Hello. I think every part of Creation, every species, is universally unique and I value that intrinsically. — Photios
Perhaps it should be noted that modernity and modernism are two different things.In contrast, it seems like there are plenty of people like me that just don’t have any problem with modernity whatsoever. Given this, I tend to think that maybe we should give modernity more credit and maybe we should be more modest in our criticism of modern life. — TheHedoMinimalist
Perhaps it should be noted that modernity and modernism are two different things. — ssu
Yeah. There is a thesis in this subject and we have yet to define terms. Modernism is long gone and was a hugely influential movement that ultimately led to post-modernism.Well, what is the difference between modernity and modernism? — TheHedoMinimalist
have noticed that there seems to be quite a few philosophers who have a tendency of spending a lot of time criticizing modernity. — TheHedoMinimalist
I think this lacks precision. Thinkers across millennia are often critical of the era they live in. Each contemporary era has its preoccupations and ideas worthy of criticism. What is it about the present era that sticks out for you? — Tom Storm
Modernity is the present that we live in, it's a historical period of time. Modernism can be said to be a philosophical movement and can be understood in many ways, starting from an art style to being a broader societal view. Hence many of those philosophers are more likely to be critical of modernism rather than of modernity, starting with the post-modernists.Well, what is the difference between modernity and modernism? — TheHedoMinimalist
I think many times the clash happens when the so-called "modernist" solution, or what is viewed to be a "modernist" solution to some problem, which likely is the rather pragmatic, technocratic (that the solution is to use technology, science and experts) or free market oriented (let the market mechanism solve the problem) solution to a complex problem, which then the "anti-modernist" doesn't like (and likely sees a political power play in the modernist solution). — ssu
I personally hope that I’ll die around the age of 55 in a fairly painless manner. — TheHedoMinimalist
I’m not sure why you fear debilitating pain in your later years so much, unless there’s something I don’t know about your present physical condition that would explain it. I’m a late-middle-aged man, and the pains I endure are typical of my age: arthritis in my knee requiring a brace, a pesky hernia causing occasional back pain, a tooth sensitive to hot and cold liquids, etc, but certainly nothing I would rather die than suffer. — Todd Martin
Didn’t you, in an earlier post, say one of the benefits of our day was being able to eat better than any emperor ever did? Surely you weren’t thinking of a Big Mac when you said that!...or were you??? — Todd Martin
As far as Mr. Collier is concerned, I frankly have neither the time nor inclination to look his music up and listen to it. — Todd Martin
I realized there were vistas of musical experience that had been hidden from me...not purposefully, but by a general denigration in the culture of classical things. — Todd Martin
I know musical appreciation is a very subjective thing. All I can say—and this doesn’t help our discussion—is, let’s see whose name is remembered a hundred years from now: that of Jacob Collier, or that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The latter’s name has certainly outlasted all the names of all the “McDonald’s” folk musicians of his own day. — Todd Martin
Whatever is most emergent and new, contrary to what ever came before, is praised prima facie, at the expense of true skill and accomplishment. — Todd Martin
Similar to this is the assertion that his music appeals to all cultures, not just the stultified Western one of a Mozart. O Hedomenos: what is more modern and ultra-democratic than all things multi-cultural? especially if they aren’t derived from the traditionally dominant one? — Todd Martin
You apparently live a life very independent of binding attachments to other ppl, apparently even to ppl of your own family, but the vast majority of other ppl don’t live this way. — Todd Martin
Consider all the cultures of mankind past and present: do you find any that don’t consider sex more than just having fun, experiencing a thrill? — Todd Martin
Much of the thrill of a sexual encounter in the good ole days was due to the fact that it was prohibited and forbidden. Now that all is laid bare and everything is permitted, what do we find? — Todd Martin
...I imagine that your sexual conquest and pleasure, the girl old enough to be your mom, either coaxed you into a ho-hum regular not-as-exciting sexual routine, or pressured you to become more committed. Either way, what you sought was lost. — Todd Martin
Why 55? I am ten years north of that and have never felt better. There are many people who have taken really good care of themselves (or have genetic privilege :) that are in great shape well into their 80's and even 90's now. — synthesis
Well, I would have to wait and see if I end having health problems. It’s kinda common to start having them before 55 though — TheHedoMinimalist
, I should have rather said, to remove ambiguity, “...by a general denigration of classical things in the (present) culture”.I realized there were vistas of musical experience that had been hidden from me...not purposefully, but by a general denigration in the culture of classical things. — Todd Martin
, I didn’t mean that you would experience it in your soul, as a felt desire or emotion; just that you would experience it from the women you get involved with, drawing from my many relationships with them over my lifetime. I don’t presume to know anything more about you than you tell me. Of course, like everybody, I make judgements about ppl from what they tell me about themselves.Most other ppl, especially women, consider the “romantic drama” surrounding sexual intercourse to be justified, and I imagine this is something you have either already, or soon will, experience yourself. — Todd Martin
I didn’t mean that you would experience it in your soul, as a felt desire or emotion; just that you would experience it from the women you get involved with, drawing from my many relationships with them over my lifetime — Todd Martin
I, this random guy on the internet who, actually, is not so random now, since I to you, like you to me, have shared particular, even sometimes intimate, details of each others’ lives? — Todd Martin
I heard nothing in his music that was not predicated on Western harmony, — Todd Martin
You are wrong about the diet of the ancients: they had excellent sauces and spices, drawn straight from the garden, both aristocrat and plebs, and the former had blocks of ice drawn down from the snowy mountaintops to cool their perishables. — Todd Martin
But let me ask you this, O Hedomenos: what effect do you think your physical abuse as a child had on the way that you perceive the world now? — Todd Martin
don’t you feel a bit like you are exaggerating things when you publicly state that you were physically abused as a child? — Todd Martin
Consider all the countless children that have endured such abuse constantly, almost every day of their childhood, and what trauma that must have permanently afflicted on their souls! — Todd Martin
At any rate, as I said, my brother did not hold his grudge because of the physical pain—how can physical pain that is soon gone last in the memory of a child?—but rather because of the sting of injustice. So I suspect your 15 seconds of pain as a child must have been etched in your memory for some reason other than that it was physically painful (?) — Todd Martin
well, I think luck plays a pretty big role in determining who ends up being remembered and who gets forgotten. For example, the composer Bach didn’t become popular until 200 years after his death. Mozart was also not super popular while he was alive and his music had to be revived long after his death. In contrast, a composer like Wagner was really famous during his lifetime but became a mere footnote in the history of classical music. Jacob Collier has a sizable following today and he might be regarded as being better than Mozart 300 years from now because you never know. These opinions about who is a greater composer are often dependent on the opinions of an establishment of posh music critics. — TheHedoMinimalist
A needle stuck in your arm is painful, right? — Todd Martin
But isn’t the thought of being safe from a deadly disease worth a little painful prick? — Todd Martin
On the other hand, do you entrust your health to a pervert? — Todd Martin
What if his perversion is delight in cutting boys’ balls off? — Todd Martin
Who in their right mind fears 15 seconds of pain more than an eternity of death? — Todd Martin
Do you have this same reaction when you stub your toe over a chair-leg, or receive a paper-cut on your finger, or bang your knee against a door-edge? — Todd Martin
Have you considered exactly why Mozart’s music was not popular in his day, yet was revived, or why Wagner became a footnote, despite his popularity? — Todd Martin
Is it wise to judge the quality of something by its popularity, to take a poll? — Todd Martin
.You seem to be listing very mild forms of pain in comparison to my scenario of being beaten by a grown man as a child. Trust me, it caused me much more pain than stubbing my toe would. It might partially be because I was still a child with a fragile child’s body and that would also increase the pain involved. — TheHedoMinimalist
a couple of things stand out to me: firstly, if we are to judge the intensity of pain objectively, wouldn’t we do so by observing the reaction to it by the one experiencing it? — Todd Martin
So when you say that the examples of pain I listed are “very mild” in comparison to what you experienced, I just can’t believe that, at least judging pain by mere intensity. — Todd Martin
A grown man is indeed much stronger than a child and can therefore inflict great pain on him...but a door jamb is more solid than a grown man, and can inflict great pain on my toe also. What’s the difference then? — Todd Martin
The real reason the experience of being slammed to the ground was traumatic to you is not because it was painful to your body—that pain only lasted 15 seconds—but because it was painful to your soul, and THAT pain has lasted all your life; and until you realize this, you will continue to misattribute the trauma to mere physical pain, and you will fail to realize that physical pain is always context-dependent; that is, on how it touched your soul. — Todd Martin
but everybody knows that a child’s bones are more supple and pliant than an adult’s; and, besides, you don’t say any bones were even broken. — Todd Martin
If any of my words have cast the shadow of a doubt in your mind about the etiology of your trauma, then let me know, and I will continue to attempt to persuade you; otherwise, I will leave off, and consider my efforts to have been in vain. — Todd Martin
I want to talk to someone who sees this conversation as an opportunity for 2 people to discover the truth together. — TheHedoMinimalist
I find any sort of universalism about human nature and the way humans experience things to be highly implausible as I think people just experience the world in vastly different ways. — TheHedoMinimalist
You seem to be listing very mild forms of pain in comparison to my scenario of being beaten by a grown man as a child. — TheHedoMinimalist
If there is no universal human nature, and no common human experience, how can two different human beings discover any common truth together concerning either their natures or experiences? — Todd Martin
What do “grown man” and “child” have to do with intensity of physical pain? — Todd Martin
Well, your first premise pretty much puts an end to that, O, Hedomenos, doesn’t it? — Todd Martin
By using those terms you prejudice the reader: he imagines a powerful brute having his way with a defenseless weakling, and the effect on the reader is not one of excruciating pain (though that too may be involved), but rather of stronger taking advantage of weaker in order to vent his animus. THAT, O Hedomenos, is the context of the pain you keep denying exists, though you have given it to us in your very words. — Todd Martin
I doubt you would agree with this, but I think any medical procedure done in “the nether regions” of the body on a sentient being must be more traumatic than if performed most anywhere else. Why? Because those parts of the body are most private... — Todd Martin
I’m arguing that the common truth to be discovered is the truth of there not being any universal human nature. I believe in objective truth but I don’t believe in universal human nature. I don’t see why the existence of objective truth would entail the existence of universal human nature. — TheHedoMinimalist
How can you believe in the objective truth about anything if you don’t assume it has a common nature? — Todd Martin
But, Honey, you have given no proof of your argument other than your own subjective (not objective) experience. — Todd Martin
As long as you respond to me, so will I to you, and I will never give up in attempting to show you the weaknesses of your arguments...in case that somehow benefit you, and your responses somehow benefit me. — Todd Martin
You then say,It matters not only how hard the thing that hits you is but also how hard it is trying to hit you. — TheHedoMinimalist
doors aren’t trying to hurt you and so they aren’t going to be as efficient at doing so. — TheHedoMinimalist
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