The backlash against Prius drivers in the 2000s was the same thing. It's the perceived "I'm better (purer) than you". — LuckyR

This seems strange. It sounds more like a projection.

Many non-drinkers I know are uncomfortable around drinkers. Do they feel threatened, at a loss, judgemental, bored? — Tom Storm

It's not merely a feeling. We're supposedly living in a democracy, but not when it comes to alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, and meat. We're supposed to consume all those, or at least approve of such consumption, or regret that due to some objective reason we can't consume them. Otherwise, we get judged, severely even.

If one is rich, then one can afford some "quirks and whims", but not otherwise.

If someone comes to visit to my house and lights a cigarette, and I tell them not to, I will be considered rude and weird.

Yeah, it's the same psychology as vegetarians making meat eaters uncomfortable. — LuckyR

Where on earth is that??
Where I live, not drinking alcohol or not eating meat is met at least with disdain.
When I was a vegetarian, I wouldn't dare tell that to my doctor if asked. If I again go vegetarian, I still wouldn't dare say so.

I wasn’t aware progress was a journey. Is that how you see it? — Tom Storm

It's pretty much what the word means.

If we hold women's rights or gay rights up as progressive issues we support, I don't think the next question should be, 'But where will that lead us?'

Why not??
Can you explain?
I think there are many unsaids here.

Qidquid agis, prudenter agas et respice finem.

So I'd say religions and spirituality are a way to maintain strong morals, but that it's not the only way. Some people just don't need to think about why they want to be loyal for example, they just are, because that's what they've been told they should do. I know some people who have strong morals but aren't spiritual or religious at all. — Skalidris

My working assumption here is that morality is a complex system that a single person cannot invent and enforce on their own, and it's a complex system that requires a metaphysical, transcendental component, hence the need to tie morality to religion/spirituality.

However, if you don't have strong dogmatic intuitions, I don't think you'll be likely to be religious or spiritual. It's my case, I don't have strong moral principles and I've never been attracted to spirituality or religion.

This seems self-explanatory.

However one should differentiate "requires" from "prefers". I'd say I "require coffee" first thing in the morning to get moving. I strongly prefer it, and if I happened to run out I would likely go through considerable measures to obtain a cup. But if all coffee ceased to exist from the world, I would simply have to go through my morning routines regardless. — Outlander

Coffee. Another thing that makes me drowsy. If I drink coffee in the morning, I'm likely going to be tired and drowsy the entire day, without getting much done.

On the other hand I stand by the fact for most responsible drinkers, alcohol makes one "more jovial" as in, relative to one's preexisting state of joviality.

Then, perhaps, my default state of joviality is more intense than that of most people. I'd describe myself as naturally optimistic, even to a fault

Take something very tedious and boring no one enjoys. I don't know, sorting a 5-gallon bucket's worth of buttons that have become unsorted. For example. If, in this fictional example, you had to do it anyway and it's something you simply don't enjoy, you can't force yourself to enjoy it, that is to say you can't artificially elevate your "happiness" on cue or command absent of external stimuli.

But why would one have to make oneself enjoy it? Whence this obsession with enjoying things?
If something needs to be done, it needs to be done. Enjoyment doesn't necessarily come into the equation.

And yes, I can usually find ways to make even work that is hard and perhaps tedious into something I appreciate. I do it by taking an interest in it.

I think we can delve into two different common "types" of people's personalities, which many are a mix of the two or others but for simplification we will distinguish two: "introverts" and "extroverts".

Also, another psychological pair comes to mind: producers and consumers.
People who are producers require less external stimuli, have longer attention spans, they have a natural understanding that producing things takes time and effort, so they don't get bored easily.

So, while I agree with most everything you've said I think the assertion that someone who "requires to consume particular substances" to say have fun and feel at home in a crowded or unfamiliar environment is an automatic, cut-and-dried "weakness" and "disadvantage" needs some revisiting.

Why would one be under the obligation "to have fun" or "to feel at home" just anywhere, with just anyone?
Where does it say that one needs to feel at home or have fun just anywhere??

I think you should watch the video. — schopenhauer1

I watched both, but I'm not sure what to make of them. First off, I don't appreciate mixing serious criticism with humor. I'm not sure what to make of this genre.
Generally, the US just seems strange to me, a world I cannot relate to. This is, pretty much, why it captures my interest.

Racism can be found in individuals everywhere (like in many a Buddhist, of all people, in Myanmar toward the Rohingya people). — javra

In this particular case though, there is an alternative explanation: According to Buddhist principles, Buddhists aren't supposed to drink alcohol or kill animals or be involved in the business of making alcohol or slaughtering animals. But they still want to drink alcohol and eat meat. And as far as the meat is concerned, the Buddhist precept against killing is not breached as long as one didn't kill the animal oneself, didn't order it to be killed, or has no reason to believe that it was killed for one specifically. So the Buddhists found a convenient way around the Buddhist precepts and allow people of other religions to live among the Buddhists and to do the dirty work of brewing alcohol and slaughtering animals.
How the Buddhists thought that this wasn't going to backfire ...

*I can hardly wait to tell ya'll 'I told you so!'*

Ha ha.

I can easily imagine myself being busy for all eternity planting plants and never getting bored or tired of it. Trees, bushes, grasses, flowers. But mostly trees. I'd love that.

Religions regularly provide strong opposition to progressive ideas — Tom Storm

Progressive toward what?
What are those ideas (that religions tend to oppose) progressing to, leading to?

An untreated disease can also be said to "progress", as in 'worsen the person's health status' but we don't view that "progress" positively.

I like it. But this is hard to put into practice. Particularly if the world largely rejects this. Speaking personally, I like to blame and judge (to some extent) and the way I make sense of the world has been shaped irrevocably by concepts I can't transcend. How could one escape? Because even in recognizing the accuracy of your account, the temptation to stick with familiar patterns is irresistible. I wonder how one can be a human being and not be bound by a bunch of contingent and culturally constructed bullshit? — Tom Storm

Why should it be otherwise?
What is the ideal you're trying to live up to?
And why?

Since then, we've learned that bacteria and viruses cause disease.
But the false teachings of Jesus are enshrined in scripture.
The result? Google “Christian parent deny medical treatment child dies" — Art48

This sounds like a rather modern phenomenon.

There are characteristic differences between Christians of the Old World and Christians of the New World.

Refusing medications, denial of evolution, and such on "religious grounds" are unheard of in Europe, until very recently.
It's in the Americas that Christians can be extremely strict in following religious rules.

In Europe, if a Catholic priest has a girlfriend and children (even though he is supposed to be celibate), nobody bats an eyelid; or at least until very recently it's been like that. If a Catholic woman uses contraceptives or has an abortion, nothing happens, even though those are grounds for excommunication. In the US, however, they seem to actually follow the rules, though, and they excommunicate people for such things.

Because of these differences, I wouldn't blame religion itself like the OP; something else is going on. I don't know what exactly that is, but something needs to account for the way religiosity is practiced "the old way" vs. "the new way".

A Christian "friend" once said to me, "A truth that doesn't condemn the one who speaks it is no truth at all."

I mean if you only accept what you like then damn man, that's some straight prejudice right there. And tells me you're pretty much only down to see the world through your own perspective, fuck everyone else, fuck the fundamental condition of all life. — Vaskane

Which is so ironic, coming from someone with a position like yours.

But here's a quick summary of Nietzsche's views on the Jews from The Antichrist. Which Highlights the value of resentment within Judaism -- to say Nay to every former valuation that represented an ascending evolution of life.

All this says something about Nietzsche, but not necessarily about anyone or anything else.

Where as your argument is "you're not accepting their God argument and that's not fair! Which makes me feel atheism is the cause of anti-semitism."

That's not my argument. You won't even correctly capture what I'm saying.

You, Nietzsche, and much of mankind are doing this same thing, acting by the formula:

"You are whatever I say that you are.
You think whatever I say that you think.
You feel whatever I say that you feel.
Your intentions are whatever I say that your intentions are.
You actions mean whatever I say that your actions mean.
You words mean whatever I say that your words mean.
I am the boss of you."

Pretty much every parent, kindergarden nurse, teacher, psychiatrist, social worker, boss, police officer, IRS agent, anyone with any bit of power over the other person does this.

I suppose that's "master morality": imposing one's own image of others upon those others, holding others responsible to this image, and punishing them if they don't.

I mean okay, then explain Christian anti-Semitism.

They are competing religions. Just like Christians are opposed to Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism, or any other religion that isn't Christianity. Competing religions cannot peacefully coexist (other than in the sense of negative peace, where the parties involved simply don't have the material means for warfare). There is no profound reason for religions being intolerant of eachother. It simply comes from being different religions (regardless of what they actually propose to teach; for example, they can teach "non-violence" or "love thy enemy" but given the opportunity, they go on killing sprees just like everyone else, as long as material circumstances permit).

If you don't hear much about, say, Christian anti-islamism, anti-buddhism, or anti-hinduism, etc. that has to do with those not being in such close geographic proximity to Christianity as Judaism. On the other hand, go to Asia and look at the arguments Christian missionaries have against the native religions there, and there's full-blown Christian anti-islamism, anti-buddhism, or anti-hinduism, etc. We just don't hear much about that here in the West, ti doesn't exactly make it to the news.

For comparison, you could also try to look into various Asian supremacisms and the negative view they have of Christianity, European history, being white, being "Western" etc. It's tempting to ascribe that to the bad colonial history, of course. But Asian supremacisms are older than that, and go deeper.

If you look at the bigger picture, it offers a very different perspective on the matter.

Oh wait, it follows the same formula as Judaism ... Just like Anti-Semitism follows the same formula, which is highly Ironic that an anti-semite is what he hates.

So the Jews that favorably received Nietzschean theories about Judaism and anti-semitism were actually originally interested in finding ways to undermine anti-semites? As in, "Look at them, they hate us for nothing!" This actually makes sense.

There is a popular theory that people who hate others do so out of their own insecurity, weakness, because they feel threatened by them.

But, and this isn't mentioned very often, it's also possible that they hate (or more like, despise) others because they feel entitled to do so, because they feel entitled to what those others have.

Of course, it's more ego-friendly to think that those who hate one do so because of their own insecurity, weakness.
It's far less friendly to one's ego to think that one is being hated or despised because the haters feel entitled to do so.

fuck the fundamental condition of all life.

Given what Nietzsche seems to have meant by "affirmation of life", I simply think that he was wrong, operating out of some romantic ideal, failing to account for the existential boredom that results from hedonic pursuits.

So?

If the OT says the weak are uplifted and the mighty are humbled, that's slave morality. And yes, Jesus' message is definitely slave morality as well. — frank

But only if they are slaves to God. Not to just anyone. That's the point, and the difference between being slave to man and being slave to God.

Now go on and read mate — Vaskane

It's not about merely reading it, is it. It's about liking it, agreeing with it.

And if hate and resentment are important to them, then they can hold on to it and expect the same formula to be applied to them. — Vaskane

To what end?
Can you tell?

God said it was okay for me to ignore their revelations, see how that works? — Vaskane

This is disgracefully facile. It goes to show you have no respect for those you presume to analyze.

Basically any argument that asserts God gave me X is dumb af as it can't be proven.

Irrelevant. What Nietzsche is doing (and now you, along with him) is plain old authoritarianism, a kind of cultural imperialism.

You could read Theodor Lessings Der Jüdische Selbsthass, or Jacob Golomb's Nietzsche and Zion. You may actually come into a more informed opinion rather than just basing your opinion on emotional reactions.

It's not an "emotional reaction". It's about fairness.

I'm not a theist, nor do I particularly like theists in general. So I'm not defending them on this count. But to go so far as to presume to analyze someone, and yet dismiss as irrelevant that which they consider important to them?? I would not do that. Perhaps this disqualifies me from being an Übermensch such as yourself.


So here's an Übermensch for you:

It stems from a weird inverse of morals whereby if a group is perceived to be an underdog they must be morally the right side. As long as they are "fighting" a "hegemon" and who are "occupiers" they are then "justified" is somehow the thinking. — schopenhauer1

Where I live, this is exactly the strategy of right-wingers.

On a general note: I'm not American and like some others here, I don't quite recognize "leftists" in your descriptions.

If a religion teaches, for example, humility, does this have any other significance but to paint a particular self-image? It seems more like an act of mimicry, deliberately pretending to be harmless. Or, on the other hand, an attempt to control the other person by (in)directly instructing them to be humble ("_You_ should be humble and let me do whatever I want").
— baker

Indeed. Self-righteousness becomes its own smug example of non-humility. — schopenhauer1

No, that's not what I mean. I'm talking about the importance of _t_talking the _t_alk.

There are many things in life that one is supposed to understand on one's own, without anyone explaining them to one. There is a whole art to saying things for the sake of saying them, and all involved know one doesn't mean them and isn't even supposed to mean them. And it's taboo to point this out.

A common example is to always answer "Fine, thank you" when someone asks you "How are you?" Because that "How are you?" is not actually a question. It's a cue sentence, meant to show that the person saying it is playing by the rules, and testing the other person whether they do so too, a test they pass if they reply "Fine, thank you".

My contention is that this phenomenon goes far further than that, that it extends to many ideological claims.

Otherwise I suggest contemplating why you questioned me (not that it's not allowed, hell I encourage it to the fullest, because I always seek to affirm my own abilities by a good challenge) to say "no," to me, or to challenge yourself, or perhaps even both? — Vaskane

Here is a thread that has to do with Jewish people. As an analysis of them and some phenomena related to them, you have been offering the arguments of someone who flat-out denies or ignores what is central to Jewish people, namely, the existence of God and God's revelation to the Jewish people. And who instead, basically, implies that the Jews merely invented their morality and religious doctrine as a reaction to certain challenges.

Does this seem fair to you?

With his analysis of the Jews, Nietzsche is imposing his own atheism on them, taking for granted that atheism is the only correct way to see things.

If anything, this discussion leads me to conclude that the origin of antisemitism is atheism.

Rule number 1: if you want to understand a philosopher -- you need to remove your lens and put theirs on. Otherwise your preconceived notions leave no room for learning. — Vaskane

I don't seek to understand Nietzsche per se. I am skeptical about how relevant his input is to understanding the origin of antisemitism, given that as an atheist, he dismisses the possibility of divine revelation -- all the while proposing to analyze people who believe to have received divine revelation.

Does religion perpetuate and promote a regressive worldview? — Art48

Of course. But the greatest trick that religion ever pulled was making the non-religious believe that the religious actually believe all that they openly profess to believe.

In other words, it's quite naive and wrong to take religious claims at face value. By this it is not meant that they are to be taken "metaphorically". It's that one needs to rethink whether one correctly understood the purpose with with those religious claims were made to begin with.

Can you say some more on this and the role of emotion in reason? — Tom Storm

I think of it this way: emotions are the tl;dr of reason. Or, more nicely: an emotion is a summary of a thought-through stance.

When you think about or study through a topic, you then summarize it, and this summary is then captured in a particular emotion. Later on, you don't revisit your thoughts or your study notes on the topic, you just have an emotion about it.

metaphorically that mental aspect which protects you from living life to the fullest, from taking those risks, breaking out of our comfort zones — Vaskane

This sounds like something from a self-help book.
I have trouble believing that what you're saying is really what Nietzsche meant. It sounds just so plebeian. Do aristocrats really think of themselves in such terms? Do they think of themselves as "living life to the fullest" and "breaking out of one's comfort zone"?

for a responsible drinker being less pissed off and more jovial is not an "illusionary" state. — Outlander

If a person requires to consume particular substances to display or practice certain mental, emotional, and behavioral skills or traits, this means that they are unable to practice those skills or traits *deliberately*. This is a weakness, a disadvantage.

Who would you trust more to access the value of things, your sober self or your drunk self?
— Skalidris

This question reveals a big gap between yourself and the matter at hand. As if 'trust' or 'value' have anything to do with the use of alcohol. — Tom Storm

Of course they do. Although probably not to people who are more emotional than they are philosophical.

To illustrate this difference: I once had a brief exchange with a psychologist who wrote for Psychology Today about gratitude. I struggled to understand his points because he seemed to think that *feeling* grateful is all that matters, and that everything that has to do with *whom* one is grateful to and how one *expresses* one's gratitude are unimportant or tertiary at most. What is more, right away, he accused me of trolling and repeated this several times, in every reply to me.

I think it's absurd to talk about gratitude solely in the framework of how it makes one feel. But apparently for some people, this is entirely enough. How, is beyond me, other than to try to explain it with the difference between emotionalism and philosophy.


I, too, am one of those people who doesn't like alcohol. I don't like the way it goes into my head, I don't like the way it adversely affects my motor skills. It makes me drowsy, sleepy. I'm actually in awe of people who can drink and somehow feel better for doing so, who can "enjoy art" and such better when they are under the influence than sober. To me, alcohol just makes everything flat and makes me bored.

Christianity, became a philosophy of the "weak" because it emphasized humility, charity. It was a sort of philosophy of the slave, and not of the aristocrat which he championed. — schopenhauer1

But then this doesn't take into account, well, to put it in gross terms, the value of "keeping up appearances."

It seems to me that in many religions, there are 1. the things that you're supposed to say, 2. things that you're actually supposed to believe, 3. things you're actually supposed to do, and all three are different. There is an art to reading between the lines.

It's not clear that, for example, the Christian emphasis on humility is supposed to be taken beyond verbal affirmation. Yes, humility should be talked about, it should be preached, but not actually done.

It seems naive to take religious doctrines simply at face value. It often seems they are intended as sand thrown in the eyes of the enemy, or a means to cull the weak (who actually believe the doctrines and try to behave accordingly).

If a religion teaches, for example, humility, does this have any other significance but to paint a particular self-image? It seems more like an act of mimicry, deliberately pretending to be harmless. Or, on the other hand, an attempt to control the other person by (in)directly instructing them to be humble ("_You_ should be humble and let me do whatever I want").

Nietzsche is taking for granted that there actually is no God, right?
And that as such, no religion has ever received any "divine revelation", but instead made its own religous doctrine?

I would suggest, though, that there are other ways of understanding the emergence of the morality of Good and Evil besides that of a weakness or sickness. This implies some sort of pathology or regression occurred in human history with respect to a prior period of a healthy Will to Power. — Joshs

It also implies that a human can and should find ultimate satisfaction in an unending consumption and constant conflict and struggle. Eat, drink, make merry, fight, and never get bored with any of it.

Let me get this straight. You don’t want to single the jews out as the only recipients of discrimination. But you do want to single the jews out in the follow way:

“When one religion claims to have superior knowledge of "how things really are", this is an automatic declaration of war to all other religions.” — Joshs

I'm not even singling them out.
Every religion normally believes it is the superior one, this religious supremacism is not special.
What is rarer is the combination of religious supremacism and national/racist supremacism. Some examples of this are Judaism, some schools of Hinduism, and national Catholicism.


As for my comparison with poor people being discriminated against: How come so few people cry foul when it comes to discriminating against poor people?

Up until the mid 20th century, Jews in the U.S. refused to integrate into social institutions such as country clubs, summer camps and Ivy league schools, and instead founded their own clubs, camps and even schools (Brandeis). Oh wait, that was because they were barred entry into those places. — Joshs

How is that different from the situation for poor people who have been barred from even more places?

In other words, the Jews haven't been the only ones facing that kind of predicament. So it's misleading to single them out, as if everyone else was having a great time.

I'll just repeat: everyone engages in othering. — unenlightened

If only.

In other words, more blaming the victim. — 180 Proof

It would be strange if religions wouldn't fight.

When one religion claims to have superior knowledge of "how things really are", this is an automatic declaration of war to all other religions.

Religions are in constant competition with one another. They differ only in how they engage in that fight. Things just get more bloody the more guns one side has.

Just because the members of two religions aren't currently shooting at eachother doesn't mean they are not at war. What they have is "negative peace", a tense state without open armed combat, but with a war-like mentality of hatred and contempt for the other side.

@schopenhauer1

Washington asserted that every religious community in the United States would enjoy freedom of worship without fear of interference by the government. /.../ — Mount Vernon

But what was the purpose for this state-issued and state-protected religious freedom?

Did Washington believe that all religions are equal, equally true, equally valuable in some profound spiritual way?

Or was the reason for this state-issued and state-protected religious freedom more prosaic, namely, to get the various religions and factions to stop fighting with eachother for supremacy? Given that in those fights, there can be a lot of collateral damage, general civic unrest, etc..

I think it is potentially useful to recognise what oneself and everyone else is doing with our lives and our deaths. — unenlightened

Not everyone engages in othering, though, it doesn't come naturally to all people. This is a problem, for them at least.

It might be possible to do it less vehemently at least, and it might be possible to modify societies so that the fault lines of identity become more blurred.

But to what end?

War and strife are massive mid-term incentives for economic growth, as crude as this sounds.

What point is it to save the body at the cost of destroying the spirit?

People are responsible for their actions — Tzeentch

Responsible to whom?

What is that higher standard? — Paine

Granted, perhaps that higher standard seems to be justified because of the centuries of persecution. Victims tend to be assumed innocent and morally superior.

As I previously observed, your view of history, in this regard, is very selective.

What other religio-ethnic group has been targeted worldwide and for so long as the Jews? They are unique in this regard.

Oh. I have the book in translation in my native language, so that's awkward to backtranslate the terminology. So I looked up some reviews in English that I think are fitting.
Besides, I seem to be the only one here in this thread following this theme. You did say any thoughts on the state of web applications and websites are welcome. Perhaps a separate thread is in order.