I believe that all people should have the privilege of watching me urinate, and to at least hear me defecate, if they wish to do so. — Ciceronianus the White

That is alright - but they shouldn't be forced to do this. If you want, invite them in your home, make them pay an entrance fee, and let the show begin! ;)

Let's just have restrooms, as you guys call them, unmarked by gender, and let there be someone keeping an eye on them at all times, a restroom-concierge. — mcdoodle

Right - that's where our money needs to go.

Let's not separate the 'we' who decide the important things from the 'lgbt', or any other group of people we want to name who are different from 'us'. — mcdoodle

I think LGBT have separated themselves from everyone else by calling themselves LGBT and organising themselves in groups. Raising the dust and then crying that they cannot see is an all too common progressive strategy :D

Are you against 4th of july parades in patriotic communities? St pats parades in irish neighborhoods? — csalisbury

I am against the spread of hypersexualisation, be this gay movements, anti-slut shaming movements, etc. Patriotism is spreading a value - love and respect of one's country and ancestors. That is important. Not shaming sluts? Give me a break - they shouldn't be sluts if they care so much what others think of them. On another note, one's sexual orientation is a private NOT public affair, unlike patriotism.

The "solution" is simple. Keep restrooms the way they have been because there isn't a problem to begin with. Only the idiotic progressive Obama administration identifies this as a problem and makes a big fuss out of it because it's aim is to slowly push and enforce the progressive agenda over America.

Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium: Hume's Pathology of Philosophy - Donald Livingston

Very powerful book, take a look people!

Yes and I think K is better than the Nietzsche tbh, but Nietzsche is quite good, so yes I do recommend TSZ :p . The thing is, Spinoza's philosophy MASKS and HIDES and CONCEALS what is most important. It attempts to account for everything, and it does, except that it never accounts for that which claims to account for everything (itself). This is obscured, and an illusion of all-comprehensiveness ensues. What accounts for his philosophy? Experience. But since our cognitive abilities are always partial and incomplete representations of reality (which always outruns the possibility of our experience), no philosophy as such can be complete. Thus, Spinoza also offers, after Plato, just another myth. Spinoza's philosophy does not reach this degree of self-awareness; it is not self-reflective (the way Wittgenstein is self-reflective in the Tractatus - at least the guy knows he's talking nonsense :D), and thus the reader risks being misled into a false sense of knowledge that is severed from its necessary experiential roots which gave birth to it in the first place. To truly understand Spinoza, one must retrace his steps by himself, and the moment Spinoza is used without understanding the origins of his symbols within your own experience, without appropriating him, he has been misunderstood. And so Spinoza fails at that Socratic mission of teaching virtue - of being a midwife - he HAS virtue, no doubt, but he can't teach it or share it, which ultimately reflects in Spinoza's relatively isolated life as an outcast - he didn't convince anyone, because reason alone is not sufficient to generate conviction - the will must also be moved.

What attracts me is the fact that I not only agree with him, but feel as if I always have. You dig? — Pneumenon

He is an interesting philosopher, who certainly got a lot right. His writings on virtue are some of the best, and I have committed to memory some of his passages, especially from Book V of the Ethics. However, I think Spinoza paints a correct but incomplete picture; his philosophy is not critical - aware of its own limitations. The problem with his philosophy is that it doesn't provide a living answer - it's not sufficient to get someone to become virtuous - it does not teach virtue in and by itself. It cannot play that role - perhaps no work of philosophy can though, although artistic works, like Nietzsche's Zarathustra, Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, etc. do make it more likely.

I am interested in going deep into his work. — Pneumenon

Why? What attracts you to him?

Historical Philosophers:
Hegel (largely in agreement /w Spinoza)
Schopenhauer (largely in agreement)
Nietzsche (in both agreement and disagreement - sometimes N loved S, sometimes he hated him)
Miguel de Unamuno (very critical) - best shown in Tragic Sense of Life, where he throws stone after stone at Spinoza... not that I agree with the criticism.
Gilles Deleuze - Spinoza: Practical Philosophy and/or Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (you should be able to find pdfs of these online - I liked them and found them interesting interpretations!)
Not much DIRECT criticism of Spinoza though - at least not as a philosopher. Certain strands of Aristotelianism would have philosophical criticism of SOME of Spinoza's doctrines though, as would many forms of skeptical philosophy (ex. Humeans). There's a lot of indirect criticism. If you're interested let me know and I'll point to a few authors.

I've liked a lot:
Edwin Curley - Behind the Geometrical Method
Stuart Hampshire - Spinoza and Spinozism - is probably one of the best secondary works.
Steven Nadler - Spinoza's Heresy - also good.
Giuliani Bruno - Le bonheur avec Spinoza (if you manage to find a translation or can read French)
Also - I may add here Edwin Curley's A Spinoza Reader - contains the Ethics + a selection of Spinoza's correspondence.

I've also read the following but didn't like as much:
Rebecca Goldstein - Betraying Spinoza
Michael LeBuffe - From Bondage to Freedom: Spinoza on Human Excellence
Michael Della Rocca - Spinoza
Antonio Negri - Spinoza for Our Time

If Sanders was more precise, he'd call himself a progressive -- not a socialist. — Bitter Crank

I agree, and the socialism you talk about isn't necessarily something I disagree with :) I would like to see banks nationalized, etc.

So, George Bush I, George Soros, and your latest nymphet pop phenom are "Establishment" while distinguished, thoughtful, erudite people like thee and me are not. — Bitter Crank

Agreed.

It seems to me that "The Establishment" (whatever that is) rides on top of "the current status quo, and over-riding culture." Everybody -- even the most outré people you see (or not) contribute to the "over-riding culture" -- even me and thee. Everybody isn't part of The Establishment. — Bitter Crank

The Establishment also promotes a certain particular culture - that's the culture I identify with the Establishment. I also don't think the Establishment necessarily is bad, the current one though, I have to say, is. For two reasons: exploitation of the poor (rampant and cut-throat capitalism) and moral laxity. If you go too far left and too far right you run into problems.

Donald J. Trump is non-establishment as he opposes some of the cultural trends that have dominated the Western world in the last 50 years. He is the only non-establishment character from those you mentioned. Paradoxically, Bernie Sanders is MOST establishment, because he wants to extend those cultural trends which currently exist even more radically. His supporters are also generally the radical progressives who would go naked in the street to protest, disturb public order, scream and shout their opinions without listening to anyone, and follow other Alinsky tactics.

Koch, justice Roberts, etc. although not left-wing still do not oppose any significant elements from the modern cultural sphere of the US. They do not oppose political correctness, but sustain and support it.

What is The Establishment? — Bitter Crank

The current status quo, and over-riding culture.

Do you love or hate the establishment? (Applicable in every country in which TPF is available) — Bitter Crank

I dislike the establishment, as in some ways (though not in every way, there are some good things that have been done) they have harmed our societies greatly and have lead, knowingly or unknowingly, to a collapse in morality (which will be followed by social collapse in the future if this is not reversed).

However, one can only be morally obliged to act in some way if that person can actually act in that way (ought implies can) so it seems to follow that whatever is of moral value must be shared by all possible persons. — Dan

It is of moral value for me to take care of my physical health because I can do it. Someone bed-ridden who can't do anything about it - for them it's still a moral value, just that they can't strive to fulfil it in anyway. There is no question of obligation though. Just the way someone ought to strive to act in. If their striving potential constitutes a mathematical zero, then that's everything they can do about it. So no ought does not imply can in the sense you have put it.

I don't remotely agree in the case of the ghost. It may well be the case that the ghost exists. — Dan

Notice that I didn't say that you just haven't percieved the ghost. I said IN PRINCIPLE you could never percieve it, no matter what happened. This is alike you and the ghost being two different substances, which can never interact with each other, even in principle. This is incoherent.

As for how we form the idea of the external world, that is either a very hard question or a very silly one. I am going to assume you mean this in the difficult way, in which case I think my answer is probably "I don't know, but I certainly do have an idea of an external world" it seems completely coherent to talk about an external world, even if we have no direct access to it. — Dan

Exactly, you don't know, but without knowing the genealogy of the concept, how can you go about using it without falling into error? If I know what I have abstracted from in order to form the concept, then I also know how to use the abstraction - what it means.

We can imagine all sorts of aliens that don't share out desires to, for example, grow, or expand their agency or even survive (though that one looks like it might require a bit more mental gymnastics) so these cannot be shared by all possible free, rational agents. — Dan

No we cannot imagine that. Not in any sense of the word imagine - to picture clearly and distinctly in an image what it would be like. Why not? Because no living beings can exist which don't strive for expanding agency and survival - no such beings are possible in a world like ours (because of a few things, amongst which the inevitability of the process of evolution is one). We can imagine it the same way we imagine a square circle - just in words.

So yes, I really am talking about all possible persons, including any imaginable alien. — Dan

I don't mind. Even if you're talking of all possible persons, my points still hold, because all possible persons share in those desires I mentioned. It's simply part of what it means to be a person in this world.

Is Hookers-4-Gimps a social obligation? Should they receive tax money? — Pneumenon

Nope.

It is not only humans that are morally relevant. Any kind of person, be they human or not, surely matters just as much. It is not our humanity that makes us matter, it is our personhood. — Dan

What's the use of this abstraction? Even a non-human rational animal of the same kind humans are would be characterised by much more than their freedom. Perhaps I phrased my sentence in a limited way (non-human person does not make sense to me though - we don't know of aliens, etc), I should have said every rational animal.

What do you mean "reach beyond"? If you mean find out if our perceptions are actually reliable and actually represent the external world, then they can't. — Dan

Where do you get this idea of there being an external world from?

We are doomed to forever experience only our perceptions, and never the reality beyond them. — Dan

Indeed. So how can we speak of an external world? Through what do we gain access to this external world? How do we even form the idea?

I suppose what I am getting at here is that there is a difference between something objectively existing and/or being true, and whether we can know it to be true and, further, whether we can know it to be true in a way you would consider "objective". — Dan

No the difference collapses on itself. If I tell you there is a certain ghost in your house, but regardless of what you do, or what happens, you can never experience it or percieve anything from it in anyway, in what sense does the ghost exist? Sure, according to you, it objectively exists, even though it's impossible to ever percieve it. But that makes no sense, because existence is one, and thus existence is inter-related qua existence. Substance dualism does NOT make sense, as Spinoza for example proved. And for this reason nothing can exist detached from everything else - in a way that something else that exists cannot interact with it in anyway.

It should have priority because if morality is the way in which persons ought to be or act, then it must be able to apply to all potential persons, not just humans. And I suspect these other human potentialities (assuming you mean any of the things virtue ethicists generally care about) you are talking about are not necessarily shared by other possible persons. — Dan

Yes, they will necessarily be. For example, the desire for expanding agency, growth and survival will necessarily be shared by other possible persons.

I would say you ought to be free to make your own choices. — Dan

That is on one level because freedom itself is a value. On another level, there is a right and wrong choice regardless of the actual choice that I make, if you believe in objective morality as you claim you do (and I believe in objective morality as well, btw).

The wrong comes in the violation of their ability to make and understand choices — Dan

Yes this is a wrong. But one among many wrongs, certainly not the central or most important one. To illustrate. I may decide to be a hooker, and if someone stops me from acting on my decision by force they will do a wrong. I grant you that. But I also insist that if I do decide to be a hooker, I will commit a wrong, and I will use my freedom in a way that degrades my dignity and potential.

As for how I establish this is the case, it goes back to freedom (by which I mean the ability to make and understand one's choices) being the best candidate for moral value. — Dan

It's one moral value, I grant you that. How do you establish it's the only one?

Which goes back to my assumption that morality is the way in which persons ought to be or act. — Dan

If this is your assumption then you are contradicting yourself. The way persons ought to be or act is different than the way they do (or choose) to act - hence it's different than mere freedom. Your proposed morality is just terribly incomplete, otherwise there is nothing wrong with it.

What prevents the poor black, the poor white, the poor African, Asian, and South American immigrant, the poor illegal alien, the poor Aboriginal American, from becoming a "success in his own eyes and the eyes of his fellows", is access to wealth, real opportunity, real avenues to pursue advancement.

Poverty keeps the oppressed oppressed -- not racism. — Bitter Crank

I am in large agreement with your whole post.

Are you sure you aren't considering human nature, rather than the nature of personhood? — Dan

I am considering human nature, personhood is just part of human nature.

No, the fact that we cannot directly perceive something does not mean it does not make sense to say that it exists. — Dan

Red herring and strawmanning. I never said we have to directly perceive it to say it exists.

When we discuss whether we should believe our perceptions of the external world resemble the actual outside world even though we only have direct experience of the veil of perception, this is a sensible discussion. — Dan

Okay, so based on what information do we discuss this, if all that we have access to are our perceptions? Where does our concept of external world come from? From our perceptions no? So if it comes from perceptions, how can this concept be used to reach beyond the perceptions themselves?

Further, the cogito is not subjective truth. — Dan

You're equivocating on subjective truth and not adopting the same understanding of it as I put forward.

It is an objective truth, albeit one discovered through personal experience. — Dan

Again what do you mean by objective? Do you mean that it is true independent of what we think of it? I agree. But still, we access this objective truth through our own experience, and hence, it is first and foremost, before it is objective, subjective. You fail to realise what subjective means. It doesn't mean it's up to whatever you think. It means it's up to whatever you percieve, and since you can't percieve any different in this case, it is objective.

I am not claiming a necessary link. I am saying that the freedom over persons to make their own choices seems the best candidate for moral value we have. — Dan

This is unjustified. Freedom is just one of the many human potentialities. Why should it have priority?

I would not say that if you own yourself you CAN do whatever you want. For example it might be the case you are bound and gagged and locked in a small room. Then you cannot exercise your freedom, though you still own yourself. I would say that you are morally permitted to harm yourself. — Dan

Okay you're not disagreeing with me there. It still does not follow that you OUGHT to do whatever you want, and you haven't proven that you OUGHT to do whatever you want.

but that nature is the ability to understand and make choices. — Dan

It's much more than just this.

Even with no one around to perceive it, the world just keeps on existing. — Dan

It does not make sense to say something exists without even the possibility of it being perceived. What sense would it have for me to say aliens exist, and then add that whatsoever you do, however your technology improves, etc. you can never perceive them. In what sense then do they exist? Something exists only if it can, in principle, be perceived. The concept of objective world, the concept of existence, all those concepts which you use in saying "the world keeps on existing" are born out of your subjectivity; out of your subjectivity you encounter the impressions which lead you to know these concepts. So your objectivity is either a form of subjectivity, or it is NOTHING - at least nothing that can be positively known.

Please note I am not saying objectivity doesn't exist. But just that subjectivity can be much more powerful than you allow it to be.

So I would say no, self-harm is not immoral as every person owns themself to do with what they will — Dan

According to you it follows that if you own yourself you have a moral right to do whatsoever you want with yourself. I disagree, and you have not yet proven a necessary link between the two statements. In fact, quite the contrary - if that which you do harms or frustrates your nature, then your actions are immoral in-so-far as your actions harm you. What you really mean to say is that if you own yourself you CAN do whatsoever you want with you. But from this factual statement it does not follow that you OUGHT to do whatsoever you want. You are confusing facts with morality.

I am interested in the true philosophy, but everyone thinks the philosophical theories they believe in are true, that's why they believe in them. Claiming to have a true moral theory (though I think it is) wouldn't be any kind of claim at all. — Dan

And claiming to have a "new" theory is just uninteresting. Newness has no value in philosophy - it's truth that is of value.

As for objectivity. I think you're just wrong. To go back to basics, when we go through the reasoning of Descartes to find that we most definitely do exist, this is objectively true. — Dan

You ignore the process of coming to know what you call objective. You are not born knowing what objective refers to - you are not born with knowledge of such a concept. The real question is how is it possible at all to acquire the concept of objective, when all that you have to start with is your subjectivity - your impressions - with Kant, you never have access to the noumenon as such, or with Schopenhauer, you only have access to it THROUGH your subjectivity? Descartes' cogito is a purely subjective truth - no one but you can be aware of your existence with certainty in Descartes' thought experiment. It becomes an objective truth because of the impossibility of its denial - its necessary truth. Likewise, you are not born knowing that in Euclidean space in a right triangle a^2+b^2 = c^2; you come to know that this is objective, with absolute certainty. How is it possible to attain certainty when all that you have is your subjectivity? When you will answer that question, you will realise that objectivity is a form of subjectivity.

2 + 2 = 4 is, if true (and I'm pretty confidant that it is), objectively true — Dan

Not IF true; there is no if. It is true. The only interesting question is the Kantian one - how is it possible to know that it is true, if all you have is your subjectivity? What is it that guarantees its truth?

You could say that it is subjective in the sense that we might understand the term "2" to refer to something else, but that is rather missing the point. It isn't that those words have an objective meaning, it is that concept they are presently describing is objectively the case. — Dan

This is kindergarten arguments, sophistry.

I would say that it is completely morally permissible to be a luxury escort, or a poorly paid escort for that matter. I would say so long as they are not hurting anyone else (which in this context can be understood as violating anyone else's freedom), then people can pretty much do what they want. — Dan

Exactly - so you fall in the same trap as the moderns do, and believe that so long no one else's freedom is violated, everything is morally permissible. That is absolute nonsense, and it is a betrayal of the way morality has been understood for most of history. Gluttony is immoral, even though it impinges on no one else's freedom directly. Why? Because it harms the perpetuator first and foremost. Self-harm, just like other-harm is immoral. Freedom - in the sense you understand it - doing whatever you want - is not a value, it's not even a virtue. That is why you fail to realise that someone who objectifies their person, and sells their body in exchange for money is doing a harm to themselves first and foremost - its losing their human dignity. Now how do we identify what harm is? How did you come to know that violating someone's freedom is a harm? We identify harm by inquiring into the nature of people, and seeing what frustrates this nature. That's why ultimately it will collapse into a virtue ethics - a striving towards the fulfilment of one's nature, with harm being identified as what is contrary to that nature.

How quaint that today people are interested in the "new" instead of the "true" in philosophy... :(

moral realism is correct, that an objective, universal morality exists, then there is a way in which persons ought to be or act. — Dan

The dichotomy objective/subjective doesn't truly hold water. Everything is subjective, even objectivity itself, because the meaning of objective is formed and known only via subjectivity. Hence that which we call objective, is really just a special type of subjectivity which is shared in by others. This is a very very important distinction. It means that for example, no one can be called objectively happy if a series of criteria is met but they do not feel happy. It also means that someone can't be called happy if they merely feel happy but do not meet the "objective" conditions of happiness.

Then I argue that based on this assumption, our best candidate for moral value is the ability of persons to make their own choices, which I call freedom. — Dan

Right. So a woman who makes her own choice to be a luxury escort is according to you acting morally? Or is this kind of question simply not a moral one in your vision?

Aristotle has never given me 'the fire.' What I get out of Plato I mostly get from the extent to which he is trying to portray Socrates, who from this imperfect reflection seems like by far the more compelling thinker. To the extent that Plato departs form the 'historical' Socrates, he becomes less interesting.

Overall I would say I hold the Socratic tradition and the 'ethical turn' in the highest regard, and that this is distinct from the not so great directions that Plato and Aristotle took him in. I see the Hellenistic philosophers as the heirs to this more interesting tradition, which is sort of 'ethicist' rather than empiricist or rationalist. — The Great Whatever

I would largely agree to this. Socrates in my opinion is superior, as a human being, compared to Plato and Aristotle.

More like ideas (meaning) are so regardless of perception (and existing states) and they do not exist. Plato's forms - that which is like existing things but never them- are sort of an allusion to this, only he mistakes them as a foundation for existing things when they are just infinite meanings. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I am not convinced of the truth of idealism, but Schopenhauer's logic seems quite good. We come to know of the world through perception. Indeed it is through perception that we come to KNOW of the ideas of reality, existence, external world, etc. All our concepts are derived from perception. And so, you cannot speak of something that cannot be percieved even in principle (even cells can be percieved using microscopes! - electrons using beams of photons, etc.) as existing - because to exist is to be percieved. And hence, when you tell me that ideas don't exist - that is nonsense. If ideas don't exist, then nothing does either. So I agree that ideas are as they are regardless of our awareness of them, but I disagree that they do not exist. Plato's forms are in no way like existing things, the same way the idea of a circle, is in no way like a real circle - as Spinoza showed.

Your notion that ideas are the foundation of states of existence is basically a carbon copy of Plato's forms. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Nope, I don't believe this. Ideas are on a different, but ontologically prior level to actual states of existence. And if Idealism is true, then ideas are all that exists. If materialism is true, then ideas form the structure of our minds only, and all our experience is mediated and converted through these structures. The material worlds becomes Kant's noumenon, the one we can never know of. That's why Schopenhauer affirming the possibility of knowledge of the noumenon necessarily implied idealism, which I tend to think is the better explanation, but I may be wrong on this point. I am not at all certain of the truth of idealism.

You say there is an meaning, say triangle, from which all existing triangles are derived. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No I merely say that the existence of actual triangles, perceptible triangles, requires the existence of the imperceptible idea of triangles. Even this is far-fetched. It's much better to say that the existence of spatial objects requires the imperceptible existence of the idea of space.

When you recognise a chair, your mind has not done individuating form a larger set of impressions. — TheWillowOfDarkness

False. To recognize a chair, I need to separate it from the rest of the environment, which is also in my visual field. What performs this separation? Why don't I just see a mess of colors, with no logic behind them?

Something "making it possible" is incoherent. You seeing the chair was merely possible by definition (you might look at a chair and have the idea of chair) and it happened (you had the idea of chair while looking at a chair). — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes it is. Certain structures are required for perception to be at all possible, as Kant clearly and irrefutably (by the way) demonstrated. This is one of the things he got right, and I do disagree with Kant on quite a few points. But not this insight.

If you have it both ways, then you'd be equivocating, since you'd be calling some mental function involved in the production of an idea an "idea", in addition to the idea itself. So the idea would be produced by the idea, which is a needlessly muddled way of speaking. — Sapientia

Not at all. Awareness of an idea does not mean production of an idea. An idea can and does exist prior to your awareness of it. The idea of a chair is what makes it possible for you to experience the sight of a chair. But then, contra Hume, the sight of the chair does not PRODUCE the idea - rather the sight of the chair is required for you to come to KNOW that you have such and such an idea. Point is that the idea makes the experience possible, and the experience makes you aware of the existence of the idea. Similarly, light makes sight possible (no light, no sight), but sight makes one aware of the existence of light (no sight does NOT mean no light exists - only that one can't be aware of its existence). So just like light comes prior to sight (as it is its ground of possibility), but is nevertheless necessarily known only through sight, so too the idea comes prior to experience (ontologically), but it is known only through experience.

Also, I don't really get what you're going on about. — Sapientia

Clearly :D

You seem to contradict yourself when you say that impressions are "always-already" structured by the mind, so the idea isn't derived from the perception, and then that we have an ability which structures perceptions to form ideas. — Sapientia

Impressions are structured by the mind through the ideas. We become aware of ideas through perception. Ideas exist prior to perception, even if we may be unaware of their existence - they are what make perception possible in the first place.

How can they be "always-already" structured, yet require structuring? — Sapientia

They are always-already structured because all experience is mediated through the ideas - there can be no experience otherwise.

We derive the idea of a gold mountain from the necessary simple impressions, such as that of gold, and these are in turn a result of having had a certain perception (or perceptions); — Sapientia

You cannot have the impressions without the idea.

The mind doesn't contain the idea of objects in it a priori, nor is that necessary to perceive objects. — Sapientia

Explain. How can I see a chair if my mind does not individuate a smaller set of impressions from the much larger set of impressions currently available - thus making possible the experience of a chair as opposed to the experience of "patches of color"? And how can it individuate it except through the idea?

I didn't say that Hume's theory of perception - more specifically, The Copy Principle - is without shortcomings, but rather that it's more convincing than Plato's theory of Forms. — Sapientia

What Hume's CP misses is that impressions are always-already structured by the mind, and hence there is no deriving of the idea of the chair by seeing a chair, simply because in order to see a chair, one must already have the idea (that which, in the mind, structures the perception to be a perception of a chair, as opposed to some nonsensical perception of a "blur").

Does it in some way that has escaped me imply that there are independent Forms of which objects in the real world are derived? — Sapientia

If the perception of objects requires the mind to have a structure/faculty which already contains the idea of objects in it a priori, then it follows that the idea is ontologically prior to the object, empirically speaking, for there simply cannot be an object without the idea of it - and so it is not Plato and/or Aristotle that got it backwards ;)

There are, for instance, a minority of people who do not desire expansion of their potentials. They are complete, done. This is not altogether unusual in the elderly, but it's a tragedy when it occurs in younger people. — Bitter Crank

Completion is achieved only sub specie aeternitatis, never sub specie durationis, hence one can never be done. There never exists a point in life when you are done, because every single moment is a moment when you are manifesting your potentialities. And that includes old people. However, many old people have come to the wisdom that one does not have to actualise all their potentials right this instant to be content and happy - an illusion of which I've spoken before and with which many young people are drunk.

My siblings do not each have the same potentials. — Bitter Crank

Largely we all have the same potentials. Sure, you may not actualise your physical potential by playing golf, the way I do. But we both have the potential for physical activity, unless one of us is in a wheelchair. We all have the potential for understanding of the world, unless we are mentally impaired for one reason or another. We all have the potential for intimacy with ourselves and with others. And so forth. These potentials are universal, the means for actualising them are not necessarily the same for all men.

What is happiness for me, for my siblings, for my neighbors, for anyone, will not be the same, and won't be the same all the time for a given individual. — Bitter Crank

I argue that it is the same, precisely because, you are all human beings, and as human beings you share in some objective potentials, such as the potential for friendship, the potential to love and be loved, the potential to understand, etc. These are not universal in the sense that absolutely all human beings share all of them - no. But they are universal in the sense that no human being can exist without having at least a large share of them. You can be born physically handicaped for example, in which case you may not have physical potentials that other human beings have. Nevertheless, you are still a human being, as you do have the potential to love and be loved, the potential for friendship, etc.

For instance, the death of a spouse is a grievous event, but in time may open up new horizons for the survivor. How someone will complete grieving and move on, develop new habits and interests, find new things to do, new ways to live, is difficult to predict without knowing a lot about that individual. And even then... I have no idea what my 77 year old widowed sister will do, or what will make her happy at this stage in her life. She is only gradually coming to see options that haven't existed for decades (dairy farming screws you tightly to the milking schedule, year in, year out). — Bitter Crank

Indeed, but finding new ways of fulfilling these same potentials which exist does not mean that the potentials have changed.

BUT, critical reservation, there are definite limits to what one can know about what is good, bad, and indifferent for other people. — Bitter Crank

Yes, but these reservations do not extend to the basic potentials that all human beings share in. Neither does it lie in questioning contradictions between our actions and our objective potentials (as in the case of casual sex). These matters are clear, objective and unassailable.

For instance, someone may legitimately qualify for disability. Fine. Apply for benefits. However, for some people, disability status in itself becomes a second disability. Some people don't manage well without an imposed daily structure--something which a job can provide. In these instances, disability may not be advantageous. Oddly, the struggle and difficulty of work might be better for them. Might be better? Sure, but 'might be better' is not so certain that it entitles the social worker to scuttle their disability application. Our ability to know what is good for other people is limited. — Bitter Crank

"Might be better" is an empirical consideration which takes into account their own psychological limitations. Surely, someone, because of the way they grew up, etc. etc. may not be capable of perceiving and feeling love and affection (for example). This does not mean that love and affection cease to be objectively relevant to them - merely that they cannot percieve them as such - they are perceptually blind to it. The work with such a person involves causing a shift in perception in them - so that they can come to realise the objective truth. Not saying "ye ye, let's just try to get you to FEEL satisfied". That's what the greedy capitalist who is just superficially interested in people (and much more interested in their money) would say. In fact, it is precisely this sort of capitalist psychologist who uses the phrase what "might be better". It "might be better" in that circumstance for the person to focus on what he enjoys, instead of trying to develop his perception of love and affection, an effort which makes him unhappy. The real carer for the soul knows, largely, what is better, and strives for this - strives to decieve the person they are helping into the truth as it were; as Kierkegaard put it, strives to smuggle Christianity back in Christendom - strives to collapse the false assumptions of the person in question into the truth, while appearing to take on these assumptions.

You don't answer the question though. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Which question? Be clear. You haven't quoted any part of my post.

In your arguments you hardly ever talk about a living happiness (or otherwise). It's all distant potential someone supposedly reach bound-up in the heady rush of saying how perfect we'll all be. — TheWillowOfDarkness

A living happiness is fulfilment of your potentials. It is knowing who you are, understanding the world and your self. That is happiness, and it is the highest good of man.

It's in one's connection, interactions and sense of self worth with respect to their own works. Family, friends, building, honesty and expression of one's goals. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Agreed.

Bitter Crank can't say what he wants because the question is absurd — TheWillowOfDarkness

You just love speaking in the name of other people no? :P First Hanover, now Bitter Crank... we might need to get you into a practicing law firm, your talents would clearly be useful there ;)

One cannot reduce a life to a moment or happiness or celebration at getting a single moment where a desire is fulfilled. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree, neither did I ever think otherwise.

I can say I most certainly do not want your "perfection," "happiness" or "expanding potential." — TheWillowOfDarkness

Very strange. First you say that you don't even understand what my "perfection" "happiness" etc. are, and then you are dead sure you don't want to reach them...

Going of your proclamations I have no idea if this means having a joyful relationship my family — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes it does mean having a joyful relationship with your family among other things.

turning my sibling into a social pariah because them had sex with five people — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, it doesn't mean this, people need to be taken care of, not abused for making mistakes.

gleefully laughing at my mother's funeral becuase happiness is the constant for everyone. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, it doesn't mean this either. Mourning at your mother's funeral would be the right thing to do, but this does not mean that the element of happiness ceases to exist in the background. Even when I'm sad, paradoxically, I'm happy. Somewhere deep down happiness remains even through suffering; in fact, despite suffering and loss.

I will open it sometime today most likely. Need a bit more concentrated time than I have at the moment (in the meantime, if you want, you can open it, outline your position, and I will proceed to add my bit later :) - either way, I don't mind).

You did not [know]. — Bitter Crank

Well you have a right to think that and to disbelieve me if you want. When I claim I knew it, I meant to say the following. I have studied and thought about these matters for a long time. I know that my logic is not wrong, and hence the only possible point of my being wrong is on the premises. And the only reason to disagree on the premises MUST, almost a priori in this case, be of an epistemological nature - you will claim, after all other objections are shown to fail, and it is clear that given my premises my conclusion follows inescapably, as you in fact did, that I (or anyone else) cannot know that the intrinsic and inherent purposes of sex are reproduction and intimacy only - a premise that my conclusion requires. So yes, I have foreseen this objection, and I have answered it in my thinking long before you even brought it up. I'm not saying that it is impossible that you bring up something that I haven't thought about; I'm just saying that so far nothing of this sort was brought up. Again, if you are so inclined, feel free to doubt my honesty - I cannot do anything but tell you what I think. So that's why considerations of method (and epistemology) need to be discussed so that the way of reaching true premises can be determined. These discussions are much more relevant than just regarding the sex question, which is why I'm tempted to open a new thread. They are relevant because epistemological skepticism underlies almost the entirety of the modern (and esp. POMO) movements, with the majority of real problems faced by the modern age (not just regarding sexuality) stemming from there.

I'm pulled both ways by the idea that we can know what other people are thinking, feeling. On the one hand, this is trivially true. We can figure out what people want when they are displaying cues, or if we know them well. I know Jack wants more coffee right now because he's standing there with an empty cup. I know the dog wants what I'm eating because of the intense stare she has focused on my dish. — Bitter Crank

I agree.

On the other hand, I don't know what my parents thought of their lives, or what some of my elderly siblings want at this point in their lives. I don't know what, exactly, the unhappy custodian at church wants. I don't know exactly what I want for the remainder of my life . I want, but what? — Bitter Crank

Are you sure? Don't you know that your elderly siblings want to be happy? Don't you know that you yourself want to be happy for the rest of your life? Don't you know that you want to grow and expand the potentials that exist in your being? The only question that remains, again, is what ARE those potentials? What is happiness? What is your "self"? And are these things the same for you, as they are for your neighbour? (A question which I answer with "yes"). Because again - the only reason, as I told Sapientia before regarding Hume, that anyone could disagree with these matters IS epistemological skepticism - and this too serves to explain why most philosophers in history have agreed about the wrongness of casual sex (for example), while the moderns do not - the moderns (and POMO lovers too), at least a large share of them, are epistemologically skeptical, which allows them to ignore certain truths, labeling them as unknowable, subjective, or even false. But this view can be shown to be wrong - we can and do know these matters; I largely think that Aristotle sketched the correct view of happiness as explained by Aristotelian Mortimer J. Adler below:

If intimacy is the only goal, the ultimate goal, and the only good goal, then I suppose it is true that all other goals, or methods that are not intended to produce intimacy, will fail. — Bitter Crank

Intimacy and reproduction are the goals of sex in my theory, not necessarily of any other human activity. They are further not the only interests of a human being.

adventure, pleasure, variety, danger [for the risk seeker), community, and relaxation. — Bitter Crank

None of these are inherent to sex, that's the problem with your position. For this reason they cannot function as inherent purposes and goals of the activity. Reproduction is something that only sex, or sex-related activities can fulfill. Intimacy of this kind is again something that only sex, or sex-related activities can fulfill. That is the reason why I call them purposes or goals of sex.

The desires for adventure, pleasure, variety, danger, community, relaxation etc. while perfectly human cannot be anything but accidental in sex. For this reason, having sex based on such motivations (as if they were primary, inherent motivations for the activity) is a misuse of one's sexual potential - it would be like eating something but gaining no nutritional value from having eaten it - it defeats the inherent purposes of the activity, EVEN IF other accidental desires are fulfilled (such as it tastes good). Luckily for eating this is hardly possible - as most things that one can eat do have SOME nutritional value. Posions make an exception, as well for example chewing a piece of lasagna, and then spitting it out instead of swallowing it (which would be a highly immoral abomination btw).

Intimate, cozy, secure relationships are nice. But.. they are are NOT the only nice around. Further, when they fall apart (and they often do fall apart despite the best intentions of everyone concerned) the failure is generally far worse than the failure of a casual relationship. — Bitter Crank

Again, fear of intimacy. I am familiar with this, I too know the fear. But just because something may fail is not a reason not to pursue it. Just because it is logically possible you may fail to attain a good is not to say that you should not pursue it.

Evaluations of other people's lives need to rest on something more substantial than dogma. — Bitter Crank

Why do you think my theory is dogma? It's only dogma if you maintain that we cannot know the purposes of sex, and further, that it is ethical to use other people as means to an end.

You do not know whether "a life lived in that manner ends up harming the one who lives it more than benefitting them". — Bitter Crank

If my premises are correct, then I do know that. And so I must take it that you disagree with my premises, and your objections are fundamentally of an epistemological nature, in which case the real question that we should be talking about is how do we come to hold true premises?

I can say, for myself, that the pursuit of casual sexual relationships has been beneficial to me. — Bitter Crank

And I may agree, but I would venture to say that they have been beneficial only negatively - they freed your mind of something, or, accidentally because of it, you met someone, etc. On the other hand, I would suggest that there have been ways you have been harmed by it as well. Whether the harms outweigh the benefits or not to you personally, I cannot say.

The all can (and are) given human value and meaning. There is no such thing as meaningless sex. — Bitter Crank

If we take meaningful to mean fulfilling the inherent purposes of the activity, then no, some of the activities you mentioned are not meaningful.

Your problem is epistemological: You can not know what people really want, (especially if people themselves don't know). — Bitter Crank

I knew you'd say this sooner or later. I'll have to get back to you on this later, perhaps I'll open another thread. You assert I cannot know what others want. I say that I can and do know, in some cases better than they themselves know, and in other cases worse, what they want. My point will be that we CAN know, even if this is difficult and arduous.

There isn't any theory that can predict what sort of sexual experience will fulfill any given individual. — Bitter Crank

Depends what you mean by fulfil. If you mean just subjective fulfillment, then I agree with you. But if you refer to objective fulfilment, then I disagree, because clearly if the purposes of the activity are met and the person experiences a subjective sense of fulfillment that is visible in the world, one can safely say that the sexual experience has objectively fulfilled the individual.

Your misunderstanding motivations and expressions of sex is a good example in this thread. You acted like casual sex was purley about feeling sexual pleasure, as if it could be replaced with masturbation if people only understood what they really wanted.

Yet, the need for another was there or along. Casual sex, even in it most crass an exploitative form, involves a need for someone else, something masturbation cannot fulfill. You spend paragraph supposedly giving us grand insight to the motivation of casual sex, but you utterly miss a basic point about its motivation. — TheWillowOfDarkness

What does this say Willow?

1. A misguided pursuit of intimacy can be one such reason - often masking a fear of commitment, and a fear of intimacy - the person seeking sexual gratification is nevertheless motivated by intimacy; however they are afraid of what it may entail, so they do not want to jump in - they want just a small sip of it instead. If the being in question is a stranger, this is perceived as a less risky situation, so the stranger is preferred to the friend. — Agustino

:-d Again, I simply don't know what you Willow are reading, because you clearly are not reading what I wrote. The need for intimacy IS the need for another. What I've argued is that casual sex ultimately ends up NOT fulfilling this need (but rather frustrates it), and so, one is better off without.

Your "theoretical framework" which supposely gives us the grand insight into humainity, which "explains" us, is pointless. If you are describing sex and its motivations, you are talking about what people do. There is nothing to fit into the world of human sexual behaviour. It's only a matter of describing people and their behaviour themselves. — TheWillowOfDarkness

My theoretical framework shows how their motivations end up being contradictory and self-defeating through these behaviors that have been illustrated, which leads to their (as well as others') suffering. Thus, my theoretical framework gives the knowledge and understanding required to live more intelligently.

Hanover's point is you use your arguments to proclaim just how much better and wiser than everybody else, a gigantic stroking of you own ego and its love of being superior to everyone else. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Let Hanover speak for Hanover please. On a secondary note, I do not stroke my ego in this manner. There is no joy in being "better" than others. The joy is in the virtue itself. I simply want others to share in this joy as well, so that is why I share my understanding with them. The more people share in understanding of the truth, the better it is for everyone.

It may be people like Hanover, or perhaps even like yourself, who do think I want to feel better than others by showing how bad they are, etc. It's your right to think that, but I am convinced that you are wrong about my motivation when it comes to that, as I've explained above.

Rather than egaging with people as they live, you ignore them, belittle them, misunderstand their motivations and values, all because you are caught up in listing all the thoughts and experiences which have saved you from the lowely life of the rest of us philosophical plebs. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, quite the contrary, I don't ignore it as I have noted that some people live that way. I have acknowledged that many are motivated by something that is, in itself, good, intimacy, but, through their method of seeking and achieving it, they are bound to always fail and come short. I have merely shown that such a life, lived in that manner, ends up harming the one who lives it more than benefiting them - ultimately it betrays their own REAL self - their own REAL good. I have further shown that many do not even know what they are seeking - they are merely fumbling through the dark.

I stand by my prior observations. — Hanover

Yes you can stand by whatever you want, fact of the matter is that you proved nothing, and your post lacks any philosophic or scientific content, quite ironically. Even your so called "observations" are mere prejudice, and are embarrassing for someone to put on a philosophy forum, especially after I have shown how wrong they are. You have engaged with nothing from what I wrote or expressed. Really Hanover, this is shameful. Shame on you.

The problem with everything (well, maybe 99%) of what you say in this thread is thatit's not philosophy nor is it any sort of scientific psychology. It's just your own particular sort of stupid way that you think life is best lived, proved to you through periodic revelations you have received throughout your oh so examined life. — Hanover

Asinus... how is an examination of the role of sex in life (and on man's psychology/well-being) not philosophy? Or do you always cry and point fingers at everything you disagree with and don't have any real criticism to make? :s If you have any SPECIFIC disagreements with what I say, please point them out and provide reasons for maintaining them. You just have to understand that pointing at something, stomping your feet, and crying that it's wrong doesn't belong on a philosophy forum - it belongs back in kindergarten.

And by the way - what I've said is PHILOSOPHIC, in-so-far as it 1. addresses a philosophical topic, and 2. is thorough and coherent in its analysis of the issues at hand, following largely lines that have been developed in philosophic tradition (talking about the purpose of sex, for example, is a reference to Aquinas (only that, unlike him, I don't take the purpose to be strictly reproduction), talking about the badness of the some of the motivations for sex is a reference to Kant amongst others - but of course you can't know any of this without doing any reading). And what I've said is SCIENTIFIC in that it paints a theoretical framework that is COMPATIBLE with what we know empirically about sex. I totally despise ignoramuses like yourself making some vague and general claims, with no backing, meaning just to make a silly rhetorical point and insult real thinking. That's just disgusting. If I disagree with you, I put an argument forth. Like I did here, to expose your nonsense. I don't just point fingers and cry and insult like a child.

Maybe, as has been mentioned, those that do things their own ways, are bold, test boundaries, rebel against convention and orthodoxy are the kinds of people that are going to shake things up, but I think the overwhelming majority of such people are actually never going to achieve anything noteworthy, and be considered assholes and lunatics. — Wosret

The overwhelming majority of genius will be oppressed by their societies. We live in a world which is continuously threatened by real genius...

1.) humans are hopelessly narcissistic — darthbarracuda

Not hopelessly. Even Becker leaves the Kierkegaardian alternative of the knight of faith.

2.) death is the ultimate threat to the ego — darthbarracuda

Yes.

3.) heroism is the ultimate triumph of the ego — darthbarracuda

In the way Becker understands it yes - I argue, as some have excellently done in this thread, namely @Bitter Crank that this is an incorrect understanding of real heroism.

4.) therefore, one of the prime motivators of human activity is that of heroism. — darthbarracuda

No, the prime motivator of human (selfish) activity is the denial of death, WHATEVER form that may take, including but not limited to heroism.

Napoleon — darthbarracuda

I quite like this guy.

He doesn't represent the triumph of the ego, though. It's rather more the opposite. He's an anti-hero, in that he does and says the opposite of what the Jews had expected of the Messiah, who had expected a great king like David; a strong man more or less in the mold of the men you mention in the parenthesis above. — Thorongil

(y) However, @Thorongil- unlike he is currently portrayed by religion, neither does Jesus represent humiliation. Rather he stands for dignity, courage, and faith - he ultimately triumphs, EVEN in the flesh according to the Biblical story.

Even in the case of Christianity, the "eternal life" longed for is of an utterly different kind from the character of life experienced now (that's why it's called a "New" Earth). The Christian does not wish merely to perpetuate one's ego and its desires into eternity, for this would be the wish to perpetuate one's sin and God-forsakeness into eternity. Rather, the goal is to empty oneself of self and in its place be filled with the Holy Spirit. — Thorongil

Indeed. The life to come is an entirely different life than this one, and can only be spoken of allegorically.

Did Becker declare that humans are hopelessly narcissistic, or is that your spin? — Bitter Crank

No, he didn't declare it in the context Darthy puts it in. Rather he meant to say that our denial of death is manifested via the constructs of the ego.

If Jesus wanted to be a hero, he would have taken Satan up on temptation offered in the desert. He would have accepted the offer of power and glory that Satan was offering. If Jesus had wanted to be a hero, he would not have deflected the disciples when they became overly enthusiastic about Jesus' power (like, he would say after a miracle, "tell no one about this"). Jesus wouldn't have said, "Why do you call me good? Only God is good." Finally, if he wanted to be a hero, he could have tried a little harder to avoid getting crucified. (Obviously God Incarnate didn't need to mess around with human heroism, since once he died he would resume his residence in heaven as the all powerful judge.) — Bitter Crank

Ok - BUT Jesus was a hero - because ultimately he refused Satan's offer, and STILL gained dominion over the Earth, and much more.

Also, am I identical to my ego? It sounds like a tautology, but there are lots of niggling philosophical doubts there. "Not that which says I, but that which is I." Or perhaps, "You are not what you think you are." Is your ego just a (faulty?) mental representation of yourself to yourself? Suddenly, Kierkegaard is knocking at the door. — Pneumenon

Yep. Becker is big on Kierkegaard. The knight of faith is his prototype of the ubermensch - the man who accepts the finitude of death without denial - and yet, absurdly has faith, despite the facts.

But the whole narrative of Jesus is meant to show the annihilation of the ego. If the ego is destroyed, what then is death? Nothing. The fear of death is contingent upon the perceived inability to perpetuate one's ego into the future. If one gives up the ego and trusts in God completely, death is no longer something to fear. — Thorongil

I am more nuanced than this. The self is not a self-causing substance - its cause lies outside of itself. For this reason, the man who truly loves himself, must necessarily love that which gave rise to him - the whole world in its entirety. The self simply is the product of the world, and it is sustained in being by the whole world. In fact, no self can be concieved otherwise, pace Spinoza.

Well, sure, if we're speaking about the instinctual fear of death, which has an evolutionary basis (carcasses carry disease, for example), then there's no getting rid of that. We are biologically determined to fear death. However, as you say, I still think one can utterly banish this fear from one's mind, such that however one's body may react, one cannot be internally disturbed. — Thorongil

I agree with you - nowadays I feel afraid in situations when I am put in immediate danger. But even this fear does not control me - somewhere underlying this there is a peace that is left undisturbed - somewhere deep inside I feel and know that I am eternal as Spinoza put it.

I'm talking about the empirical ego, that bundle of vain impulses, desires, fantasies, etc that people mistake for and cling to as their true selves (if indeed there is such a thing). The abolition of this ego, or at the very least its aggrandizement, is what Jesus is constantly imploring his followers to commit through both his words and his deeds. If someone strikes you on the cheek, turn and give him the other. If someone employs you to walk a mile, walk two miles, etc. Finally, Jesus conquers death not so much by physically dying (though he does do that and come back to life) but by showing us how to die to the world. This is why he says, "if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself [emphasis added] and take up his cross and follow me." He has defeated physical death, so one ought not be concerned with that. What we should really fear is not dying, in the sense of dying to the world. So again, it's completely the opposite of what you (or the author) suggested. — Thorongil

I agree, and I would add the speech of Socrates to the words of Jesus:

"You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions: whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man [...] death is something I couldn't care less about, but my whole concern is not to do anything unjust or impious [...] It is not difficult to avoid death, gentlemen; IT IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO AVOID WICKEDNESS, FOR IT RUNS FASTER THAN DEATH [...] But sure that if you kill the sort of man I say I am, you will not harm me more than yourselves [...] you are wrong if you believe that by killing people you will prevent anyone from reproaching you for not living in the right way [...] You too must be of good hope as regards death, gentlemen of the jury, and keep this one truth in mind, A GOOD MAN CANNOT BE HARMED EITHER IN LIFE OR IN DEATH" - Parts of Socrates defence speech in front of the court before he was executed in Athens

If Jesus' philosophy was so bent on the elimination of the ego, then why did his followers believe that he continued after death, that is ego continued? — darthbarracuda

It's not the ego that continued, but rather the individuality, the self. There is a difference there. The ego is the self that is unaware of itself - the self that percieves itself as a self-caused and self-sustaining substance. The self, on the other hand, is the ego rid of illusions - that which perceives itself as the EFFECT of the WORLD, which is its CAUSE and SUSTAINER - and therefore the world and God are closer to the self than the self itself is - they are its root cause.

There are several heroes in the Middle Earth Trilogy. To my way of thinking, heroes have to be mortals--their lives must be subject to loss. Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel are not mortal. Elves are not mortal. Hobbits, dwarves, and men are mortal. Only those three are potentially heroes.

Aragorn and Frodo are the two great heroes in LOTR, and of the two, Frodo is the greater hero. What elevates their heroism from minor to great is their struggles aim, duration, and intensity. Aragorn endured a lifetime of lonely hardship in service to Sauron's containment and defeat. Frodo, whose peril in relation to his potential gain, was the most disproportionate, had his role thrust upon him. He was "meant" to bear the ring into what might be everlasting suffering, and his fate didn't include a guarantee of success. Further, there was no great reward promised. Aragorn had the reward of marriage and rule of the united kingdoms if he succeeded.

There are numerous minor heroes: Arwen for one. Arwen did not serve in battle, but she surrendered immortality in order to marry the man she loved, Aragorn. (Take that, Edward VIII, you ain't got nothing on Arwen -- you abdicated your figurehead throne for a two-time loser, Wallace Simpson. It isn't like you saved England from the Huns, or something.)

Samwise, Merry, Pippin, Gimli, and Boromir are all minor heroes. Sam is in between great and minor hero. He shared Frodo's trials most intimately, and he had chosen to go with Frodo. Even though it wasn't his fate to complete the task, he helped Frodo all the way to the end. The remaining mortals all advanced the cause of the Ring bearer (even if Boromir caved in to temptation, he did recover his senses after he failed.) There are several characters from the Mark who are minor heroes, too. Not that they weren't brave, but the plot didn't give them the role of Great Hero.

All of the heroes feared death and had to resist the terrors of death nearby.

Can the LOTR be said to model heroism for human beings in the 20th or 21st century?

First, in Tolkien's view, heroism is not a flight from death, not a triumph of the ego. It's the triumph of sacrifice over ego, and the offer of death for victory. The military and the Church both look at heroism the same way: Military heroes and religious martyrs give up their lives (and not by blowing themselves up in a concert hall). Saints spend their lives devoted to the homeless, the hungry, the dying, the sorrowing, the imprisoned; they give up the comfortable lives they could have led. Soldiers get medals -- often posthumously -- for leading the charge against the enemy, or for selflessly covering a grenade with their body and dying, but saving their comrades.

As for the glory of heroism enduring beyond death, many people perform acts of heroism and are forgotten, or are never named because the witnesses are dead. The hero didn't first calculate, "Let's see, how many people are going to notice this magnanimous sacrifice on my part? It has to be at least 300, or it's just not worth it." Or, there is evidence of people saving others, even though their efforts would be lost to history, as far as they knew. (Nobody reported it, it was surmised from the evidence.) — Bitter Crank

EXCELLENT post! :D

This is what I call a rhetorical device, which is ultimately intellectually dishonest, but its function happens to be to move the will, not the intellect ;) . Good post!

Sexuality is one part of an embodied life, one of several elements which demand actualization. We've flogged sex long enough, for now. — Bitter Crank

Indeed. But I don't go to the extreme of promiscuity just because we have been abstinent and repressive in the past. I am not like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to another. I want to take a balanced position - neither extreme - just the truth.

Current thinking about disabled people is that they have a right live their lives as close to normal as possible. — Bitter Crank

Like all human beings, they too must be given the freedom required to fulfil their potentials.

Students with mobility limitations, for instance, should not be sorted and then isolated into classrooms of only mobility limited students; blind students should attend class with sighted individuals (with appropriate accommodations). — Bitter Crank

I always wondered if this is a good thing. I would imagine they must feel alienated to look around and see everyone being different. They would feel much more comfortable in a community of people sharing similar conditions that they are having. Why would you say this is not the case?

I could do this because it's "a procedure". It's not "having sex", or "making love". — Bitter Crank

This is exactly what it's wrong with it. It's a procedure, a duty. Not something done out of love.

I have a right to go to the airport and buy a ticket to Paris this afternoon--first class. I can't afford it, but I have the right to do it. — Bitter Crank

No you don't have a right to actually do it, you have a right to the possibility of doing that if you so desire to make use of it, and of course have the resources necessary to make use of it.

Disabled people have a right to sex -- if they can afford a $500 an hour out-call prostitute, and they can dial a phone, they're all set. If not, they'll have to make do with something less expensive. — Bitter Crank

They have a right to actualise their sexual potential (which again I maintain is objectively intimacy and/or reproduction) IF THEY SO DESIRE. They further have a right to use their sexuality as they wish (even misuse it so long as they are not directly harming others).

I disagree with you immensely on this point, and let me widen the area of disagreement — Bitter Crank

That is, I think, because you didn't understand what I am saying, and are instead reading me through the prism of other things you have read/heard. Let's see...

I maintain that actualization of potential is part of a normal life, and without such actualization we are consigned to a decidedly arid, barren existence (and it isn't something we choose, generally). — Bitter Crank

:-O I agree! "But... you contradict yourself" No, I actually don't. I said a normal life doesn't REQUIRE the actualisation of (I would add "some") potentials. Not that actualisation is not a part of normal life. It totally is - in fact I cannot imagine a normal life where one does not strive to actualise their potentials. But this may not be possible in some cases - where it is impossible - striving to actualise that specific potential is a mis-directed effort. The impossibility of actualising a potential, in itself, is not a harm to oneself - this is what I'm saying - it should not drive one to despair. What IS a harm is when the actualisation of potential is prevented by force - be that social force, or physical force. For example - it is no harm to me that I currently don't have a woman to be intimate with - not actualising this potential is of no harm. Why? Because I have simply not met such a person, and demanding that I did meet them when in fact I haven't is stupid (and wrong). Furthermore, looking to people who can't fulfill this role as if they could is also stupid and wrong. What would be a harm on the other hand is if I had, for example, found this person, and society, their family, my family, etc. prevented us from sharing our intimacy and love together by force - either social pressure, physical force, or any other kind of oppressive force.

99% of us are actively prevented from striving toward self-actualization because our lives are exploited (alienated labor) and actualization is repressed in the interests of tight social control and maintenance of supporting moral systems which devalue the lives of workers (who are, more or less, 99% of the population). — Bitter Crank

:-O I agree! I would add another thing which prevents us - lack of real intelligence, and this society's hatred for, and oppression towards intelligence. It is because of lack of intelligence that people go on and on slaving away for their corporate masters; lack of intelligence and lack of courage.

Your phrase rings in my ears and knots up my gut because this is EXACTLY the sentiments of the corporate world toward its workforce and towards it's necessary consuming population. "Never mind your potential personhood, just keep buying this crap." — Bitter Crank

It may be their sentiments, they're not mine. On the contrary, I have said that PREVENTING the actualisation of potential by force is WRONG and an EVIL - and this is exactly what the corporate world is doing. And I agree that what they are doing is wrong.

Being forcefully stopped from actualising your sexual capacity is wrong because it deprives you of your freedom and the potential that exists within your being. — Agustino

Living a normal life does not require actualising your potentials. It just requires that you HAVE those potentials (preferably), and that you COULD actualise them if you so decide. — Agustino

I do understand why you misread me though BC. I do understand, I think, what you are striving to achieve here (do correct me if I am wrong please). Your point really is that people can and DO get very hurt when societies prevent them from actualising their potentials (and I agree). Your further point is that one must actually actualise their potentials, necessarily, in order to be able to live fulfilling lives. This, i would guess, mirrors the road you have travelled. In order to get your sense of self-worth, I would venture to speculate, you had to break society's oppression - through different actions, including having sex, which did validate who you are. Perhaps (and most likely) you could have done no differently to free yourself. But this is because you were born in a crooked society, which has oppressed people who, for example, like you, have a different sexual orientation. They have used force to prevent you, which is indeed wrong. Mostly, I would imagine, social force was what was used. Their use of force to prevent you, has, naturally, driven you to despair, and to probably have strong negative feelings. As such, the path you took was the only path open to you at that point - the only path that could lead you to self-actualisation and freedom from those negative feelings.

I am saying however that we should focus on fixing society instead of promoting this path. I rather promote the high path - self-actualisation comes FIRST. I first am confident in who I am, and in my sense of self. Then I can think rightly about sex, not obsessively and compulsively. Sex will not be a reaction to my society, but rather something I freely choose. Then I will be open to understand the real meaning of sex - the meaning that is lost when sex is performed as a compulsion, as an ugly (but sometimes necessary) reaction to an oppressive society. In the end, the only thing that using sex to break the oppression of society does is that it leaves one equally lacking any meaning. Only that, their mind, is now no longer obsessed about sex and its meaning, so, paradoxically, for the first time they are free to assert who they are, without fear, and without compulsion.

Typical. My comments never get picked, but flawed comments like the one that you quoted do.

I suppose it does have a ring to it, if you think that that's more important than critical analysis...

But anyway, congratulations! Don't let me rain on your parade. :D — Sapientia

Wow we agree again :-O ... what is happening with this world? I do agree with the thrust of your point. Given her first initial post in this thread, it is blindingly obvious that Tiff has been biased in picking that reply out, and not an opposing point of view. Confirmation bias :p - which I would go as far as saying is disgusting when seen on a PHILOSOPHY forum, a place where the truth, and not personal preferences, are supposed to be the essence.

That's nonsense, since it fails to account for at least two very important factors: capacity and consequence. Firstly, if someone is not capable of living a normal life, then it makes no sense to say that they have the right to live a normal life. And secondly, if the cost of what it would take for someone to live a normal life outweighs the benefit, then they do not have such a right. Hence, with regards to the latter point, I'm against forcing people to have sex with those who are disabled in that regard as some sort of twisted notion of social assistance. — Sapientia

Indeed. Rights can only be things which it makes sense for a community to guarantee.

Sex is a normal biological function, meaning its pursuit and attainment is part of leading a normal life. Therefore, being deprived of this facet of life does constitute leading an abnormal life. Since every person has the right to a normal life, we all have a right to sex. — TheMadFool

This is a non-sequitur. Sex is a biological and psychological capacity of man (to call it normal - what do you even mean by that?). Being forcefully stopped from actualising your sexual capacity is wrong because it deprives you of your freedom and the potential that exists within your being. But this is not to say that you have a RIGHT to sex - no one has to guarantee that you actually actualise your sexual potential. What has to be guaranteed on the other hand is that you have the opportunity to actualise your sexual potential if you so desire. This means removing barriers which are oppressive towards people when it comes to the achievement of the goods of sex (reproduction and/or intimacy). Removing stigma from homosexuality for example - people must have the free choice to make whether they engage in homosexual sex or not - and they must be respected in their choice, even if others see the choice as morally wrong. The fact that we live in a society which still largely condemns gay people - thus forcing them to be promiscuous, etc. in pursuit of their sexual desires - THIS is what is wrong. That such people are isolated, that such people are left uncared for - that they are forced to resort to sex in order to come together with other people like themselves, or to validate themselves - this is what is wrong. Not only does it deprive them of their freedom, it also deprives them of their self-worth, and makes their self-worth depend on misusing their sexual potential, such that if they fail to get sex, their whole psychological well-being is destroyed (which is almost guaranteed to happen for many of them due to the oppressive structure of society).

Since every person has the right to a normal life, we all have a right to sex. — TheMadFool

Right. So someone who chooses not to have sex (for whatever reasons), does not live a normal life? :s (notice what you're doing - you're condemning someone to lust and desire after sex - otherwise they're not normal according to you. Again - you seek to associate someone's sense of self-worth with sex)

Living a normal life does not require actualising your potentials. It just requires that you HAVE those potentials (preferably), and that you COULD actualise them if you so decide. For example - I have the potential to have sex physically. I'm not currently actualising it. But, if I so desired, I COULD actualise it. What really matters to me is that my capacity is free to manifest itself - not that it actually does. My sexual energy is still with me, manifesting itself within - even though I don't currently actualise it externally - I simply don't have the opportunity for intimacy and/or reproduction now, and thus it's not that my sexual energy has disappeared, but rather that it is awaiting the opportunity to manifest itself. And if this opportunity comes, or it doesn't - that is all fine with me. I don't make demands on it, I just live in the moment, with what exists. Problems appear when psychologically I lose self-esteem - when I start associating my sense of self-worth with actually manifesting my sexuality externally. When psychologically, I require external validation for being who I am. And so forth. Because then, the mere existence of my capacity will no longer satisfy me - I will start making demands of myself and my current circumstances to be different than they are, I will start doubting my capacity and thus seeking to prove myself in my own eyes, etc. These are all psychological short-comings, which merely take away from the joy of the capacity itself. These psychological short-comings lead people to misuse their sexual potential - to pursue unskillful means of satisfying their desires (such as seeking promiscuous sex to satisfy the desire for intimacy, which just cannot be satisfied because there isn't a committed partner present), OR to pursue sex for unskillful reasons (such as the list of illusory meanings I have provided earlier).

An 18 year old will have such and such an experience of intimacy and love. The same person 18 years later will probably have a different experience of intimacy and love, and at 65 yet another sort of experience. It isn't that they were wrong in each instance, just that their horizons probably expanded. — Bitter Crank

No they won't have a DIFFERENT experience, the experience will just be expanded. I couldn't have felt with my girlfriend when I was 17 the depth of intimacy I could feel now with someone I love. Even though I do not have a girlfriend at the moment, I KNOW my capacity for intimacy has increased - I do feel this more in my soul, and I am attuned much more closely than I used to be to other people