All such tests would be so.

Categorizing political opinions is, itself, value-laden by the very values it seeks to categorize. In some way by putting this or that thought in this or that category you forbid, permit, and extol such and such depending on who is doing the talking and the listening.

There were two books that helped me navigate the question of a post-bacceulerette career:

From Student to Scholar

Getting What You Came For

I didn't apply for philosophy, mind. I was looking at the purportedly "better" field of scientific academia. It is better, but only in comparison.

Might give you some grist to chew on at least while you make up your mind.

Your question is the sort of question no one can answer but you. I don't mean that in some kind of "people should find themselves" way, or something. I mean, even if you accept someone else's answer, unless you actually agree with it then the answer will be unsatisfactory -- and if you agree with the answer, then you've already answered the question for yourself.

That being said, it's not the sort of question that's easy to answer. But once you have the answer, the rest is just paperwork, to try coining a phrase. But I don't think you'll find the answer in the future as much. You can have hopes and dreams and goals you work towards, of course -- but having those is the very answer to your question. So you can't look at which future is better, because you haven't chosen which one is better yet.

The Sea Will Claim Everything



If you had to pick a genre, then the above would qualify as an adventure game. You find items with which you complete puzzles, and the puzzles are more whimsical and fun than annoyingly abstract or frustratingly stupid. You explore a fantastical world, and are set to help a druid repair his home which is partly alive and partly mechanical -- built out of "druidic technomagic". A story emerges out of this exploration.

It really captures a dreamworld very well, being both serious and silly, magical and concrete. I think the above is particularly interesting as a game because I think it would appeal to people who are not normally "gamer" people -- the real attraction is the story and setting and art more than the adventure game aspects. Not that gamers wouldn't enjoy the game if they happen to like adventure games in the first place, but I would recommend it to anyone who just likes a good story -- and there's even reflections about philosophy in the game too, so the crowd here may enjoy it.

Three things immediately come to mind, one of which you've already alluded to with "figure/background". Sound may be "around a corner", but sound is also "everywhere". We can locate a sound's location in space, but space itself is already a visual notion. When we hear something it melds entirely . That isn't to say you can't have a melody and a harmony, or the ability to pick out particular instruments in a symphony (though these would be more akin to looking at a painting than just the experience of sound), but I think that particularity would be less central to metaphysics -- so generalizing from some particular visual cue to a universal wouldn't be quite as an important of a question -- "cutting across appearance/reality" as you note.


But then, because sound is experienced differently from vision, I'd say we would also speak about both vision and sound differently (since I believe our metaphysical beliefs are what form a foundation for rational and lingustic analysis). So we wouldn't talk about the wave-form of a sound, for instance. This is a very visual metaphor for sound. In fact, we may not even care about writing and the document -- these wouldn't be seen as sources of truth or memory. I don't know exactly what that world would look like, though, after being shared and people desiring to build institutions.


Third: It seems to me that "the self" is a curiosity because it is an entity which is always present, unlike other entities. It alone has the phenemonological quality, in a vision-centric context of belief, of being "everywhere". But this would be less curious if sound predominated metaphysical thinking.



It's a really interesting question though!

I get about the same results there:

Your scores are:
Care 97.2%
Fairness 86.1%
Loyalty 25%
Authority 19.4%
Purity 22.2%
Liberty 27.8%

Your strongest moral foundation is Care.
Your morality is closest to that of a Left-Liberal.

Nothing terribly surprising in my results.

Economic Left/Right: -9.0
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.85

And the other stated "solid liberal"

This is something I've been thinking about so I'm glad of the thread :) In my 60s/early 70s youth I thought Marcuse was greatly 'liberating' and Wittgenstein was an oddball conservative. Now I find Marcuse pompous and overbearing, and Wittgenstein greatly liberating. — mcdoodle

I'd be interested in hearing more from you. What's the story in this transition? It doesn't have to be personal -- at the meat I'm most interested in the the reasoning (broadly understood) that went into this transition

I barely know anything about Marcuse. But for W. I think I could see a possibility for what the article is talking about ,even if I might disagree with the general thrust of the article, and even if I might be uncertain what that would entail or end up being, politically speaking.

Does anyone else experience "philosophical" thinking oftentimes as similar to that of having a word on the tip of one's tongue? — darthbarracuda

Yes. I could even classify some as "before" -- as if they put the word in my mouth but I can't articulate it -- and "after" -- as if they finally gave me some adequate means for expressing what I was thinking.

But, regardless of the topic, I can say I believe I've felt what you are asking after here. And, actually, I think it's telling that "understanding" is the term you used in the title -- because this seems to be the process of understanding (as opposed to mere knowing, for instance)

https://rimworldgame.com/

Has been my recent game. I finished 1 play through, but since it's a colony simulator, and the game is modder friendly there's more to play. The attraction comes, for me, from the stories which are emergent from an underlying basic simulation.

I dialed it down to an easy level so I could see what endgame looked like, but it's more likely for you to die than to live -- it took a few times, even on the easy setting, to get a colony to survive to endgame. But while it was fun to get to endgame, most of the fun comes about in seeing how disparate personalities thrown onto a "backwoods" rim world in a starship crash try to survive, form relationships (positive and negative), and usually fail because of their frailties, or overcome odds stacked against them in the case that you actually escape.

Why would that be? Do you depend on language to perceive? To feel? To dream? Are all of life's intricacies and issues captured in language? What is the limit of a dog's world, since it has no language? — Marchesk

To perceive, I would say, we do rely upon language -- though not in the sense that one must have a language in order to perceive. Rather, that perception and language intermesh. If you speak language then your perception depends on language. So a dog, for instance, wouldn't serve as a counter example.

Feeling, too, changes with linguistic competence. Naming a feeling changes its quality, allows it to be analyzed and differentiated from other feelings, and understood better.

All of life's intricacies and issues are surely not captured in language -- but no intricacy or issue could be stated without it.

Does your very existence derive itself from language?

In a sense, yes, but only in a sense. I do not mean the body deriving itself from language, but we do tell stories about ourselves to ourselves -- and, certainly, my body derives itself from language (though the body exists regardless of language). Language enables us to have beliefs about ourselves, especially with relation to ourselves over time.

Without language, this self wouldn't exist. A dog feels, but does the dog have beliefs about themselves at various points in their life?

This focus on language as the key to philosophy is an analytic obsession.

Eh, it's not just an analytic thing, to be fair.

I think the idea here is to use the order-word - the dominant, major usages of words - the words that are used in mass media ('royal' science, politicians, mother-father etc) that communicate death sentences - to flee, to create a positive line of flight that is revolutionary and creative. One should use the regime of signs to create new ideas - to be revolutionary. — NotOne

Why should they, do you think?

Not saying they shouldn't, I'm just curious what drew out this line of thinking. Indeed, I'm not seeing how it follows, but I'm more than happy to hear people out and see where you're coming from.

https://youtu.be/rqLtOjENz-Q?t=2m15s

:D


Though I think the duck-rabbit is elucidating "seeing as", rather than the duck-rabbit being insightful unto itself. It's a simple example to demonstrate a more complicated idea.

Put it like this: what kind of liberation is Wittgenstein clearing the decks for? Why be aware of the sense in which the mind is bound by language, or caught up in language games? What liberation awaits the seeing through of that? — Wayfarer

I think that's the question to answer, right there, for the article to have merit. Seems like something you couldn't say, though, yeah?

Though I don't think being caught up in language-games is necessarily what's doing the snaring. Seeing language as a form of life in which language-games take place is, supposedly, doing the liberating -- so what binds isn't language-games. Knowing that we play language games is the liberation -- or, perhaps, leads to liberation.

EDIT: To be clear, this not what the article states, and is just a take on the notions presented.

Marcuse has long been on my ban list, but there is something odd in the title. It is almost as if there is something else that we are doing with language than play games, and only Wittgenstein and his pals are playing. — unenlightened

I feel some uncertainty about the claims between W. and freedom, but merely uncertainty. I agree that this seems to set W. on the outside doing something other than, though that wouldn't be a fair reading of W I don't think.

What is the alternative? What is the duck to the game-rabbit? Not seeing language at all, but only seeing through it? Or perhaps locating it as the immutable structure of thought or the world? Which is more or less the same thing. — unenlightened

Not seeing it at all is kind of an option, but only before perceiving, I'd say. The latter seems different to me than the former, though -- it just seems to concieve of language differently.

But I'm not sure which alternative I'd prefer to offer. I think the before and after is a good enough case to answer the question of the affect or effect of viewing language as the article presents, at least.

'Game' is a way of looking at language, linguistically, as you say, like a special pair of spectacles for looking at your spectacles. I'm not sure if this is quite as liberating as I'd like it to be. It doesn't actually liberate one from language - only silence can do that.

It might not liberate one from language -- I'm not sure that would even be desirable -- but it might point to ways language can confuse us qua language, and so be partially liberating in the sense that we are able to work out confusions of our own.

Take "Death" for example -- only through naming death can we think of it as a thing, when death is just an inevitability. But by treating death like a thing we may try to build defenses against it, as we would any other danger to our life. Coming to realize that death is no thing, though it may take the place of a subject in a sentence, would be a first step in getting out of this particular tangle (I'm sure there are other ways of construing the fear of death. I'm sort of going for a proof of concept here to say why the ideas are interesting -- not necessarily setting out to prove, but only to say there's something worth thinking about here)

Freedom is slavery.

So is the recommendation that we change our language games in order to become more moral? Isn't that what politically correct speech attempts to do? — Marchesk

That's not what I gathered from the article, at least. Honestly, I think the article was using the idea of obtaining freedom through this analysis of language to have a kind of exposition of some key ideas of Wittgenstein. But I thought that framing concept had merit enough to think about and talk about.

Also, I don't think the recommendation is something to make one more or less moral, but is more suggesting that with these particular philosophical lenses on you come to see how you were entrapped and, thereby, can work your way out of said entrapment.

Well, take the beginning of the PI, for example. He uses Augustine as an example of what seems to be a fairly common way of thinking about language as a point of contrast.

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/25/trump-administration-purges-all-information-about-climate-change-from-the-epa-website/

Not quite post-truth in the sense of stating false things and proclaiming them true, but removal of information to facts one disagrees with.

There are two words -- "significant" and "great" -- which sort of favor whoever is saying the statement, whether it be in the affirmative or the negative, or substitutes any other group of humanity for that matter. For any example all you have to do is say they lack either significance or membership within a great tradition.

"It may be a philosopher, but it's derivative"

"It may be a tradition, but it's not a great tradition"


But if you were to include Thales, for instance, I'd have a hard time seeing how you would not include Hypatia.

The comments that I made, were not about democracy at all, but about Trump's well-documented and abundantly obvious disregard for facts. I mentioned the storm over the 'alternative facts' remark made by one of Trump's handlers, in response to the ridiculous argument over the size of Trump's dick, er, sorry, inauguration crowd. Then I got criticized for 'spreading liberal memes' and 'worshipping democracy' - which is plainly obfuscation, and, I think, trolling. — Wayfarer

Yes, true. And perhaps I have behaved poorly in choosing to engage. The statement you made and the response just seemed to represent something to me, but clearly it was off topic.

In any case, as Churchill remarked, democracy is the 'least worst' form of government, all things considered, because it is the only one in which you and I can actually be given a choice to change things. And I really do think Trump is going to be a threat to democracy, because of his disregard for facts, among other things, but also because he's a narcissistic, un-informed egotist. All perfectly apt in a thread on 'post-truth', we're looking at the guy for whom it was named.

Yup-ish. I don't even think Democracy is "the best evar" -- but I'll take it over several alternatives. Perhaps better for another thread though.


I must note that I think the accusations against pomo and relativism aren't exactly on target either :). I find it hard to imagine anyone in the current administration pondering Lyotard and deriving their current political moves from said exercise.

In addition, those who seek power don't particularly care about truth, though they probably care to know it. Bullshit, as Banno noted, is closer to home -- but the seeker of power is no bullshitter. The seeker of power will bullshit if it brings power, and will construct rational arguments if it brings power. If power be the goal, unchecked by any other value, then truth or post-truth it will seek power.

That being said, the line about "alternative facts" definitely gave support to the notion both to post-truth, as well as the belief that Trump's administration at least has the desire to attack democratic mechanisms.

And who said a constitutional monarchy would involve retaliation from the nation? Who said Aristocracy would entail retaliation from the nation? Really this is nothing but the democratic meme that all non-democratic regimes are totalitarian — Agustino

You said "Why Democracy?" -- I gave a reason for why Democracy. What I did not give a reason for was "Why is Democracy better than Constitutional Monarchy", much less "Why is Democracy better than Agustino's vision of Constitutional Monarchy" -- What I had to work with was ,after all, "Fuck Democracy -- why democracy?"

Amazing the number of people who can't or won't recognise a demagogue when one appears.
— Wayfarer
That's exactly what a leader should be saying... What would you expect a leader to be saying? The job of a leader is to ensure their country is great, and the will of the people is followed. Fuck democracy. Why should we be addicted to democracy, unquestioningly? Seriously people speak of democracy as if it was a God-sent political system that we should never change... Why are all non-democratic systems deemed totalitarian? As if there was only one alternative - democracy, or totalitarianism :s Such a narrow world-view. Plato himself made it abundantly clear that democracy is quite possibly the worst political system, only tyranny was qualified as worse. But of course, you're just parroting liberal propaganda Wayfarer. — Agustino

We shouldn't, of course, not question Democracy. In fact, in a Democracy, one is both given the tools and the rights with which to question not just the state, but whether the state should even be Democratic.

But this is not a question of Democracy. "Fuck democracy -- why democracy?" is shifting the burden of demonstration from yourself to someone else. It isn't much of a criticism as much as it is a statement of conviction, as well as a belief that Democracy needs to prove itself.

One reason why you might desire a Democratic nation, though, is that you can criticism said nation without retaliation from the nation -- even if your criticisms are merely restatements of conviction. In fact you could criticize other forms of government too, but what is different here is the ability to disagree with the nation you are a part of. Insofar that public expression is valuable then Democracy is valuable to that end. Further, Democracy can change with the times -- as people change so do Democracies. For most of us that means more power, since most of us are not in charge -- so it's also just a basic self-interest for the majority to be in favor of Democracy when we do, in fact, have people in charge.

I am, of course, speaking about Democracy in the abstract in the above, and not particular instances of Democracy, and speaking about Democracy in terms of a contemporary Democratic state.


I felt inclined to highlight this sentiment of yours here because I take it that it is not just your sentiment, but is shared more widely, and it clearly expresses the anti-Democracy which the populism you support seems bent towards.

Risking a cross-post here:

I tend to associate the phrase "beyond good and evil" with a kind of morality which comes after good and evil which N seems to reach for. While Nietzsche has some particular suggestions to go to this beyond, I'd say that this new morality isn't something which exists. To be in that "beyond" is to be an uber-mensch, or at least to have been one -- as the uber-mensch not only overcomes good and evil, but also themselves. To worry about master morality or slave morality, to pursue one over the other, is to fall back into thinking in terms of good and evil. Though God is dead and these terms can offer us no help in sorting the good from the bad because of his murder, we do, in fact, think of certain actions, thoughts, etc. etc. as good or evil in spite of this.

Or, at least, this is one way of looking at it. But I'm putting this here as for the reason why I'd say that I am not beyond good and evil -- I certainly think some things are good and some things are evil. These are terms which, while I would rarely use them, do work in certain circumstances. I don't have to have an explanation -- i.e. God -- for the reason why they work, I just know that they do and they are appropriate terms at times.

What is morality to you? Is it more about ought statements? Or about guilt, sin, and redemption? — Mongrel

For me, personally?

There's an interpretation of Nietzsche that I feel is applicable here, actually. In Thus Spoke... the section titled On the Three Metamorpheses can be interpretted as stating the journey of one's relationship to moral codes with the death of God in mind: From camel, to lion, to baby. Initially one saddles themselves with principles and desires to take said principles to their limit, as a camel carries a load. Then one rebels against said code and wishes to destroy the master, thereby becoming your own master, as a lion. And then the lion gives way to the baby, because the lion is still defined by the initial code -- only in opposition or rejection. The baby, on the other hand, is entirely innocent and creative of moral codes.

At least when it comes to morality in general I'd say I often feel like the baby, but without any project to create -- merely uncertain.

In particular, though, I'd say I'm more eclectic than anything. It seems to me that guilt, sin, and redemption is a perfectly good way of looking at morality, in certain circumstances, but not in all. I have, before, defended ought-statements as a basis for morality, but I'm less inclined to that line of thinking anymore. These days I mostly think of morality in one of three ways: good character, what is just, and hedonism. And I find that each way of thinking tends to conflict, in some respect, with each other. But these are the more specific topics in moral philosophy that I'm interested in because they all seem relevant to what I'd say is moral, in spite of that conflict. In fact, were I to feel more confident in this approach, I'd probably adopt the thesis that these are moral because of their conflict -- where each one mediates the others into a golden mean of goodness. But, since you're asking personally, it wouldn't be honest to what I actually feel.

It's hard to say whether I'd qualify as a self-anti-realist, so it's difficult to say much more than I've already said to the OP. I am skeptic-lite about the self -- in the sense that maybe there exists such a thing, but I wouldn't be able to say how I could know such a thing, and furthmore that a sense of oneself does seem to develop out of social circumstances more than out of finding some truth about yourself -- so there are reasons for doubt, at least, that there is some ontological entity which is "the self"

But I would not say I am beyond good and evil at all, in spite of that. In fact I don't know if I could connect the two notions. It seems to me that I could both have a self or not have a self and yet either be beyond good and evil or not. While there is this notion of creating oneself, like a work of art, in Nietzsche -- and I agree where you say that N pretty much says that those who do this are strong -- I'd also say that this notion of his is different from his stance on morality. It seems to me that the former is more prescriptive in N than the latter.

One thing to note is that no particular action is representative of master or slave morality. A master is not one who notes what are the masterly actions and performs said actions, as a slave is not one who asks what it is a slave does and then does the things which slaves do.

Master morality and slave morality cannot be deduced from the act alone. One could crush their enemies as either a master or a slave, and one can turn the other cheek as either a master or a slave.

My favorite example for master/slave morality is giving to the poor -- a master gives to the poor out noble emotions like magnanimity and to display power. A slave gives to the poor out of ignoble emotions like guilt in order to fulfill some code of goodness set before them.


I'm just noting this because it makes no sense to say whether this or that action is always a master or a slave action. This way of thinking, at least according to my understanding of N., is to still be thinking "within" good or evil, as the clear analogue here is that master=good, and slave=evil when we say this or that action is a master/slave action.



I'm not sure if I'd count or not as the target of the OP, but I'd say I don't believe I'm beyond good and evil, though I have doubts, at least, about the self -- depending on what we mean, etc. etc.

The sort of "left hand" of commodification is that since anything can be commodified it also does not matter what real-world value said commodity might have -- every commodity has a use-value, ala the steel, cars, bullets of classical industrial production, and there are relative use-values (such as bullets vs. services). But then every commodity has an exchange-value as well, and it is this which the abstract economy of capital cares about.

Insofar that any firm can produce profits -- has a flow of value -- and requires human operators within that flow (whether they be employed by the specific firm or not -- they can fall anywhere in the line of production) then there exists labor-power.

Walmart as of late has had workers organize within it and even though Walmart could go the route of Amazon, replacing their workforce with robots, the organizing within Walmart has brought about better working conditions for Walmart employees.


Labor still has the potential to organize and gain power through where they've always had power, regardless of what commodity they produce -- at the point of production. If that be acrylic nails, hoagies, or back massages then the fact that profits can be made through any of these commodities gives labor that potential to build power and leverage it.



I'd say that this doesn't mean your scenario won't play out. Only that it might not. It really depends on to what extent working class people can be organized not just within national parties, but across national barriers -- as capital is not limited to nations, labor can't, strategically speaking, limit itself to nations. At least that's what I think.

And honestly while capital has slowly dismantled labor, labor orgs have played their role too -- within the U.S. at least. It's been labor's increasingly parochial vision for the labor movement. Where communists were active in the labor movement and understood these general principles they had been expunged and replaced by petty bureaucrats who have moved the labor struggle from the point of production, where workers have power, to the negotiating table, where bosses do.

I visited a middle school which ran on the the John Dewey system back when I was in school. Granted, I didn't actually look into her data or do the study, but the self-report, at least, was that the students faired well once they transitioned to a traditional high school (which they do for social reasons, given that diplomas are a necessary mark for social mobility in the US)

And, yes, that's exactly what I meant. We are in agreement.

I guess the way I'd put it is that critical thinking is a normative enterprise, and therefore to teach critical thinking is to indoctrinate people to those particular methods and values of critical thinking, 1, and 2 -- all classrooms have social norms which allow them to function, and these are the subtler forms of indoctrination (in whatever norms we happen to choose, though the discipline of the workplace is not hard to see in our schools, given that we literally follow bells going off and have specified times for travel, lunch, study, etc.)

I did think, after writing the post, that perhaps this dilutes the notion of "indoctrination" to some extent -- but it's worth noting, I think, because there is no such thing as a neutral school which just gives students the three R's, given that even a so called "neutral" school must, in order to function as a school, establish and enforce norms which people become accustomed to.

Having said that, I favor indoctrinating people towards critical thinking, self-reliance, and empathy -- but I have a hard time saying that the methods of schooling are not at least similar to traditional indoctrination. It's just preferable to do them rather than to not (as people without said indoctrination don't fare very well in our society)

Indoctrination is, so I'd say, an inevitable aspect of education. Since classes establish norms for their own functioning, people follow those norms by participating in the class. And action, even if done resentfully, is a way of indoctrinating people. The important thing is to acknowledge that this is so, and to ask, if it is necessary, which norms are appropriate for a proper education?

Here's a list of four that seems to fit to me, but I'm open to amending: Rationality, work-ethic, respect for authority, and creativity in various degrees or emphases. Some would prefer to phrase things differently (i.e. it's not indoctrination, it's normalizing), but I'd say these four aspects hit on at least what is significantly agreed upon and actually (attempted to be) taught in American schools, at least.

But norms are different from goals.

One goal often stated is "making good citizens" -- so the standard response to the student (or, sometimes, parent) who would say "When are they ever going to use this in the real world?" would be to point out that good citizens who vote and participate in society need to know things like history, or basic arithmetic, or familiarity with the humanities, or the basic laws which the physical world seems to obey.

These days, though -- at least to judge by what is coming out of the government, whether that be liberal or conservative -- it seems to me that national greatness is a stronger proclivity. So the goal is to make great citizens who are good at science and math so that we have a crop of brilliant scientists who we can get to invent good weapons and goods for military and economic dominance -- and for those who don't make it, who are compliant and able to fit into a hierarchic economy under capitalist discipline. All the rest can come along for the ride if budgets allow, but these are the goals which are prioritized.

In many ways, to get back a bit to the themes of the previous thread, it seems to me that the students and those who work within the schools are all treated like objects which produce commodities (good citizens, strong nations, or correct beliefs) for the state, or for various interests utilizing the state. The people with the least amount of say -- at least officially -- are the people doing the educating, whether that be the students, the teachers, or their communities. Hence they are objectified in the sense that they are denied autonomy, 1, and treated like machines which produce goods, 2.

“At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause." — Tertullian

I think that Tertullian perfectly captures Nietzsche's notion of ressentiment.

And I'd say Tertullian is not alone.

You know that the rise of psychological science allowed the mentally ill to be looked at non-judgmentally and therefore more compassionately. — Mongrel

I think this is only one contemporary attitude towards the mentally ill. But I would express uncertainty, at least, that this attitude -- though contemporary expression is often in the linguistic terms of psychology --was due to experimental psychology (itself something different, in my mind at least, from psychology simpliciter). The reason I say this is because psychology, as a whole, is equally responsible for even worse treatment of the mentally ill in many cases, at least if we use the presence of psychological language as our measure, and just to gauge by the 20th century. Because the mentally ill were deprived of agency they were also subject to rather horrible "cures" administered by experts.

So I would posit that psychological science isn't exactly the cause, but rather just how we express ourselves these days -- and some people take a compassionate approach and realize that the mentally ill are literally unable to perform some of the functions of modern living, and some take the "reformist" approach and subject the mentally ill to cures they couldn't understand anyway. (which is also to say it depends on in whose company you are in, when you admit your mental illness, whether you will be treated well or not)

Sort of similar to animal treatment, actually -- some take pity on animals, and others think of animals as objects, but neither treats animals as an equal. (a bit off the cuff, there -- just an association I made at the end)


Granted, this is only based on my personal experiences. Nothing terribly scientific in it.

If that be the case then I'd say that yes, indeed, the practice of operating on people -- whether it be operating on ourselves or others -- is quite pervasive.

I'd almost go so far as to say that this might be unavoidable to some extent. Educational institutions, for instance, like parenting, don't treat students or children as equals, at least, and the establishment of any hierarchy is prone to objectifying those who are lower in the hierarchy, even with good intentions.

But perhaps it's better to say, rather than unavoidable (thereby reifying what is into what is necessary), to say that it occurs, and I'm uncertain, in some circumstances, what else to do -- even though I'd be interested in trying something else. (being, in principle at least, against hierarchy)

No worries. I often speak off the cuff myself :).

Do you mean, then, to disown the first if/then that you wrote? I'm only asking because it seems what you say here would mean that since you don't take a pre/post fall view -- there is no idyllic past we have lost -- the world as we know it now is better than the world before. But that doesn't seem to square away with the notion that everything is advertising all the way down in the event that we don't believe in this idyllic past (since I would take it as a negative if everything is advertising all the way down, at least)

But the thing I want to emphasise from your post as a particular modern twist on the dehumanising process is exactly that it becomes self-referrential. Whereas we have commonly objectifiedthem (Jews, Blacks, Women, peasants, etc) psychology leads us inexorably to objectifyourselves. Human nature dissolves into nature with the death of god, and we ourselves are mere phenomena to be studied and manipulated and exploited along with all the other collections of atoms. — unenlightened

That rings true for me. In particular, though I am prejudiced to think in this manner, at the workplace -- there are roles one wishes to fit into in order to obtain the material and social goods they desire (whatever those happen to be -- from daily subsistence to social glory and influence). In order to do so one has to operate on themselves to gain these goods. And the language of self-improvement is quite pervasive in the workplace not merely as a way of justifying position, but as a kind of ethic of the self which people in all positions at the workplace -- though not all people do this, just noting that there is no unique position in the hierarchy -- express belief in and practice.


Actually, oddly enough considering his real life associations, but Heidegger also comes to mind in relation to the OP since one reading of his philosophy -- though as with all things H. it can be contested, I don't mean this as a hermeneutics but just one reading I've seen presented -- is to see it as an attempt to dig out of the domination of a naturalistic picture. Not that naturalism is wrong as far as it goes, but rather that technology has come to dominate man's authentic being -- hence the phenomenology into Greek terminology to attempt to recover the very question from naturalistic interp.

One consequence of this, so I would say, is that those inspired by H -- such as Derrida and Levinas -- would also prove fruitful to read, I think.


Actually, Foucault's history of sexuality part 2 is also a fruitful book because it deals with techniques and practices of the self -- in particular our self-relation. I'm still in the middle of reading that right now, but it seems apropos.

Sorry for the name-dump. They all seem really relevant though.

If you don't take a pre/post Fall view, then it's advertising and manipulation all the way down - just replace advertising with social organization based around shame. — csalisbury

Would you mind expanding on that? I don't think I understand what a pre/post Fall view is, or how that relates to the consequent in the above.

One of my initial attractions to Kantian ethics -- as with many folks who set out to defend deontology -- is his second formulation of the CI:

Act in such a way as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of anyone else, always as an end and never merely as a means

Which, I think, is a good way for thinking about psychology. One of the question's Kant sort of "waffled" on was the question of anthropology (at least, philosophically speaking -- he was also a man of his times) -- you can find tensions within his philosophy between whether or not man himself can be the subject of knowledge, or if the nature humanity is one of the questions which reason is destined to both ask and never answer.

In relation to the OP, while usually we are other-focused on ethics, one thing that's interesting about the 2nd CI is that it is the humanity within all of us, including ourselves, which we are to treat as an end -- one common way of interpreting this is to say that we should respect both others and ourselves.

Which would mean thinking of us and others in some way other than how we think of objects, and relating to them in that way.

Or, at the very least, we should recognize -- ala the CI at least -- that we are already valuable as human beings, and deserve respect regardless of what our "empirical psychology" might be telling us about us or others.

Hello!

I never understood the fascination with sex in the West despite being from the West myself. — Question

Society plays tricks with the individual in terms of showing the guys who have more sex/money/material wealth as the winners. Children are growing up oversexed and underfucked with all sorts of self-esteem issues due to the image society projects of a 'healthy' and 'successful' male. — Question

I think that "sex in the west" varies. Not overly surprising unto itself, but it should be noted because our views of sex -- especially when it comes to how we might see people behaving differently from us -- are not likely to match up even on the most basic of terms or desires.

My initial instinct to your OP was to say, yes, I agree that there is an oddity with sex in the west -- but I think this is more the result of the love/hate relationship which we (at least in the U.S. -- I don't like the term "west" too much) are ingratiated to. It's something which we should shun, but the very act of shunning increases our desire for it -- and so we want to have sex, but we also want to not have sex in order that our desire for sex is intensified, and the satisfaction of said desire is more intense (not necessarily pleasurable) than if we just followed and acted on a desire for sexual satisfaction.

This is something that I think is basic in the U.S. regardless of religious affiliation. Religious affiliation can even work against this sort of "teaching", though also integrate with it of course. But I think the obsession with sex in the U.S., at least, has much to do with this simultaneous push and pull intermixed with moral and religious sentiments.


In addition, your second comment I've quoted speaks to something specific to U.S. masculinity (not that it doesn't apply elsewhere, but I prefer to limit myself to what I am at least familiar with). There are healthier forms of masculinity, of course, but the one projected upon us is one which is impossible to live up to, causes people to make poor choices and commitments, and in general is sex-centric in a way which is (so i believe, at least) unhealthy.

I should note here that I have no problem with casual sex, at least in a moral sense. I don't think it's something to be avoided, though I don't think it's something to be pursued -- at least for everyone -- either. Just as some people enjoy playing cards, and others enjoy watching baseball, there are also people who enjoy having casual sex. Why not, right? If all precautions are taken, and everyone is in agreement, what is the difference in a pleasurable evening over drinks and canasta vs. a pleasurable evening over drinks and fucking, morally speaking? There are religious prohibitions, and there are superstitions about what this does to our ability to form bonds with others or our current bonds with present partners, but I don't think these are necessary by any means. I can see them as possible for some people, but not for everyone -- they are not imperatives.

But that being said, the kind of masculinity we are all taught -- and our parents and religions have no power over this -- is an unhealthy sex-centric objectifying masculinity that, in some very weird way, equates sexual relationships with sports, and thereby counts sexual partners as a measure of "winning".

And that sort of sex is something I have no desire to participate in, though sex proper is really quite wonderful by my estimation.

I think that what is most striking in difference between religion and philosophy is in the approach to faith. Faith, like the two aforementioned terms, cannot be easily defined without ignoring important shades of meaning which the word takes on. It's a practice, it's a type of belief, it's a state of mind, it's a value, it's many things.

But in a religion what it does is different from what it does in a philosophy -- in a religion faith is a justification. But in philosophy, while faith can play as motive, it can never be provided as a justification. It may be an (honest, admitted) reason for a stance to some interlocutor or audience, but the expectations of philosophy is that in addressing said audience you will not expect faith to compel said audience to whatever it is you are proposing.