You need to keep yourself busy at all times because ...

The fact is, Russia poses no threat to America, so there is no reason for Americans to fear the Russians. — Apollodorus

But why then all the American anti-Russian propaganda?
Sheer contempt, to boost the American ego?

What if ‘evil-doers’ believe they are just, and their failure isn’t one of moral intent but of insight? — Joshs

You used this line of reasoning to defend Nazis.

So Putin's "failure of insight" is what exactly? That Slavic people are inferior and must let the West rule over them? That when the West makes promises to Russia and doesn't keep them, Russia must accept this and bow to the West?

What I am suggesting is that we can get rid of the concept of blame, but only when. we stop thinking of motive and intent as potentially arbitrary , capricious , vulnerable to bodily-emotive and social conditioning and shaping.

I dont know any philosopher or psychologist who follows me here — Joshs

Early Buddhism maintains something similar, but the matter is rather complex to explain (lots of things to remember).

Putin? haha — schopenhauer1

No, Biden.

If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature. — Schopenhauer

Indeed, often, people who claim to only want peace and prosperity don't think their desires through to their logical consequences.

I should note that focusing on increasing our care and consideration implies that we believe we were acting carelessly and inconsiderately, which I consider to be forms of anger-blame. — Joshs

So if you live in a suburb, and dry your laundry by hanging it out in the air in your backyard, and your neighbor burns trash in his backyard, so that the smoke makes your laundry filthy -- you see no problem with this? You don't think he was careless and inconsiderate to do so, and that he should have at least warned you, so that you could take down the fresh laundry on time?

The solution is that you buy a dryer? But that is still care and consideration on your part, and as such, anger-blame.

If we believe ourselves righteous in anger towards someone, it’s a sure sign that we don’t understand where they’re coming from. That should give us pause. — Possibility

Why? People generally don't consider it very important to understand others. In fact, they generally prefer to see themselves as the arbiters of the others' reality, they prefer to see themselves as the judges over what is true for another person, esp. concerning the other person's inner life. They make this very clear in their insistence of using you-language.

Do we really think that attributing blame and directing anger towards someone will repair any damage or prevent future occurrences?

Of course. Blame and anger are effective means for gaining and keeping power over others. It's why people do it.

I think the Israeli-Palestine conflict is a clear example of the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of blame and anger. What would a win-win situation look like here? Everyone is so focused on the significance of history in such a limited space, they’re ignoring aspects of the present reality. They acknowledge present pain and loss, but what’s not being recognised is the present state of humility. This is why the conflict continues, because both sides focus on past or consolidated pride to avoid a sense of humility in any present or future interaction. — Possibility

But such humility would require them to give up their identity. And --

There are few things less noble than resenting or undermining people for who they are. — Tom Storm

Then we understand eachother.

What are you actually defending here? — Christoffer

The Old World.

The West will probably win, if in no other way, then by destroying the planet with consumerism.

That's why people provoke others into wars, to relieve their own boredom.

So what does Putin want? Perhaps one ounce of honour from the West to it's promises? — Isaac

The West has always been dishonorable toward Russia.

What's disgusting is the level of discourse at which you and your cronies want to exist.

A country either has sovereignity or doesn't. If it cannot take care of itself, then it doesn't have sovereignity. It's not posisble to take away something from a country that a country doesn't have.

Looks like the Western propaganda has done its job on you.

But moving past this, is it really philosophically correct to not assign blame for the wrong done? — L'éléphant

Is it really philosophically correct to take for granted that the party who feels wronged is automatically the arbiter of morality?

A no-blame morality is untenable and unsustainable because it is a one-sided premise whose burden is on the person harmed. — L'éléphant

As the poor and the powerless, and the innocent animals have experienced for millennia.

What this discussion is lacking is an acknowledgment of the role of the power differential in moral judgments.

The one who can punish is in the position of power.
If punishment is justified, as a matter of principle, then might makes right. Do you want to go in that direction?

The desert proponents once argued that punishment is a way for us to acknowledge the humanity of a person. Denying him a punishment is denying his accountability for his actions. And denying his accountability is denying his moral agency. So personhood has this component of culpability. You take away this culpability, then we treat him like we treat innocent animals.

And how people treat innocent animals? By keeping them in horrible conditions and then killing them or letting them die a gruesome death.

I see your point of trying to understand both Russia and China policies or affairs but I guess Ukraine's sovereignty is the big issue here and how it is being raped — javi2541997

Ukraine's sovereignty? A country that slavishly seeks the approval and protection of others and which depends economically on a country it considers its enemy? That's sovereignty?

There's a war going on with an aggressor who's invading and killing Ukrainians as we speak. You think I'm gonna sit here and be an apologist for someone like Putin? Treat him with respect? Like he treats Ukraine with respect? The fuck is wrong with you?

There are lines crossed when there's no morale choice but to remove a player that imposes threats of the scale he does and who's at the moment killing innocent people. I would say that when he indirectly threatens, with what all experts agree on, nuclear weapons towards anyone trying to help Ukraine. That is a fucking line crossed. — Christoffer

The West has been intensely building up contempt against Russia for at least 80 years.
For all this time, the West, and specifically the US, has made a concerted effort to consistently ridicule the Russians, in every way imaginable.

And yet we're supposed to believe that the West are well-intended and morally upright!

Read again what I said.

Remember, Putin wants his billionaire friends to be happy, he doesn't give a shit about the population of Russia. — Christoffer

Clearly, you don't understand much about Russia, or China.

These nations may be capitalist, but they are not the kind of simple-minded, greedy consumers as Americans and the West in general.



And again, do you even listen to yourself? With ease, you demand the death of another person, and here, you impute evil motivations on a person. Have you no shame?

Russia only wants destruction. — javi2541997

Do you even listen to yourself? The ease with which you project evil intent onto other people????

China has a lot more to lose on international trade than Russia. — Christoffer

Unlike the rest of the world, China and Russia actually can be self-sufficient.

I don't think people really understand the severity of the situation outside of what is actively going on in Ukraine. — Christoffer

Why do countries have so many so powerful weapons and so many soldiers, if not because they have every intent to use them?

Nobody of any relevance in this world believes that everything can be settled through dialogue, least of all the US and NATO.

Putin's actions are of one of a delusional lunatic. He's up there with Stalin, Hitler and the rest. I'm deadly serious in that he needs to go. He needs to be put down.

Right. When Russians defend their country, they are the bad guys. When Americans defend their country, they are the good guys.



Do you even listen to yourself? The ease with which you demand the death of someone???

Come, man, tell us what you know!

Is "the ability to listen to opposing views without fear that we'll slide into a holocaust if you let other people have their say" something one can learn, or is it something one simply has or doesn't have, but cannot learn?

Afghanistan. Somalia. The US. — Olivier5

You said "without things like forgiveness and redemption, societies tend to accumulate hatred until people kill one another."

What evidence can you present that people wouldn't be killing eachother if they had "forgiveness and redemption"?

Resources needed for living are scarce and require considerable effort to be obtained. No amount of "forgiveness and redemption" can change that. People compete with eachother for the resources needed for living, and sometimes, this competition escalates to killing.

Unless Jesus makes haste and feeds multitudes with a few loaves of bread (and provides them with 5G internet while he's at it), from then on until forever, "forgiveness and redemption" are going to be as powerless as they've always been.

That's the whole point to anything at all. I don't see why you would find anything wrong with it. — Agent Smith

Parse this.

I'm saying journalist interviews (and psychological questionnaries) are not the best way to learn what a person thinks about a matter.

What I'm struggling with is trying to understand why someone wouldn't intuitively reciprocate. I know everybody is not the same but the first thing I would do would be to find a way to show my appreciation after years of receiving help. For the life of me I don't understand why someone wouldn't. — Tex

Like others have said, there is the sense of entitlement, as a cause for not reciprocating.

Another possibility is shame. If the person feels ashamed of asking for help, then they'll try to put the whole matter behind them as soon as possible. Showing gratitude, reciprocating, or just admitting to feeling ashamed of asking for help and receiving can be so overwhelming to a person's ego that they just won't do any of those things, because doing them would force them to face their dire situation and their helplessness.

Thirdly, if it's about a family member or another person with whom one has long-term ties, possibly over generations, then the matter is more complicated. Maybe someone on your side of the family did something wrong to someone on their side of the family, or their family helped yours in the past, but you don't know about any of this while the other person does. That can also explain such dynamics.

Do you think other people owe it to you to accept you and comprehend you?
— baker

They owe it to themselves to understand themselves, because failing to do so will cause unhappiness both in isolation and with others. — Joshs

And who gets to be the judge as to whether they correctly understand themselves or not?

On the contrary, I think it's possible to think beyond anger and blame entirely, but we can only do this by giving up the aims that anger and blame serve, ie. wealth and power.
— baker

Do you mean only the wealthy and powerful have anger and blame, or that the anger and blame the rest of us experience is somehow manipulated by the wealthy and powerful? What do you think motivates power?Is there a drive for power? Does greed motivate wealth? — Joshs

Again: I think it's possible to think beyond anger and blame entirely, but we can only do this by giving up the aims that anger and blame serve, ie. wealth and power.

In other words, people get angry and blame (others) for the purpose of securing or obtaining wealth and power.
If people wouldn't seek wealth and power, they would have no reason to get angry and blame.

I think he's arguing for a kind of immersion therapy. A little QAnon here, a little Mein Kampf there, until you become desensitized and nonreactive. — praxis

A sheeple, easy to manipulate?

"Nonjudgmentally listen to the views of others" has never actually been a virtue, anywhere.

Or do you really think NATO wants to somehow undermine the health of the Russian state? — frank

NATO needs a reason for existing. It needs enemies. If there aren't any, it makes them.


And the West has always despised the Slavic people, considering them second-class people. Biden is part of a tradition that is picking up where Hitler left off.

Why should there be charity? Can you provide an argument for charity?
— baker

Because nobody's perfect. Errare humanum est. When YOU make a mistake, do you prefer it not when people show a little charity? Or do you prefer to be treated without mercy? — Olivier5

No, that's a weak defense. "People should be given something because they need or prefer it" is far too general, too open-ended.

Judge not, least you be judged.

Evidently not true. You can be a total sheep, and still be judged. Witness the history of illegitimate children, for example.

Another argument is that, without things like forgiveness and redemption, societies tend to accumulate hatred until people kill one another.

Do you have actual real-life examples of that?

Because if anything, it seems that it is the tension between people, the tension born of perceiving each other as dangerous and merciless that keeps people in check.

*sigh*

The empirical observations that underpin science can be made by anyone who has been trained to use the equipment or to know what to look for. People can be reliably trained.

No such reliable training exists in religion. — Janus

Of course it does. That's the whole point. That's how there exist whole schools in religions, lineages where thousands of people are trained to discern and develop the same things.

You might have been meditating or praying for decades and enjoyed no "religious" experience or change of consciousness.

And even if you had, the fact that you had is not observable by anyone else.

Of course it is. People trained in the same tradition as you can observe it. They can asses whether a particular person has come to a certain attainment or not.

Religion/spirituality isn't simply about "introspection". It is supposed to bring about a change of consciousness, a change in one's moral status, and more, and this is something that other people can observe, in accordance with the standards of their religion/spirituality.

I once heard an interesting hypothesis about scapegoating: People resort to scapegoating when their own adherence to the values they profess reaches a critical low where even they cannot deny it anymore. Instead of admitting it and deliberately changing their ways, they metaphorically cast their own sins onto someone else and this way free themselves of the burden of a guilty conscience. This way, they clear the slate and can start fresh.
— baker

Is an interesting perspective. So maybe I'm wrong about the unhelpfulness of such generalisation. — Isaac

The issue at hand is still scapegoating. What is different, in comparison to more traditional cultures, is that modern culture has lost all sense of perspective and measure, so anything and everything can be considered "unacceptable", or "acceptable", but one can never know in advance which. As you've noted before, there is that sense of constantly walking on eggshells.

In more traditional cultures that have relatively clearly defined value systems, one can predict with good certainty what effect a certain action will have in the public space. What will be merely ridiculed, and what severely punished. But in modern cultures, one can never really know.

Still waiting for your reply.

How does a person "stop being a big baby" and how does a person "grow the ability to listen to opposing views without fear that we'll slide into a holocaust if you let other people have their say"?

Have you worked out an actual didactic program for this? Can you present it here?

The other day, I watched a David Suchet (British actor from Agatha's Poirot TV series) interview and his reason for being religious was that he - his mind & heart - just couldn't accept that this (physical reality) is all there is, there has to be more. He did some soul-searching and found solace in the catholic faith. Is this an ego-fantasy, is this what we'd call being in denial (of truth/facts)? — Agent Smith

I think such interviews are necessarily too short, too superficial, and too polite to offer any real insight into the person's religious choices, so I don't make much of the replies given in such interviews. In them, people give some (rehearsed) socially desirable answer.

To really learn what the person thinks on this matter, one would need to get to know them, spend a lot of time with them, build mutual trust.

You've answered your own question. — 180 Proof

In that case, it's not clear how your concept of ethics is still coherent.
"Ethical is whatever serves me in any given situation."

No, even if God exists holiness is a human concept reliable on the responses, on the feelings. of humans. Something is holy only insofar as it evokes feelings of holiness. In any case, we can only look at it from what we know; we know humans enjoy feelings of holiness, and we don't know whether God exists. — Janus

No, that's _you_ don't know whether God exists. Doesn't mean everyone else is the same as you.

The more I engage with you the more I get the impression that you are a contrarian; someone who just likes to argue for the sake of it.

Oh, for crying out loud.

You keep taking for granted your own stance, your own experience, and you hold it up as the arbiter of reality _for_ _everyone. You elevate your own "I don't know whether God exists" to "We don't know whether God exists". What on earth makes you think you can speak on behalf of other people like that?!

Since when did public health policy become - "we'll mandate something and if anyone happens to turn up some data that it's harmful we'll stop". what on earth happened to 'Do No Harm'? — Isaac

It's been like that for as long as I can remember. Vaccinations, hormonal contraceptives, use of plastic, cutting down forests, failing to start building a retirement fund early on, incarcerating 10-year olds with the general population (yay, America thou wonderful!) ...

People tend to be this way: if some measure or other action doesn't have 1. immediate and 2. massive bad consequences, we should go through with it, and whatever negative consequences there are, find a way to blame them on the individual people who experience those consequences.
If the consequences are not immediate and massive, people generally take little heed.

Are the beneficiaries of old-school socialism just too frightening for the newly elevated chattering classes, they need someone tamer, more like them, to help. Someone they are less complicit themselves in the oppression of. — Isaac

Bertolt Brecht, presumably so concerned with the poor working class, out of "solidarity" with them wore a shirt tailored the way the shirts of workers were tailored. Except that his was made of silk.