In tandem from 4000BC Sumeria onward? — Vera Mont

An eminently liberal idea: that capitalism is as old as civilization itself :lol:

No, it wasn't disrespect — Vera Mont

Yeah, it really now seems that it was.

:up:

EDIT: I mean, I think that's a big part of how liberalism grew. I'd back off from describing it in conspiratorial terms.

I must be using the wrong dictionary. Oxford has the meaning as — Vera Mont

Not a word about colonialism or slavery, class hierarchy or capital — Vera Mont

What said. What I said about colonialism, slavery, and class hierarchy was an expression of a position in political philosophy, and a position with respect to liberalism's historical and social role, which I explained was a common Marxist position --- so you're unlikely to find it in a dictionary. What you've effectively done is just dismissed my position, perhaps because you found my response rude, I'm not sure (if so, I apologize). In any case, you can't engage in a discussion --- unless, that is, you are trying to be positively disrespectful --- using appeals to dictionary definitions.

A better description of liberalism is on Wikipedia:

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mutually conflicting views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. — Liberalism

I think it's fair to approach this from a historical perspective to see how liberalism developed, and I don't think you have to be a Marxist to see its association with the development of capitalism. As for colonialism, slavery, and all those bad things, well, there are many examples of liberalism's role in justifying these things. I'll give two.

1. Liberalism's egalitarian principles applied explicitly only to "the community of the free," which meant reasonably wealthy white men, everyone else being either inferior or not quite ready for the benefits of civilization.

2. Colonialism, usually violent and coercive, was justified by liberals as a part of a civilizing mission to save the backward races from their benighted condition.

An interesting question here might be to what extent one can say, trans-historically, that these examples represented an infidelity to some true liberalism. I personally think that's an impossible position, although many hold it, but while I see the way that liberalism was shaped by the social reality of expanding capitalism, the ideas that came out of that were not all bad.

Anyway, probably none of this comes close to responding to the OP, so maybe I should quit now.

I'm going out on a limb because I haven't read him, but I get the sense that Deleuze was doing something like this. I don't know about poetry, but his metaphysical concepts are products of the imagination, knowingly fictional, and designed to be useful for thinking rather than corrresponding to "how things really are". Whether that's really metaphysics or just meta-metaphysics I have no idea.

Nobody anywhere knows how to stop it. — javi2541997

Are you sure about that?

The essence of capitalism is the haves using up the have-nots and keeping them have-nots as long as they're useful. — Vera Mont

And the essence of liberalism is to justify capitalism with the ideology of equality, individual liberty and property rights.

And not only to justify capitalism, but to justify colonialism, slavery, and class hierarchy. This is described pretty well in Domenico Losurdo's Liberalism: A Counter-History, although he goes too far for my liking --- unlike him (as I recall) I do think there is a lot of good in liberalism.

Anyway, what I've just written is a facile and old-fashioned Marxist criticism, but it does remind us that liberalism is bound up with capitalism and is often on the same side, rather than being opposed to it (that would be socialism).

Modern social justice liberalism, and perhaps Nussbaum and Rawls, might represent a late twentieth century patch-up job prompted by the realization that capitalism, the supposed vehicle of liberty, doesn't actually deliver it (as if nobody had pointed this out before).

@Count Timothy von Icarus Interesting OP; who knows, maybe I'll get around to responding to it.

:up:

And as far as I can tell there’s even more to it than that, e.g., the aesthetic sense in general and its connection to morality, and the role of play in the development of the aesthetic sense. So, it seems to be significantly anthropological and more than just philosophy of art.

Chronologically. I'm about half way through and have already discovered many authors that were new to me.

Taking a break now though, because it's massive.

The one I love most of the above is the Schiller book. — Baden

Schiller seems to come up a lot in critical theory but I’ve never paid any attention. Your comment and the description on SEP make the Letters look more interesting than I expected.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. So far: great. — Jamal

That was a hasty judgement, made before Mr Rochester's appearance. From then on, it's bad.

Recently:

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (re-read) 5/5
Russian Stories from Everyman's Library 4/5
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer (ongoing) 5/5
Under the Skin by Michel Faber 3.7/5

Currently:

Minima Moralia by Theodor Adorno 5/5

I just don't see how one can rationally assume it wasn't much worse back then, particularly way back then in societies that didn't have law enforcement, standardized education, or basically any sort of social service or humane form of justice let alone any intricate, codified system of laws. — Outlander

You appear to think the existence of a codified system of laws speaks for itself, as something that should benefit women, when in reality, legal codes have existed for most of history to restrict women's rights to autonomy, property, and freedom of movement (and not only in the past, of course).

I thought it was widely known that civilization, meaning a sedentary society built on intensive agriculture and characterized by social stratification and state institutions, has usually resulted in an oppression of women much worse than they experienced in hunter-gatherer societies. It happens that way for various reasons, including property and inheritance, which requires the control of reproduction. Even if men were dominant in many cases in earlier societies, in civilized society this was intensified and institutionalized.

I mean, this seems to be the most common view among anthropologists and in associated disciplines, so assertions to the contrary probably need some kind of support, rather than just intuition.

Good question. I think Nietzsche was asking something similar:

There are still harmless self-observers who believe 'immediate certainties' exist, for example 'I think' or, as was Schopenhauer's superstition, 'I will': as though knowledge here got hold of its object pure and naked, as 'thing in itself', and no falsification occurred either on the side of the subject or on that of the object. But I shall reiterate a hundred times that 'immediate certainty', like 'absolute knowledge' and 'thing in itself', contains a contradictio in adjecto: we really ought to get free from the seduction of words! Let the people believe that knowledge is total knowledge, but the philosopher must say to himself: when I analyse the event expressed in the sentence 'I think', I acquire a series of rash assertions which are difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove - for example, that it is I who think, that it has to be something at all which thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of an entity thought of as a cause, that an 'I' exists, finally that what is designated by 'thinking' has already been determined - that I know what thinking is. For if I had not already decided that matter within myself, by what standard could I determine that what is happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? Enough: this 'I think' presupposes that I compare my present state with other known states of myself in order to determine what it is: on account of this retrospective connection with other 'knowledge' at any rate it possesses no immediate certainty for me. - In place of that 'immediate certainty' in which the people may believe in the present case, the philosopher acquires in this way a series of metaphysical questions, true questions of conscience for the intellect, namely: 'Whence do I take the concept thinking? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an 'I' as cause, and finally of an 'I' as cause of thought?' Whoever feels able to answer these metaphysical questions straight away with an appeal to a sort of intuitive knowledge, as he does who says: 'I think, and know at least that this is true, actual and certain' - will find a philosopher today ready with a smile and two question-marks. 'My dear sir,' the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand, 'it is improbable you are not mistaken: but why do you want the truth at all? — Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil §16

Racists, homophobes, sexists, Nazi sympathisers, etc.: We don't consider your views worthy of debate, and you'll be banned for espousing them. — Site guidelines

Personally, I think this says all that needs to be said. I'll close this discussion now but if anyone wants to start a discussion about this aspect of the guidelines, feel free to do so in the Feedback section.

:up:

Gregory should be banned — frank

That happened five minutes ago.

@Gregory was banned for misogyny.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/comments/4660/gregory

As it says in the guidelines, this kind of thing is not tolerated.

I have banned @Arcane Sandwich.

19 days ago I privately asked him to reduce his posting rate and to stay on topic when he did post, as it seemed to me that he was dominating the forum too much, by posting everywhere and so often (he had posted 2000 times in two months), disrupting several discussions. I said I would implement a temporary suspension if he did not comply (this prevents someone from posting but allows them to send PMs) but he said he would just refrain from posting entirely for three months. A strange response, but I said okay. Some hours ago he started posting again and sent me a PM to admit to breaking his promise, and I suspended him. He responded to that with private insults and I banned him.

It was clear to me that while he was knowledgeable in philosophy, his attention-seeking behaviour and apparent need to be heard on every topic was not good for the forum. And if he had really wanted to stay here and cooperate he would have ridden out the suspension and refrained from sending me unpleasant messages.

I'm sorry to see @fdrake go. I've got used to his support, knowledge, and guidance. I hope he hangs around and continues to post.

This old thread is attracting stupid comments so I'm closing it.

Jamal deserves it; either with British pounds or Russian rubles. — javi2541997

2 * 0 = 0 :grin:

I agree that a celebration is in order.

October 20th, 2015: I remember it well. At my desk in the chateau perched on a mountaintop just inland from Nice, one arm broken (mountain bike accident) and struggling to type with one hand. The weather was clear and fresh.

Maybe Vancouver Island?

My favourite is a journey that goes bike -> train(s) -> ferry -> bike. But that’s a leisure thing so maybe it doesn’t count.

I like air travel when I’m taking a multi-part journey through different countries and spending a lot of time in airports. One enters a world out of time, a world parallel to the mundane, that works by different rules. It’s exotic, weird, and exciting. I enjoy the actual flights somewhat less, because the seats are uncomfortable, but sometimes you get an amazing view—not just an impressive or beautiful view, but an amazing one. Most memorably, flying over Greenland and the Northern Canadian wilderness on the way to Calgary, flying past Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus, and flying over the Alps, the Swiss and Italian lakes, and the Balkans, seeing the glinting Danube snaking away to the Black Sea.

Train is generally my favourite non-self-powered mode of transport but in Scotland it can be miserable because it’s too unreliable on Sundays, too crowded, and Scottish people are very noisy in public (I only really noticed this last year, after living in Russia, where people are very quiet in public). Favourite train journeys: Glasgow to Mallaig, Edinburgh to London on the East coast main line on the old GNER with the restaurant carriage, the high speed from Valencia to Madrid, and Toronto to Quebec City then back to Montreal. The last two were great largely because of the company — they stand out as special, adventuresome moments in my life.

Ferries: the big ferry to and from Vancouver Island, and several smaller ferries between Vancouver Island’s islands (very beautiful); Nice to Corsica (saw a whale while drinking Corsican beer on the top deck); and of course the West of Scotland: I’ve been on seven ferries just since June last year (saw dolphins a couple of times).

I’m pretty anti-car but I can’t deny that I’ve enjoyed a few road trips.

Bicycle, electric scooter, and walking are my favourite ways of getting around a city.

Metro/tube/subway is fine, but it’s underground and that’s never positively fun. Trams I like.

Buses, it depends. The double decker buses in Edinburgh are the best way of getting around after walking — I enjoy riding the top deck at the front, above the driver, as much as I did when I was a kid — but buses in other places, or between cities, are no fun at all.

A very interesting and diverse selection tonight.








(listen to that one for at least 2 minutes or don't bother)

EDIT: that last track was released just a few years before Mr Bungle's first album. Was it in the air, or were Mr Bungle aware of that album? :chin:

And this is what I, personally, get out of jazz that I can't get out of other genres of music. — Arcane Sandwich

Each to their own :cool:

You seem to be speaking from the point of view of a musician. When I first heard Coltrane, my ear was also uneducated, but it didn’t matter: it hit me on a gut level. I loved the way it sounded and how it felt. It didn’t sound abstract and it wasn’t something I had to learn how to like.

So I took up the saxophone and found out how hard it was to play like Coltrane. But from the point of view of the listener, it’s not about abstraction or technicality. Or rather, it need not be (I admit that abstraction and technicality can be attractive in themselves).

Another reason that a focus on technique and theory is not appropriate is that many of the greatest jazz musicians have not been virtuoso players, i.e., they played idiomatically and they were were not necessarily able to play in other styles. Ornette Coleman and Miles could only play the way they played, stylistically and technically—they were a world away from the music school virtuosos like Branford Marsalis and Michael Brecker. And yet they were jazz giants.

Fair enough. It's hard to elucidate exactly what I meant by "intense" and "hard", etc., but it sounds more penetratingly intense to my sensibility, particularly things like this:



I agree that metal and noise might be often more brutal, though.

It's multi-dimensional, humane, all-encompassing. It's the difference between great literature and formulaic genre fiction. It's warmer, yet harder, more intense yet more relaxed. It's a whole world, not just a petulant little part of it, like heavy metal is.

It was watching that video that finally allowed me to appreciate Cecil Taylor.

Jazz is definitely more technical than metal — Arcane Sandwich

Maybe so, but that's not the essential thing, and it's not why I moved away from metal and towards jazz.

Around 1992 I migrated to jazz and classical in search of the kind of heavy I really wanted (and found Coltrane and Stravinsky), so I missed everything that happened in metal subsequently. Prior to jumping ship, I had begun with Iron Maiden, progressed to Sepultura, and eventually found myself at the more intense end of the spectrum: Death, Morbid Angel, Obituary, Carcass. Very few of those albums have stood the test of time for me personally (in my case it really was mainly just angry young man's music), but I do still like World Downfall by Terrorizer (at the punk end of thrash metal ("grindcore")) and Reign in Blood by Slayer. I went to see Sepultura, Godflesh, Carcass, Slayer and others, in fairly small venues, and I'm still living with the tinnitus.

One of the more groovy (almost funky) tracks from Terrorizer:



In the 2000s I discovered Mr Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, and others in that ecosystem, and was thus awoken to the interesting influences that metal was having in the new century (EDIT: I think of Mr Bungle as a 2000s band, just because that's when I discovered them), but I never again got interested in contemporary mainline heavy metal.

I do love this one by Secret Chiefs 3, for the sheer horror (although I believe it's actually being performed by one of their satellite bands):

Nah, I think Javi overreacted.

I completely understand your reaction. I just think that Clarky is open-minded enough to revise his prejudices, in this case.

Thank you for explaining some more about Franco's legacy. I must admit that when I was living in Spain I avoided the subject completely, for fear of saying the wrong thing, so I didn't learn anything about it while I was there. I did make interesting, somewhat related discoveries, such as the fact that Denia was a shelter for a few German Nazis after the war. I put that in my micro-fiction "Moriscos" story a couple of years ago, along with the expulsion of the Moriscos. But these things stood out to me because I generally had an entirely positive conception of Spain, and I am certainly not aligned with the view of Northern European capitalists and bureaucrats—if there is a division there I'm generally on the side of Spain (and Greece).

I give up — javi2541997

Anglos aren't saying much in this discussion mainly, I think, because they feel they don't know enough. @T Clark was brave enough to raise his head above the parapet, perhaps thinking he could learn something, but you just shot him down.

That said, I have no idea why Spain strikes him as more repressive than other parts of Europe, and what he thinks the Islamic history has to do with that.

One thing in the OP that might be misleading for Anglos is your mention of the commemorations, which they might incorrectly imagine are some kind of celebration of Franco. In my experience, most Brits and Americans have no idea what the attitude is to Franco within Spain. Introducing that topic would be useful.

One-hundred Years of Solitude was absolutely spellbinding. — Pantagruel

Agreed :up:

• Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto
• Point Zero by Seichō Matsumoto

I went for a walk in Spain, starting at the beach then heading inland and up to the top of the mountain called El Montgo. Visibility was good all day. I couldn't see Ibiza from the beach but I could see it from the mountain.

I've also seen ships sinking over the horizon.

But the thing is, I knew it before these confirmations.

My favourite Russian song, once again: