• Shame
    In the case of the Bible the confusion is easier because it is the product of a society in which tribal pressure and morality are confused. This refers to the problem of the existence of societies dominated by the sense of shame-honour and guilt societies — David Mo

    Well I am confused too. Disentangle tribal pressure from morality for me. You see again, you seem to think you are talking about facts; you are aware of the fact/value distinction?
  • Shame
    I'm discussing facts. — David Mo

    Why are you discussing facts? Do they not speak for themselves?

    In guilt there is implied a victim. In shame there is not a victim. Examples: regret to have raped a woman. Disgust to myself for being a coward. Don't you see the difference, unelightened? — David Mo

    These are not facts. This is a distinction you are making that has some merit in terms of clarity and convenience, but does not at all exhaust the meaning and usage of the words.

    But let us then impose your distinction on the myth of the Fall: we might say that Adam and Eve feel guilty about disobeying God and eating the fruit, and also ashamed of their nakedness. So these are different and separate, but the ancients in their folly have conflated them. Why have they done that do you think?
  • How to Deal with Strange Things
    The therapy I've tried, so far, has too much talking, — csalisbury

    That is already the other speaking, rejecting the analysis. You don't have to work out how you feel.

    So take yourself seriously here; start drawing, painting, clay modelling carving, something tactile and expressive. And meanwhile hold onto those people that care about you. Art therapy is a thing - you can read about it - but more so just start doing the art and let the therapy do itself.
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    What is properly basic, is what one cannot do without.


    God, Nature, man.

    Superego, id, ego.

    Daddy, Mummy, child.

    Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

    Three, three, the rivals.

    Without God, man dissolves into nature, mind into matter. So God is as real as the distinction between man and nature, or self and world.

    And, Plantings has to admit, as unreal.
  • Shame
    ↪Metaphysician Undercover
    ↪David Mo


    I hesitate to interrupt a roundabout at full gallop, but are you guys disputing the meaning of words, the nature of psyche, ethics, or something else?
  • How to Deal with Strange Things
    I don't think it is physical. — csalisbury

    If it is not physical, then it is meaningful.

    A presence that pressures and manipulates. (you say)

    If it's in your head, it's you; an aspect of yourself that is denied, that cannot be reconciled.

    So on the basis of those ifs, you might try to speak on its behalf. To articulate 'what it wants of you', that might even become 'what I want'.
  • The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
    I does kind remind me of the adage about how to make a small fortune in agriculture - start with a large one. But aside from having a super-wealthy institution to pay the expenses and and attracting tenured professors to write for you free for the kudos, and starting out with an enviable reputation, it's a common sense model that anyone can apply.

    Oh, favourite article? I forget. But I like Hume, and though he is not a contributor, his influence is strong in this: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/
  • Why is it that, "I will create more jobs than anyone else..."...
    No one forces one to work. — Tzeentch

    No one forces you to lie.

    But in both cases, someone might well make your life unpleasant to unbearable if you don't.
  • Why is it that, "I will create more jobs than anyone else..."...
    Only the devil makes work for idle hands. But puritans are very devilish.
  • Should the BBC continue to receive public money?
    It seems to me that variety of funding and ownership is conducive to a balance of media. So if we have some media owned by the rich, some owned by the people who work for it, some publicly owned, and also funded in different ways, then there will be something more like balanced reporting.

    The BBC is inevitably biased towards the establishment that funds it, and this has been minimised by establishing a degree of independence which is often attacked by that establishment. It needs a change in funding method along the lines of a block grant from general taxation and a renewed and strengthened charter and perhaps charitable status that would bring it under the ambit of the Charity Commisioners, or perhaps even some direct democratic control. But to leave all the media in the hands of the super rich, and funded by big business advertising will not lead to a fair, honest high quality media.

    And now, sport...
  • Shame
    I don't really agree with this as I see a child be 'naughty' as something created by wider (mad) society. I think there is a better way than the reward and punishment route as I see this method as further imposing the ideals of society on the student. I just don't know what the better way is yet... — Evil

    If you want to start an education thread sometime, I'll likely be all over it. in the meantime, I'll just mention J Krishnamurti, A. S. Neil, Paulo Friere, Maria Montessori, as sources for varied better traditions, in case you don't already know them.
  • How to Deal with Strange Things
    76. The Stone Mind
    Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in a small temple in the country. One day four traveling monks appeared and asked if they might make a fire in his yard to warm themselves.

    While they were building the fire, Hogen heard them arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said: "There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?"

    One of the monks replied: "From the Buddhist viewpoint everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that the stone is inside my mind."

    "Your head must feel very heavy," observed Hogen, "if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind."
    http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/76thestonemind.html
  • Shame
    Is 'not taking from the supermarket' really part of a system, in the sense Anscombe is describing? — csalisbury

    Yes, absolutely. The example I like is which side of the road one drives on. I seems not to matter which side it is, as long as everyone settles on one side or the other. It's not something one can know from birth. And one cannot know from birth that it's ok to take berries from the hedgerow but not apples from the orchard. But one knows without explanation to comfort the crying.

    I think the upshot is that though you need an explanation of how a library works differently to a supermarket, and the protocol of communicating with air traffic control, you don't need any lessons in being ashamed. IOW. Shaming another is abuse, and manipulation.

    Now this is true of anyone who has that social empathy that gives one a sense of shame when things go awry, and it is a fortiori true of anyone who lacks the capacity - the notorious psychopath. Because any attempt to manipulate the young psychopath is simply a lesson in manipulation, and as has been talked about here with some lack of clarity, there is no point at all in trying to shame someone who is incapable of that feeling. The psychopath is unashamed and unrepentant. The best bet therefore is to teach them that kindness works, which is easy because it does.
  • Shame
    I think "hurt" is a lot more complicated than that. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Yes, sometimes one cannot see it, as sometimes it is dark. But in the first place, one does not need to be taught.

    Inevitably, mistakes are made. We relate "shame" to the occurrence of such mistakes and attempt to assign guilt. But "shame" goes even deeper, such that we are ashamed of the mistakes of nature, chance occurrences, and this is the real reason why we need to separate shame from guilt. There are many things occurring which are wrong, not right, and those things need to be addressed. We ought to feel ashamed of these things regardless of the guilty party, there may not even be a guilty party. Therefore we ought not seek to blame and cast shame, hoping that others who are responsible for creating the wrongs will fix the wrongs, we need to feel the shame ourselves, regardless of guilt, and we do feel that shame, and so are inspired to fix the problems. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Exactly! Once you remove the (m)other who projects shame onto you, there is simply the response to the world, and the responsibility for the world.

    When I talk about system, I mean really this endless projection of responsibility onto others. The child is 'naughty' because he is brought into a supermarket filled with delights and expected to understand the nonsense of property rights and so on. That is what is taught, and it drives us mad.
  • Shame
    But I really don't think that a child, or anyone, can determine what being inconsiderate is, without learning that. We can easily learn hurtful actions which hurt oneself, because we feel the pain. But how can we learn the actions which hurt another, without being shown the pain? — Metaphysician Undercover

    One can learn without being taught. One sees quite easily when one has hurt someone, and one quite naturally regrets it and seeks to comfort. This sensitivity can be seen in quite small children, and doesn't take any religious or moral training.

    And that really is the beginning and end of it. How shall we live together? We need to communicate, so we need to be truthful and honest, we are vulnerable so we need to look after each other, we need to cooperate and share to survive and thrive. And these thing are such obvious truths that they are built into the genes and do not need justification from philosophers or prophets, nor do they need a special training scheme. But we have devised a whole system to convince ourselves of the opposite, and to replicate the opposite in each other. And we call that morality, and justice, and civilisation. And it is destroying us.

    It is such a shame.
  • Shame
    It is important to separate the inner feeling of shame from the shame which is cast onto us from others, in order to cope with the inner shame. This is because fear of the shame which will be cast onto oneself by others (punishment), is an enormous part of the inner shame which is associated with keeping the secret, as it increases the perceived need to keep the secret. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Yes, I think we are about in agreement here. It is hard to disentangle because the language of feeling is always associated with behaviour that is very often the defence against that feeling, and/or the projection of it.

    I wonder if anyone can relate to just a very simple realisation that one has been inconsiderate, say, and the rejection of that as a way of life for the future. Something a child might do on their own, without pressure from anyone. I think this is the capacity that is exploited to produce a conformist, when we would do better to raise kind and thoughtful individuals who do not need to be told what to be ashamed of.

    Edit. It's not that i deny or discount the pressures of the social, and for the child at least, they are irresistible. But these pressures must, I think, operate on an already prexisting sensitivity. One can shame a dog but not a cat, because cats are not social in the same way. So what is that sensitivity to oneself, what is that responsiveness and responsibility without the social pressure?
  • Ought we be thankful?
    There is no obligation at all, but if you are not thankful, it is a great misfortune.

  • Shame
    So, I could never be ashamed of my nationality; if I could feel anything negative about that it would be a sense of guilt at being complicit in its sins of commission or omission. — Janus

    I think if you cannot reach the first line of the piece I linked at the beginning, you are going to be at a disadvantage in this thread. I don't think it is a matter for argument, but for sympathy, so I respect your position but have nothing to say to it.

    Edit: But it occurs to me to ask if you have ever been ashamed of the state of your room?
  • Shame
    In reality, shame has a double aspect: positive because it socializes and negative because it subjects the individual to the dictatorship of public opinion, which can be more terrible than justice. One or the other can be emphasized. — David Mo

    I think this is the same aspect; there is no difference between socialisation and the dictatorship of public opinion apart from approval/disapproval. I'm trying to stay away from the anthropological tradition because it seems to me rather fixed in its view of the Capitalist Industrial West as the pinnacle of civilisation, and because I want to start again from the beginning, as philosophers usually do. The dual aspect I want to emphasise is the social/psychological one. So, for example, someone like Malcolm X was able to resist and negate the shaming socially applied to black people in the US with a simple affirmation that there is no shame in being black. An incomplete revolution, but a strong one.

    Say: Mummy is mad (or disgusted or something else) and that's overwhelming (and threatening). The atmosphere just vibrates with it, and thats scary and suffocating. She looks at you direclty and accuses you of being naughty. Suddenly the whole atmosphere condenses in (1) a word and (2) a source. Naughty means : the feeling of the suffocating atmosphere + mom's glance at you. — csalisbury

    Right. I'm not sure about this, but unless you can push me a bit harder, I am going to maintain that shame is not necessarily traumatic. It is difficult, because we live in traumatic times and traumatised societies, but everyone here is focussing on the socialisation.

    And the whole socialisation thing is to me a perversion - or perhaps just distortion - of another process - of individualisation.
  • Shame
    It is not a complement to be called "shameless". In fact it is a way of shaming someone.

    You should be ashamed of yourself!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-51504992?fbclid=IwAR3CcLMAeZxAFsZsjCrtzxE3hsqFy0kK8nxEs9ywt5RukGRVmm53V15RRfY

    This is the difficulty we are in: philosophers like to declare priorities and foundations, and I am suggesting that shame is fundamental to human society. But it is obvious, I think that societies also induce and use shame as a means of control, as in the above link.

    If the shame of disapproval, meted out moderately, leads to corrections of behavior, then an overwhelming, shaking level of shame can produce, as a defense, an overly perfect fake self. — csalisbury

    I think I want to say that one can be shamed because one already has that capacity as it were. And that it is a capacity that develops from identification of the sort that recognises itself in an image, as in a mirror. First, I am X. Then the college says X is unclean or Mummy says X is naughty, or whatever, or perhaps even I myself say it.

    So what you call an overly perfect fake self is a photo-shopped colour inverted touched up image derived from what is already an image. Which is to say, in the final analysis that morality is unreal because it is conducted, for good or ill, entirely in imagination.
  • Shame
    Is shame to be counted amongst the virtues? — Banno

    I don't think so. One can use virtue as almost synonymous with 'property' - one might talk of the different virtues of kinds of wood or medicines, and I think one talks of animals as symbolising human virtues in this way, such that one does not need to ask if this lion is brave any more than whether this leopard has spots.

    But in this context, it is not a human virtue to have an opposable thumb, and I think the capacity for shame is about as prevalent. I'm not ready to characterise virtues yet, but I'd suggest that as others have indicated here there is probably something cultivated, and in this sense unnatural about them, the way a desert apple is an unnatural variety of crab-apple.

    Thus shame is the human virtue that distinguishes us form other animals the way bravery distinguishes the lion and not therefore not a human virtue in the sense that one would admire anyone for their readiness with the red face.
  • Shame
    It is the way we use "shame". — Metaphysician Undercover

    It may be the way most people use the word, and it may be the conventional meaning of the word, and you may have a superior understanding of the relation of that usage to guilt or any other term; but there is also a usage that treats it as a feeling, and that is how I have stipulated it to be used in this thread. So in this thread you are wrong. Shame is a feeling and I cast shame on you for attempting to prevent the discussion from taking place in the terms I have already set out. It's equivocation. You don't have to like it, but then you don't have to participate. If you do participate, then you need to use the word the way I am using it, or you will confuse an already difficult topic.
  • Shame
    I think that an important aspect of shame is the attention which others give to the shamed person. This is why shame and embarrassment come together in the same package. Shame is what is given to you by the others, and embarrassment is how you feel shame. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Yes, that might be a better way to put things, but it is almost too precise for me here. It smacks of abstract theory rather than the way we actually live and talk.

    I wonder if there is more to say about the conflict. I feel this is important but no one is mentioning it.

    If I was an existentialist, I would bring in Laing as the avowedly existential psychologist.

    Pure individuality is a false image = bad faith. — David Mo

    You have leaped over what I want to look at. Sartre is moralising here for reasons of his own. There is a sense in which every image is false, and there is a sense in which every self-image must be distorted. But why is that such a problem? I have an image of myself as a smart cookie, and then David comes along and shows that I am an idiot. "Ok, I'm not as smart as I thought." *shrugs*.

    But it's not like that - it hurts! Why does it hurt, when all that has been damaged is an idea?
  • The burning fawn.
    I see the thread needs a theme tune. Everyone loves the Scottish accent...

  • Shame
    So we already have the conflicted tripartite psyche that is a feature of every psychological theory: mind body spirit; ego id superego; parent child adult; take your pick. In this case, it is myself, my self-image, my feeling about my self-image. And this puts the pride/shame dimension centre-stage.

    Now pride is personally unproblematic, but socially conflicting. I am a jolly fine fellow smart, handsome articulate, and an asset to the forum and society in general. In myself I am unconflicted, undivided, at least between my self-image and the self image I would be happy with. The only potential source of conflict is reality. In my own mind I am the greatest, and there is no need or desire for me to question that until reality bites.

    Shame, by contrast, is personally conflicted, but socially conducive.

    I think for me the passing-by-homeless shame is as simple and stupid as not wanting them not to like me — csalisbury

    Shame is social glue, that makes me care what others think of me.

    And so from the social view, we arrive at the vice of pride and the virtue of humility. From this, as the Ginzburg piece suggests, one can arrive at other virtues and vices quite easily. The social image of virtue is conveyed by social myths and parental approval, so one learns for instance to be ashamed of one's fear, and hides it with a performance of bravery. And so on.
  • Shame
    There's lots of interesting stuff here, not least the question of distinguishing shame from guilt, which is something that has exercised many before us. But I will let all the comments lie for now and make a slight turn towards 'identification'.

    But the perspectives are different. Anscombe is searching for a theological justification of morality and Ginzburg is making an anthropological analysis of shame. — David Mo

    The perspectives are indeed different, but Anscombe is not looking for a theological justification, but a psychological one. So the connection is in the philosophy of psychology according to her specification. Fools rush in, and I am proposing to start doing the work she says is required before we can sensibly discuss morality.

    So the Genesis origin myth is one of many but uniquely infects Western thought, and it seems to identify shame as central to the uniquely human psyche. Shame is presented as the psychological marker of the fall from Nature. Not anger, or fear, or joy, or ecstasy, not even pride, - shame. Why? Why is shame the fruit of the tree of knowledge?

    We are not bible literalists, so Adam and Eve are stand-ins for our prehuman ancestry, and there is a fairly uncontroversial notion that a highly social species in a complex and perhaps unstable environment needs a big brain to become adaptable over short timescales, and to succeed in a social group. And on the social side, an acute sensitivity to other individuals' emotional state, together with the ability to control one's own emotional expression is important. So a large part of this big brain is concerned with social matters of hierarchy, sexuality, emotion, status, and so on. And out of these concerns develops the skill, or habit, or disease, of identification.

    By which I do not mean plant identification or any other externality, but self-identification. In order to feel ashamed, one must identify some aspect of oneself and take a negative attitude to it. One is ashamed of some aspect of one's being. I think, purely for the purposes of this thread, I will stipulate at this point that the shame under discussion is some kind of unhappiness with the image one has of oneself, and that guilt is a possibly and possibly not associated kind of unhappiness with (the image one has of) what one has done or not done. Obviously that is not a universal definition and distinction, and potentially still a bit blurred at the margin.

    And this allows to a complex brain, that one can be ashamed of one's privates (for example) in one context and proud of them in another. {An aside for linguists, chauvinists and sex addicts: to stand proud is to stick up above the surface, to be erect, and to think well of the image one has of oneself. Women have to make do with breast implants.}

    Anyway, Adam has fallen into his own head. He has become his image of himself, and to that extent lost contact with reality. As far as any individual is concerned 'I am what I think I am'. And I must think that (and so must you) because I didn't think I was what I thought i was then I would think otherwise. But at the same time, and from the same source, my understanding of other individuals in society, I can see that everyone is much more than, and often quite different to what they think they are.

    If you are following, you should now be feeling 'cognitive dissonance'. I'll pause while you smooth over the cracks.
  • Shame
    Thread theme tune:

  • Relationship between our perception of things and reality (and what is reality anyway?)
    In the OP, you say "what is perceived" and "what exists". — creativesoul

    To put it another way, What is perceived is not what is actually perceived but only what is perceived to be perceived. but not even that, it is only what is perceived to be perceived to be perceived. But not even that...
    This must be nonsense.
    Perception does not separate you from the world, it joins you to it. Like your skin.
  • Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy"
    ↪Metaphysician Undercover
    The thing about extra-judicial killings is that they are not murders such as you and I might commit, but acts of the law-making state, exempting itself from its own definition of justice. So an individual or a revolutionary group can honestly reject the law, but the state itself cannot.

    Why does every weasel have to br brought out and publicly strangled? Can folks not work these things out for themselves?

    But to live outside the law, you must be honest
    I know you always say that you agree
    Alright so where are you tonight, sweet Marie?     — His Bobness

    I am certainly not beyond the possibility of equivocation, but Anscombe is a smart cookie and you ought to give her published work at least the respect of being very careful about such accusations.
  • Shame
    I tend to disagree with the common assumption that their shame has anything to do with sexuality. — Possibility

    And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. — King James version

    Well they didn't make shoes or headscarves. I think it's pretty clear what they were covering if not why. But it's not my main point at the moment. Rather it is to note the tradition that shame is the primary mark of humanity, and that it results in the urge to hide, to self efface.

    So this is the beginning of psychological conflict, that what I am ought not to be.

    It seems to me that it has to do with social hierarchies, and the idea that it is ok to vent frustrations (also born out of the same sort of abuse) onto those that are lower in the hierarchy, with the homeless being deemed the lowest. — ChatteringMonkey

    You may be right, it is a common explanation -- 'the pecking order'. But the need to assert one's superiority over a homeless beggar in such graphic ways seems disproportionate. A Nelson-like "haha!" would be sufficient. It is a very fragile superiority that has to literally piss on its inferiors.

    And it is just that psychological fragility that needs to be examined and accounted for.
  • Shame
    I don't see the link between Ginzburg and Anscombe. Can you clarify, please? — David Mo

    Well this is my suggested starting point, aligned with the story of the fall and thus the divine law source,
    for an investigation of the philosophy of psychology, as prescribed by Anscombe.

    We feel shame when our actions contradict the values of a group with which we strongly identify. But we also feel shame when this group with which we strongly identify act collectively in a way that contradicts our personal values. — Possibility

    I don't want to get too rigid too early, and I don't much like the language you use here because it is confusing more than illuminating. "We" identifies 'a group with which one identifies' and substituting one gets a mess... Perhaps it is pedantic but I think "One feels shame ..." is much preferable.

    I'd rather start with Adam and Eve and the shame of nakedness and sexuality. Nothing to do with acting in one way or another, but a state of being other. It is surely in the first place a condition of self-consciousness. Adam is suddenly conscious of his difference from Eve (and vice versa). Thus the swimming pool changing rooms allow for shameless nakedness amongst those of the same sex.

    I had a thought like this today, at work, feeling a little guarded and out of place, thinking : my shame feels a little like a flu right now, or a viral infection. It's not totally separate from me, but it still feels like something alien that I have to contend with. And I'd like not to pass it onto others. — csalisbury

    So you have not said (perhaps you are too ashamed) what you were ashamed of, what puts you out of place. Perhaps it was of being a philosopher amongst plebeians - then here is the place to strip off - but you express rather well the personal yet impersonal, social yet antisocial nature of the beast.

    I feel shame when I pass by a homeless person. I am ashamed of being a member of a society so rich and so uncaring that it can let people sit in the snow outside an empty building and die of cold. Now I think this is almost universal, and in particular, I want to draw attention to those who actively persecute and further humiliate the homeless - you will have seen the stories. Why do they care so much as to set people on fire in their sleeping bags or urinate on them or whatever? It is surely their own shame that they cannot bear, and project as hatred onto the immediate cause. And thus perhaps Primo Levi was wrong about the perpetrators - they felt the shame but projected it back as hatred and anger, shaming the cause of their shame.
  • Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy"
    ↪creativesoul
    Cheers. It's been hard work at times, but it's been an education.
  • The burning fawn.
    So, you have gratuitous suffering — Wallows

    Gratuitous? What do you mean by that? Undeserved, yes, and in any particular instance accidental (or not), but in general, (the possibility of) suffering is the necessary condition of life, and particularly the necessary condition of having value. Caring is taking pains That is my thesis.
  • The burning fawn.
    is there anything more we can do — Wallows

    For God, nothing. For the fawn, perhaps you can do something I like to call 'minimising the pain'. 'God' is a term I find necessary to philosophy, and unnecessary to life. Fawns manage without God, and I could manage this thread without god if you had not brought the thing up.

    I heard he has anger issues. — Wallows

    But this is unnecessarily feeble. When God has lost patience with His creation, you will/will-not know about it in no uncertain terms. By definition. Imagine the world on fire.
  • The burning fawn.
    ↪Wallows
    No.
  • The burning fawn.
    ↪Wallows
    I don't speak for God.

    If I have no conception of pain, — Wallows

    One doesn't need a concept. The fawn suffers. You and I see the fawn, or just imagine the fawn and we suffer vicariously, and that depends on a conception, the fawn lives the pain directly. I see from your writing that you care about a fawn suffering as a stand-in for all the countless billions of innocents that suffer. And the mere understanding that that suffering exists causes you to suffer.

    So I think this is the condition of life, that there cannot be a life of caring without suffering, and there cannot be life without death. Now if you want to talk of God, the Christian tradition is that the Creator of all this life has taken that suffering upon himself voluntarily, to demonstrate if you like that life is worth the price.

    Now if your suffering is great or your view of suffering in fawns or holocaust victims or whatever is great, I cannot from my comfortable privileged position presume to tell you you are wrong. I go a bit crazy with the occasional toothache. But without some penalty, gambling wouldn't be gambling, and life wouldn't be life. You know the simplest childish thing - climbing a tree - would be nothing even interesting without the real fear of falling and being hurt.
  • Harold Joachim & the Jigsaw of Lies
    So to flesh it out just a little, the idea is that one has a world view, that is fairly stable - fire burns, shit smells, Trump is an idiot. I am a philosopher, this is the inter web. And these things have to be compatible with each other, and to the extent that they are they 'cohere'. So if you tell me that Trump can tie his own shoe laces, I will say 'that cannot be true, the man is an idiot.' Tying one's own shoelaces does not cohere with being an idiot.

    And the theory allows that given further evidence, I might have to concede that after all, Trump can tie his shoelaces and therefore I must stop thinking he is an idiot and upgrade him too imbecile.

    And as a general rule, it seems fairly reasonable as far as it goes. Miracles are incoherent; don't believe in them.
  • The burning fawn.
    So, you're basically saying that suffering and pain has its own value? — Wallows

    No. I'm saying that to value something is to be vulnerable to suffering. To value nothing is to be indifferent to suffering. Only a sado-masochist values suffering, but only the dead do not suffer.
  • The burning fawn.
    I don't see value in pain and suffering. — Wallows

    But you see value in the faun. Do you think there can be a faun that does not grow old and die, or dies young? Is not the fragility of the faun, the vulnerability, that gives it value? An eternal indestructible mechanical non-suffering faun would not have the same value. No one would care about it.

    Shall we then turn every living thing to stone, so there shall be no more suffering? That, I believe, is the devil's kindness.
  • Brexit
    The traditional Labour voter has largely disappeared, due to social economic changes. — Punshhh

    This! The working class used to be something to identify with/as. Real men with real jobs, salt of the earth, aspirational, and wielding a collective power.

    Nobody wants to identify with the foreign, the downtrodden the sick, the disabled, the unemployed, the insane, the useless takers of society. Especially not those who are any of those. They'd rather vote for a fantasy.
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