well, would you wish seriously to argue that there was nothing but vocabulary and grammar to distinguish culturally between English-speakers, French-speakers and Chinese-speakers (National Language ones)? Like so many supporters of capitalism, you do seem to spend a lot of effort in trying to divide real people while contending you do the opposite, by bullying minorities. It seems to me pretty sick to identify oneself with what has been done in Westminster over the long, disgusting years, incidentally.

2.1k

↪iolo Culture isn't monolithic and certainly not defined by language alone. Western culture overarches several languages. At the same time the culture in my city is distinct from other areas in the Netherlands, which is still Dutch culture. And just look at the history of the development of the guitar (or most any other instrument for that matter) that cultural differences are fluid. Cultures exchange, change, copy and merge over time.

Given how culture has comes about, resistance to cultural change is misplaced. — Benkei

Who said it was monolithic? It is , however, hugely affected by the language in which it is experienced.
The Westminster regime has tried to destroy our language and culture for five hundred years. You think we should lie down and die now it's so much feebler?

↪iolo Yes I agree about the airbrushing of history, my family comes from Huddersfield by the way, so Yorkshire a region with its own traditions and history. Going back to identity though, we don't have an equivalent to the Eisteddfod, and we can't shut the knobs out, because they come from England (actually I suspect France with William the conqueror). So we're stuck with them. — Punshhh

My Wife comes from up there. The trick is to do what we did in the Eighteenth Century, and start see those who speak in a foreign fashion as foreigners, and ignore them! One of her ancestors was done for armed rebellion in the Chartist days, and when he got out of Wakefield Jail, had to get a loan from the Woolcombers' Association to go to Australia. since he was blacklisted in Bradford. His brothers, despairing of getting rid of wage-slavery here, went over to the 'States to volunteer for the Northern Army, and the next generation but one were (probably) founder-members of the ILP. There's all the material in the world available for us all if we care to ignore propaganda! :)

To connect all this with Brexit again, the most obvious political unit for a small country is a large Federation made of all sorts of others. The EU, unlike the Westminster regime, also does what it can for minority languages.

When I got this message I took it for granted that it was from the Brexiteers, maybe Boris. Is there really public communication about other things again?

Obviously. What do you equate it with?

And culture conveniently adheres to borders? How quaint. — Benkei

Good God, no - what a weird idea!