I've read the entirety of Jonathan Israel's trilogy on The Enlightenment, and they are some of my favorite history books. What are your questions?

<faults a university professor for resonating with young people> — Buxtebuddha

There's nothing wrong or unprofessional with professors influencing or guiding students. Often times, they should act as mentors. What's wrong is influencing students while using dishonest arguments, faux facts, summoning illusory enemies, and adding fuel to the 'culture war' flames, under the guise of "self-help" psychology.

Ah I misread your post, thought you had started Harvard last autumn. In that case, check out Mr. Bartley's Burgers in Harvard Square when you do go. There's also a great co-op bookstore there too.

Within 2 years, as Peterson's target audience graduates college and enters the work force, he'll become passé and fad into obscurity, and some other epigone takes his place.

Agustino, you are absolutely free to criticize the various pitfalls, flaws, and limitations of democracy. As I stated, they exist incontrovertibly. Nevertheless, this does not entail that they are more severely flawed or limited etc. when compared to authoritarian regimes in all their manifestations, from hereditary monarchy to single-party dictatorship. And we have ample contemporary and historical evidence of how and why they are flawed and should not be a desirable socio-political form of governance. Rehashing well-known examples of some democratic flaws doesn't demonstrate the substantive virtues of authoritarianism, which you haven't provided.

It's also curious how selective you can be in regarding published scientific studies. You gleefully cite examples of studies that presumably show biological gender determinism, when defending Peterson, but you suddenly become a hard skeptic when studies exist that doesn't conform to your worldview.

Trump's been enamored by political despots including Putin, Edrogan, Duterte, and most recently Xi Jingping, who's dissolution of the CCP's two term limit has arguably made him the most powerful person in the world — Maw

Just stumbled across this.

Of course. The type of abstraction I'm providing could easily be conflated with a naive 'folk democracy'. While democracy isn't without it's unique flaws and fragility, as we both agree, it's preferable to alternative systems.

The democracies of Eastern European countries tend to be weaker, more susceptible to corruption than Western countries, so I'm not surprised by your skepticism. Undeniably, there is more than one way to measure 'well-being', but in all international studies there is a correlation between democratic countries and well-being. I am not aware of any study shows the antipode. Regarding transparency, elected officials are responsible and are held accountable to their constituents. Authoritarians are not. In addition, a strong, independent media is important in holding elected officials accountable and uncovering and reporting corruption, scandal etc. This is not so easily done in authoritarian regimes. Perhaps more to the point, there are ample studies showing that democracies are indeed more transparent than alternative political regimes, so it's not a matter of subjective "I think", or political abstraction. In regards to economic opportunities, I think the ability to enter a market-place to buy or sell commodities and services is an important freedom in-itself. It also enables one to advance in their social mobility.

No, not because it's the status quo. Citizens in liberal democracies experience better well-being, stronger and more defend-able human-rights, more accountable and transparent governments, and greater economic opportunities, among other important criteria, when compared with more authoritarian countries.

Trump's been enamored by political despots including Putin, Edrogan, Duterte, and most recently Xi Jingping, who's dissolution of the CCP's two term limit has arguably made him the most powerful person in the world. Donald Trump's besmirching of allies, America First policy, and numerous other deleterious remarks, positions, etc., will bring further harm to America's image on the world's stage, enabling a despotic China to dominate instead, and promote/export political authoritarianism as a viable alternative to liberal democracy.

Have you been to Mr. Bartley's yet?

I keep trying to read Ethics, Sophistry, and the Alternate Universe on my holidays, but something always gets in the way.

Is this thread about Donald Trump or Marx now?

No, they mean a culmination of "prominent intellectuals" who, recently, "argue that...the vision of the Enlightenment needs a vigorous defense from" various (modern) opponents, rather than a culmination of Kant.

The main two problems with the article is that it 1) falls into the same trap as Pinker does by homogenizing 'The Enlightenment' (despite first acknowledging its inner intellectual tensions and ideological heterogeneity), thus providing an inadequate explanans to the explanadum: how did social, economic, and scientific progress from the early 19th century to present day, and 2) incoherently argues that there is a rising new scientist intelligentsia, who are "quasi-religious" in their political correctness, to the detriment of scientific fact. Here, the two authors argue that this new coterie systemically denounce any scientist or scientific writers who promote any science that could be considered sexist or racist. As examples, they mention Google engineer, James Damore, who wrote the Google Memo on diversity and was subsequently fired for it, and ex-New York Times' science writer, Nicholas Wade, who wrote A Troublesome Inheritance in 2004, which was critically panned by the relevant scientific community. Despite the fact that neither Damore or Wade are biological scientists, or the fact that the scientists who authored the studies/research that Damore and Wade reference stated that they misunderstood or were simple inaccurate, the article's authors nevertheless claim that it was actually due to moral opprobrium, instead of scientific illiteracy that requires correcting.

Of course that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Well written, but poorly argued defense of Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now. Thoughts on this piece?

A paradox for some: I'm Jewish, which according to some (racists), means my IQ must dwell within to the Empyrean. However, I don't think IQ is an expression of biological race. So, to some (racists), given my clearly superior Jewish IQ, they must accept that IQ is not an expression of biological race.

Wow, how did we get so off track from Donald Trump to Marxism. — René Descartes

With the rise of the internet-savy alt-right, Godwin's Law has a new challenger: one that uses Marx as a succedaneum for Hitler.

Good article. Peterson's form of responsibility is individualistic. His is an introspective, self-improvement tool for guidance within a immutably unjust world, in which there is little or no potential to change or better. Which is why I find his project so useless given it's apoliticalness.

Maybe. But half of my friends majored in computer science, and learned coding for 4 years. They didn't start making that amount of money until at least two years into the work force, so I'm highly skeptical that taking 6 months of coding will immediately land you a job that pays so high.

Either your good friend is lying to you, or your friend's daughter is lying to him. No one with 6 months coding experience is making anywhere near that to start.

These comments are killing my brain cells.

I never said personhood "begins at birth". I said personhood, at minimum, requires certain pre-natal developments, which occur after 20 weeks including fetal viability, and a developed CNS enabling consciousness and nociception. The vast majority (98%) of abortions occur prior to 20 weeks. Explain to me how a non-viable, pre-conscious fetus is structurally comparable to a post-natal child. If consciousness, viability, etc. are "arbitrary", then why doesn't personhood extend to all other forms of life, from earthworms to roses?

No more than an infant being potentially an adult or a 16 year old kid being a potential adult

So by that logic you are arguing for infanticide and overall genocide of anyone under 18. — LostThomist

As I very clearly stated in my original post, you are presenting a false analogy by comparing post-natal life (i.e. children) with inchoate, pre-natal life. Development-wise, they are not remotely isomorphic (the latter, for example, lacking a developed CNS, fetal viability, etc.)

Try again without resorting to fallacious thinking.

From the recent issue of Advances In Political Psychology, a study on "How Our Social Group Attachments Strengthen Partisanship"

As racial, religious, and ideological identities have cumulatively moved into greater alignment with Democratic and Republican identities in recent decades, American partisans have grown increasingly identified with their parties due to the psychological effects of identity alignment captured in objective and subjective sorting mechanisms. However, we find that this effect is more powerful among Republicans than among Democrats, due to the general social homogeneity of the Republican party. Contrary to the assessments of modern political punditry, Republicans are more susceptible to identity-based politics.

:monkey:

Would be great if you could respond to my reply on page 11. :up:

I still would like (+) votes for posts.

Thanks

What the literal fuck am I reading? Don't we have standards in this forum? Because I'm confident @Dachshund isn't meeting them.

Lol is this a philosophy forum or Donald Trump's twitter feed?

I did "bother" to read your post above, and I asked for hard evidence, not anecdotal insight from individuals you consider to be above questioning. As far as I am aware, neither Pinker nor Peterson have provided any type of statistical evidence of "pro-communist" sentiment raging across American campuses. Pinker works at Harvard, and whatever anecdotal evidence he claims is (if even true, again, there doesn't seem to be stats here) nevertheless isolated to an elite Ivy League institution. Not remotely similar to experiences most college students in America would have. If you cannot provide evidence, why should I, or anyone, believe you?

You are a shining example of the problem, as I said above, with public intellectuals who sermonize opinions across specialized fields. People, such as yourself, gravitate towards them through the pull of their authority and "trustworthiness". A gleeful appeal to a single authority who feeds to you what you wish to hear. Ironically, one can see some vague parallels between this, and the 'cult of personality' of Communist leaders.

You say there is a troubling, pervasive "pro-communist" sentiment on American campuses. Do you have any research, statistics, any substantive evidence to offer to support this claim? Across America, are college students really flying the Soviet flag, reading Mao's Little Red Book, and smoking Cuban cigars?

1. "The Left" does not prefer authoritarian communist societies over capitalist ones. No one is honestly asking themselves, "would I rather live in South Korea or North Korea?" And it's laughably absurd that such a statement would be considered "flamingly radical" on college campuses. It's not true.

2. This is too vague to be taken seriously. There is an occupational pay gap, which may be due to gender discrimination, lack of opportunity, societal factors, etc., but it exists nevertheless. Otherwise, no one is claiming that men and women, in aggregate, should 1:1 have the same interests, tastes, life priorities etc. There is however, nothing inherently wrong with a "bread-winner wife", or "stay-at-home dad".

3. Even assuming that those statistics are correct, they are due to a long long (continued) history of social exclusion, appropriation, discrimination etc. This has been well studied, researched, and understood. Are you suggesting that black Americans are inherently (i.e. biologically) prone to violence?

4. I don't know about the Worldwide statistics, but in America, you are more likely to to be killed by someone with a right-wing affiliation than an "Islamic Terrorist". What about killings from "Alt-Right Terrorists"? Even if the worldwide statistics are true, this doesn't entail that Muslims are inherently dangerous, or that Islam is any more dangerous than other monotheistic religions.

It seems that in nearly each case here, there is an attempt to transform statistics into an "essentialism".

Pinker is one of those intellectuals who feel it necessary to provide an opinion on everything outside his main area of work, which, as a result, are usually jejune, uninteresting, or just plain wrong.

Uh oh, did someone say,

C U L T U R A L M A R X I S M

Evidence and Inquiry by Susan Haack
History and Utopia by Cioran (rereading)

The unborn is also less developed than a born human being. How does this fact, though, disqualify the unborn from personhood? A four year-old girl can’t bear children because her reproductive system is less developed than a fourteen year-old girl. That doesn’t disqualify her from personhood. She is still as equally valuable as a child-bearing teen. The unborn is also less developed than the four year-old. Therefore, we can’t disqualify her from personhood for the same reason we can’t disqualify the four year-old. Both are merely less developed than older human beings.

You do not mean size exactly? -You mean that born human persons are developmentally the superiors of the pre-born and therefore have the right to kill the pre-born? Take care again. By this rule you are to be victim to the first person you meet who is more developed in his mind and body than your own. — LostThomist

Most of your arrangements stem from a false, non-commensurable analogy, i.e. comparing post-natal children with post-natal newborns, and extending that argument to pre-natal fetuses. Interestingly, nowhere in your opening post do you lay the foundations, the criteria, for what does or does not count as personhood. Implicitly, you believe that any and all human life, starting from conception, entails personhood, enabling you to easily assume your own conclusion. I would contest, however, that a fetus, prior to viability (the ability to live outside the mother's womb), and prior to CNS development (enabling one to feel pain), constituent, at minimum, the criteria for personhood. The vast majority of abortions - 98% - occur prior to these developments fully taking place. Afterall, we extend the concept of personhood to other sentient forms of life, do we not? Including dolphins, apes, elephants, etc.

Fertilization may be a necessary condition for personhood, but it is not a sufficient condition. It's is potential, but not actual. An important, and necessary distinction. Your claim is essentially that a gamete, or a collection of cells, is isomorphic to a conscious, thinking, feeling, and viable being is ludicrous. Otherwise, there is little difference between a collection of cells that potentially form a human life, and a collection of cells that potentially form the life of, say, another mammal.

Ted Cruz, "I think the Democrats are the party of Lisa Simpson and the Republicans are the party of Homer and Bart and Maggie and Marge."

I'm just highlighting it.

Other similarly developed democratic nations don't suffer similar "absurd situations" re: gun violence.

One of the first victims identified among the 17 people killed was Aaron Feis, an assistant football coach and security guard. Feis was shot after reportedly throwing himself in front of students during the rampage. — Banno

I don't believe in heaven, or whatever, but cartoons like these kill me.

It's not just you, it's objectively stupid. Nothing more than NRA propaganda to 1) get more people to purchase guns, and 2) defend 2A. There are endless problems with the idea....