I'm gonna guess that you're obviously suffering from not being aesthetically desirable compared to others. — DifferentiatingEgg

I think this highlights the comments boethius made above. It is an attempt to shame me for not being beautiful as being bitter, and I am sure the term 'incel' would be thrown a post or two after, which is the western boogeyman for the unsuccessful capitalist man.

It is like if anyone makes a critique of someone rich then they are just 'haters' and jealous. As if to say "the system is perfect, it is only because you are losing that you are taking issue with it".

Not buying into your whip crack attempt to make me a productive wage slave.

Similar to making fun of someone for having a cheap car like they should aspire to buy an expensive one because society says so.

This back and forth would benefit from outside adjudicators as to the claims leveled against one another rather than you two just slugging it out which is just ending up in the same claims being volleyed from one side to the other again and again.

I would agree @boethius that it is glaringly obvious you have answered the questions many times so find it bizarre it is claimed you haven't. Of course I could be accused of being biased, so it could do with some fresh impartial, as agreed to the both of you, eyes. :)

This one I'm closer to agreeing with the OP. — Mijin

Good to see some unsolicited support as I was a lone voice, except comrade boethius, on this so far. I would put it down to other respondents being under the veil of western propaganda and are more apologists for capitalism.

Your example reminds me of a documentary I once watched where it was showing how some indigenous tribe revered its old, which was highlighted specifically to contrast how the west does not. One of their rituals was shown of an old lady dressed in nothing but a small sumo style loin cloth was being rubbed down all over with some kind of oil by the younger people.

Yet another example I recall from some seminar where the lady of Italian descent spoke of strong Italian role models who were admired and were the 'alpha females' back in the mother land whereas the culture in America is to shut them away.

There's a lot of things wrong with the world, the way beauty is treated is just another one of of those problems. The only answer is there is something wrong with the people who believe it's the right way to act. Why they do it is because of human stupidity, and weakness to natural urges that would allow us to think otherwise. There is nothing truly beautiful about this way of thinking, it completely misrepresents what beauty is about--- it's completely artificial. — Barkon

Indeed, that is the Eastern philosophy flavor of explaining it. Not saying it is wrong and is a good overall synopsis.

Eugenics would be a good idea to promote good health in reproduction, it's better than treating children as a father or mother experience(like parents own the child's spirit). I quite like the idea of the Government rearing beautiful children.

I guess this is tongue in cheek?

What about the motto of the Communist Chinese reform movement: Getting rich is glorious! — BC

Interesting, but isn't that proof it was only when they adopted a mishmash of communist/capitalism which is what it is today? What are your thoughts on this take on this comment ?

I was going to say, this seems like a rather strange statement. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Mitch McConnell, etc., along with most of the "Big Billionaires" are not remotely young — Count Timothy von Icarus

There are different forms of influence of course, but I am just discussing that which is attributed to beauty. Take any of the above and apart from Trump who people would be very excited to see just because of his celebrity, how many of those would have influence in a nightclub setting? :D They would just be seen as old creepy/boring people. Trump people would love to see because he is so outrageous and kind of transcends his age due to his personality. I don't even think of him as an old person as his strength of character transcends that.

I do agree it was an omission on my part not to mention political power in the OP.

There is also celebrity and social status which is another form. Look at the example of Weinstein and Epstein. Both ugly and gross but had influence regardless.

These are not the topic of discussion. I agree they exist and not denying them. I am just asking why society as a social norm values beauty so highly (not to deny there are other forms of social value but they are usually equally shallow).

I am sticking with the evolutionary trait run rampant, a la the peacock's tail. The nub of the question though is why has happened? With the complaints so far about the question maybe the beauty focus is a red herring, a single symptom of a deeper issue, and the question would better be modified to...why is western society at large so shallow?

EDIT: Ah of course! Not sure why I didn't see it before but my communist/anarchist knowledge kicked in and of course the answer is obvious now...capitalism! The root of nearly all of the world's ills!

I think this overlooks the huge influence the West has on the rest of the world. Most other countries of the world actively aspire to be the top dogs. Much of their tv is westernized and so too their values of what the good life is seeks to emulate western society.

Yes, this was covered in the OP. That is the evolutionary instinct. My question concerns how it seems to have been hyper exaggerated beyond the natural level.

Like I mentioned, I would maintain that it is the runaway principle. Same as how high heels are unnatural but they accentuate the natural attributes of a woman.

That explains the what but not the why. As in, why our society lets beauty and aesthetics dominate over more substantive matters like philosophy or more noble pursuits.

Take an extreme example you will not see skimpily dressed women in muslim countries under sharia. Not saying its right but that has been suppressed there. Over here we are the other extreme of licentious lustful desire.

Strange, your reply didn't show up until now, or I missed it the first time. Hard to miss your posts usually. ;)

Seems yours is the only reply on a similar track that I was thinking with most taking issue at the question itself being fallacious and misguided somehow. No surprise since we are both Anarchist comrades.

Is this the same idea that the old time stock market moguls say that crypto is a bubble?

I do find it hard to wrap my head around stock market and economic discussion, how all these theories are put forward for these ethereal (pun) tokens of value.

I don't know why it is so hard to get people to accept that western society is superficial so far. Maybe you all are very deep souls, yes it is not surprising on a philosophy forum but that does not mean it is the general rule in society and you have to have lived pretty sheltered lives to not think that.

This society teaches, off the top of my head, basically: money, fame, beauty are the major tenets of the good life.

Not sure why there is the resistance to accept that. I am positing why that is but it seems the discussion can't get going on this track yet as the main contention is that society at large does not actually value beauty which I am finding bizarre if anyone looks at mainstream media.

If you want to quibble semantics about they don't really value it then. Value in this context means whatever gets most airtime over other things. The fact it mainstream media is awash with superficial messaging that beauty = good which bleeds into the morals, or lack thereof, of what the average person esteems towards.

------> https://davidpakman.com/shows/?_sf_s=elon <------

Elon turns on Trump, Republicans nuking Medicaid
2-year-old citizen deported, Musk turns on Trump’s tax bill
Trump “doesn’t know” about defending Constitution, Tesla sales collapse
Trump kicks out Elon, influencers turn on MAGA — The David Pakman Show

Many pages of results, those are just a few example titles.

Just go on his website/channel and scroll to the timeframe it was happening and there were loads of videos.

I don't usually take an interest in current affairs much but I do like his sardonic style and find his innocent delivery of the sarcastic remarks he makes amusing of these guys he discusses.

David Pakman was doing a good commentary on this when it was happening.

I don't really know enough about economics and specifically American economics to know how accurate what he was saying was but it sounded impressive and Pakman is a stand up guy generally isn't he?

will be metered out. — AmadeusD

It is 'meted' not 'metered'.

Reminds me of how everyone online always uses 'hear hear'. I don't think I remember seeing that one written properly. :)

They're also more useful than crypto SHTF scenarios. — RogueAI

Indeed. I wonder what they will do if all the electrics crumbles but then, won't precious metals also be useless?

Won't actual goods for day to day living become currency as has been the case through history? Wheat is one example I believe or whatever is a valuable commodity for survival, not a token to exchange for it.

Don't any of these tokens preclude a stable enough society that everyone can agree on a 'valueless' item to have value to just make trade easier?

On the other hand wheat would still have value to almost anyone if food is scarce unless they were gluten intolerant. :lol:

While we have found common ground on this point perhaps you can then understand I was merely pointing out you might be better trying to communicate in the style of Feynman, who you agree is a good communicator, than say...Derrida.

This is the point I made in the first page of the Anarchism thread and was not substantively different to what I made in this thread so it was not 'hiding' and avoiding discussion as you accuse me of above. There was no need to mention you as it is the same point as what I made to you the first time, which you replied to at the time. If I didn't want you to see it I would not have written your name on a public thread on a very small forum which you would quite likely see sooner or later but I didn't see a problem writing it since I already wrote the same elsewhere, which you had already seen.

No matter, water under the bridge but you perhaps see my point better now, that it was not an attack. The Feynman analogy, which you yourself volunteered, is perfect.

I'd propose an example of good communication as Feynman as can be witnessed in the Feynman lectures.

Both Hitler and Feynman are charismatic and use many of the same rhetorical methods. The difference being Hitler is trying to manipulate public opinion to conquer the whole world and liquidate whole classes of people he dislikes, whereas Feynman is trying to convey actual truths about physics to those who are interested. — boethius

Yes I agree with this. Feynman is a great example who would not have immediately sprung to my mind.

Tbh I didn't even remember the quote or the thread above it, which I just skimmed again now.

Yes sure I agree now I read it again that I was agreeing with the point Hitler made and I did mean to agree with the point at the time now I reread the context.

As above, Hitler was a fantastic orator.

I think there is discussion to be had about charisma vs propaganda or if they are indeed one and the same. I don't think they necessarily are the same thing. There are charismatic people that do not speak propaganda but charismatic people often do speak propaganda.

I had not seen your thread until you pointed it out now. Indeed I see you have been busy with that.

I guess you are deliberately pushing the Hitler narrative to illustrate the problems with propaganda.

Lol! I forgot others had been discussing Hitler above. My mistake. I had not viewed this thread in a while since it did not 'take off'.

I was not relating the comment I made about you to the Hitler comments above. Well it might seem like that ok since I quoted it in the same post. :) Hitler was a great orator though.

I will await your picking up the other thread when you are ready.

Huh, interesting, so that is why you went silent on the other thread all of a sudden. I did wonder why you suddenly stopped commenting.

Didn't realize you were angry.

Not sure why you are taking umbrage at it. I said the exact same early on in the original thread on communism/anarchism, which you replied to at the time, and was just repeating the same as I wrote there publicly which you didn't get mad at then so isn't like I was 'talking behind your back' as you are asserting here.

It was just a comment that you have good points but you limit your audience by being too verbose except for the most determined of readers. I was interested in the subject matter so I would study your posts whereas most will not bother.

If you want your views to have an effect I think that is constructive criticism.

There is a large tract of land between propagandist and nearly impenetrable walls of text. It isn't one extreme or the other. What is the point of having discourse at all if you don't care if you are understood or not?

To resurrect this I just found this nice snippet about Corbyn by long time anarchist Noam Chomsky:

“I think if Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course. I think his general positions were very reasonable. And I think that’s probably the reason for the extraordinary attack on him pretty much across the spectrum, with mostly fabricated charges of antisemitism. Anything that could be thrown at him was, it was a major assault. Again, pretty much across the spectrum, The Guardian, right-wing press, ‘we got to get rid of this guy’.

“I think that’s a sign, a reflection of the fact that he had very reasonable proposals. He was also doing something dangerous, he was trying to turn the Labour Party into an authentic political party, one that’s based on its constituents, not some bureaucracy somewhere that runs it and tells people how to vote. That’s scary. We don’t want to have authentic, popular based political parties around, they could be out of control.”
-https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/chomsky-if-corbyn-had-been-elected-britain-would-be-pursuing-a-much-more-sane-course-266056/

I came to that after reading that Corbyn has started his own political party. I must say, while I have stated that the current 2 big parties are both sides of the same coin, he is someone who would make me enthused about mainstream politics.

Good luck to him. A great counterbalance to the Reform party.

Well only on the periphery but it is not hard to spot the flash tractors they drive.

Drones, maybe but tractors are a mainstay and they are already comfortable with them so the improvements are incremental, not a jarring change.

I might not know them personally but I have read online communities lately, where they air their views freely. They might not be techy themselves but lots of chatter about the latest super modified crop which they want to purchase and stuff like that.

They use machines and spraying for everything hence why I stand by my post above. I would say they no more want to give up their modern technology than the city dweller.

I did also grow up in the country before 'getting out' to the big smoke so already had that background and my mother stayed in the country so have always heard bits what she says about the community there.

I think there is an even simpler explanation available. It is that agricultural work is inherently conservative. It relies on stability, predictable patterns and yields, and only incremental improvements. The farmer has a tried and true method of sustaining life, and he will not jeopardize that method with newfangled progressive ideas. He has a strong and realistic sense of what is possible given the tangible constraints of nature that he is so familiar with. He is not going to shoot for the moon and thereby risk losing what has taken so long to carefully develop. In general he is less ideational and more concrete, whereas progressives are the opposite. — Leontiskos

Yes I agree with that however what I find very incongruous is that they hate all that 'witchcraft' that happens in the cities however they are very quick to adopt new technologies for tractors and whatever other machinery which would inevitably have been discovered in those bohemian dens of iniquity they hate so much.

It is ironic that they rail against all the integration and progress but are certainly benefiting greatly from it. Also I was shocked how technical farming is these days, not only the machinery but all the statistics and data harvesting and collating and research and all that stuff and the farmers are eating it all up to get the slightest edge on nature and of course their competition.

Lol, I believe those statements require some qualifying too.

And no doubt there are some zealous left-wing activists who go too far, — Tom Storm

Well I would say once the term woke is used then it has gone too far. In this sense I would not say there is a 'healthy' form of wokeness. :) I would say the term itself is always pejorative. Like for instance there is not a healthy form of crazy.

There are healthy Leftist views and social justice advocates but I would not call them woke.

It is funny when I hear that word because I seem to recall waaaay back in around 2006-8 or so it used to mean the conspiracy theorists. I mean when conspiracy theories were kind of intriguing to people and before the age of debunking that came after. So from what I remember woke just meant someone who looks into those kinds of things and somehow remember Jo Rogan using it in this context when his podcast was still in its infancy and niche. Have I remembered it right?

It is like the Pepe frog thing, which started as something totally innocent and got co-opted by the alt-right.

In Australia, the only people who use the term 'woke' are Murdoch journalists and oddly discordant right-wingers, from what I’ve seen. It doesn't seem to have captured people’s imagination as widely. — Tom Storm

I would say in the UK the woke term has been extremely and enthusiastically taken up by right wingers. The Daily Mail newspaper uses it it nearly every article they print. Piers Morgan loves saying it last time I would see clips of him presenting daytime tv, which was some years ago. I hadn't heard of this author the OP discusses before but just a quick search and the first results show he is aligned with GB News and that said it all for me. It has proudly self styled itself after Fox News.

I am not going to blanket claim all his views are trash because of that, like 'woke' person would :), but I will say I am heavily de-incentivized to explore him further due to that association.

I am no fan of wokeness either but I think there are more careful considerations and critiques of it from the likes of Sam Harris to name one, or Zizek, from the little I watched of the latter, but I doubt this guy will fall into that category. I suspect it will just be the usual right-wing dog whistles of cultural marxism and such.

Your experience in the UK is, of course, going to be different than someone living in the US. — BC

That is why I invoked Hypericin's post which I agreed with and assumed, perhaps wrongly but since the replies have been US centric so far thought it a fair bet, they were from the states.

My mother has worked for the council, what we also call the government, on the local level and she told me that ironically, it is the opposite here in that the farmers don't like Labour because they are more city focused in their policies while the Conservatives I suppose must at least give some more scraps to the farmers to make them for them even though in the end the latter are still looking after their old boy's club of each other, but that is true of Labour too I think. I remember that is your point made in my other thread where there is another class above which they look after in either party rather than the people.

Haha, a lot of American terms going over my head - flyover state, country mouse and political terms that are lost on me. :) Doesn't matter though; I get the gist of the posts.

Sure I just thought there have already been tangents of a similar or greater magnitude.

I get criticized on other forums for 'spamming' too many topics rather than keeping to one thread so was also conscious of that.

No one taking this up? ?

Today, most right-wingers live in or near a city — Gnomon

Really? My experience would be attune more to Hypericin's that they are in the country for the reasons they mentioned. Where did you get the idea they are in the city? Your image does not prove they live in the city, from what I can see; it is showing states and their denomination, not city.

A good pragmatic reply.

Some good points here, thanks.

The one I will take up right away is the petite bourgeois which makes sense now y'all mention it and that they don't want to spoil a good thing. Now I read that I do remember on a communism documentary it had a bit explaining that as soon as the socialists got into power - don't recall if it was China or Russia but it matters not - one of the first things they did is take the grain and property away from the farmers and made it communal.

The comments by Jamal about the current farmers still 'remembering' socialist russia seems a little far fetched, lol. Maybe in the countries that happened, sure.

I very much doubt the average farmer in rural UK has any inkling of those things.

It could just be that farmers vote for policies that suit them. — I like sushi

Indeed, Ockam's razor but it will suit them because of the above reasons.

Hold on...that just brought me to another question. I recall from our discussions about communism/anarchism that they take pains to say that the proletariat are dis-empowered because they lack ownership of land so does that mean if a serf manages to improve their station and gets their own land they immediately become an enemy of the socialist and de facto petite bourgeoisie? :)

We touched on the police earlier and how they enforce the mores of capitalism.

I got to thinking about another huge and insidious force that does the same which is the medical establishment.

How many behaviors are pathologized simply because the individual does not fit in to the mould of conforming to capitalist society? I would say a large amount of so called mental illness is just propagandized capilalist rhetoric.

The most poignant creative work to deal with this subject matter that comes to mind would be One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest but so many lesser cases where doctors give pills to fix the symptom behavior with nebulous diagnoses like anxiety and depression when capitalism is the root cause which is never addressed.

The medical establishment, I would posit, is in large part enabling the system and medicates citizens only with the intent to keep them producing. So the goal is not to heal the patient but rather to keep them productive.

As with policing, the objective is always maintaining the capitalist status quo.

Discuss.

Partly Marx is addressing himself to other intellectuals who he assumes is familiar with all the texts he's familiar with, such as Ricardo and Hegel and he's using references and language and conceptual frameworks that Western intellectuals at the time would be familiar with; and partly there's a lot of words and concepts that everyone is familiar with at that time but now require more erudite historical knowledge to fully understand. — boethius

Yes good point. I had actually been reading some of the creative writing classics of that era, before this interest in political philosophy took my fancy. Ones like Jane Eyre and Around the World in 80 Days. I have liked Victorian era writing for a long time because of its rich language and my recent re-acquaintance with it reminded me of that.

As you note, many of the terms which seem esoteric today would have been commonplace then and I noticed quite a few come up between writers. Not just the words themselves but the roles of men and women as good examples and the casual misogyny or racism or classism which would be offensive today. Particularly the classism in Jane Eyre. I thought it hilarious when she writes of teaching working class people as 'gaping mouth rustics' without a hint of irony, more as a matter of fact statement.

Why analysts today still use the word bourgeoisie is first there's no good modern counter-part, as to say "upper class" is to include also aristocrats, but the whole point of the bourgeoisie is that they are rich but no aristocrats. So in modern language they are the 1% who aren't still actual kings and lords. King Charle's is part of the 1% but not bourgeoisie, likewise the pope is reasonable to say is part of the 1% but is not bourgeoisie.

Aren't the bourgeoisie just the middle class today?

I have begun reading some of the classic Marx/Engels texts and what I am finding is that they assume a high level of knowledge on the reader's part about capitalist economics.

Not as accessible as The Conquest of Bread, which has a bit of that but much lighter and more general.

I don't know if you follow American politics — Leontiskos

I know little about either uk or american politics. I would say I see more of american politics just because it is more of a show and on the news more with trump's antics but it reminds me of around the 2016 period when an equivalent lefty to Bernie in the uk who was a very outside 'back bencher' as they call them got in as the main candidate for the Labour party. He was voted in by other member's who would never have voted for him but from what my mother told me it was their protest votes to block other real rivals that ended up getting him elected from all the protest votes. Oh yes, that is his name. Had forgotten it as he has been out of the media for some years now...Jeremy Corbyn.

He is really far Left and stirred up Corbynmania in the country for a time with quite some enthusiasm for actual change in a real socialist flavour but the powers that be seemed to see to it that he didn't get anywhere in the end and he has since faded back into obscurity on the back benches from whence he came.

If there are forum members you would like comments from you can ask them using the format their name like @ " unimportant " but with no space after @ or ". A note will show up in their e-mail that "Unimportant mentioned you in such and such a thread". That doesn't always work, but it sometimes gets more people to comment. — BC

I am new here so don't know who would. Isn't it that this forum is just relatively quiet overall, probably in large part to the fact that it is invite only - not that I am complaining about that as the other forums I perused before this one had much lower quality content with front pages mostly filled with rants.