Does it? Do you agree with Thatcher that there is no society? — frank

As you marked Trump as the standard bearer of the Right, it can be noted there are communitarians of the stripe Thatcher appealed to that support him but that crowd does not represent those who are more interested in getting a greater share of the pie from society, whoever is behind the counter.

And then there are religionists who seek the influence of secular organizations to vouchsafe their interests and powers of reproduction. The Federalist's Society is not promoting Proud Boys for their program. The nationalist agenda of Bannon world needs the apparatus of Federal power to get what they want.

It was these motley stragglers of a travelling show I was referring to as the 'party', not a theory of social leadership.

It sounds like you are using "society" simultaneously in the sense of pre-political activity of individuals and a realm of phenomena that displays regularities of a certain kind. This permits a prosperity Christian and a social Darwinists to root for the same team in a game of chance.

To arrive here, you have to stop being sanctimonious and see a social group as it is: a naturally evolving being, playing out it's own story. — frank

How shall we characterize this being? It sounds as fictional as the 'left' you refer to. The majority of Trumpsters I have encountered believe they are getting what they want by blocking others who want other things. What is the essential spirit guiding these different people? Are the wreckers of the Constitution feeding from the same plate as the bovine consumers made conspicuous at Walmart through the lens of Veblen's description of class?

To me, it looks like they all came to the party with their own supply of dreams.

I think everything should be legal.
— NOS4A2

Why are supporting Trump then? He certainly doesn't think "everything should be legal". Far from it. I would think, based on what you've said, you'd be better off writing in some anarchist's name. — RogueAI

It certainly has a nihilistic tang. No effort is made to connect this view with the political statements being made concerning the immediate environment.

Perhaps we are witnessing a performance in the style of Dada, an expression such as that considered by Ball:

In 1916, German writer Hugo Ball, who had taken refuge from the war in neutral Switzerland, reflected on the state of contemporary art: “The image of the human form is gradually disappearing from the painting of these times and all objects appear only in fragments....The next step is for poetry to decide to do away with language.” — Hugo Ball

But that sophisticated self-awareness of the absurd is absent from using a Liar's paradox way of saying "everything is permitted." The absence of law is the state of Nature envisioned by Hobbes, the war of each against all.

As such, the statement is a contradiction masquerading as an idea. What is desired is only expressed as a subtraction.

I support the rule of the people. I don’t support your version of democracy, which is no doubt conflated with electioneering, vote-grubbing, and representative government. — NOS4A2

It sounds like you favor major changes in the U.S. Constitution; or scrapping it entirely for a new form of political participation.

Your descriptions of Trump do not place him in the context of the partisan processes you scorn. The talking points you use to argue your points come from those processes.

Trump would have won in 2020 if he had gained a few more Electoral votes. Few things exemplify the legacy of 'representative' polity better than the Electoral College.

The views you advance on the nature of government do not connect with reasons why you support Trump so assiduously. That is in stark contrast to those who support him because they see him as the best chance to gain their interests in the present conditions.

I wonder if the 'madness' that Socrates refers to might be likened to ecstasy (ex-stasis, outside the normal state)? — Wayfarer

One could read Socrates hanging back from the party to commune with his thoughts at the beginning of the Symposium as a bout of "divine madness." He is literally 'standing outside' on a porch such as Diotima describes the homeless might be found to sleep upon.

That image also compares one kind of 'absorption' with the wine that overwhelms the others.

This why the lawsuits against Fox for amplifying lies are important. The lies would be curses uttered in a parking lot without that power.

I was reluctant to address your observation about my writing; The idea that it might be better than it appears is encouraging. Is the deficiency a penchant for merely making connections between texts rather than explicating a thesis?

The self-coup would have been likely bloodless. — ssu

I take your point that Trump wanted his regime delivered to him like a take out meal but I doubt that such an attempt would have been bloodless.

We will never know what would have happened had Pence done as he was told. Such a bold venture of disenfranchisement would be performed in plain sight rather than lurk in the dank Venezuelan basement that houses the MAGA dream.

I don't see how the Supreme Court could bury this within the hanging Chads that enveloped Bush and Gore.

Those teachers did not know how the writer's mind works. — L'éléphant

This is interesting when looking at how Plato is working with Diotima's account.

In the dialogue of Symposium, Socrates is supposed to give his explanation for what eros is but recounts a dialogue instead. This dialogue presents a friendly conversation between the philosopher and the poet in stark contrast to others Plato has written, such as the Republic, as noted by Fooloso4:

All of this is, in my opinion, Plato's philosophical poetry, intended to replace the teachings of the traditional poets. In the Republic it is not simply that poetry is banned along with the traditional poets, they are replaced by Plato's own images of the just, beautiful, and good. — Fooloso4

Within the Symposium, I see a likeness between Diotima's:

First, he is ever poor, and far from tender or beautiful as most suppose him: [203d] rather is he hard and parched, shoeless and homeless; on the bare ground always he lies with no bedding, and takes his rest on doorsteps and waysides in the open air; true to his mother's nature, he ever dwells with want.

and the sober exit of Socrates from the gathering:

When Socrates had seen them comfortable, he rose and went away,—followed in the usual manner by my friend; on arriving at the Lyceum, he washed himself, and then spent the rest of the day in his ordinary fashion; and so, when the day was done, he went home for the evening and reposed. — 223d

The tension between being homeless and also a keeper of a house reminds me of Odysseus. The wiliness Diotima observes in the Lover is exemplified by the hero on his journey home. But Socrates is travelling in a different way.

My question is: if this Eros is not innate to the soul (having to be instilled in society), where does it start? — dani

In the mythological explanation provided by Diotima in Plato's Symposium, Eros is the child of very different parents:

Now, as the son of Resource and Poverty, Love is in a peculiar case. First, he is ever poor, and far from tender or beautiful as most suppose him: [203d] rather is he hard and parched, shoeless and homeless; on the bare ground always he lies with no bedding, and takes his rest on doorsteps and waysides in the open air; true to his mother's nature, he ever dwells with want. But he takes after his father in scheming for all that is beautiful and good; for he is brave, strenuous and high-strung, a famous hunter, always weaving some stratagem; desirous and competent of wisdom, throughout life ensuing the truth; a master of jugglery, witchcraft, [203e] and artful speech. By birth neither immortal nor mortal, in the selfsame day he is flourishing and alive at the hour when he is abounding in resource; at another he is dying, and then reviving again by force of his father's nature: yet the resources that he gets will ever be ebbing away; so that Love is at no time either resourceless or wealthy, and furthermore, he stands midway betwixt wisdom and ignorance. The position is this: no gods ensue wisdom or desire to be made wise; — Plato, Symposium, 203b

What is innate is the condition of constantly moving between receiving the benefits of Resource and undergoing the desperation of Poverty. This ever-shifting ground shows us that the urgency of desire is not only a movement toward fulfillment but is a form of life.

What is the highest good for the lover requires this urgency in order to come to life.

Houston, Texas, USA

Rahner's idea is congenial to various expressions of Neoplatonism prevalent during the formation of 'Christianity'. But it is sharply at odds with the expectation that one world would pass away and be replaced by another as promulgated by Paul. The need for a particular credo to be the focus of a congregation was directly tied to an expectation of change throughout the entire world.

In Augustine, this was expressed as the need for a vanguard who lived amongst themselves in a City of God while also living in a City of Men.

You keep using the world to imagine the scenario that it does not exist.

I was not sure if my perception of the real time vision would actually be counted for as a legitimate perception of the world in any sense at all be it logical, epistemic or physical perspective. — Corvus

What is a 'logical legitimate perception? The Humean presumption that we have experiences prior to reasoning renders the idea unimaginable. From that perspective, the answer to your question, 'is there a reason to believe in the existence of the world?' is no.

But we do not need an answer to that to do anything else beyond the question. That is in contrast to philosophical questions that are concerned with how we inquire into the nature of beings.

I am minded of the scene in the Odyssey where dead souls in Hades can speak for a short while if blood from a living person is poured into their cup. You imagine a visitor who demands to know why the soul does not speak when no blood is offered.

Back when the Davidson essay was first discussed here, one can read it without paying. Does anybody know of an alternative to JSTOR?

Wasn't he then falling into the skeptical arguments, and then concludes that the nature of human mind comes first, which forces us to believe in the external world? I am not sure if he meant it with all his true honesty. — Corvus

Which passages are you referring to?

Your question does not answer mine. Is reason an activity that exists while nothing else does? Is that activity something that can be known without reference to beings? I doubt that.

In the way Hume frames the knowledge of causes, he distinguishes between making judgements through deduction using logical propositions and other ways of learning about them. The 'reasons' you are waiting for have nothing to do with learning. As far as the intellect goes, it is interesting that both Plato and Aristotle viewed the indifference to learning causes of beings to be a misologos, the hatred of reason.

The proof you are asking for presumes there is a priority to "reason" that Hume does not accept:

this operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes, and vice versa, is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probable that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason

So, this question of proof could be asked of your proposal. What is self-evidently given such that it provides the grounds for believing or not believing our experiences? Upon what grounds is your doubt more than a subtraction from what is given to you?

but was asking the reasons for your accepting the existence of the world — Corvus

Hume is saying that reason does not do that acceptance in the sense of a series of formal statements or a priori set of conditions. The belief in the world's existence is prior to any doubt.

Hume would say that you are looking through the wrong end of the telescope when demanding a warrant for accepting the existence of the world:

Here, then is a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas; and the though the powers and forces by which the former is governed be wholly unknown to us, yet our thoughts and conceptions have still, we find, gone on in the same train with other works of nature. Custom is that principle by which this correspondence has been effected, so necessary to the subsistence of our species and the regulation of our conduct in every circumstance and occurrence of human life. Had not the presence of an object instantly excited the idea of of those objects common conjoined with it, all our knowledge must have been limited to the narrow sphere of ou memory and senses, and we would never have been able to adjust mans to ends or employ our natural powers either to the producing of good or avoiding of evil. Those who delight in the discovery and contemplation of final causes have here ample subject to employ their wonder and admiration.

I shall add, for a further confirmation of the foregoing theory, that as this operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes, and vice versa, is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probable that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason, which is slow in its operations, appears not, in any degree, during trhe first years of infancy, and , at best, is in every age and period of human life extremely liable to error and mistake. It is more conformable to the ordinary wisdom of nature to secure so necessary an act of their mind by some instinct or mechanical tendency which may be infallible in its operation, may discover itself at the first appearance of life and thought, and may be independent of all the labored deductions of the understanding. — An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume, Section 5

From this point of departure, the skepticism you are entertaining requires embracing a world of experience before withdrawing from it as a thought experiment. The absence encountered is the result of your subtraction.

I agree that the smorgasbord of incompatible themes provides a means of plausible deniability. I am proposing that it also reflects the motley crew gathered under his tent.

The Sovereign individual movement rejects government, as such. The various nationalists' movements who seek state power range from the old school white civilization vision of Buchanan to the 'anti-globalist' stew of Bannon. The Christian evangelists are fairly represented in the Heritage Foundation paper I linked to previously. The anti-regulation message serves the interests of the wealthy to become more so. Old school Libertarians want isolationism, etcetera.

The degree to which Trump could be said to genuinely support these various ideas has to be seen through the lens of his experiences in New York City. This article, How Gotham Gave Us Trump, gives a helpful account of his view of the world. The dynamic of wanting to be recognized by a certain elite while simultaneously seeking to punish them for not doing so still is alive today.

State judges are not removed by the executive branch:

Judges of the court of appeals and justices of the supreme court may be removed by concurrent resolution of both houses of the legislature, if two-thirds of all the members elected to each house concur therein.
Judges of the court of claims, the county court, the surrogate's court, the family court, the courts for the city of New York established pursuant to section fifteen of this article, the district court and such other courts as the legislature may determine may be removed by the senate, on the recommendation of the governor, if two-thirds of all the members elected to the senate concur therein. — New York Constitution Article VI - Judiciary Section 23 - Removal of judges

Federal judges are removed thusly:

Federal judges can only be removed through impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction in the Senate. Judges and Justices serve no fixed term — they serve until their death, retirement, or conviction by the Senate. By design, this insulates them from the temporary passions of the public, and allows them to apply the law with only justice in mind, and not electoral or political concerns. — Article III of the Constitution

The creature with a lion's body and the head of a man invokes the Sphinx, an ancient fusing of man and the ultimate predator. Yeats ties the yearning for a savior from our stupidity to the return of a terrible creature who had been chilling for time out of mind before the rude awakening. We don't know what we are messing with, but cruelty is involved.

I think Auden wrote a call and response to the humility invoked in the poem:

Jumbled in the common box
Of their dark stupidity,
Orchid, swan, and Caesar lie;
Time that tires of everyone
Has corroded all the locks,
Thrown away the key for fun.

In its cleft the torrent mocks
Prophets who in day gone by
Made a profit on each cry,
Persona grata now with none;
And a jackass language shocks
Poets who can only pun.

Silence settles on the clocks;
Nursing mothers point a sly
Index finger at a sky,
Crimson with the setting sun;
In the valley of the fox
Gleams the barrel of a gun.

Once we could have made the docks,
Now it is too late to fly;
Once too often you and I
Did what we should not have done;
Round the rampant rugged rocks
Rude and ragged rascals run. — WH Auden, 55, January, 1941

The difference between public and private declarations of agendas can be seen in figures like Senator Joe McCarthy, who propelled investigations into "un-Americans" infiltrating government and society. A similar effort to go beyond rhetoric to shaping institutions can be found in Trump's executive order, issued on October 21, 2020: Executive Order on Creating Schedule F In The Excepted Service.

The order chips away at the civil services means to resist the power of patronage to fill the ranks of government. That is attractive to Trump's unipolar view of personal loyalty but also appeals to a conservative movement he fawns upon but does not actually represent. Consider the Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. Their mission statement is as follows:

1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect
our children.
2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the
American people.
3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution
calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”

This intrepid band of Culture Warriors are a vital component of the coalition supporting Trump but does not represent the animus of those willing to break the law. The "stand back but stand by" rhetoric is still alive in Trump's speaking of pardoning January 6 participants.

The rhetoric being used is a tug of war between two camps. The poo-pooing of alarmed Liberals as suffering Trump Derangement Syndrome is straight from the Fox News normalization of MAGA. But the language of being completely dominated by an ideological regime has that Confederate tang you want in an energy drink.

Okay, it sounds like you have no problems with the speech. Seeing as how you believe the election was stolen, do you agree with Trumps stated agenda? Or do you consider the eliminationist rhetoric another instance of poetic license?

You dodged the question of how your rhetoric is less manufactured than the ones you oppose.

Big Lie, capital letters, exactly as written by political operatives. Everything is decided for you. Your only duty (and ability) is to repeat it. — NOS4A2

The same could be said about your rhetoric. You got it from the same well your fellows drink from. What have you decided for yourself?

And do you have limits upon what rhetoric you will apologize for? Are you on board with Trump's call to root out his opponents like vermin as he expressed during his Veterans Day speech?

I take your point of there being a problem of judgement involved.

I see stupidity more as an activity that flows from within and without. Castigation in either direction has limited efficacy. Developing means of protection seems wise. It is worthy of philosophical effort even though that is difficult in the framing of Flaubert. The poets have more liberty.

That reminds me of Flaubert saying:

Stupidity lies in wanting to draw conclusions.

As a philosophic remark, it puts the inquiry into stupidity in a difficult situation. Drowning in a ubiquity, if you will.

These remarks dovetail with the interview's argument that legal means to correct the elections have been overpowered by a nefarious power. An extra-legal force may be necessary in order to remove an extra-legal regime.

It is the logic of the Secessionists used by the Confederates in the Civil War but with the insistence that the whole Union comply with the new constitution.

Just play the video longer than where Trump says: "It could certainly happen in reverse" in response to the question from Acevedo. The quote you provide is not a qualification or reversal of that response.

I included a link to the entire interview. The section I pointed out gives the context for the ensuing remarks.

Now who is taking the comments out of context? The question was whether he would do what was done to him. He continues to describe what he claims happened to him, not what he would never do.

At the 12:16 mark, Acevedo asks if Trump would do what he says has been done to him:




At the 15:35 mark, Trump says "It could certainly happen in reverse." Not the most cogent response but certainly not a matter of his words being taken out of context.

The Horowitz Report is actually a more disturbing report on the problems with FISA warrants and information sharing in the various institutions. That report did not, however, support the charge that the entire investigation was a hoax.

The Durham report ignored many elements of the investigation Mueller presented. Durham's ignorance of those elements came out in Congressional testimony:

Eric Swalwell asked Durham about how Trump “tried and concealed from the public a real-estate deal he was seeking in Moscow.” This was a deal, described in the Mueller report, in which the Russian government promised Trump several hundreds of millions of dollars in profit at no risk to himself to license a tower in Moscow. The proposed payoff, and Trump’s public lies at the time about it, gave Russia enormous leverage over his campaign. Durham replied, “I don’t know anything about that.”

When Adam Schiff asked Durham if the Russians released stolen information through cutouts, he replied, “I’m not sure.” Schiff responded, “The answer is yes,” to which Durham reported, “In your mind, it’s yes.”

When Schiff asked Durham if he knew that, hours after Trump publicly asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s State Department emails and release them, Russian hackers made an attempt to hack Clinton emails, Durham replied, “If that happened, I’m not aware of that.”

When asked if Trump referred to those stolen emails more than 100 times on the campaign trail, Durham answered, “I don’t really read the newspapers and listen to the news.”

And when Schiff asked Durham if he was aware that Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, passed on polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian intelligence agent, at the time Russia was conducting both a social-media campaign and the release of stolen documents to help Trump, Durham replied, “You may be getting beyond the depth of my knowledge.”

David Corn reacted incredulously to the last profession of ignorance. “The Manafort-Kilimnik connection — which the Senate Intelligence Committee report characterized as a ‘grave counterintelligence threat’ — is one of the most serious and still not fully explained components of the Trump-Russia scandal,” he writes. “It is inconceivable that Durham is unaware of this troubling link.” — Jonathan Chait

And then there is the fact that Durham failed to bring proof of the conspiracy he was promulgating into any successful convictions.

The reason the investigation was not conclusive was because of the obstructions put up to it by the involved parties. Mueller explicitly stated this is why he could not exonerate the parties.

A.G. Barr launched an investigation into the FBI that petered out after years of Durham rooting about for a cabal who was said to be the fabricator of the cause for the investigation. It was what MAGA likes to call a fishing expedition.

For a religion to survive and thrive among a largely regressive people, it would of necessity incorporate much of the prevailing regressive worldview. — Art48

This is an interesting theory of class, where the only participants of "religion" are powerless. That idea needs more development before making it part and parcel to some historical judgement.

I think it is a helpful perspective but not a last word or the results of a complete system.

As far as Nietzsche's historical sense, he's the only western philosopher who even utilized ANY Historical sense at all. — Vaskane

That does not account for Hegel who was bold enough to claim what that history was destined to bring about.

It also excludes those philosophers who presented "natural' right as outcomes of our development as human beings, as seen in the differences between Hume, Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, etcetera.

Against that backdrop, the use of the word Genealogy by Nietzsche seems less explanatory than others.

It is not clear that endurance is a suitable criteria for aspects of self. Why shouldn't self be ephemeral? That seems to fit the facts. — Banno

That is the Aristotelian view. The supposition of eternal agents in De Anima 3 is distinguished from memory that permits the activity of a person who endures through time for a bit to be experienced.

The element of being literate and educated certainly played a part but it should not be ignored that great efforts were made to convert them to Christianity or confine their civic rights and participation.

It was the Christians desperate for alternatives along with excluding a group that could help them as much as anything.