You know.. it's ok to be deeply disappointed in what your own party came up with.

Crippling legislation? Are you talking about Obama-care?

Remember, dude, the Democrats won the popular vote. Trump didn't win by a landslide or anything.

Well, I don't think I've been particularly hyperbolic about it. What I said was the Trump fits the definition of 'demagogue', and nobody has taken issue with that. Consequently, I think his presidency is a threat to civic freedoms, the economy, and the environment; it puzzles me that there are people who can't see that threat. — Wayfarer

Demagogues don't generally threaten anything. They gain support by making promises, discover that they don't actually have the power to change anything, resort to race-baiting to explain their failures, and retire to obscurity. That's how American demagogues usually do it.

Civic freedoms, the economy, and the environment were afflicted prior to Trump's recent expedition. It wasn't clear what actions we should be taking about any of those things.

(But I'm no model of philosophic detachment, as I am frequently reminded by my wife.) — Wayfarer

Well how do you put a little detachment into your life?

The biography I read was Huey Long, by T. Harry Williams. You can get it used for cheap from Amazon. I think you'd really enjoy it.

Hitler, Mao, and Stalin are names we stamp on the worst things (in terms of scale) the human species has ever done to itself. Contrary to what many in the world seem to think, the USA has never produced anyone to compare with them.

He was very forceful, doing a full-court press on behalf of his policies. Bear in mind, though, that he had the "oil trust" (like Standard Oil") as a principle opponent, and they didn't play nice either. — Bitter Crank

He took over the Louisiana legislature. There's a lot to admire about him, but he became a dictator through ruthless attacks on anyone who opposed him. I don't know who nicknamed him The American Stalin, but it fits.

There's deep seated fear of tyranny in the American culture, Wayfarer. They have a tendency to assassinate governors and presidents who appear tyrannical. A fascinating case of it was Huey Long, the American Stalin.

I'm curious about how your Buddhism bears on the issue. It just seems that it would allow you to be a little more philosophical about the whole thing.

It just comes down to which kind of science fiction movie you'd rather live in... Wrath of Khan or Chronicles of Riddick?

In any case this question of objectification has been very much in my thoughts and what much of my recent reading has been concerned with, so Heidegger's Nietzsche may not turn out to go against its general direction, after all. — John

It came home to me a while back. I was looking at a tree trunk (the way we artist-types would). I moved around the tree watching the light change. I realized that there's nothing in my visual field that forms the basis of I'm looking at a tree. The tree is an idea. To use Heidi's etymology, it's the subjectum, which is from the Greek word that meant core. The core is projected out.

I guess there is something sort of existential about N (that's similar to Kierkegaard). Imagine that we're sitting in the audience of a play and we see two actors discussing an event, but we realize that their experiences are directly in conflict. Duck-rabbit. I really hadn't thought about using that stuff in Geneology of Morals...

That's cool. I'm not interested in a conventional understanding of N anyway. There's a fair amount of overlap between my own view and his. It was just bizarre that I read the Heidegger stuff mcdoodle pointed toward (which focused on causation as responsibility (with a mention of logos... stuff I was familiar with from OWA) and as I continued my N reading, it started with:

"This is simply the long history of the origin of responsibility."

I'm not sure that putting it into my own words is a way of answering the question I indicated, which was a question about how other people have used the word, or its closest relations in other languages, across various cultural contexts.

As I've suggested, I haven't heard any generally applicable conception of "legitimacy" that I find philosophically satisfying, and I don't have one myself. I find talk in terms of legitimacy to be quite problematic until we take for granted -- for the sake of conversation, or with respect to something like a national constitution -- some more or less arbitrary characterization of the term. — Cabbage Farmer

I'm not really following you at all here. The meaning of "legitimacy," as used in the OP, doesn't seem confusing or arbitrary to me.

Taken at face value, the word "legitimacy" suggests that something legitimate is something legal, something made or done in accordance with law. — Cabbage Farmer

OK. But the OP is about political theory, right? Wouldn't it be appropriate to narrow focus down to what the word means in that context?

If you mean to ask what values and principles of political organization do I personally consider most relevant to judgments about the legitimacy of laws, governments, and institutions, I’ve given some indication already, in this laundry list:

"justice", "liberty", "consent", "popular sovereignty", "prosperity", "pacificity", "humanity"
— Cabbage Farmer

and I suppose we could add more terms to the list and discuss the meaning or relevance of any item in the present context. — Cabbage Farmer

Again... not following this at all. Sorry.

I suppose that etymology can be of use if you are interested in the history of ideas, and in particular in exegesis of old philosophers, which is what much of academic philosophy seems to be about. — SophistiCat

The obvious question would be: how do you know you're examining the history of ideas and not just projecting your own ideas onto history?

Heidegger wrote a four volume treatise on Nietzsche.

https://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Vols-Knowledge-Metaphysics-Nihilism/dp/0060637943/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5PAVDVVXKY69QV5BG674 — John

Have you read it? I think I'd like to.

I find etymology useful for breaking the sedimented semantic resonance of words. — StreetlightX

Could you give an example?

In what way was Nietzsche's theory "based on etymology"?

Was it his “theory” that was based on etymology, or only his interpretations of philosophical texts, or merely his own use of words and phrases? — Cabbage Farmer

N's theory relates morality to selfhood and the experience of time. His approach is kind of mechanical. 'How would we breed an animal that is capable of making a promise?' My thoughts on the whole things are a little nebulous at the moment. In some ways it's similar to conclusions I came to myself. Maybe I'll make a thread aimed at sorting it out.

Etymology is not the single primary foundation of any of it. He uses it to give weight to (or sort of demand consideration of) a story that starts with a mindless human beast who eventually becomes trapped in a moral straight-jacket. So it's all about will (no surprise there.)

That exegetical task is complicated by the fact that different speakers, especially those from different times and places, may have disparate etymological resources at their disposal -- a difficulty a philologist like Nietzsche might hope to resolve. — Cabbage Farmer

Could you expand on that?

I think the crowd you mentioned would benefit from switching over to choosing presidents by the popular vote.

You can put this star in my chart:

That link makes a fascinating mash-up with Genealogy of Morals. Heidegger was familiar with Nietzsche, wasn't he?

Cool.. thanks mcdoodle!

Then again, from a broad enough point of view, the last option is only a variation on the middle way. — Cabbage Farmer

Does somebody die on the middle way?

But I wonder whether the word "legitimacy", or some very close term in translation, has always been used in every time and place, — Cabbage Farmer

No.

or if perhaps our concept doesn't necessarily map on to linguistic terms in every culture in the same way. — Cabbage Farmer

Good question. How would you put the meaning of legitimacy into your own words?

"Protestant work ethic" is as lazy as the "derogatory black stereotype". From Luther, "all work is holy" and all work is dignified, whether it is the work of a priest or the work of the lowest class of laborer. — Bitter Crank

The Protestant work ethic is Calvinist. Lutherans just sit around drinking beer.

Yea, the derogatory black stereotype is lazy.

I wouldn't say that living independent of parents and grasping challenge is a universally accepted ideal. Italian men can't do it due to housing shortage. In Korea opportunity is just too limited for everybody to rock out their potential. But it is an ideal in America. If you're in America, living contrary to that puts you in the oddball category. There are pros and cons to being an oddball.

The former Caribbean slaves weren't starving. They weren't burdening anybody. They weren't threatening Western Civilization.

Just the fact that they weren't working hard drove the British bananas.

It's a cultural thing. When the British ended their involvement with slavery in the Caribbean, it was with the assumption that free people will work harder than slaves. But the newly freed slaves found that they could spend 30 minutes a day growing pumpkins and get along fine. Certain British parties were outraged at the "pumpkin eaters" and suggested that they should be re-enslaved for their own good. You're sounding pretty close to what's called the Protestant work ethic.

"The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat." -- 2 Thessalonians 3:10

Right. We can't be too idealistic, and aim to reject, instead of improve, each and every imperfect institution.

How does that pragmatism guide us in defining terms like "acceptance", "tolerance", and "legitimacy" in this conversation? — Cabbage Farmer

It doesn't guide us. For all practical purposes, you have acceptance of the world as it is unless you are actively seeking to change it or you have recently filled your pockets with stones so as to Virginia Woolf yourself into the river.

The way you understand legitimacy is influenced by your metaphysical outlook. Are you a naturalist? A Christian? Are you a naturalist who smuggles in a medieval Christian view from time to time? My little essay on the history of the term was supposed to convey that.

It's hard for me to imagine what a speaker as sober as Chomsky might mean by a statement like "all civilization is fundamentally evil." Can you expand on this attitude and its place in Chomsky's late thoughts? Is it somehow connected to "anarchosyndicalism" or to "left libertarianism"? — Cabbage Farmer

His extreme pessimism comes out when he's asked to explain what positive steps he thinks the world should take.

What do you mean by "abandon legitimacy"? The phrase could mean: Abandon talk of legitimacy, for instance if we found the term to be fundamentally redundant or ungrounded; perhaps replacing talk of legitimacy with talk in other terms for about the same purposes. For instance, we might use terms like "justice", "liberty", "consent", "popular sovereignty", "prosperity", "pacificity", "humanity"... to evaluate institutions in ways that align with our current use of the term "legitimacy". — Cabbage Farmer

Bill says his government has no legitimacy. He is fundamentally rejecting its normative influence. Bill could:

1. Move to Alaska and live off the land. Lots of people do it.
2. Stay and just whine all the time. But in this case, the whining is profoundly pointless because Bill has rejected any possibility of making things better.
3. Get a clue and realize that he does accept the imperfect government that stands over him (atrocities and all). Now pick an atrocity and try to do something to help.

Or that all the speech and other action of each individual contributes to the future successes and failures of that individual, as well as of the communities in which he participates, including the community we call "humanity" and the community we call "all sentient beings"? — Cabbage Farmer

That. Think of Gandhi. We stamp his name on a success that involved the actions of millions of people. Hitler.. same thing except it was a failure.

A king with no supporters is no king at all. — Cabbage Farmer

If you get that, then you have everything you need to get the OP. How do we know whether to support or fight against X? A conservative says that a lot of the work has been done for us by history. The stuff that has survived the last few thousand years has shown itself to be worthy.

There is a fly in the ointment here, but most of the ointment is exceptionally wise. Give the archetypal Conservative his/her due. We wouldn't be here without them.

And I'd expect you'd even admit to the real benefit of getting out of the rut of dependency and directionlessness when you secured a challenging job. — Hanover

It's just a little weird to read that while glancing at your avatar.

Astronaut

I thought the absurdity of the statements in the paraphrase might shed some light on the significance of the original passage (pushing especially on the role of "actual acceptance" in that passage). I continued commenting in this manner with analogies to lying and strangling. — Cabbage Farmer

Right. It's just that it's a strawman. That passage was simply saying that institutions that endure have a history of acceptance. Nothing world shattering. In fact the OP isn't so much presenting an argument as simply laying out how conservatives see the world.

Could an institution be oppressive and endure? Couple of answers:

1. For a while, yes. If that's happening it could be because there is no known alternative or people perceive that the alternative isn't something they can choose. But where that's happening the situation is unstable. It's like an ailing machine that will clunk along until some critical point is reached and the machine falls apart.

2. Looking at the question a different way, any institution might occasionally be afflicted by oppressiveness, corruption, immorality... what have you. Yet acceptance exists and that acceptance is real. The reason we might not want to claim that this is false legitimacy is that if we dream of some correction, some alteration, some advancement toward the ideal, those dreams will require some accepted institutions. One would only abandon legitimacy altogether if one is adopting a late-Chomskyesque attitude: that all human civilization is fundamentally evil. I don't know where on the political spectrum that attitude lies, but it's in a zone of complete irrelevance.

I'm inclined to resist the whole line of thinking, despite the mollifying effect of that vagueness. — Cabbage Farmer

That's fine. As I said: it's not saying anything startling, but it's certainly not saying anything ridiculous either. I spent of lot of years thinking about how everything one says and thinks contributes to bigger successes and failures. I think all governments are basically democratic (granted I was camping in the woods at the time.)

Ice sculpture. That would be a cool job.

Did you not speak in those terms?

Legitimacy is an ancient idea. Throughout most of the life of this concept, it has tied government to religion. The oldest known piece of literature is an epic which, like all epics, lays out the legitimacy of the ruling class, that is, explains why they have a divine right to rule.

Legitimacy played an especially poignant role in European history because of the way it could effect military ventures. The soldier needs to believe he's fighting for a legitimate ruler because otherwise he's committing blasphemy (fighting against God's Chosen One.)

This explains how Joan of Arc ended up influencing events in France. She showed up claiming that the French Dauphin was the legitimate King (this had been in question since his parents disowned him). Subsequently the Dauphin-supporters fought more vigorously with the belief that she really was in touch with divine forces.

So you can see how the meaning of the word changes pretty significantly post-Enlightenment. An American in 1810, for instance, may believe that the American government has its anchor in Nature (another word for God), but he doesn't believe the government has divine blessing necessarily.

Post 1870, a lot of Americans would understand legitimacy as having to do with this:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
– Gettysburg address

:)

I know he's a narcissist and a pathological liar, — Erik

I don't think he is. He just fights dirty and he doesn't color within the lines. A long time ago I nicknamed people like that "sharks." When you approve of a shark, they're magic. They get things done that the less vicious of us just sat on for decades. But when they're wrong.. holy shit. They can make a magnificent mess and do permanent damage.

It's not us.. it's not that we just need to apply the right logic to it or whatever. It's the situation. There are aspects of the global scene that are screwed up... the US being almost $20 trillion in debt is a sign of that. Could Trump make the whole thing worse?

Look back to 2009. A $55 trillion dollar bubble popped. How did the global economy survive that? Because we finessed our way to refusing to face it. We pumped the banking system with cash, did a stress test on it (while it was good and plump) and declared the problem solved. Why did we do that? Because facing the truth would have been disastrous for just about everybody.

So this is the big post-truth. It has nothing to do with Trump. It's that there's a grave underlying problem with the global economy, it had a chance to be reset, and we deluded our way out of the reset. That we're now looking at removing the little bit of regulation we did after 2008 is.. well totally expected.

People hate Trump because he's unapologetically offensive. That's really, really small potatoes, though. Everything is going to be ok.

So Trump has created a situation where if you speak out against him, you are, by default, speaking for the establishment. There's long standing suspicion of and disappointment in the establishment. It hasn't been that long since we were talking about California being a failed state, democracy had failed there, how long would it be before the same was true of the US in general, etc.

Is this definition in common use? To me it seems quite strained.

As if one were to say, the "factual legitimacy" of oppression and coercion consists in the persistence of oppression and coercion. Or, the "factual legitimacy" of an act of aggression consists in the victory of the aggressor. — Cabbage Farmer

In political science, legitimacy is the right and acceptance of an authority, usually a governing law or a régime. Whereas "authority" denotes a specific position in an established government, the term "legitimacy" denotes a system of government — wherein "government" denotes "sphere of influence". — wiki

I don't think it makes sense to talk about the "legitimacy of oppression" here.

Sound then, is resolutely anti-Platonic, to the degree that it militates against any notion of timelessness, eternity, or ’the unchanging’ — StreetlightX

Fascinating topic. I grew up with a cousin who has perfect pitch. I was telling her once that music always seem to be beyond my grasp, always disappearing. She answered, "No, it's always there."

Always where? In a psychic landscape? Maybe Beethoven, the deaf composer would agree. Science says that tinnitus (a ringing in the ears) is generated entirely by the brain (ears have nothing to do with it). So it may be that if we were more audio-oriented, we'd arrive at direct realism anyway.

Especially if you do a lot of drawing and painting, you might become accustomed to seeing just pure color, shading, and lines. You can see without any consideration of what (the Platonic) by a simple act of will. If humans didn't have eyes, maybe we would say that in regard to sound.

Eyes have independently evolved more than 50 times on planet earth, though.

I don't want this to happen. — Banno

Oh give me a break. Of course you do. You're just like Unenlightened. You relish the thought of the 300 million people starving to death or whatever the hell. You both stink of hatred and you have for years.

That's really an amazing tune. — Question

Lorn has developed tendrils that have wound their way down into the depths of my psyche. I think I should probably notify the NSA, but I don't know if it still exists. Rone too.

One aspect of the contradiction jamalrob pointed out is duality vs unity. On the one hand it's indubitable that each individual must be related to everything else in the world somehow (temporally, spatially, causally). You are a part of the whole universe (from beginning to end.)

But on the other hand, it's equally indubitable that you somehow stand apart from that world. However you work out what it means that you have apriori knowledge about the basic conceptual framework of the world, there's this: you have a vantage point on it. And we just stepped over into paradox. You are an inextricable element of the world.. and that's you observing the fact.

And the next move is basic Hegel (I think.. you could expand?). Just as cause and effect are interdependent concepts, unity and disunity are. I want to say that trying to pull unity and disunity apart results in the infinite regress of observers.

S doesn't try to solve the paradox. He just gives it a name: multiplicity. When he talks about the rawness of subjective experience, he's preparing to say something pretty startling about who and what you are.

Unrelatedly... N says we should contemplate Napoleon: "the synthesis of Monster and overman." He says Napoleon is the incarnate problem of the aristocratic ideal. I'm trying to figure out what that's supposed to mean.

This song is about spending a lot of time waiting in traffic.

I suspect curved relative to distant objects occupying the space-time continuum. — Question

This is a curve. What are we using the x-y axes for?

That humans can't conceptualize curved space. — Question

Curved relative to what?

I can't produce any quotes to show that. Schopenhauer was pretty paradoxical, though. So if N did reject paradox, I'd like to know how he understood things.