Comments

  • Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances
    From what I've seen out there - and its real out there, its not easy out there - suicide isn't a philosophical or moral problem. I know, I know: Camus and sisyphus and all that. Maybe it's better to say that thinking of it in moral or philosophical terms is confusing. People who think of it in those terms don't often tend to commit suicide. Or if they do, they were already going to and they playact philosophizing about it as a way to feel like they have intellectual control over a process that is beyond that. Or like to ennoble it.

    Suicide in real life is more like vomiting. It something that happens to a life when theres no other choice, no matter what the suicidal person wants.     — Arcturus

    It is good that you brought this up, shifting the focus a bit from justifiability to the impetus behind a suicidal action. You seem to indicate a belief that suicide cannot be a rational decision, but rather is always emotionally-driven and irrational. Without having any data as a basis, I cannot say whether your position is correct from a statistical standpoint, but I question whether there might not be instances of suicide being prompted out of something other than the desperation of emotional furor.

    There is a current PF thread, by @javra, on the subject of teleology (specifically, "On the "Ontology of Goal Driven Determinacy") which I have been reading with some interest. Do you not suppose that the consideration of suicide by an individual might be caused by what might be called "teleological deficiency" or "teleological omission (of either occurrence or performance)" , even where there is no such desperation involved? For instance, had a person developed the idea that, given his personal belief system, there existed an imperative to achieve done goal during his life, and in the fullness of time it had become fairly clear that such a goal was either unattainable or not likely to be attained, could such not be said to cause a deficit of purpose which might render suicide a rational, and not a purely emotional, decision? Should we tell such a person that they should continue to live a life which appears to them utterly purposeless? Should we tell him to adjust his entire belief system in order to shift their concept of their personal life's purpose, and is that something even possible at a later stage in life?

    The phenomena of Seppuku/Harakiri have been mentioned (as they were bound to be) above. Is not such an act prompted by a teleological performance omission, a failure of achievement of purpose? Is this not a rational decision, though certainly with emotional overtones attending thereto, on the part of the actor? As such, cannot this act be said to be justifiable? Then, if a teleological performance omission can be said to render both rational and justifiable an act of suicide, cannot a teleological occurrence omission or a teleological deficiency, that is: a failure to distinguish a purpose or an inadequacy of purpose, respectively, render an act of suicide (a) rational and (b) justifiable, as well? I would truly like to have several opinions about this question.
  • Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances
    It feels unfair to claim that the Jewish ethic did not include things like the death penalty, self-defense, and holy war at the time of early Christianity (or the end of late temple period). — Ennui Elucidator
    No, that's not what I am claiming at all. Certainly, clearly these "torot" were present in Judaism in the 1st century CE, and had been since the Babylonian period. There remains, however, a clear ethic of life that in my view predates the Yahwist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly writings, and seems to form the basis for Jewish, resultantly, for Christian cosmology. Perhaps I should have followed my gut, and not included the biblical quotation in my post...it seems to have been distracting from my point, which was not the precise meaning of the decalogal injunction. I guess my point is, that an act of suicide violates none of the philosophical bases upon which our legal code rests. The only explanation for such an act's proscription by our law, is by the undue and misplaced influence of our Judeo-Christian religion.
  • Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances
    Thou shalt not murder. — “Deuteronomy 5:16”

    Fair enough, though. Not ever having studied Classical Hebrew, I have indeed been made to understand that such is a better translation.
  • Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances
    I’m not sure what you mean by “later”. Less than 50 “lines"? — Ennui Elucidator

    I mean that the ethic of life as an imperative in the NW Semitic, "Canaanite", religious sensibility seems to me, to predate any of the biblical writings significantly, not that it precedes within what is a heavily redacted text in the first place.
  • Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances
    There were times the Bible specifically commanded the killing of people or permitted the killing of people (war, crimes, self-defense, etc.). — Ennui Elucidator

    These religious directives came later, though, and were overlayed upon a religious sensibility which placed life abouve all other virtues. No human undertaking, religious or otherwise, continues without being perverted by "new" minds coming in. The very fact of Pikuach Nefesh evidences the centrality of the ethic of life itself to the core of Jewish religious cosmology, don't you think?
  • Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances
    Despite my having fairly strong feelings about it, I won't comment much about this matter, save to indicate that no person has authority over an individual's life but the individual himself, and no one can make evaluations regarding someone's subjective experiences and set of values, save the individual himself. Any attempt to do so must involve the imposition of one person's subjective values upon another person's evaluation of his subjective life experience. The best thing one can do when confronted with the prospect of suicide, is to help the person considering ending his life, to percieve and understand the full range of perspectives and possibilities pertaining to his or her life, and to take any and all steps to display the value that you place in their existence. The ultimate right to choose life or death for themselves, though, is theirs alone.

    Part of the ethics of suicide do involve the question of the right to make such a choice and this is extremely complex. Mental health services often step in to forcibly stop people killing themselves through keeping them in hospital under Section, and by putting them on suicide watch observations, if people are perceived as a risk. Of course, the real issue is of being able to measure risk accurately, because the person who is really planning suicide may keep the ideas as a secret. — Jack Cummins

    My opinion, Jack, is that the state utterly exceeds it's authority in these matters, and should be forced to desist. This does not fall within the mandate of government, nor is it properly within the purview of our common law.
  • Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances
    The reason why people have a dim view of suicide, I surmise, is because if someone else killed you, that would be murder; that in taking one's own life, you do kill a person, even if that person were yourself, people, I suppose, find it difficult to distinguish suicide from murder. — TheMadFool
    Well, kinda. Both the dim social view and the legal proscription against suicide have their origin in Jewish foundational ethics, wherein the divine command "thou shall not kill" has absolute force. But, within both Judaism and traditional Christianity, the "theology of life" exceeds and in fact predates that deontological ethic. The foundational virtue of the Jewish, and so of the Judeo-Christian, worldview is the unwavering devotion to life itself. Surely we are all familiar with the old Jewish toast: "L' chaim"/"To life". In the northwest Semitic religious traditions, this virtue predates even YHWH, Ba'al, Elohim, and all other early beliefs. As someone raised Roman Catholic, I can personally attest to the centrality of the Church's "theology of life" to the chatechism...this was simply carried over from Judaism into the early church. The strength of the social and legal abhorrence of suicide within our Western cultures is evidence of the depth with which the Judeo-Christian worldview had early on penetrated our 'western' cultural consciousness, and so effected sensibilities both social and legal.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    Hum, do women also get this psychic imperative to dominate? — Athena
    Yes, and certainly women can be equally as domineering as men, when they are in a position of authority. Moreover, this thing appears to be had by males and females of all mammalian species that organize themselves into social groups. It seems a universal mammalial psychological trait, residing deep within what Freud called the "Id". However, this imperative to dominance is something distinct from agression, which is more hormonally driven. Males are naturally more agressive than females as an effect of testosterone. What this means, I think, is that women are better able to control the "libido dominari" than are men, because of male testosterone production. Surely, this is at the root of why males have greater difficulty in adapting their behavior to the demands of a modern, orderly society in which the rule of law places quite unnatural demands upon us, and so tend to fill up the prisons. For a modern man, learning to control his natural aggression so that he can exert his "libido dominari"/"will to power" in measured ways, is one of the greatest challenges that he will face in life. Many do not find a workable, effective formula for so doing.
  • In the Beginning.....
    We forget that in our academic pursuit of a theory of everything, a philosophical description of reality. Where language fails us, it is our own embodied relation that ultimately completes the structure of reality. — Possibility
    :pray:
  • In the Beginning.....
    ...religion is a philosophical matter, and the reason this idea sounds counterintuitive is that philosophy, in the minds of many or most, has no place in the dark places where language cannot go, but this is a Kantian/Wittgensteinian (Heidegger, too, of course; though he takes steps....) legacy that rules out impossible thinking, and it is here where philosophy has gone so very wrong: Philosophy is an empty vessel unless it takes on the the original encounter with the world, which is prior to language, and yet, IN language, for language is in the world. Philosophy's end, point, that is, is threshold enlightenment, not some foolish anal retentive need for positivism's clarity. — Constance
    Words of truth and beauty, to be sure. We need the language, though, for without language, philosophy is bound within the individual experience. After having contemplated the boundary of understanding, and having discerned "the idea", one will inevitably find that language fails, that the lemmas simply do not exist for sharing with another. So, in the lack of adequate linguistic invention, we equivocate, and all is lost...
  • Death
    Everything is "Eternal", as everything descends from the natural essence of the Universe: — Gus Lamarch

    This is a truism which requires a bit of clarification. The English adjective "eternal" is semantically problematic...semantically ambiguous in the absence of qualification. This is because English "eternal" involves a semantic conflation of the meanings of two different Latin adjectives: aeternus, which means "pertaining to or lasting for "the age", for a given span of time (Latin aetas = "age") or for ages" and aeternalis, which has the meaning "everlasting", "infinitely lasting", "lasting forever (beyond all ages or outside of time)". The first, aeternus, is a temporal term, while aeternalis describes existence outside of time. Because of this, "eternal" and "infinite", as well as "eternity" and "infinity", may be, but are not necessarily synonymous. To tell your lover that "our love is eternal", you are using that word in the sense of Latin "aeternus", the "age" in question being for your or her lifespan (whichever ends first) or at least until one of you gets sick and tired of the other, but when a Christian says that "God is eternal", he means in the sense of Latin "aeternalis". So, since our universe is not everlasting, but will some day eventually die, it is, indeed, "eternal", but only in the sense of the Latin adjective aeternus.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    I think the sex drive and urge to rule or "dominate" go together. However, we might consider, there are different reasons for wanting to have authority and power, so the human will, can play an equally strong role in our behaviors. Our will is shaped by our experiences, relationships, and social expectations. So how we think and behave is a combination of things, knowledge, emotions, hormones, and physic. — Athena
    All surely true, but the sex drive is much easier to understand than this thing that Augustine called "libido dominandi", and (though he viewed and valued it much differently than did Augustine) Nietzsche called "the will to power". The sex drive is purely a function of physiology, being hormonally produced. As such, it varies across the human life span. The other attribute is more pchycological in origin, an apparently universal attribute of the mammalian psyche. Both the hormonal sex drive and the psychic imperative to dominance can be explained to be a result of natural selection, of individuals having these traits to a greater degree breeding more offspring across the millenia. The fact is, though, that we understand much less about the imperative to dominance than we do about he sex drive, and the former seems to have a greater influence across the human life span than does the latter.
  • Statism: The Prevailing Ideology
    Explain this. Do you want all land to be privately held with each landowner being an independent sovereign, or do you want all land communal? As you've stated it, it's private yet belongs to the nation state, which isn't clear. — Hanover

    No, of course not. As to the nature of the ownership of land, see my previous post, in which I seem to have preconcieved your question. As to nation states claiming sovereignty over literally all the habitable land on Earth, which is my basic gripe, Mr, Riley hit that nail on it's head...too many homo sapiens, too little a planet. I don't have a good answer for this conundrum, but given a long enough time, I feel certain that mother nature will.
  • Statism: The Prevailing Ideology
    Let's assume eminent domain were illegalized, — Hanover

    Eminent domain cannot be rendered illegal under our system of land tenure, precisely because the state is the only entity to hold allodial title to land, which it does over all the land within it's sovereign territory. Land today is held by "owners" in just the same way it was under feudal systems, as a "grant in fee" (that is, a "fief"), with the state having taken the place of the king in the scheme. A "fee" is only a grant of a right to use your superior's land, which is the key point to understanding this. Where once there were several types of "fee" by which land could be owned, each with its own differing levels of right and responsibility, now there is only one: the grant of land tenure in fee simple. This type of fee is transferrable, which is what allows a person to "sell" his real property, but what one is really selling is his grant of land tenure, not actually the land itself, since the land is actually owned, "in allodium", by the state, regardless of who holds the grant of land tenure at any particular time. Indeed, none of us actually "owns" our own land, we only hold a grant of tenure thereto in fee simple, from the state. You see, you are not sovereign, only the state is sovereign, without any authority over it, which is the condition that allows it to hold allidial title to land (actually, it is the law that is sovereign, and the state acting in proxy, but that is splitting hairs). When the state takes land by "eminent domain", for which action it must make adequate compensation to the holder of the grant in order to comply with the principles of equity underpinning the law, what it is actually doing is revoking its grant of land tenure in fee simple, as is the right of the sovereign to do. After all, what does the term "eminent domain" mean? "Eminent"..."high", "lofty"; "domain"..."the control of land", which alludes to the fact that the state's title to "your" land is of a higher/stronger type than is yours.
  • Statism: The Prevailing Ideology
    ↪James Riley
    :up:
  • Statism: The Prevailing Ideology
    ...the belief that a select coterie of fallible human beings should operate an all-powerful institution to meddle in the lives of everyone else is paramount, not only in those who seek to lead but also in those who seek to be led. — NOS4A2
    Yessuh...c'mon!
    Others prefer the state to intervene in nearly every facet of life, if not to nominally determine and protect our rights, than to provide the most basic necessities and securities, to direct our trade and industry, to educate, to house, to regulate our lives as if it were a parent and we it’s unweaned children. — NOS4A2
    That's right, Reverend, that's right....
    ...someone always brings up roads and bridges and how a state is necessary for infrastructure, the implication being that only man in his statist form can flatten ground and lay asphalt. — NOS4A2
    Lay it down, brotha...preach!
    I fear the latter end of the spectrum because it approaches a degree of statism expressed in fascism and made concrete by a variety of totalitarian regimes. — NOS4A2
    Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

    As you can probably tell, you are preaching to the choir with me. I had something of a revolution in my thinking a few years back, and the once quite patriotic, pro-American, "don't mess with the U.S., cause we the best" type fella quite quickly evolved into a guy who has a certain resentment towards the institution known as "the nation-state", not particularly my own nation state, but rather ANY nation state and ALL nation states. I particularly resent the fact that there is no habitable place on the face of this globe which is not claimed as sovereign territory by one or another nation state; I cannot simply go anywhere without some goddamned (forgive the emotive tone) government presuming to demand to see my "entrance visa". Apparently, all land on Earth is now some form of private property of "the nation states".

    As a matter of fact, this seeming imperative to have all available land under the control of some government seems to me akin to the (I believe "western", as in "Western Civilization") imperative towards private property. I think that both arise in the same type of ideology. Of course, there have been cultures, such as certain "Native American" cultures, wherein the concept of the private ownership of land would have been considered absurd. How did we get here? The problem with "the state" is, I think, a particular case of the general problem with all human organizations: once established, they tend to quickly become greedy for authority and increased power, and self-protective even with respect to those who founded the group. It is always the same with organizational structures, which quickly get out of our control, take on a life of their own, and often become something which the organizational founders never intended them to be. Now that the state has become ubiquitous, however, we all must have one, because a stateless people will quickly become the Uighurs to a powerful nation-state like China; only a state can defend itself against a state. This is because only a modern State has the capacity to organize and direct the effective implementation of technology in fulfilling civil needs and in fielding an effective military to defend against the type of agression that we are seeing in Xinjiang province (ostensibly) in China, which is really a Turkic land. Like it or not, it seems that now we're stuck with "the state" for our own good. What a state of affairs...
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    If everyone had their sexual fantasies fulfilled on a regular basis, on demand, they might better get back to the business or progress. — James Riley

    Haha, yes, our naturally-selected characteristics do stand in the way of "progress", don't they? An additional benefit of your suggestion would be that our species might stop overpopulating. The polar bears would surely applaud...

    Unfortunately, I think that the (again, naturally selected for) "libido dominari" (or "will to power", if you prefer) which I think of as the root cause of the impetus to all types of "arkhe" (Ancient Greek "rule, authority, command, dominion"), goes much deeper and is much more profound and influential than the sex drive.
  • Death
    The language of your post suggests the dichotomy of sense in the definition of the English noun "death": death as the cessation of life ("Transfixed by more than a dozen long spears, the mammoth lay at the bottom of the ravine in apparent death"), and death as the state of inanimacy, which state might be enjoyed even by things which were never alive to begin with ("Lo! Gibraltar, which in silent, stony death has guarded the Straight since before time immemorial, marking the boundary between the known and the mysterious"). The first is a deverbal noun, derived from "to die". The second is a deadjectival noun, derived from the adjective "dead", itself derived from "to die", but having picked up senses meaning "inanimate" later.

    I think that in thinking about death in both senses, it behooves us to remember that life is but a transitory phenomenon in the expanse of time. It is a function of the properties of our universe, which is itself transitory within the vastness of space/the void. The universe had a beginning, and will have it's end, as well, and with it any possibility for the formation of life. When we speak of death with fear, it is death in the first, deverbal, sense of which we speak. We are afraid of the cessation of our lives, and the resultant obliteration of the subjective "world" which is the sum total of our understanding of existence. Death, however, when viewed in light of the transience of life, seems not something to fear, it is the natural state of the substance of our bodies...of ourselves. Death (inanimacy) and immateriality are our natural status quo; this admittedly marvellous experience of life is the actual aberration. Once all the matter composing the universe has been destroyed, the last of it swallowed by the final gigantic remnant of a star, the last remaining "black hole", the substance of our bodies will yet exist, but as energy filling and reacting within the void of space, perhaps awaiting the proper conditions for another "big bang" type event.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    It is not exactly gender that should determine our roles, but the needs of the family and the community and things like democracy and liberty. — Athena
    And, I would add, evolutionary adaptedness, which is perhaps the most important of all. Men, for instance, are simply not adapted for child rearing, and I mean more than physically/anatomically, which is probably why most men are so uncomfortable with that role.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    . Technology is no longer a tool, but an environment with an imperative of its own, requiring large bureaucratic organizations and programmed human behavior. — darthbarracuda
    Well said!
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    We need not continue with this paradigm today, having all the tools necessary to avoid it, save the ability to establish and maintain the proper social environment.
    — Michael Zwingli

    What tools are you talking about here?     — darthbarracuda

    I refer to the various abstracted ideals: ethicality/morality, individual liberty, equity, justice, and the like, which provide us with a framework for the conception and achievement of an egalitarian society. However, the state of technology, the necessity of the nation state to foster and employ that technology in various ways (civil, medical, military, etc) means that we by needs have too complex societies for the fostering of the egalitarianism which demands full and equal participation in non-heirarchical social structures. This means that like it or not, heirarchy is going to be with us for the long run, forced on us all by pressures both external and internal.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    We’ve grown up. Sorta — DingoJones

    Yes, that is the fact which underlies my point. While I agree that patriarchy tends to perpetuate brutality, I do not think it causes brutality "ab initio". Rather, I think that patriarchy initially arises from and is sustained by a general climate of brutality, wherein the concepts of compromise and diplomacy are non-existent. Thereafter, said climate of brutality and its patriarchal offspring are mutually supportive.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    I would say because they are based off gender, and that is a poor metric by which to base societal structures upon. I don’t think one gender is better as leaders of society than another, the better structure will be determined by traits that do not rely on gender like education, integrity, fair and equal laws etc. I don’t think any of those traits rely on a specific answer. — DingoJones

    This is very true in the modern world, but in my opinion was less true in the distant past. If you lived in late fifth century BCE Athens, a polis which was under constant threat of being besiegad by a Spartan or Persian army, then one might prefer to have men in control (of course, when Cornelius Sulla marched his army on Athens during the Mithridatic War, it didn't matter who was in control there...the Greeks had never seen anything quite so brutal as a Roman legion, and at that time, Athens was going to bleed profusely regardless of who was in command of the city). In a world of brutality and unchecked agression, I might be inclined to argue that the naturally greater (testosterone induced) agression of men as compared with that of women, renders male leadership preferable, for the sake of survival and independence, if nothing else. There were exceptions to this. The Kartvelian Queen Tamar seems to have been quite an effective leader in the distant past (though a much more recent, and assumedly less brutal, past than the Archaic or Classical periods). Even so, that is an exception, and not the rule. The world is a much different place today than it once was; I might even say that the mass consciousness has been much improved. In the milder, more thoughtful, more technologically advanced climate of the present, women can lead a society just as effectively as men.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    You tease me. I am not sure of what you intend to communicate. — Athena

    Not at all, I simply mean that I am glad when my comments make somebody happy.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    You make my heart sing. — Athena
    Yes, singing is a good sign...
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    an "onus" upon us — Michael Zwingli

    Haha....unintentional, but I love it!
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    Once upon a time societies were organized by family order. — Athena

    Yes, that is the nature of an hereditarily aristocratic society.

    I will prime the thinking pump with a link to information about native Americans and matriarchy. With an understanding of native American matriarchy, we can then see how the Taliban is different. — Athena

    But if you use the Taliban as being representative of male organizational stategy, are you not skewing the comparison? After all, the fact of patriarchy is only one of the two major influences on that group, the other, of course, being (I would argue extreme) theocratic zealotry.

    How are both patriarchy and matriarchy flawed? If you can answer that, it would be the discussion I was hoping to have.
    1h     — Athena

    I think the answer to that, is that we as a species have displayed the ability to move beyond the natural and into the ideal in a quest for justice and equity. Since we have demonstrated being able to concieve of such (admittedly abstract) things as equity, justice, and morality, as well as being capable of structuring society in pursuit of those ends, have we not assumed an ethical responsibility to renounce such preconcieved notions of "authority" and "rule" as are presented by both patriarchy and matriarchy? Is there not an "onus" upon us?
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    ↪dimosthenis9
    :up:
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    The problem is the -archy part of both.
    — StreetlightX

    I would consider the thread closed after this response.     — dimosthenis9

    Only, "-archy" only exists within the world because it is inherent within us, proceeding from the aforesaid "libido dominari". We cannot escape it or write off it's power and attraction for us so easily.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    ↪180 Proof
    you raise some important considerations.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    The only reason left as I can tell is the physical nature of men, who are generally stronger and so better equipped to bash a woman's skull if she questioned his authority. — darthbarracuda

    You have, in brutal fashion, answered your own question. A complicated heirarchy is not necessary for there to be male dominance. There are different levels of complexity at which patriarchy can be expressed, from the simple masculine dominance of the hunter-gatherer group to the utter male orientation and social dominance of the Roman Patrician gentes (plural of "gens", the Roman lineage) and the ancient Vedic gotra (plural of "gotram", the collateral Sanskrit concept and a fundamental concept underlying the caste system). The simple fact is that these more sophisticated forms of patriarchy were based upon the more simple (and I must argue, natural, as it is seen in every mammalian social group) male-dominance of the hunter-gatherer group. By the Classical period of history, patriarchy was taken for granted as a "given". We need not continue with this paradigm today, having all the tools necessary to avoid it, save the ability to establish and maintain the proper social environment.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    Ideally I prefer ... An-archy, or a decentralizing extension of matri-archy. — 180 Proof

    I, as well, embrace the ideal of anarchy (though not modern anarchism, which to my mind arises from the same inspirational motus as fascism, as evidenced by similar motus operandi), and though I begrudgingly admit the necessity for it, am philosophically opposed to the concept of the nation-state. Even so, embracing my inner monkey (so to speak, remembering that all that differentiates me from a chimp is 0.1% of my genetic code), I could not support matriarchy, as being contrary to all we see in nature, and you must admit, your offered definition of matriarchy is somewhat assumptive. On the other hand, I view patriarchy as natural, but not ideal by any means. Patriarchy could never claim to possess moral standing, yet could stand on it's claim of being natural in a pre-ethical world. In a world in which we humans have come to pursue ideals, patriarchy seems to have lost that standing, as well.

    (left libertarian) — 180 Proof
    I am on that train, as well, though not a member of "the party".
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    But we already know that, generally speaking, prehistoric groups of H&Gs were much more egalitarian than any of the agricultural states. Slavery and war came with civilization. — darthbarracuda

    Perhaps egalitarian, as many of the social structures which enable social stratification, and in such small groups the administrative problems demanding heirarchical structures, were not present, but certainly uncontestedly patriarchal, male dominated, nonetheless. I hardly think that Cro-Magnon man, for instance, gave much consideration to equality of the sexes.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    Ruthless competitions like war and capitalism are sometimes seen to have their origins in patriarchy, with the implication being that a non-patriarchal (though not necessarily matriarchal) society would not have these things. — darthbarracuda

    Perhaps the converse is true. It is just as concievable that patriarchy has it's origin in the particularly pretechnological competitive milieu of prehistory as the other way around. For primitive sapiens and his hominid forerunners, physical/bodily strength was generally the primary determinant for survival. In such an environment, patriarchy seems nearly inevitable.

    Can society exist without hierarchy? — Noble Dust

    The salient question. I would speculate that it can on a small scale, but maybe not on the "macro" scale. It is in our human nature, as a result of the history of natural selection upon the evolutionary development of the human brain, for we humans to be wilful creatures. Like it or not, what Augustine termed the "libido dominandi" (but I myself term the "libido dominari" for purely semantic reasons), the desire/lust to dominate, is as natural to us as any other basic human instinct. As an aside, I note my opinion that this thing, this innate human trait, is what Nietzsche called the "will to power", but that man's conception thereof was skewed by the thinking difficulties latent within his mind. I much prefer Augustine's terminology for this, in any case.

    This instinctual drive is now, as a result of innumerable millennia of natural selection and in common with all other social mammals, an inexorable component of the common human psyche. It can be mastered, but only under favorable conditions, and even then the basic instinct to dominate and impose our will upon others of our kind and upon nature in general will constantly seek to re-assert itself. Human beings tend naturally to recoil from, and to oppose any exertion of the will by any other person, which fact seems to be rooted in the instant aspects of human nature. Such exertions tend to be opposed in like manner, by means of an exertion of the will, an expression of the libido dominari. It must be understood, therefore, that individual mastery of the libido dominari is only tenable within an environment where in the individual can feel assured that no exertion of will or any presumption of dominance will be exerted against his person by any other individual person. This is key; any percieved threat or presumption of dominance will utterly subvert the effort. Unfortunately, the characteristics which are generative of heirarchy within large, complex societies render such a situation impossible.

    This type of nature is by no means unique to humans, but rather is evidenced in all social mammals, all those mammals which naturally tend to live in groups. Every mammalian social group in the world, whether a pride of lions, a pack of wolves, or a troupe of baboons, displays the characteristic of heirarchy, and indeed, displays a near obsession with "social status". Once the needs of survival have been met, the social position within the group is the primary concern of every wolf, lion, baboon, chimpanzee, etc., among both males and females. At the top, you have the "alpha male" and the "alpha female". Since the males of mammalian species are physically bigger and stronger, it is the males who have the higher general position, with the "alpha male" at the top of the pecking order. The obsession of every social mammal is, to be as close I the order to "alpha" as he/she can. It is mammalian nature.

    Because the avoidance of heirarchy seems to involve a violation of basic mammalian/human nature, I think it possible under only certain circumstances. Large scale societies such as modern nation states, are heirachical by their very nature. I think I remember reading that social anthropologists have estimated that, historically, heirarchy has arisen naturally when a human social group grows to over 250 individuals, almost as a rule of nature. Benoit Dubreuil has written extensively on this topic, and Christopher Boehm renders an excellent treatment among primates in his book "Heirarchy in the Forest". This natural development of heirarchy occurs because of the needs for administration in the group, along with the need for authority to hold members of the group accountable for expressions of the innate "libido dominari". We have discovered ways of administering social groups in a more equitable manner, using democratic principles, but those princies must be altered...adulterated to deal with anything over a small, localized group such as a commune, for instance. In order for social groups to be administered democratically, everyone must participate and have their say directly, and not by proxy, and everyone's desire must receive recognition in some way...no person can be ignored. This is simply not feasible on the macro scale. The best that we can do on the scale of the nation state, is to have "representative democracy", which automatically involves the introduction of heirarchy and the dilution of individual influence into the model.

    In addition to the foregoing, the introduction of money as a store of value and the inevitable subsequent facilitation of the amassing of wealth in a society naturally subvert the egalitarian motive, for what is a massing of wealth other than the implicit open statement to all that, "I am of greater value than you"? This post, however, is already too long, so I'll let that consideration lie for the moment. In summary, the type of purely democratic group administration which has the ability to defeat the extant natural human wilfulness and the innate lust/desire to dominate others seems only possible in very small, local social groups, such as are exemplified by the true commune or perhaps the tribal village, the very type of groups which, in general, cannot maintain independent existence in today's politically and technologically complex modern world.
  • patriarchy versus matriarchy
    Every time I log on to this site, yet another thread of interest to me catches my eye...

    Not to usurp the OP, but I think the useful definitions would be "authority/leadership/rule by men" (an expansion of the more etymological "fatherly authority/leadership/rule") for patriarchy, and so "authority/leadership/rule by women" for matriarchy. Athena will have to confirm this, but the juxtaposition of these two terms naturally leads one to that conclusion.

    I have actually thought some about this in the past. I will hold off commenting on advantages and disadvantages for the moment, since it grows late and my pillow seems to beckon, but I have a couple of thoughts about the origin of, and reasons for the ubiquity of patriarchy in the human experience. My general belief is that patriarchy is a type of evolutionary artefact held over from our pre-human mammalian ancestors. If one adopts the sociobiological perspective on this, he will note that every species of social mammal, from wolves, to lions, to our closer simian cousins, displays the trait of male dominance. This is, perhaps, natural in a world, the world of the animal, wherein such social establishments as the rule of law cannot be concieved, and so "might makes right", as brute force trumps all other virtues. It is unfortunate, though I think telling of the nature and composition of the human mind, that the differing aspects of the human psyche seem not to have developed apace. The Superego, which has concieved of the need for law at the service of justice in general and social justice in particular, has outpaced the Id, which remains rooted in the more primal motives of the pre-sapiens hominid. Thusly, the patriarchal urge has remained with us despite the social edifice we have created.

    Okay...good night, all.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    I didn't see this before.
    Perhaps that is the case.
    However, it seems too technical and theoretical re 'fundamental truths'.     — Amity

    Of course, I am assuming that by Gus' use of the term "metaphysics" he means the search for first principles/fundamental truths (ens in quantum ens).
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    What is meant by an 'authentic' metaphysics' ? — Amity

    That is a bit semantically obscure. Gus himself would have to address that question.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    ↪Amity
    what I mean by that, is that the OP is not restricting the term "metaphysics"/"metaphysical" to a school or period of English poetry, as Sam Johnson did. Rather, he appears to be using those terms to describe the commonalities of all poerty, the purpose and intent behind the "poetic enterprise". In this, Gus seems to be suggesting that the impulse behind the poetic undertaking is the elucidation of fundamental truths of the human experience of life. I tend to agree with this estimation. Indeed, this in my opinion, is what distinguishes "poetry" from "rap music", to which I alluded above. While the purpose of poetical enterprise seems to be the elucidation of evasive, fundamental truth regarding subjective human experience, the purpose of rap music seems to myself, to be in line with the shamanistic enterprise: in particular, the use of poetic devices, particularly rhyme and meter, in the production of altered states of mind: ecstatic, sexual, and often antagonistic. What I am especially gaining from the comments that I have read here, is a greater appreciation for the merits of blank verse, which I must admit to having ever derided as being "lazy poetry" compared to lyric verse (thank you for your comments regarding that, Noble Dust). The comments thus far have altered my conception of differing expressions of the poetic undertaking. If this thread continues long enough, I may even be able to gain an appreciation for "free verse" (poetry without rhyme or meter).
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    ↪Amity
    yeah, I think that Gus is using the term "metaphysics" in a differing sense than that applied to the historical phenomenon.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    You know what I'd like to see. Poetry battles like Rap battles unless the former is what the latter is.
    8h     — TheMadFool

    These exist. They are called "poetry slams", to be found within most conurbations of any significant size. Generally, most of the poetry is original, and poor (a subjective estimation, if there ever was one), but occasionally something inspiring happens.

    Indeed, "rap" can be viewed as a type of poetry, albeit exceedingly simple in it's metrical schemata, and exceedingly monotonous by endless repetition. In this, rap has always seemed to myself the application of poetic device to the shamanistic enterprise, the latter-day repetitious use of rhyme and meter in the pursuit of ecstatic states of mind. Rap music is only "good" for those seeking such a state. For others, such as myself, it's essential qualities remain ineffective.
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Michael Zwingli

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