• Desire and a New Fascism
    We can not consider a kind of cause and affect chain, and we can not explain Tramp's phenomenon by "extinction of working class and peasantry".What is his true motivation?Number2018

    Well by hypothesis, his motivation is irrelevant. Perhaps he is interested in self-aggrandisement, or perhaps he is selflessly saving America from whatever he sees as the threats to it. Either way, what he does is - as you say - divisive. But divisive forces are at work, and whatever anyone did would be divisive. That is to say, if one (a president) had unifying policies, one would find oneself in conflict with the economic necessities, and thus in conflict with everyone. Money is bigger than government, and money is not democratic, or even humane.

    I think Reich missed this angle completely, and gave too much importance to psychological failings. The way it goes, the leader makes impossible promises to unify at least a voting bloc, and then has to blame someone - the forces of darkness - the press, the Mexicans, the Marxist liberals, the Jews, the deep state, for the failure to deliver. The mistake is to think that Trump, or Hitler, or even the collective psyche of their supporters are in control in any way. They are riding a wave, and trying to stay on the board. On this view, desire is manufactured by the economy at need, and conflict likewise.
  • Desire and a New Fascism
    Reich's importance still actual:Number2018

    You referring to he of The Mass Psychology of Fascism? Long time since I read it. It's a seductive game, the psychologising of politics, and one of the best of recent times was David Smail.

    Anyways, there is a problem with such analysis of the zeitgeist, which you need to be constantly aware of - that it applies to the analyser too. Thus Bernardi talks about his own loss of income, though he is doubtless insulated compared to the average white worker.

    But let me put things more brutally in economic terms, avoiding the mess of both politics and psychology. Mass production required mass consumption, and so we had the worker/consumer with a modicum of power subject to the manipulations of propaganda and advertising. But once we have perfected 3d printing, along with robotics, mass production, and therefore the masses, are surplus to the requirements of capital. Economics dictates the extinction of the working (and middle) class and peasantry.

    You fighting with or against your friend, or with or against @raza or me is just part of the process. Desire, impotence, humiliation, these are the personal symptoms that explain, justify, make sense of, an impersonal force of destruction. They are mere epiphenomena.
  • Can a BIV be a physicalist?
    Have you noticed that the BIV scenario is a remake in scientific garb of the notion of a 'higher reality' beloved of religions everywhere? This vale of tears is but an illusion, and death will release us from it into this higher reality, controlled by the god of science. Talk of heaven and hell and the spirit world is dismissed as fantasy, but brains in vats...
  • The News Discussion
    Here is some news that is so fake even google won't report it.
    A letter.

    Tariq Ali
    11 awr
    From: Amanda Sebestyen <>
    Subject: staggering
    Date: 31 July 2018 23:30:25 BST
    To:
    I was staggered tonight to see Louise Ellman MP telling Newsnight how shocked she was by hearing that Jeremy Corbyn had hosted a meeting on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2010 where a speaker compared Israeli and Nazi policies — staggered because she was actually present throughout that meeting!
    I was there too, in that House of Commons committee room in 2010.
    Nowhere tonight did Emily Maitlis or the Times reporter mention that the speaker, Hajo Meier, was a Holocaust survivor. The other speakers were survivors of Atlantic slavery, Native Americans, Bangladeshis, Roma and others who shared their experiences with the many Jewish survivors of genocide in the audience. (It was my own family’s experiences that drew me to the meeting).
    As it happened Jeremy Corbyn had to leave the meeting after introducing it, to attend a debate in the House. Louise Ellman, by contrast, was present throughout the meeting.
    She sat calmly by when the room was invaded by five members of the small but fanatical Zionist Federation, who proceeded to shout until no one else could be heard. I particularly recall their shouts of ‘Boring!’ whenever any other survivors were speaking. As an MP Ms Ellman could have called the Hous eof Commons security to evict the disruptors but she did nothing.
    Ms Ellman’s attendance is a verifiable fact, and I have written before to Emily Maitlis calling attention to the biased way that this issue is being covered.
    The IHRA definition is not ‘internationally recognised’: it was dropped by the EU and has been bitterly criticised by the very lawyer who drafted it.
    The ‘examples’ outlaw terms which are commonly used by Israeli critics of their own government, such as comparisions with apartheid. One of the leading anti-apartheid campaigners, who is also Jewish, has said that the Israeli occupation-system is in some ways worse than apartheid. David Steel has also made the comparison with apartheid. Are all these people antisemites?
    It is essential that a future Labour government should have an ethical foreign policy.
    The shouts of ‘antisemitism’ from self-appointed community leaders are deeply upsetting to many of us of Jewish descent who do not identify with them or Israel. Tonight you claimed to interview ‘the whole spectrum of the left’. Where were our voices?

    Here's the conspiracy theory that it exemplifies...

    https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/13089/sarah-glynn-labours-anti-semitism-row-blatant-attempt-undermine-corbyns-leadership
  • Mereology question
    Does it make sense to say: "X is really just Y" ?rachMiel

    A house is just a pile of bricks; why don't you live in a pile of bricks? I find that when the bricks are arranged just so, I can live in the space between. So a house is a pile of bricks - with lots of nothing between them. I don't care much about the bricks, it's the nothing that's important.
  • Is monogamy morally bad?
    I always eat my partner after sex. It's only natural.
  • Should i cease the pursit of earthly achievments?
    I commend to you unenlightened's first principle as a guide to leading a meaningful life:

    It's not all about you.
  • Lying to yourself
    How do I get to the point where I can produce consistency between what I want to do, and what I ought to do, such that what I am is the same as what I ought to be, because I would be doing what I ought to be doing?Metaphysician Undercover

    You'll have to ask Jesus about that one, dude. All I can point out is that 'what I want' and 'what I ought' are images that often conflict, and 'what I am' is what happens as a matter of fact.
  • A puzzle concerning identity - the incoherence of Gender
    Let’s put the question that is asked towards the end of the talk:

    Can one be wrong about ones gender identity?
    Banno

    Can one be wrong about one's pain? I think it is an unhelpful suggestion to make to one who is suffering phantom limb pain.

    Can one be wrong about one's body-identity? Well you might want to argue that people like this are 'wrong', you might want to argue that anorexics are likewise 'wrong', but it's beside the point, unless you can put them right in a way that makes them feel right and not wrong. It's the 'wrong' question.
  • Is destruction possible?
    It can be argued that things don't actually exist, but are instead an illusion created by thought,Jake

    Yeah, but actually, don't. I live in a house, not an illusion, and if your house has ever been knocked down, you will understand that destruction is not an illusion either, because a pile of rubble is not a house.

    Destruction, is the removal of structure, not the removal of substance, which is called 'clearing up after yourself'.
  • Lying to yourself
    Would you say that "what I am" is itself a deception, that there is only what I think I am, and what others think I am? There really is no self, only an image. If not, then what supports the assumption that there is such a thing as what I am? Is it necessary to assume a "what I am", in order to produce a divided self, to expose the possibility of self-deception, which is really an attribute of the one undivided "what I think I am?Metaphysician Undercover

    Well I'm only talking, and only even talking about thought. Physically, there is no division, obviously. So there is a division in thought, and a mental conflict. Or perhaps there isn't in your case, it's for you to say.

    'What I am' is writing a response - this one - (dasein?). This is real enough, I don't have to assume anything. And then you want a response that explains and justifies the writer in some way, and that is the image I am conveying in the writing that is not the writer, but an image of him. I don't see why you want to problematise this?
  • Lying to yourself
    it is exciting to change the image in the face of new information, rather than a death-threat.Moliere

    Yes, exactly, learning without accumulation, one could say.

    Learning through experience is one thing – it is the accumulation of conditioning – and learning all the time, not only about objective things but also about oneself, is something quite different. There is the accumulation which brings about conditioning – this we know – and there is the learning which we speak about. This learning is observation – to observe without accumulation, to observe in freedom. This observation is not directed from the past. Let us keep those two things clear. — J.Krishnamurti
    https://www.jkrishnamurti.org/content/‘learning’/learning%20without%20accumulation

    So my image is from the past, and the image does not observe; I observe in the present, unidentified with the image.
  • Lying to yourself
    we can have an image we want to conform to, realize we are not like the image, and then tell ourselves "But really, deep down inside, I am like that image" and then have our awareness flip such that we are no longer aware that we intentionally deceived ourselves.Moliere

    I don't think it works quite like that, in most cases. One needs a bit of psychology here.There is 'what I am', and there is 'what I think I am' (my self image), and the latter is an aspect of the former. But inevitably, I think that what I am is what I think I am. So self- preservation becomes a matter of preserving the image.

    Suppose I look at myself from a position of ignorance. It comes naturally, from this realisation that I am not who I think I am. Then I see there is the self-image I have, but I give it less importance, because it is incomplete at best. So I am ready to discover myself anew. Perhaps, after all I am not the wise philosopher I think I am; perhaps I am not the nice balanced social being I think I am. I will find out as I go - I will learn about myself in my relationship to the world, but it will always be learning, never knowing. This is too frightening for me as long as I still think I am what I think I am, and it seems that to change my image is to die.

    I'm confident that neither 'self-deception' nor 'lying to oneself' is the best way to describe these situations though. I mentioned one earlier... the homosexual. We all adopt our initial worldview, and that includes much, if not most, of our own original 'self' image.

    Here we see the inherent problem with the notion of self. I'm certain we all agree here. The self is largely delineated by others.
    creativesoul

    Well I'm not committed to a particular way of describing things, but when people use these terms, I think I know what is meant.

    "You are naughty! Be a good boy for Mummy!"

    On the one hand one discovers oneself in relationship, one is learning, and on the other, one is told what one is and what one must be. One must be good because one is naughty. And Santa will know which you are. Most people are naughty and being good, taught to live a lie in negation of the lie they have been taught.
  • A puzzle concerning identity - the incoherence of Gender
    It is a biological fact that people are 6 ft or over, or less than six ft. That some people wear high heels in an attempt to pass as tall, and others slouch in an attempt to pass as short, does nothing to undermine this; they do not have an innate essential height that is independent of their ...bla bla.

    The protection offered by separate changing rooms for shorties is sacrosanct and slouching tallies must not be allowed to undermine it, even if they have had surgery to shorten their legs. Or to put it more plainly, why do we care so much? My answer is that it is a matter of identity, and identity is always defined in terms of difference. What it is like to be a man, is the way in which it is different from being a woman. So ambiguous, androgynous, mixed-up people are a threat to my identity - in effect a threat to my life. Hence the persecution of deviance of all kinds.
  • A puzzle concerning identity - the incoherence of Gender
    All individuals possess an innate essential gender that is independent of both their biological sex and the gender they were raised as, and this innate essential gender is the sole definition of gender that should be recognized for social, political, and legal purposes.

    Seems at odds with anything I'm saying, but I'm listening.
    Moliere

    Seems like a straw person to me. There is perhaps a solid stick hidden in the straw, which one might assent to, which is that "I" am independent (potentially) from both my biology and my socialisation; I am free to make up my own games, and do not have to play your games. And at that point, the long and tedious argument that my games are made up loses it's force, because societies' games are also made up.
  • Lying to yourself
    Let's consider the philosopher's friend, phantom limb pain. I seems I cannot be deceived or mistaken about my own pain, because it is experiential. But then I find that the leg I do not have hurts. Real pain, phantom leg. So neurobabbblle tells us that it is due to activity in a region of the brain that has a 'body-image' to which sensations are referred and the leg image goes a bit mad from sensory deprivation. ( They don't say that, I'm paraphrasing).

    There seems to be a certain sleight of leg going on - one might say that I am deceived by my nervous system into thinking I have a hurty leg, when I do not have a hurty leg. But then I have separated me, my body and my nervous system, and allowed one to deceive another, albeit unintentionally.

    Or consider an anorexic, who considers herself grossly overweight as she is dying of starvation.

    Or the poor philosopher, who reasons thus:

    Men like football.
    I am a man.
    Therefore I like football.

    Which is an example of conforming to an image. Is it impossible to convince oneself that one likes football, or gurls, or shaving, or fighting, because one more desperately wants to conform than to be 'true to oneself'? Surely, it happens all the time?
  • Will AI take all our jobs?
    The man has convinced you that a job is a great thing to have. It isn't. It's pay that you need.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    If you want to be really paranoid, ask yourself which country has a vast swathe of territory too cold to be much habitable, that might benefit from a bit of global warming?
  • Lying to yourself
    I can't make much sense of this, which is unsurprising given the inherent self-contradiction.creativesoul

    But surely, self-contradiction is impossible?
  • Lying to yourself
    Perhaps. It would require having considered whether or not the bridge would support him at some time or other though, wouldn't it? A lizard crosses the bridge, but that crossing is not strong evidence that it believes that the bridge will support it.creativesoul

    I don't think belief requires much consideration. Hear the bell, start salivating. I'm not the lizard whisperer, but the folks that I know of, cats, for example, are sometimes unsure whether something will support them or not, and sometimes surprised when it does not. [insert cute video here]

    But humans. Humans are largely opaque to themselves. I find I can not know someone's name, even though I know that I know it. It's on the tip of my tongue... And certainly I believe and act upon all sorts of stuff that I never consider, and that the ground will support me, whether it is a bridge or a cutting, is a trivial example. That the nearest shop is right, left, and on the opposite corner at the crossroads... I have never really thought about it 'til now.

    This is how I go on when I'm not philosophising, and since I can not know things I know I know, and know things without knowing and believe things I've never considered whether or not to believe them, it becomes really rather easy to deceive myself if I have reason to want to. And one reason I might want to deceive myself that all this is not the case is that I like to consider myself a philosopher, who is much more insightful.
  • What will Mueller discover?
    It appears that children are seeing it that way.raza

    Let me tell you the story of the emperor's new clothes. Are you sitting comfortably?
  • Lying to yourself
    Yes, I think I agree with your parsing.

    It is humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood.creativesoul

    Right, I think I get what you are saying here. If one says out loud, "I believe X and X is false." there is an obvious contradiction. But folks can get very close: consider the cliche "I'm not a racist but ..." where what follows the 'but' is some obviously racist belief. One can believe things that are contradictory, just as long as one does not notice the contradiction.

    But thereafter, I stop agreeing. I might believe I can lift up that rock, and all it takes to change my belief is trying and failing. I don't need anyone else.

    I think your 'knowingly believe' is doing too much work. That is to say, I do not know everything I believe, certainly not until I start looking. Consider prejudice. I repudiate prejudicial beliefs, and yet I find on reflection that I act on them. And when a man crosses the void on the bridge, that is stronger evidence that he believes it will support him, than any amount of confession.
  • What will Mueller discover?
    Man, you got it bad, ain't you? No, Trump is best buddies with Putin, and Putin is looking to undermine the alliance against him, and foment conflict within both Europe and the US. Trump is just a puppet, and the US is run from Moscow. And for sure this operation has been many years in the making, far longer than Trump's presidency.
  • What will Mueller discover?
    The point is that Trump had zero control of that phenomena while Obama, comparively speaking (relative to Trump), had massive, governmental authoritative resources, therefore the other end of the spectrum with regard to control.raza

    Not really. The point is that Store owners didn't ought to be best buddies with store robbers. And if they are, folks start to talk about 'an inside job'.
  • Lying to yourself
    I mean surely self-deception is something in and of itself, right? In that case there should be something or some things that make it qualify. Ahem... a criterion.

    Anyone here have one?
    creativesoul

    If I am mistaken about the fact that I am a good philosopher, and someone points out that my thinking is sloppy and my ideas confused, then on seeing the evidence I will correct the mistake. "I thought I was quite good at this, but I see I was wrong. No worries."

    If OTOH, I am deceiving myself that i am a good philosopher, and the same thing happens, I will resist, my feelings will be hurt, I will get angry and dismissive, I will attack the evidence, make excuses, and so on. Folks will commonly die to maintain a false image of themselves.

    I gave this criterion a long way back- "commitment".
  • Lying to yourself
    One mind is not a plurality of minds.creativesoul

    But it might be a plurality of awarenesses, a plurality of intentions, or one element of several of a person. You seem to be ruling out a division on the ground of calling it 'one'. As if someone called 'Honesty' cannot be dishonest.

    Laing Wrote a book about the divided self; you may not agree with his psychology, but you really cannot rule it out a priori.
  • Lying to yourself
    One is not a plurality.creativesoul

    A heap is not a plurality of grains? A mind is not a plurality of thoughts? A brain is not a plurality of neurones? A body is not a plurality of cells?
  • The Vengeful Mother
    Two people love each other, have children and come to hate each other. The children tend to become weapons in the parental conflict.

    Consider the non-gendered conflict of Brecht's morality play, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, or the judgement of Solomon:
    King Solomon of Israel ruled between two women both claiming to be the mother of a child. Solomon revealed their true feelings and relationship to the child by suggesting to cut the baby in two, with each woman to receive half. With this strategy, he was able to discern the non-mother as the woman who entirely approved of this proposal, while the actual mother begged that the sword might be sheathed and the child committed to the care of her rival. Some consider this approach to justice an archetypal example of an impartial judge displaying wisdom in making a ruling.
    Wiki.

    Real courts have to use less clear methods to arrive at decisions, but the same principle applies, that the interests of the child are best served by whoever has the best interests of the child at heart, and it is the interests of the child that must be considered, not any rights of the parents.

    When the hatred of the spouse is stronger than the love of the child on one side or on both, it is inevitably the case that a complete separation from one or other parent is in the child's best interest.

    Children are not possessions, and courts are not, and should not be, in the business of being just to parents in such cases, but in being the protector of the child. Once the parents have recourse to the law to impose an arrangement, it is quite likely that no agreeable sharing of custodial responsibility can be reached, or even successfully imposed. And since it is still the case that the burden of childcare falls more so on the woman, the woman tends to get custody.

    But that's the Daily Fail for you. To recast the complex, and usually irresolvable problems of the family courts as feminist conspiracy. Read a better journal.
  • Lying to yourself
    If there are two... who/ what is the other?Evil

    It is hard to answer, because in saying anything, I am going to be making an image. But as near as I can get, compare :

    1. I am an English philosopher. (identity, image)
    2. I am writing a post. (activity, fact)

    If I make an identity of 'poster', then I am a poster even when I am not posting, or a philosopher when I am not philosophising, or English when I live in France.
  • Lying to yourself
    He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother. — George Orwell
  • Lying to yourself
    How does one stop acting from the image?Evil

    Well, who's asking? If it is not the image asking, then you have already stopped. So it must be the image asking how not to act, and then it is obvious that there is absolutely nothing that the image can do that is not the acting of the image. I think if one ( it ought to be two, really) could completely grasp that the image can do nothing to help in this situation, that one is completely helpless, then one simply does stop. One gives up.
  • Lying to yourself
    Hmm, but there is evidence that affirmations can help produce a better self-image, and greater self-confidence, so long as they end up replacing negative thought patterns, as opposed to merely supervening on top of them.Agustino

    There is evidence that lying on your CV can get you a better job, as long as you don't get found out.

    But my point is that there is a self-image, positive or negative, and the image acts. This is demonstrated by the fact that when my self-image changes, my actions change. Affirmations work! And they work in exactly the same way as compliments or insults coming from others do. They build an image and the image acts.

    But to have an image that acts is to have a divided mind; it is to be running a simulation of oneself and letting that run one's life. One performs one's identity.
  • Lying to yourself
    Allow me to present for your consideration, the notion of affirmations.

    One is encouraged in some psychological quarters to seek to change the way one thinks. "Say to yourself, 'every day in every way, I'm getting better and better.'". By repetition, the theory goes, one becomes convinced of something one did not believe.

    A sportsman will psyche himself up in this sort of way - 'I am the greatest', and it works, at least to an extent. Perhaps philosophers can do the same - try saying to yourself, "I am such a deep thinker, I can even appreciate unenlightened's posts." It might take a lot of repetitions, and it won't actually make either of us smarter, but don't tell yourself this, tell yourself that it really works, because it really works.
  • Lying to yourself
    What is it about Jesus and the Buddha that makes them have undivided minds?Moliere

    Bearing in mind that you're asking me, unenlightened (surely a foolish move?), I think it is a matter of identification.

    So, for example, there are facts about where I was born and what kind of passport I have, and then there is the identity of 'Englishman'. Or there are facts about what I have read and studied and thought over, and then there is the identity of 'philosopher'.

    Identity is somehow more than the facts; it is a commitment to the facts; an investment in the significance of the facts. And this creates a separation, of a central self in the mind - I am an English philosopher. Something to protect against, well everything, including whatever else might be the facts of what I am.
  • What will Mueller discover?
    We need to get our own house in order before we start lecturing others on how to conduct their affairs.Erik

    The world would be a very quiet place. But at least we know that your house is in order.
  • Lying to yourself
    Is it enough to say that having two mutually exclusive beliefs at once is enough to count as a divided mind?Moliere

    Well yes and no. :wink:

    There's always the question, 'who is saying it?' So I am saying that the mind is more or less always divided, (except Jesus and Buddha), so it is the divided mind that is saying the mind is divided, but saying it as if it were undivided.

    That we can "observe ourselves exteriorly" isn't a lie, but it is a self-deception.Bitter Crank

    So this, by its own thesis is a self-deception too, because what is it but an exterior view? As soon as one talks about interior and exterior, or deceiver and deceived, or as soon as one talks about the divided mind in any other way, one has recourse to the speaker, the observer, the analyst, call it what you will - there is always a three way split.

    That's one aspect of my yes and no, but the other aspect is that the division(s) themselves are fabrications.

    So even before there are mutually exclusive beliefs, to say 'I have a belief' is already to have divided the mind into the believer and the belief. So having contradictory beliefs isy more like having non-matching socks than something that creates a division.
  • Lying to yourself
    In a word, 'paranoia'. Literally, a mind beside itself. In order to 'succeed', a lie requires a liar who knows the truth, and a patsy who is deceived; so a divided mind is prerequisite.

    We can't be our own exterior observers.Bitter Crank

    Have to disagree. It is exactly by being our own exterior observers that self deception becomes possible.
  • Drops of Gratitude
    For parents, sister, sister's son, other sister's son, first wife, and every kindly person, now departed...