First, I introduced the term 'patrilineal', and I used it in the conventional meaning rather than make up some nonsense. If you want to distort the language to suit your own prejudices then there is no possibility of communication.

And what is of importance is that you have zero basis for your declarations thereafter; as if other cultures have not been at least as stable and survived at least as long and flourished as well, with just as stable families.

And I would point out that it is just this stable family focused sexually righteous society that has degenerated into the abomination that is modern liberalism. Now how did that happen?

There is something odd about it for sure. Try this analogy.

You know how when your pet has been to the vet for an operation, the put this cone on their neck to prevent them from licking the wound. There is a natural itch (desire) to lick wounds, that normally helps clean them and promotes healing, but in this case it is counterproductive as the wound is deep, but also already super clean. So there is good reason in the animal's interest to frustrate its desire. But that reason is not that desire leads to suffering as a general rule, nor that the frustration of desire leads to the extinction of desire. It is particular and limited, and after a few days, the cone can be taken off.

So if it is good to put a cone round one's privates, as it were, because it will frustrate the desire for sex, then the avoidance of suffering the slings and arrows of relationship or children or STDs or some such, or else the promotion of, (shall we say?) spiritual ecstasy on the positive side need to be posited. We might then discuss whether any of these are good reasons in particular circumstances. The latter, for example, might work for monks, but not so much for priests, and even less for the laity.

Any developed society is by essence patrilineal in your definition, because such virtues are needed to build a robust, self-perpetuating and strong society. You'll pretty much only have savages which organise themselves in matrilineal ways. — Agustino

That it happens to be currently so is certainly true, though savagery is by no means confined to undeveloped societies. But I would like to see some argument as to why it is so 'by essence'. You might take the following into account, taken from here.

Myers, Peter (November 23, 2001). "Aryan Invasions – Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Colin Renfew, Marija Gimbutas and Martin Bernal on the Indo-European invasions and the earlier Goddess cultures". Neither Aryan Nor Jew. Retrieved 10 March 2014. Traces of matrilineal practices have been found in recent centuries in peripheral areas of the west and north of Europe, and in the Aegean islands. In a number of islands, including Lesbos, Lemnos, Naxos, and Kos, matrilineal succession to real property was the rule at the end of the 18th century A.D. The facts were reported by an English traveller, John Hawkins, who wrote: "In the large number of the islands, the eldest daughter takes as her inheritance a portion of the family house, together with its furniture, and one third of the share of the maternal property, which in reality in most of these cases constitutes the chief means of subsistence; the other daughters, when they marry off in succession, are likewise entitled to (a portion of) the family house and the same share of whatever property remains. These observations were applicable to the islands of Mytilin (Lesbos), Lemnos, Scopelo, Skyros, Syra, Zea Ipsera, Myconi, Paros, Naxia, Siphno, Santorini and Cos, where I have either collected my information in person or had obtained it through others."

The premises of the argument are taken from the quoted post by @question. It isn't a position I hold myself.

No the conflict has always existed - just have a read about Cato the Elder for example, or Baghdad at the height of the Islamic caliphate. — Agustino

Can't read much? I'll highlight the relevant phrase to help you.

To a great extent, the conflict is inherent in patrilineal and particularly aristocratic and capitalist societies, but it has become more open starting with WW1. — unenlightened

That is to say, more open in the sense that the conflicts in this thread would not have been so openly expressed 100 years ago. BC in particular would have had to be a deal more circumspect, but generally, talk questioning the value of monogamy would have been extremely controversial.

The real fact is that your so called analysis tells us absolutely nothing. What have we found out? There are societies which have these set of values, and there are societies which have a different set of values. — Agustino

That's all you have found out because you are not willing to think. Other people have found out how the structure of society produces its values. They may also have started to see how changes in the structure of western society in the last century have led to a current conflict between 'old fashioned' and 'modern' values. And If they have followed the links I posted, they have started to answer the op's question about other societies.

And that is a great deal more than you have achieved in your interminable pontifications.

↪unenlightened And guess what, unenlightened is against what he terms "patrilineal societies" and for "matriarchal societies" - as if matriarchal societies weren't equally constructs. The facts are that nobility, kingship, etc. are values - at least for some. And as I have said, this conflict will be never-ending as the two sides cannot live together. All that is left for us to do, is for all of us to head in the political arena and fight. — Agustino

And guess what, Augustino has no criticism of the analysis to offer, and resorts to personal innuendo. There is absolutely no question that the western tradition is patrilineal and has been ever since children started taking their father's name. And that was a while back. So what you term "what he terms" is just the way the term is used by anyone who understands it. What I am for or against is for me to say, not you, so start talking some sense or shut up.

Just in case anyone is interested at all in the original question, rather than the exposition of the Western conflicted attitudes to sex: here are a couple of random references to non-western, and non-Abrahamic cultures:
www.gbv.de/dms/ub-kiel/21559682X.pdf (eskimos)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trobriand_Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sexuality_in_India

What my readings in philosophy have taught me, meaning where I'm coming from, is that unfulfilled wants and desires cause suffering and anguish, which in turn lead to other undesirable emotions. I don't think there's much controversy over that.

As a constantly aspiring Stoic, I feel compelled to listen to my brethren Christians and not indulge in the pleasurable aspects of life. Please understand that I have nothing against people who indulge in pleasures and such matters. However, I hold people who can master their desires and wants in higher regard to those who do not... and the history of philosophy and religion would stand with me in that value of self-mastery. — Question

Having said that, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If you find celibacy works for you, then it works, and no amount of psychological theorizing can make it wrong. — Baden

Unfulfilled wants and desires cause suffering.
I feel compelled to not indulge in the pleasurable aspects of life.
Therefore I suffer.

The proof of the pudding is that there is something wrong; one does not need to theorise, merely read the 19 pages of anguish, aggression, fear, ignorance, and naked suffering already presented.

But let's do some sociology. Virginity and monogamy is important to patrilineal societies. The weight naturally falls on women, because there is rarely much question who the mother of a child is. Thus, as one might expect, matrilineal and matriarchal societies do not tend to value virginity or monogamy very much. The Abrahamic tradition involves a lot of begetting because it is patrilineal. Nobility, kingship, class, race, wealth,etc, are heritable constructs that require the control of sexual expression just because they are social constructs and not actually inherited genetically.

The conflict played out in these pages is an expression of the decay of some of these constructs as central social values. The arguments between participants are the least of it; the conflict is largely internal to individuals. To a great extent, the conflict is inherent in patrilineal and particularly aristocratic and capitalist societies, but it has become more open starting with WW1. For a good rage against sexual repression, and exposing the hypocrisy of the time, I can commend to you Death of a Hero, a novel worthy of being more widely read.

I'm not a believer in metaphysical naturalism, though, so I disagree with your saying 'At the core of philosophy is the assumption that nature is intelligible.' — mcdoodle

I think one can (pragmatically) get by with methodological naturalism. Nature is only intelligible to the extent that it is intelligible, and whereof one cannot make sense, thereof don't bullshit.

I must say I like Piercean triad as a way of seeing or a way of understanding, but if one notes that it is itself a model, then I think the way is opened to answering your question/objection in some interesting ways.

The observer cannot be left out of the model but the observer is, to some degree made of the model. I think this means that with regard to ethics and aesthetics, and other matters near the centre of human understanding, there is a necessary gap of vagueness that cannot be filled in by observation, and a necessary distortion that cannot be straightened out.

The way I have put this in the past is that the 'science' of psychology has a deep problem that the science of cosmology does not except at the quantum limits, and even there not to the same extent. This is that the atoms of psychology have the property of having a psychological theory, and what theory they have changes their fundamental properties. Thus when Freud was theorising, sexual repression ruled and women had hysteria. People have changed as a result of his theories, to such an extent that the theories have become false. This happens in psychology on a regular basis about every 20 years, as each theory becomes known and accepted.

There are interesting things to be said about human nature, human understanding, and so on, but it is a mistake to think there is completeness.

Don't know about BC, but the official organ of milk and water liberals in the UK agrees.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/05/americans-spot-election-meddling-doing-years-vladimir-putin-donald-trump?CMP=fb_gu

Wishing you all a really expensive new year.

Spewing off random thoughts, never got that whole detachment doctrine of Buddhism, which is a belief that upholds love to be a good thing. Love is a form of attachment, regardless of what one loves—even if we’re only talking in abstract terms. Must be something lost in translation between East and West. — javra

Indeed, detachment from the world in that sense is a nonsense. Rather the ending of detachment is the goal of Buddhism. I wonder if it is clear that possession is founded on and an increment of detachment? Myself detached from the world and mine attached to me and me to mine.

Instead of talking about attachment and detachment, I like to talk about caring. Not caring is indifference; but again the word can be misleading - not indifference in the sense that one is simply a part of the world like any other part, but indifference in the sense that one does not care one way or the other.

To care is to be concerned, to be passionately involved, to take pains. This is love, isn't it, to take pains? Not to seek pains, that's silly, but to accept them. To pay willingly the price of existence.

...it is worth noting when history repeats itself. — Banno

One can note that the extremes of left and right in the persons of Stalin and Hitler are similar in many repugnant ways. I don't see the need to call Stalin a Nazi or Hitler a Communist, except to annoy them.

Whats that quote about tragedy repeating as farce?

Back in the day, people used to call themselves fascists, so it was easy to tell. These days people call each other fascists, which is another use of the word entirely. So what is the problem with opposing people under the banner they choose for themselves rather than trying to impose a historical identity on them? Would it be out of line - I think it would - for me to point out that the attempt to impose identities and labels is a fascist tendency?

After reading more about these things I became extremely depressed, suicidal - these theories were the opposite of my view of life. I wouldn't say that I was a optimist back then, but I viewed life as something worth living, I enjoyed many aspects of it (in fact I still do enjoy many things, but thoughts of pessimism just ruin it for me). — rossii

Depression seems to be a natural state that the body embraces when afflicted with continual stress. — Question

Stress is the result of conflict; in physics it is forces in opposition, in psychology it is emotions in opposition. In rossii's comment above, one can see the conflict between rational philosophical thought and unthinking experience. There may be another conflict behind that, but I say what I see. A classic environmental stressor is a traffic jam. One is in the business of driving, but one cannot drive. The obvious solution to relieve this stress, if one cannot escape the jam, is to depress the feeling of wanting to get somewhere fast.

The problem with this is that one does not have separate volume controls for each emotion, so in losing the urgency to move, one loses also any positive feeling one might have. One enters the void. And the problem with entering the feeling void is that one has no feeling to turn the volume back up. When the traffic clears, one moves forward, but one has lost the positive feeling of moving forward.

One might say that depression is an excess of emotional control.

And then one seeks to control the depression... it is indeed a potentially lethal vicious circle, and it becomes more prevalent as society imposes more tight limits on the expression of feeling. Which it necessarily does in the case of drivers, because road-rage is also potentially lethal. I hope the example can be readily generalised.

Unless it is myself, I am not qualified to judge.
It is not myself.

I feel there is a difference between philosophy and Top of the Pops or the Olympic games such that picking winners is both futile and demeaning.

Thanks for that superbly clear and concise exposition.

You might like to look at Pirsig's Lila.

I guess simply abandoning fear is a kind of emancipation. — Mongrel

I've always wondered how one does that. If fear were like a pair of shoes, one could easily leave it by the roadside, but alas, I find it is more like a pair of feet.

Perhaps to an extent the philosophy of Communism could be regarded as a type of idealistic reaction to that nihilistic aspect of our reality, meriting some admiration in that respect... — Robert Lockhart

There is perhaps more of a natural equity of needs than of means. Rocket scientists and shit shovelers both gotta eat. So there is no injustice in being smarter or stronger than the rest, but only in being richer and more privileged. Talent, then, is not private property, but held in common (according to communists).

I would suggest the homunculus problem. To what are representations presented? Any theory of mind is a representation of mind to itself, and so must necessarily be partial at best.

Everyone is dependent all of the time on others; the road-mender, the shop assistant, the farmer, the computer programmer, the long-suffering parent.

It is slavery when the dependence is sustained by fear instead of by love.

There's this excellent game you can play with a lively 2 year-old where you try and build something with wooden blocks, and they try to knock it down. The 2 year-old always wins, and they always find it hilarious. Silly adults, eh?

You cannot prevent folks from holding preposterous self-agrandising views. But I would point out how feeble it is to call censorship every time a publisher rejects your submissions, especially when one is being gratuitously offensive and confrontational, and at the same time plagiarising.

I thought you didn't care? Also, you said I could if I wanted to (not that I have; someone else is having all the fun). — Michael

Well I certainly didn't give anyone permission to delete my highly original and insightful responses.

The more air pumped into a balloon, the larger it becomes. But the air pressure is also increased which may lead to a sense of tightening constriction. — 0 thru 9

Actually, the air pressure is decreased as the balloon is inflated,because it is maintained by the skin, which becomes thinner. It's counter intuitive; more air ought to mean more pressure, but it doesn't because there even more expansion. I'm sure this must have revelatory significance for your metaphor, but I can't work it out so I have to confess to nit picking.

Is the negative yammering in your head a result of low self-esteem? Oh, maybe. It could be. Unenlightened doesn't think so, but then he doesn't get it. It could also be a habit of mind to think poorly of your self. (so, stop that. Start thinking better of yourself. — Bitter Crank

I am well aware that some people have these thoughts, that that they are bitter cranks or unenlightened or whatever. I have exactly been saying that it is these kinds of thoughts that lead one to want to raise one's self-esteem by some method. But my advice is different.

My suggestion is not to be judgemental about how judgemental you are. Negative thoughts are the best kind of thoughts, or at least as good as positive ones. If one can notice that one is being critical of the critic, one might even find it amusing. At any rate the effort to negate one's negativity can be seen to merely support the internal conflict and division. The voice yammers so much because you are trying to argue with it, negate it and not listen to it.

So if your inner voice tells you you are a crap philosopher who has no insight and just likes to preach, accept the complaints, and explain that you will do your best to become a better philosopher as you go along, but that not philosophising at all will not improve matters. If you listen to your voices, they become closer to you and less antagonistic. Eventually they may become part of you. ;)

Self love requires self acceptance. — Mongrel

Yes, but not particularly self-esteem.

The esteem in which I hold myself is not actually the topic, nor even whether it is justified or unjustified. But your suggestion that self esteem is a defence is exactly my own contention. Sigh.

Fuckin ell. , get a grip. You're the one quoting Jesus and talking about sin. Preachy is yourself, not me.

So now you're saying that accepting that we're all sinners is self-esteem or what the fuck? And yes I was both bullied and a bully, and I still am. So what does that reveal about anything?

You love your neighbor as you love yourself. — Mongrel

Well that's interesting. I thought that was an injunction rather than a method. So is your claim that one cannot love another without first thinking one is lovely? I cannot see why that must be so, can you explain?

I think we can easily go overboard with the principle of charity. — Terrapin Station

I wouldn't go that far, but I think it is a principle that applies to peer to peer communication, and very definitely not to exam questions.

Contemporary mental health thinking holds... — Bitter Crank

It's time contemporary mental health thinking let go.

The self-confidence, self-esteem, and auto-biographical praiseworthiness of a Donald Trump locates him in the category of puffed-up narcissist. — Bitter Crank

Yes, when one looks at the extreme, one can see clearly that self-esteem is a debilitating distortion of self-awareness - a hallucinatory defence against bullying. Bullying is endemic in society to such an extent that the defence becomes normal and psychologically necessary, at least to the poor fucked up shrinks of the world.

Here is my thesis again. One only needs to big oneself up if one has been belittled. Self esteem has no other function, and I challenge anyone again to provide another credible function than as a defence.

To understand one's capabilities and limitations is not a matter of self-esteem.

Perhaps I can't feed myself because I have lost the use of my limbs, or fallen down a well, or run out of money. It would certainly be as well to be aware of such things, but what place has self-esteem in this?

... whether you can reach any material goals you might have (including things like career, hobby, travel etc. goals) and so on. — Terrapin Station

Yes, I probably have lots of goals, one of the least of which is to compose posts. It was an example. But I don't see why I have to be thinking about myself all the time and whether I am high or low on the esteem measure. Surely, I just have to do whatever is required to achieve the goal in question, buy a plane ticket, apply for a job, or whatever. Telling myself I'm a cool dude only helps if there is another voice, BC's or my own, telling me I'm obtuse or incompetent or something that might make me give up my goal without doing the necessary.

Take Donald Trump. His unintelligible actions had the intelligent consequence of winning him the Presidency. — Agustino

There is little unintelligible about the ducky. Rabble rousing is a well known, tried and trusted technique that is quite well understood. But even if folks found it unintelligible, that doesn't make it unintelligible, just as quantum mechanics isn't unintelligible just because it is a closed book to most of us.

But here's something that you may find unintelligible; winning is not always intelligent.

Your response just seems obtuse, blunt, and coarse. Self-esteem is a good feeling about the good of one's being. My guess is that you have it and have no intention of abandoning it. — Bitter Crank

Well of course, I myself see myself as acute, sharp and fine, 8-) but my own condition is entirely beside the point, except just now to illustrate how put-downs tend to provoke put-ups. But I repeat, personally, since you make it so, why should I care whether I am obtuse or acute, blunt or sharp, coarse or fine? How does this good feeling or bad feeling enable or prevent me from posting in whatever manner I post?

One needs a reasonable degree of self-esteem whether one has it or not. — Bitter Crank

I disagree. Why does one need it? For what? Can one not tend the garden or wash the dishes without?

This thread is about discussing the idea that "the unintelligible is not necessarily unintelligent" and what consequences this idea has for philosophy. — Agustino

How would one know? Stanslaw Lem explores the idea of unintelligible intelligence in Solaris, but apart from engendering a certain humility, I don't see how the unintelligible can have any intelligible consequences.

Yeah, but apart from mathematics, and laying the foundation for science, and setting out the foundations of knowledge, what did Descartes ever do for us?

As you may have noticed I have a disregard for the concept of 'self-esteem' and personally think it is a fictional concept that originates from some sociological/normative/cultural type of reasoning, which needs deflating. — Question

Yes, I think we agree. All I mean by 'true', is that there is presumably a fact of the matter. Perhaps I am, as it happens, more clever than average, or kinder than most, or whatever. Not that there is any necessity for me to esteem that.

And there is a bit of a secret here; I only need high self-esteem if I have low self-esteem. I convince myself of my potency because I feel impotent. Hey, have you read any Alice Miller? She goes into the origins and problems of grandiosity (the left hand of depression) quite well.