I can see why you went in this direction, but that wasn’t exactly what I intended. What I was really trying to say, albeit unclearly, is that reason is often used as a post hoc justification for how people feel. When other factors like destiny, religion, or politics are added, it can become dangerous. But what I really wanted to highlight is that the Nazis reasoned their actions were in the world’s best interests; they believed they were the good guys.

Is it really that simple, though? The partially-disrobed homeless dude on the corner believes he has reason and destiny on his side. So, respectfully, it's far more complex and substantial than that one requirement of self-confidence or self-delusion. — Outlander

No. I am not arguing that delusion is an issue. I said reason and destiny. Not madness and destiny.

By the way, Hitler was a homeless dude (in your words) in Vienna for some years and used to rant in public spaces, much to the embarrassment of others (Ian Kershaw's great book Hubris). Amongst other things, it was his reasoning that eventually made him attractive to others.

Why are libraries full of lifetimes of wisdom and virtue empty yet arenas of combat and near-death cheap entertainment full at any given moment? Ask yourself that. And you'll find out something about yourself you did not wish to know. — Outlander

It's best not to presume what others here know or don't know about themselves on a forum. My local library is massively busy, and I am not sure what you mean by an 'arena of conflict'. But the idea that people prefer circuses to intellectual pursuits is perfectly reasonable and conventional notion. How does this relate to my point?"

Not sure if this is relevant, but I've often held that the notion of evil depends heavily on perspective and motivated reasoning. Many years ago, I met a couple of old former Nazis. They told me how, in their view, the world had been taken over by great evil, and how those “forces of evil” had destroyed Hitler’s beneficial plan to transform humanity into a great force for good. “One day our time will come again,” one of them concluded, followed by a sermon about how truth and goodness will always win out over evil (and other heavily derived Christian notions).

Clearly, most of those who think they are serving reason or truth, God or science believe they are doing good, no matter how harmful their actions may be in practice. Which reminds me that the most dangerous people in the world are probably those who think they have reason and destiny on their side.

I resent I'm not as metaphysically street smart as they are. — baker

It almost sounds like you resent the fact you are not immoral in an immoral world?

How about we follow the money and suggest that what is going on is not a politization of institutionalized religion, nor a corruption -- but a correct, exact, adequate presentation of religion/spirituality.

That when we look at religious/spiritual institutions and their practitioners, we see exactly what religion/spirituality is supposed to be. — baker

Does this mean you are anti-relgion?

I think that’s actually a keen insight.

Thank you; that’s very succinct and helpful.

If one wishes to be an excellent human being then they must have the virtues, and the virtues are had by practice or familiarity. Then, for Aristotle happiness is had via excellence, but excellence is not sought as a means to the end of happiness. It's almost as if Aristotle would say that happiness is excellence seen in a particular light. For a simple example, the man who is an excellent soccer player is brought joy by playing soccer, but the joy and the activity of playing soccer well aren't really two different things. It's not as if he plays soccer well and then goes to the sideline to wait for someone to bring him his joy as a reward. — Leontiskos

Nice.

I'm not sure I would call Aristotle a "naturalist." That seems not only anachronistic, but perhaps also incorrect. I don't see a lack of transcendence in Aristotle, even if his idea of God was not the Christian God. He does admittedly distinguish the practical man and his moral virtues from the philosopher and his contemplation, but the contemplation of the philosopher looks to be "transcendent." — Leontiskos

This is a very interesting point. For Aristotle, how does the practical man provide a foundation for his virtue if not through contemplation?”

I can see why you’d say that, but as it says in Matthew, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” That sentiment applies equally to politics and religion. It’s a fair question to pose: if religion is a superior alternative to the secular, where might it be found operating in a way that appropriately demonstrates this? And I am open to the fact that this can be demonstrated.

Obviously, many people have been gravely hurt by the religions. The history of religion in historical Europe is marred by episodes of appalling violence and repression - the Inquisition, the slaughter of the Cathars, the religious wars. — Wayfarer

Is there a religion in the present era that exemplifies the good?

Right, but I think there is a quite robust argument to be made that it is secularism and liberalism that has spawned fundamentalism, elevated fideism, etc. The two are not unrelated. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, it's a fairly frequently made argument and I think it's a reasonable point It's often argued that fundamentalism is a reaction to modernity. That's certainly Karen Armstrong's take.

Invoking the specter of Christian nationalism here might thus be likened to invoking the threat of Stalinism to oppose the New Deal in that, arguably, the New Deal actually made a sort of American Stalinism less, not more likely precisely because it addressed the issues that motivated Stalinism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would have thought that white Christian nationalism is one of the strong groups behind the current US President. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez charts this influence across 75 years. Interestingly she's a Christian herself and deeply concerned. I think she would agree with Hart that it's closer to a heretic cult. And the false teaching you referenced above.

Isn't it the case though, that almost everyone already agrees about what is morally right when it comes to the really significant moral issues such as murder, rape, theft, exploitation, torture and so on? — Janus

Perhaps. But isn’t it also the case that religious and political groups will hold beliefs that allow for those things - think underaged marriage, wife burning, execution of gay people, use of extraordinary rendition under Bush, corporate exploitation of workers, etc. It’s not hard to imagine medieval style initiatives becoming more popular with MAGA for instance.

But now I understand that eudaimonia is objective. :up: — javi2541997

I'm not confident it is. The idea of human flourishing is dependant upon whose version of eudaimonia one privileges. Eudaimonia is objective only if, like Aristotle or the Stoics, say, one believes in a fixed human nature or function that defines flourishing but without such a foundation, as in most modern views, it becomes subjective, reflecting personal or cultural values rather than an objective standard. Which follows the debate on a number of subjects on this forum - essentialists versus non-essentialist positions.

Ok. Maybe you’re an optimist then. Firstly, I think this is entertainment and it doesn’t have an ultimate moral. But if I had to provide a reading, it looks to me like this: if you turn to crime, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how clever your plans; or how methodical you are, your life will become a living hell; you will be hollowed out on the inside, estranged from everyone you love, and you will die scorned and alone.

I’m not really sure I see the issue. Storytelling (set aside media) has always promoted the extension of our choices and options. One of the first novels, Don Quixote satirises this by demonstrating some absurd outcomes.

What does BB do that Shakespeare or Hollywood or Bret Easton Ellis haven’t done?

That there is bad religion, and it's worse than no religion. — Wayfarer

Maybe. The quesion I keep asking is if there's a big hole in modernity, just who chooses what we fill it with? We can’t just overthrow the status quo without expecting that even worse alternatives may be waiting in the wings to fill the void. As Žižek has said, “the problem with the revolution is the morning after."

My view would be that most people can tell the differnce between entertainment and the world they live in and most do the right thing in life. Maybe it's different where you live.

It doesn't beg the question. — Wayfarer

Oops, typo - should have written, "it raises the quesion".

I'm not seeking to revive Christianity so much as the 'sense of the sacred', in light of which human life and suffering are meaningful and intelligible, and not just something to be borne, Sisyphus-like. As I've said already, it's why I've always sought the cosmic dimension in philosophy. As one of my analytic philosophy heros, Thomas Nagel, put it: — Wayfarer

Sure but this isn't just about you and your individual take on the meaning crisis. How do we approach those who seek a Christian worldview as a solution? Surely, what counts as Christianity is a crucial question that comes directly out of the meaning crisis and the questions you keep positing.

You may not seek to impose a white nationalist Christian theocracy on the world, but many who benefit from undermining liberalism and secular culture certainly do.

This isn’t just a shadow side of faith; it is faith at work.

As it happens, I was in a bookshop in October looking at DB Hart’s translation of the New Testament when a couple of fellow browsers asked me about the text. They were young Christians and we got talking. And guess what? In their view, liberalism had failed, Nietzsche was right about the death of God, secular culture had collapsed, and people were flailing in contemporary culture because their lives lacked a spiritual dimension. The solution: Christianity and Trumpism.

I know what you think of this, but I’m more interested in understanding how we can assess the merits of the spiritual beliefs some people propose as an alternative to secular culture. Who's going to be the door bitch?

Don't you think this has become the norm for us today? Success is already the highest good. In pursuing success, sacrifices can be made, as long as they are acceptable. This is called "collateral damage." For many contemporaries, this has evolved into a willingness to do any dirty work, as long as it is paid fairly. — Astorre

No. I think it is important to separate entertainment from what most people do.

He argues we need to recognise this transformation if we’re to assess religion’s legacy honestly, whilst also acknowledging that Christian culture has its faults and shadow sides. For sure it wasn't always beneficial but it demonstrably was foundational to the formation of Western culture. — Wayfarer

It interests me that Hart has called fundamentalist Protestant Christianity (as is practiced widely in the US and throughout MAGA lands) a cult and heresy. Which is not hard to see. But it does beg the question what counts as the real thing? Ultimately the idea of Christian culture means many different things, from Nationalist bigotry to rainbow flag diversity. A belief in transcendence of itself doesn’t really say much.

I’m interested in why you think we should acknowledge Christianity’s impact on our history. In what sense do we need to do this as we move forward and deal with tribalism, authoritarianism and climate change? I would imagine that your belief is that modern culture had borrowed the values without the teleology and transcendence that gave them meaning. Does this in your view lead straight to Vervaeke, et al?

Hence, my worldview is scientific, secular and vegan. What is your worldview? How do you justify your worldview? — Truth Seeker

I live by my intuition and don't really justify my views. I am an atheist and tend to hold simple minded pragmatic positions on most subjects. For now I hold that reality isn’t fixed or fully knowable. Our experience of the world is shaped by the ways we interpret and describe it, and probably not by any underlying objective structure. We can never capture the “whole truth” because reality is always more complex than any explanation. I try to focus instead on understanding the limits of my knowledge and the frameworks I use to make sense of the world.

The idea for this post arose from a conversation about a local TV series centered around the justice system: it meticulously depicts abuses of power by law enforcement officers, a judge masturbating under his robes, and bribes, bribes, bribes.

Of course, in the end, as the genre dictates, justice is restored, but again, it's not because of the officials' vices, but simply because of accidents or technical errors.

And I'm talking about a disconnect here. A kind of cultural fracture: you won't be punished for your vices, but for an accident you miscalculated. So, it doesn't matter how bad you are; what matters is how sensible and prudent you are. — Astorre

Are you simply saying that some stories explore complex moral problems and that the outcomes are unsatisfying from your moral perspective?

1. The majority of screen time in such "masterpieces" is dedicated to the aestheticization and heroization of the sinner; the moral justification of atrocities.
2. The reckoning is presented as a "nod to the genre" or a payment for the right to glorify crime.
3. Punishment, even if inevitable, is perceived as the completion of the drama, as an atonement for all future sinners, and not as retribution. — Astorre

Isn’t Breaking Bad kind of old-fashioned storytelling? Crime doesn't pay. In real life, the “bad guy” might well succeed with little cost to themselves or their families. And sometimes they even become president.

You’ve identified ideas like retribution and the moral justification of atrocities. Wasn’t Breaking Bad really about a man who made a moral choice that led him to a point of no return and the loss of everything? To me it was a more nuanced way to provide a standard “say no to drugs” and “don’t commit crime” message.

From an aesthetic or dramatic perspective, the show plays off a “fish out of water” story, where desperate situations lead to desperate choices and profound personal transformations. People find these matters compelling viewing.

Here’s my question for you: should Breaking Bad have been made, or is it glamorising immoral behavior?

This is a particularly interesting subject.

I suggest we discuss this phenomenon if this topic resonates with you. — Astorre

A TV series is about emotion, pulling us into dilemmas and relationships that keep us guessing, speculating, and wanting more. The best ones show us something new and unexpected, exploring situations we hadn’t considered. In that sense, Breaking Bad, as a multi-layered, expectation-defying narrative, achieved exactly what it set out to do.

There are many possible explanations for Breaking Bad’s story choices. The main one, I think, is that 'bad guys' are simply more interesting to watch than 'good guys'. Good guys are dull, and television has spent decades telling anemic and improbable stories about heroes triumphing over villains.

By contrast the character arc of an ordinary person (like us) sinking deeper into questionable activities and behaviours, becoming trapped by his choices is just more compelling and inherently dramatic. Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins once described the show as a Shakespearean or Jacobean tragedy. This is not a new narrative convention (Macbeth, Richard III, Titus Andronicus).

That said, it’s not a show I particularly enjoyed, I never got past season three or four. I tend to lose patience with most long-form TV; I prefer stories that reach their conclusion in a tighter, more contained form.

The idea of most people today of what it means to be philosophicallly ‘up to date’ is regressive with respect to the above thinkers. Most are still living in the world envisioned by, at best, certain early 19th century writers and , at worst, much older thinkers. So before we can talk about the need for creative innovations in philosophy we have to make sure we aren’t reinventing the wheel. — Joshs

If it isn’t already, this is a great idea for a thread.

Quick question on this. Who will catch up first - mainstream philosophy, or culture?

I remember the book but not this particular event.

So is your focus on the function of trolling rather than following the money?

Yes, I think your intuitions are reasonable. I’m not sure if there’s a single truth to be had here, most phenomena are the product of a confluence of factors.

Strip it all back and what it's down to, probably, is tribalism being marketed thorough emotion.

The question for me in all this is where do we go from here?

It seems to me that when the President of the United States posts a video of himself on X defecating on his opponents, then our culture has crossed over some kind of event horizon.

The OP is an attempt to explore this event horizon.

So yes, trolling, whether it is a symptom or the cause of the culture, is very much central to my cynicism. — Colo Millz

Got ya.

Perhaps we need to consider Trump as a maverick and a new way of inhabiting the role. He's simply behaving like any other grubby mainstream media figure.

My quesion is has the paradigm been changed - is this US politics from now on, or is it unique to Trump's style?

Is the cause of all this the anger sparked by neoliberal reforms in America, which have hollowed out communities, industries, and infrastructure, or is it the backlash against “woke” culture, or is it simply the inevitable descent of all culture into a form of showbiz?

If the prevailing mode of bullshit in our society is advertising, then trolling represents what happens when that mode becomes self-aware. Advertising teaches us to value attention over truth; trolling celebrates that condition. It marks the point at which we are no longer merely susceptible to manipulation - we have become addicted to it, fascinated by the power of provocation itself.

If bullshit ignores truth for the sake of impression management, trolling ignores truth for the sake of spectacle. The troll’s goal is not to appear credible or admirable, but to elicit a reaction, often at the expense of any meaningful communication.

If bullshit marks a disregard for truth, trolling marks a disregard for dialogue itself - a symptom of a digital culture that values power more than understanding. — Colo Millz

I'm not quite sure what your plans for this OP were. I've never taken much interest in lying or in bullshit.

From what I see, the world is primarily about marketing a perspective. For some, this is lies; for others, Frankfurt’s bullshit; and for others still, it is truth.

Are you arguing that the world lacks trust and has become cynical because of trolling and bullshit? Is this a factor in the West's meaning crisis?

I find the accusation of ‘trolling’ to be most often used as a dismissive weapon to delegitimize the reasoning and justifications of those who we disagree with. — Joshs

Totally agree with this. Often expressed as, 'You're either lying or a troll..."

The multitude of options is illusory. — baker

I guess we disagree on this.

I wasn’t just talking about religion; also beliefs, lifestyles, and choices. I know so many people who drifted from socialism to Buddhism, to Hinduism, to cultural Christianity, to New Age, to hitchhiking, to fruit picking, to unemployment, to drug use, to university, to sexuality, to military service, to music, etc, etc, and none of these things provided any real satisfaction. They were always looking to see what else they could explore what other beliefs were open to them. In the modern world (here at least), in the absence of certainty and clear pathways of tradition everything is "open". Even for those less wealthy, the cities are full of poor country folk who left their towns to experiment with different lifestyles and options.

Now, am I saying that this is true for everyone? No. It is just a noticeable part of contemporary society and, in my view, a significant factor in unrest and anxiety.

That, alone, is interesting. I have no formal philosophy background, but perhaps naively came here looking for a new way of looking at current events. "After Virtue" is the one recommendation here that has shaped my understanding of real-world issues today. — Jeremy Murray

I have no background in philosophy; I’m here to see what I might have missed and to find out what others think. This is fascinating in itself. Philosophy is far too complex and fraught a subject for an amateur like me. I’ve done plenty of reading in other subjects. I tend to think philosophy is most appealing if you’re trying to shore up a belief system, if you’re searching for truth or a foundation for morality, or if you’re unhappy and looking for consolation. I’m a fairly frivolous and cheerful person and more of a simple-minded pragmatist, so those sorts of big themes aren’t of significant use to me as I go about my business.

Freedom becomes crippling when acting on it cripples one. For example, one has the "freedom" not to have health insurance. But what kind of freedom is that? — baker

Again, different cultures have different attributes. Health care in Australia is mostly free and accessible to everyone. It’s not perfect, but the homeless and the middle class share doctors and hospitals.

What I see are people faced with a smorgasbord of choices: religious, political, and social, with almost no barriers to access because, for the most part, everything is permitted. That abundance of choice seems to make people freeze: what do I do in a world where culture is so varied? How do I focus my life when there’s a multiplicity of choices, faiths, and lifestyles all available to me? All potentially true or rewarding or superior.

The groups for whom this isn’t always a major problem tend to be hardworking, thrifty migrant communities that still have a dominant culture and a unified worldview. I know quite a few people from the Nepalese, Indian, Afghan, and Vietnamese communities. But their children sometimes come adrift because they don’t really know whether to accept proscribed tradition or embrace all the freedoms available to them.

Issue-wise, I am most worried about free speech, as we see both the left and the right using the topic politically, while refusing to commit to principles, and with social media and AI further muddying the waters. Do you or others have recommendations for philosophers on the subject of free speech, in particular that can shed light on free speech in our online world? — Jeremy Murray

I’ve never found a book of philosophy that’s assisted me with any real-world issue, to be honest. But philosophy is not my go to. I’ve read a bit of Chomsky on power, imperialism and freedom, but I’ve mostly preferred novels: Swift, Eliot, Orwell, Bellow, Dickens, Flaubert. I’m more interested in culture and have never taken much interest in politics. Apart from this site, and youtube I don't do social media. I think once people become radicalised by their social media bubble, it’s probably all over.

like I've been saying all along: Speaking up, when one is the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, can have grave consequences for one. Like your food delivery guy above: he's very lucky if he didn't get arrested for saying what he said to a policeman. — baker

Like I've been saying all along: it's different here. You would be unlucky to be arrested for that or other behaviours of putative disrespect.

Interesting. I'm not sure I believe in human nature, but I’m open to changing. I can see how Rorty’s notion of solidarity is a tempting alternative, and in some ways it mimics the role of a telos. Solidarity does give direction to moral thought: it tells us to care for others, expand empathy, reduce cruelty. But it doesn’t claim that this is necessary in the way a telos would. Nussbaum, by contrast, in her Aristotelian Capabilities Approach identifies certain human capabilities that are essential for a person to live a fully human life; essential for flourishing. I understand the attraction of this, but I struggle to get behind notions of universal capabilities. They sound so middle class and well-meaning. But I'm clogging this thread up with unrelated bullshit. Sorry @Wayfarer.

It's possible you didn't parse my sentence correctly. There was no comma after "from" in my statement: — Pierre-Normand

Ha! I'm not sure why that's there.

I view Sam Harris's account of "the moral landscape" to be completely incoherent and so grossly misinformed as not being worthy of much attention, — Pierre-Normand

People seem to love or hate The Moral Landscape.

My claim was purely negative. It was reiterating Putnam's point (to be distinguished from Harris' insistence for collapsing values into the folds of "scientific" facts) that you can't derive what makes a human life good (or an action just) from some sort of factual/scientific investigation into what "objectively" is the case about us. — Pierre-Normand

Got it. I’ve never been overly preoccupied by the is-ought problem. I know Rorty regarded the fact/value distinction as ill-founded. Presumably, it becomes more pressing if one views metaphysics as the ultimate grounding for normative claims, but not if, like Rorty, you see moral reasoning as just form of human conversation, where moral “oughts” emerge from the ways we live together rather than from some deeper metaphysical truth. He might agree with Harris about that point as both seem to be telos free.

Regarding foundations for eudaimonia, I am also, like Putnam and Rorty, an anti-foundationalist. — Pierre-Normand

I’ve found Rorty pretty interesting on this, and I’ve enjoyed some of the Putnam lectures I’ve heard. I have anti-foundationalist intuitions.

Is it your view that Alasdair MacIntyre is right or wrong when he argues (in After Virtue) that facts about human nature already imply norms about how people ought to treat each other, and that the is–ought problem only arises if you remove teleology from the conversation? Interesting: I guess I haven’t really thought much about this until recently.

MacIntyre, as we know, arrives there through Aristotle, while Rorty comes at it via pragmatism and anti-essentialism. It fascinates me that MacIntyre sees the structure of human nature, its inherent purposes, as providing the basis for moral norms, whereas Rorty takes the oposite approach, grounding morality in social practices rather than any inherent human purpose. Which one you endorse will depend on what you believe in - like most philosophy. Thoughts?

I interpret the take home message of your post to be that, when assessing the value of the Enlightenment project itself, and what lens it provides for recovering the views of the ancients, one can go Bannon's way or Taylor's way. And we've both seemingly chosen to go the same way :wink: — Pierre-Normand

Are they the only two ways?

I have discovered there was quite a lot of common ground between the perennialists and reactionary politics, which I don't want to be associated with. (I was also dismayed to learn that Steve Bannon used to quote Guenon. — Wayfarer

David Bentley Hart is disparaging of perennialism and proudly announces himself a syncretist. That’s not always the best path either - religious appropriation and incoherence being the most obvious. No doubt Hart would be a fastidious exemplar.

The failures of, say, some contemporary virtue ethicists to recover Aristotle's conception of the good life, and of the ultimate good — Pierre-Normand

Do you count Nussbaum as one of those failures?

Eudaimonia cannot survive the surgical operation that separates understanding what we are from what it is that we ought to be and do, and this can justifiably be viewed as a loss of immanence or transcendence depending on which side one locates themselves in Taylor's immanent frame. — Pierre-Normand

What’s your foundation for eudaimonia? It often strikes me that the most vociferous groups in the human flourishing space are secular moralists of the Sam Harris kind.

How would we demonstrate (in your words) what we are from, what it is that we ought to be and do?

Yes, the experts deserve my respectful silence and deference to their judgments and opinions. — ucarr

I agree for the most part. But who counts as an expert on the transcendent?

Good point, it's not just me, it may be "we".