Anyone else think this impeachment is a terrible idea? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I was against it for the reasons you cite, until I realized it might prevent Trump from running again. Removing that threat once and for all seems worth a shot. But yea, do it as quickly as possible and then move on.

To act as attorney for Trump voters....

Almost everything he did seemed to highlight him as a disastrous candidate based on prior experience. — Kenosha Kid

In comparison to what? More decades of the same old political status quo which has failed so many people?

They must have loved him before they voted for him. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, because Trump promised an alternative to the status quo, which he then delivered on. This can be compared to the political class who promise all kinds of things, and then shift focus once elected. Remember George Bush senior? "Read my lips, NO NEW TAXES!" Whereupon he proceeded to support new taxes.

He promised the wall as part of his campaign, so his supporters either voted for him in part because of that or despite it. I get that a lot of people in the confederate states hate Mexicans, hate non-whites in general — Kenosha Kid

Please observe the assumption that a desire for defendable borders to one's country is a function of racism. People in the confederate states have been the target of such insults for decades, so they hired a professional asshole to respond in kind.

We agree that a vote for Trump was not the right solution, but the desire for real borders to one's country is entirely reasonable, and the status quo political class has consistently failed to address that reasonable concern in an effective manner. Given that the Bushes and Clintons have all failed to address this reasonable concern, who is it that you expect Trump voters to choose as their candidate?

What about this would make someone go, "Yeah, fuck the Iran deal, we need this guy to sort it out"? — Kenosha Kid

All the Iran deal did was kick the can down the road. The Iran deal served to hand Obama's problem off to some future President.

I actually think Trump handled Iran pretty well. Note for example his success at building an alliance between some Arab states and Israel. Note how he surgically removed Soleimani, and then immediately sought to defuse the situation. He was tough, hitting a very specific and appropriate target, without going over board. Not bad, imho.

Because Trump is a self centered asshole, he understands the other assholes around the world. As example, he knows the Iranian regime cares only about their own personal situation, so he takes out one of their buddies to demonstrate, this could happen to YOU too. But he didn't carpet bomb Tehran, or any other such nonsense.

I have seen no evidence of this. — Kenosha Kid

Have you heard of the term "cultural war"? It's been going on since the 1960s. Trump picked a side of that war to be on, and then articulated that side's emotions more effectively than any other speaker in my life time.

A question you might consider could be...

Is your goal to understand the Trump phenomena, or just be against it? My argument is that to the degree we're focused on being against it, we're not going to be able to really understand it. Understanding is going to require looking at this through the eyes of Trump voters to the degree that's humanly possible.

And it's not hard to see that Trump's actions after the November elections are acts of fraud. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'd be happy to see him slammed in to federal prison for the rest of his life. That would send a message that's worth sending. But that's not going to address the underlying issues which led to Trumps rise.

Imho, a leading cause of Trump's rise is the knowledge explosion. The accelerating rate of technological change generates considerable uncertainty which expresses itself in social disruption. Here's an example, which I got from Andrew Yang.

Driverless vehicles are coming. This development threatens to put 3.5 million truck drivers out of work. And for every one of those folks who lose their job there will be ten more who wonder if they're next. These folks will understandably be dissatisfied with the status quo, and they may become vulnerable to confident con men who promise to "make America great again".

And while we're discussing such phenomena the knowledge explosion continues to race forward, faster and faster. It can reasonably be argued that over the long run the knowledge explosion is worth it, but not if in the short run social and political instability crashes the entire system.

Just look at last election. Best I could tell, Andrew Yang was the only candidate on any side who spoke to these underlying forces in an intelligent manner. But we weren't ready to hear, so he was discarded.

I just can't get my head around what sort of person -- and there are tens of millions of them, so it's my fault -- would see leadership in that. He did the opposite of charming people: he gave them every reason to be turned off, and invented a few new ones. — Kenosha Kid

Ok, so let's try to understand this phenomena together. I don't have the perfect answer obviously, so the following is just a place to start.

First, they see leadership in Trump because Trump actually did lead. He defeated the entire political establishment of both parties and defied media speculation which was convinced of Clinton's inevitable victory. Trump declared himself a winner, and then he proved that claim by winning, somewhat against all odds as calculated at the time.

Once elected Trump led by overturning a number of decisions and assumptions of the established political class. Instead of ignoring immigration and conceiving of that issue as being very complicated and sophisticated etc etc blah, blah, blah, he said, "Fuck that, let's build a wall!" That's not the kind of leadership you and I are shopping for, but it is leadership, a dramatic change of perspective.

He left the Iran deal, the Paris accords, the WHO. He challenged NATO to pay their own way. Same thing here. Examples of bold leadership, just not the flavor that you and I prefer.

More importantly perhaps, Trump offered his base leadership on a more personal emotional level. Educated liberals such as ourselves have been looking down our snooty noses at rural and working people for decades. We are the cool smart people, they are the clueless bumpkins etc. Trump led by raising his middle finger and jamming it in our eye, thus channeling the understandable emotions of many millions of people, who then rewarded him with their loyalty.

I think we need to separate the decision to vote for Trump (stupid) from the desire to kick over a corrupt status quo (smart). The rational move here is to dial back discussion of the stupid decision, and shift the focus to the arguably valid desire to kick over the status quo. Look for those areas where we have some level of agreement with Trump voters, and focus on that.

When I think "charismatic", I think charming, smart, strong, self-confident, maybe good-looking — Kenosha Kid

Charisma is perhaps more accurately compared to the phenomena of screen presence in TV and films. It's not so much about the character being laudable as it is about their ability to hold our attention. Think of John Malkovich for example. He typically plays evil characters, but he's a very watchable actor. When he's on screen he's probably what you're looking at.

Charisma is a mysterious force in human affairs. It doesn't necessarily have a logical basis, because human beings aren't fundamentally rational.

The point of this thread could be an attempt to better understand Trump's appeal to his base.

Calling Trump voters stupid is an insufficient analysis because many of them used to be Democrats. Were they stupid when they voted with us too?

While it's true that the act of voting for Trump (especially the 2nd time) was a stupid act, that doesn't automatically equal the concerns that caused a person to vote for Trump being automatically invalid.

In the recent Democratic primary Andrew Yang seemed to be the only person who actually understood the historical forces generating social instability, and the only person with a bold plan for addressing that instability. And he kinda went nowhere. None of the candidates seemed to have much of anything at all to say about nuclear weapons which, as you know, strikes this voter as being beyond bizarre. No candidate that I know of has addressed the question of how many people we want to have living in America, so why should any of them be considered credible on the subject of immigration? The entire political class has basically dodged all such issues for decades, so what is the point really of voting for them yet again??

Trump voters (and Sanders voters too) are teaching us that the American political culture (including the media) is seriously broken. We will all now say we know that already, but if we aren't reaching for some kind of radical alternative to the status quo, we don't actually get it yet.

So, it's possible for Trump voters to have both made a serious error in voting for Trump, and have insights in to the American political system which we have not yet achieved.

Now, watch how every poster will either ignore this, or claim they already know it. Watch how childlike egos will totally dominate any following discussion of these claims. That's Trump's evil genius, he sees us more clearly than we see ourselves. He knows we're addicted to melodrama and self serving delusional mental stimulation and so he feeds that reality, and we suck up the reality TV soup he is serving, just like he knew we would.

As the greatest philosophers of all time, we should be shifting our focus away from Trump and on to ourselves. We are who is supporting corporate media's drama for profits business plan. We built the polarized culture. We accepted the broken status quo for decades. All Trump did is take over the machine that we ourselves built.

And he figured out how to do that before any of his competitors. Thus, it's not all that unreasonable for Trump voters to conclude that Trump is smarter than his competitors, as that appears to be true.

If we persist in calling Trump voters stupid, if we keep feeding the polarization, all we're accomplishing is handing the broken machine over to the next clever asshole to come along. And that would make us stupid too.

I think Trump is likely to be impeached AND convicted before his term ends. — Wayfarer

Personally, I can't see that happening before the end of his term, but it might be possible in the next Congress. Apparently (if I understand correctly) what would be needed to convict is a two thirds vote in the Senate, that is, two thirds of whoever shows up for the vote. If true, then Republican senators, cowards that they are, could support the effort to convict simply by not attending that vote. That is, they could kind of have their cake and eat it too, the most popular of all meals.

Is the following true?

1) Trump can be convicted in the next session of Congress

2) Conviction takes two thirds of whoever shows up to vote.

3) Conviction would prevent Trump from running again.

If the above is true and Trump gets convicted, we arrive at new questions. If Trump can't run again what does he do next? He's not interested in issues except as a vehicle to his own advancement. If he can't run again does he abandon politics? Does he launch something like TrumpTV purely as a revenge vehicle?

To say that 'all politicians lie' is just whataboutism, which is one of the techniques Trump uses to get away with lying. — Wayfarer

It's indisputably true that Trump is a compulsive liar, we all seem to agree on that, so we should be able to move on from this obvious point.

What's also true is that "all politicians lie" is not that unreasonable of a claim. Not perfectly true in every instance, but true enough often enough that it can't just be swept off the table. Loss of trust in presidential claims began in the sixties during the Johnson administration, and then was further amplified by Nixon. And it didn't stop there. Reagan lied. Clinton lied. Bush Jr. lied. And, the beloved Kennedy lied too, hiding his dangerous extra-marital affairs from the public.

The appeal of Trump to Trump voters is that Trump lies more openly than the others. His lies are so blatant, so obvious, so loud and persistent, that he is perceived as an honest liar, that is, a president not trying too hard to hide his lying. Trump has just taken the American presidency to it's logical conclusion. That's politically brilliant, and accurately seen as such by his supporters.

YES, it's despicable too! It's despicable, despicable, despicable, despicable. Do we really need to fill another 500 pages with this point of agreement?? It's possible for something to be both despicable AND brilliant, right?

Trump got elected because great numbers of American voters have lost faith in traditional politicians for some pretty good reasons, a consistent pattern of lies and more sophisticated deceptions going back decades, my entire life.

Trump is not the problem. Trump is a symptom of the problem. Thus, getting rid of Trump will not solve the problem. Thus, endless discussion of Trump is not a suitable job for philosophers.

Hello! I am a graduate student in philosophy of science — Twinkle221

Hi Twinkle,

Sorry that I can't help you with the book. So this is just a quick note to let you know that it would interest me to be taken in to the world of graduate studies in philosophy of science. Should your time permit that might make an engaging topic for another thread. Good luck!

Nah, someone who gets their panties in a twist about a response to the equivocation of racism and disagreement — StreetlightX

Someone's panties are in a twist about a consistent pattern of management doing everything it can to lower the quality of this forum.

How about this? When you feel like making statements unfit for a philosophy forum why not confine that activity to the Lounge? Or, retire as a mod and leave the question to others to decide.

Or, ignore all such concerns, and just admit your goal is to drive the quality of content on this forum as low as you possibly can. If that's your goal, and the forum owner agrees with that agenda, then I would agree it's time for me to let this go and enjoy the ride down to forum death with you.

Racists should hang from the rafters and have their life slowly squeezed out of them until they choke on their own spit and blood. Next question. — StreetlightX

Ok, here's the next question. When are you going to find some outlet other than a philosophy forum for such oh-so dramatic little high school statements? How about reddit, facebook, twitter or any one of a thousand other places? Why do you have to do it here?

The Internet is huge. There are probably literally a million sites where you would fit right in with the other high school carpet chewers. Why is it so important to you to persistently degrade this site, a philosophy forum, with that which you wish to do.

You asked for a question. There you go.

Hate was the primary reason you voted against Trump. You "progressives" like to believe that you are all open-minded and accepting of others differences, but your actions speak louder than your words. — Harry Hindu

There would seem to be some measure of truth in this. As evidence we can examine the Trump thread which seems to filled primarily with tribal emotionalism, snotty superiority poses and the like. And this is a philosophy forum, well, in theory at least.

What we may need is a thread where we carefully separate the insanity of voting for Trump (especially the 2nd time) with the valid concerns that caused many people to reach for such a radical alternative. As example, it's not crazy to be concerned about immigration given that the political class has presented no coherent idea of even how many people we wish to have living in America.

Also, while it seems beyond doubt that Trump himself is a despicable danger to the republic, it's also true that he has an instinctive street level type of understanding of the American public which surpasses that of his competitors. And that would include most of us here, as evidenced by how eagerly we remain addicted to the reality TV show which Trump is hosting.

In order to have such a thoughtful discussion we're going to have to find some way to liberate ourselves from the ego driven tribal chest thumping which has dominated this topic on this forum so far. That is, we're going to have to find some way to be a little bit less like Trump ourselves.

This forum really contains close to no actual right-wingers, if you actually look at the majority of political debates on this forum, it's moderate left vs further left. — Judaka

Yes, the real debate is not between right and left, but between the sane sensible people on all sides and the nutzo crackpots on all sides.

Imagine a forum without right wingers — Maw

The standard belief about the external world is that it exists, and we know it exists. Yet there is a rich tradition, in both Western and Eastern philosophy, of arguing that neither objects or facts have any real, independent existence.

The perception of independent existence seems likely to be a pattern of conceptual division which the inherently divisive nature of thought imposes upon our view of reality.

As example, if we're wearing tinted sunglasses all of our lives, and so is everyone else, a group consensus is likely to form that all of reality is tint colored. But the tint is not a property of what is being observed, but instead a property of the tool being used to make the observation. Consider the sloppy astronomer who has a speck of dust on the lens of his telescope. Everywhere he looks he sees "this huge thing, it's everywhere!!!"

It would be wise for philosophers to shift their focus from the content of thought to the nature of thought, because the content of thought is a symptom of the nature of thought.

In this we share delusional thinking with people who think that through hard work and inspiration they will become rich, maybe as rich as Elon Musk or Bill Gates. — Bitter Crank

Just quibbling with this a tiny bit. In 1995 I was hanging wallpaper for a living, making just enough to pay my modest bills and that's it. By 2000 I'd created a net startup and sold it to a "big dog", and have been retired since. Nothing vaguely close to Elon Musk or Bill Gates, just rich by wallpaper hanger standards. :-) To be accurate, I then tried to repeat this success and utterly failed.

Point being, there is a lot of opportunity in America, and hard work and inspiration does sometime pay off. NPR has a show called "How I Built This" with many come from nowhere stories similar to mine, except far more successful.

The American dream is not dead. There are LOTS of people who started off as a plumber's helper and then went on to own their own plumbing company with a hundred employees.

As rich as Bill Gates? Yea, that's a fantasy 99.99% of the time.

The tragedy of the situation is that so many millions of people have been sucked into his vortex of delusion. — Wayfarer

Now that we've all chanted "we hate Trump!" about a billion times, it seems about time to start focusing on understanding why that happened. A few thoughts...

1) While we all seem to agree that Trump voters made an exceedingly poor choice in voting for Trump, there are ample good reasons for voters to be reaching beyond the traditional political class. The same thing is happening on the left in the popularity of Bernie Sanders.

2) Not enough focus has been directed at the media, whose business model is built upon drama. The media is not in the news business, it's in the ad business. Trump got elected by understanding this reality better than any of his competitors. So long as corporate media profits depend upon poring fuel on every fire the wackos will always have a voice.

3) It's way past time for Democrats to start looking in the mirror and asking ourselves how we lost to a cartoon character like Trump. As I see it, the relentless chanting of "we hate Trump" is we Dems trying to hide from our own failures. A lot of those "sucked into Trump's vortex of delusion" were traditionally our voters. How'd we lose them? If we don't figure that out they are likely to remain lost and will be sucked up by the next con man to come along.

Reason is, at the very least, one of the most valuable tools we have, along with the science, and has done immense amounts of work in terms of our understanding of the world, and it doesn't appear as if it will stop doing so. — ToothyMaw

It will stop doing so once that we use the tools reason has given us to destroy our civilization.



Philosophers who can contentedly ignore nuclear weapons haven't a clue about reason.

The "limits of reason" is not the issue here. — Metaphysician Undercover

No clue what you're talking about.

but I don't really have anything against the guy I just wish he'd get some help. — BitconnectCarlos

If he retired as a mod that would satisfy me. It's one thing to be an ornery puss, cause you know, this is the land of philosophy and that's not so rare, this poster included. Putting ornery pusses in charge of the job of trying to elevate the quality of the forum is another thing.

To argue the other side, my impression is that he has the job because no one else is willing to do it, so there's that. The entire forum realm has been trending downhill for years, so it's probably just an aspect of Internet change we should learn to make peace with. All things must pass. The only other thing I wish to add is this....

All of you are dead head nitwits with shit for brains who couldn't find your own ass if your life depended on it and not only that you totally suck, suck, suck you fucking retards!!

Can I be a mod now?

Oops, sorry, I forget to yell that YOU'RE ALL WAR CRIMINALS TOO!!!

Boy this thread has degenerated — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, there is a partial solution available. Kill all the political threads. Or perhaps shove them all in to the Lounge? A significant portion of the political analysis here is abysmal anyway....

Case in point.

The vindictive part of me wants Biden to win the nomination, and then watch with glee as he loses the presidency - as he obviously will - and watch democrats wonder HOW THIS COULD HAVE POSSIBLY HAPPENED. — StreetlightX

Trumps most recent pardons; can any sane person doubt the viciousness of the man? — tim wood

Not arguing the point, just trying to understand and explain his appeal to so many.

A great many people feel that politicians are always cutting private deals with their buddies behind the backs of the voters. This is a pretty reasonable theory, generally speaking. Trump pardons his partners in crime out in the open. Without apology. And so he is perceived by many to be an honest crook.

Traditional politicians often master a very polished manner of coming to the microphone to say a big bunch of vague nothing whose purpose is to obscure how they really feel. Trump comes to the mic and says, "Fuck that guy, I hate him, we're going to crush him etc". And so he is perceived by many to be an honest asshole.

Trump is an intriguing mystery because while he is clearly a pathological compulsive liar, he lies so incredibly blatantly that he is perceived to be an honest liar.

Trump has turned the whole political game on it's head. He's the most creative, bold and interesting American politician of my lifetime.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. HE'S A TOTAL ASSHOLE. But saying that which we already know over and over and over again doesn't add much to our understanding of this historic phenomena.

Seems to me that Trump is about to throw the whole of Government, and Wall Street, into pandemonium, and to deprive millions of people of benefits, on Christmas Eve, just because he can. Not because of any political intuition or insight or master plan — Wayfarer

I think the master plan is to own as much of our attention as he possibly can. The cliche for this strategy is "all publicity is good publicity".

If you haven't already, you may wish to dig in to Roger Stone, as he seems to be the philosophical godfather of much of Trump's strategy. As I understand it, Stone is generally the intellectual song writer, while Trump is the front man for the band. Think of the Rolling Stones. Keith Richards is the groove master for the band, the musical brains, but he's not charismatic. Jagger is charismatic, so he fronts the band and channels the egos of the audience.



So long as anyone is in the spotlight of the corporate media giants they inherit the credibility of those platforms. So for example, if CNN were to start covering Hippyhead every day, I would come to be perceived as important by many viewers, no matter what I was saying.

With his threatened veto of the relief bill Trump is just doing what he always does, grabbing the spotlight. We are talking about him right now. He has succeeded.

It seems a mistake for us to think of Trump as being just a very ugly human being with a juvenile mind. He is that for sure. But there's more to it. You don't win over the hearts and minds of half of a major world power by being stupid. It's possible to be immature, juvenile and ugly, while still being quite intelligent. We need travel no farther than any philosophy forum to see that. :-)

Do you believe this to be an assessment of reality? — Philosophim

Semi-suicidal? Yes, thousands of hydrogen bombs ready to go at the push of a button.

Single species on one tiny planet? Yes, obviously.

Only recently living in caves? In astronomical time, just seconds ago.

Is reason proven to be binding on all of reality? We can't even define what we mean by "all of reality". One universe, a trillion universes? We have no idea.

Saint Dionysius, for example, states that we can't try to limit God with concepts as "Being", and that God may be non-being or even beyond-being, simply because there are limitations concerning human reason. — Bertoldo

This is not as esoteric as it may sound.

Does space exist or not? Thought demands a yes/no answer because that is how thought works, it categorizes phenomena in to conceptual boxes. Space defies such simplistic dualistic paradigms by being both real, and not meeting our usual definitions of existent. And, space would seem to be a pretty relevant example, given that it forms the overwhelming majority of reality at every scale.

What happens with God talk is that we often attempt to map paradigms which are reasonable, sensible and useful at human scale on to the very largest of scales. So for example, we ask "does God exist" as if God was an apple on our kitchen counter.

Human reason evolved in an extremely small environment, in comparison to the scope of God claims.

if not, then you're not especially reasonable. — tim wood

It's not reasonable to expect reasonable dialog with Streetlight. Probably wisest to give up all hope of such and move on to greener pastures.

When the fuck did I say that? — ToothyMaw

Read please. I didn't say you said that. But you do see do have some affection for the word fuck in general.

What about Bernie? He never belittled working class people; he quite obviously had nothing but respect for them. — ToothyMaw

I like Bernie. Voted for him. But did you notice that he lost, twice? All angry all the time is not a winning strategy. That's much of what I'm trying to say here.

I'm talking about pushing for the policies that are popular with most everyday people, such as Medicare for all, a living wage, etc. — ToothyMaw

This is judged to be entirely reasonable, so thanks for that. Given that I am after all a Hippyhead, I expect we might experience considerable agreement on policy.

So how might such noble goals be accomplished? If the Dems win the Senate and we shove all of this down the Repubs throat, they will simply repeal it all the next time they are in power. Yes, Obamacare has survived the repeal attempts, but only just barely.

If we are to achieve anything truly sustainable we'll have to find common ground with at least some Republicans. This is unlikely to happen if our focus is on yelling names like "fucking retards" and "war criminals" etc at them to get our jollies off. If we insist on yelling such names at our own committed allies, then it is we who are the fucking retards.

Many or most Republican voters are actually pretty reasonable people who have some valid concerns. Profit driven corporate media obscures this by focusing on the looney tooners. Many Republicans voted for Trump because WE lost them, as the Democratic Party has gotten in to the unfortunate habit of often ignoring and even insulting the average working person. Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comes to mind. Automation and globalization costing millions of American jobs, while our attention is focused elsewhere.

The election of Trump was OUR failure. A great many of those Trump voters have long stood with us. And we lost them. Yes, we need to reach out to these people, show them some respect, and try to win them back.

Do you really think we should compromise with the GOP? — ToothyMaw

It's called democracy.

Because it sounds like the kind of shit someone who doesn't give a rat's ass about people would spew to justify compromise with even worse people. — ToothyMaw

What high school do you attend? Perhaps we could talk to your guidance counselor about this?

Yes, some people hide behind specialized language and wordiness to appear like they know what they are talking about. But to also be fair, sometimes a person is working through the idea, and have not reached the mastery level of being able to convey an idea that is simple, clear, and concise. And then there are the instances in which a person is so learned in a particular specialized topic, that for those who understand the topic, the use of those words conveys the idea that is simple, clear, and concise. — Philosophim

I cast my vote for this explanation. Having experience and skill in some particular area is not automatically the same thing as having skill at translating advanced understandings in to widely accessible language.

I just can't stand the emphasis on civility and compromise being presented by the centrists, trying to unite the country somehow, as if that would be a good thing. Fucking spineless. — ToothyMaw

Trying to bring the country together somehow = fucking spineless. Emphasis on civility and compromise = fucking spineless. Hysterical emotional pose. Sophomoric.

However, as deemed by the ruling local authorities, appropriate on this philosophy forum, so as you were, continue as you wish.

The problem of the language, is that the language is making a claim about reality, without evidence to reality. — Philosophim

Here we are again. The requirement for evidence is a rule of reason, a system of thought invented by a single semi-suicidal species only recently living in caves on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies. Reason is not a god proven to have binding authority over all of reality, but instead a tool proven to be useful in a limited context.

If someone should wish to require that religious claims about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere (typical scope of god claims) are valid only if they come with evidence, that someone would bear the burden of demonstrating that the rules of human reason are binding upon the realm being addressed by these religious claims, typically everything everywhere.

Even in our normal everyday lives at human scale where reason has supposedly proven it's value, it's still a process which can be reasonably challenged. Reason has given us science. Science has given us tools of vast scale which empower a single person pressing a single button to destroy modern civilization in just a few minutes.

Trying to turn reason in to an all powerful god is not reason, it's just another form of religion.

in any case your comprehensive vitriol bears no proportion to the reality — tim wood

Political discussion on this forum, perhaps every forum, tends to be overwhelmingly dominated by emotional poses. On this forum it's often the mods who lead that parade. That's life, this forum, like all forums, is guaranteed to be worth what we paid for it.

And yeah, I still think your reactions are odd — Coben

Such reactions are perhaps odd, taking no position there, but they are utterly normal and routine on philosophy forums.

I'm out. — Coben

I hear ya, and often feel that way myself. There is another option too, just ignore stuff that doesn't interest us.

The point is, that such an admonishment is an intellectualization itself. Therefore presenting this as you do, is to represent Buddhism as hypocritical. — Metaphysician Undercover

It doesn't seem hypocritical to use reason to point to the limits of reason. As example, it wouldn't be hypocritical to use reason to point out that say, doing reason on this forum 24 hours a day probably wouldn't be healthy.

There is nothing outside of space and time, because we cannot show it to be actual or necessary. — Philosophim

Microbes, atoms, quantum waves and distant galaxies didn't exist because we couldn't show them to be actual and necessary.

That's when you are taking a stand and saying, I can question the masters. — Coben

Well, in this case I was perhaps largely agreeing with what these masters are saying (devalue philosophy) while perhaps questioning what they are doing (seemingly providing ripe ground for more philosophy).

But really what I meant was that given that philosophy is often a process of questioning everything, it seems relevant and appropriate to include philosophy itself in the list of things being challenged. Not off topic on a philosophy forum in other words, imho.

Since you started responding to me, you didn't seem to be putting the teachings, via the story, in an authority position. I could be wrong. — Coben

As a good little philosophy forum wannabe pundit I typically rebel against everything including authority, but I'm starting to rebel against that too. :-) As quick example, if religion with all of it's authority structures etc was a living species, we'd have to say it's proven pretty well adapted to it's environment, the human mind. Buddhism is something like 2,500 years old, yes?

As far as the rest, there are all sorts of admonishments, especially in the Zen form of Buddhism, to avoid intellectualizing issues around Zen. Not merely that it is unnecessary. — Coben

Hippyheadists would explain the suggestion to reduce intellectualizing in this way. If one seeks to experience a sense of unity with reality, it's probably best not to invest too much time in a methodology which operates by a process of division. And then the Hippyheadist would probably go on to expand upon this simple common sense suggestion in 4,000 pages of intellectualization, based upon the principle "it's typically the ill who show up at the hospital". :-)

As far as the rest, there are all sorts of admonishments, especially in the Zen form of Buddhism, to avoid intellectualizing issues around Zen. — Coben

Ok, to further my Zen education, if intellectualizing is supposed to be largely discarded, what is that supposed to be replaced with? What are the primary methodologies involved, other than being whacked and doing the teacher's laundry? :-)