He has an axe to grind. It is likely he was diagnosed with something in the past, and he refuses to take responsibility for it. This is very common.

You seem to be qualified to be able to give an adequate defense of psychiatry as you have seen first-hand patients becoming stable through medication management from psychiatrists. It is common for patients to refuse to take or quit taking their medications just because of your kind of bias. That’s when they become unstable again.

He has authority. However, he is not claiming that he is the only authority. What makes you qualified to disregard psychiatry?

You seem to think you’re some kind of authority, however.

You’re either a troll or a dolt or both.

I’m not going to research something unless or until you can give me a good reason to do so.

For all I know, maybe you shouldn't "be allowed to live in the community". — Galuchat

That’s a huge potential assumption. Where do you get off saying something like that?

Glad to hear I’m not the only one.

You’re either really super smart or just plain bad at writing. I don’t understand a third to half of what you say in any given post.

If it weren’t for psychiatry, I wouldn’t be allowed to live in the community. Make whatever assumptions you will from this.

Also, what of the seemingly fact that fathers tend to be harder and tougher with their sons than with their daughters? What does this bring out in males as they come of age? — Noah Te Stroete

My ex-wife’s father was abusive and hard and tough with her. Perhaps she learned to be maladjusted where most fathers treat their daughters more gently? Just a thought. Discuss.

Why not try asking a woman who she thinks is extraordinary? I would bet that she might surprise you. Perhaps men get distinguished because it’s mostly men doing the judging. — Noah Te Stroete

Also, what of the seemingly fact that fathers tend to be harder and tougher with their sons than with their daughters? What does this bring out in males as they come of age?

Superior in what sense? Impulse control? Less inclined to use drugs? — Anaxagoras

Careful. You might start something even more ugly than the OP. :wink:

Why not try asking a woman who she thinks is extraordinary? I would bet that she might surprise you. Perhaps men get distinguished because it’s mostly men doing the judging.

To me, consciousness in itself is rather spiritual. It is so mysterious. How in the world did inanimate matter collect itself, arranging itself in such a way that it can experience itself? That just blows my mind. The ordinary thought of as extraordinary.

Sorry, that’s just letting people off lightly. You’re right,they are not special. There needs to be more humility and more genuine curiosity. — Brett

You’re an older person, aren’t you? You should’ve realized by now that you can’t control people, expecting them to conform to your ideals. I think a part of wisdom is accepting the world as it is. Otherwise you are just banging your head against a wall, and that only hurts you, leaving the wall (world) unaffected.

I think we need to lower expectations or broaden expectations here. Not every post is going to be philosophically profound. This is a community of people and you have to take the good with the bad. People are going to talk past each other. People are going to blow off steam. People are going to joke, and people are going to get frustrated and angry. These are not just avatars. These are real people with varying degrees of intellect, experience, maturity ... and they can get moody.

My posts in this thread may have been of questionable quality, but I was illustrating the point through a couple of examples that generalizing only works in general thought such as in statistics. Generalizing doesn’t tell you ANYTHING about specific people.

I thought you and I had a rather nice give and take about Beauty. Am I wrong?

Judgment of quality is an application of social values and, as I wrote, those are determined based on social, cultural, and personal factors. As with all social judgments, consensus plays a big part. There's lots of room for individual preference, but if you get too far out, you are no longer talking to anyone other than yourself. — T Clark

I find this to be a strong argument. Rembrandt produced high quality art. That at least is the consensus of the art world. It’s rooted in Western social, cultural, and historical factors that give rise to our common values. I might like my art, but if I’m the only one, then it is not high quality. It also probably does not reflect our common social, cultural, and historical values. I would also add that most high quality art is difficult to produce; taking a lot of creativity, skill, and/or original thought.

However, a lot of people really enjoy craft fairs and fill their homes with such artifacts. These artifacts may also reflect these values, and they might also require skill, creativity and/or original thought. You won’t find any of these artifacts in art museums, though.

So what makes a piece of art high quality? And why should anyone accept your standard? I’m open to arguments.

Good point.

As an example, I could define “truth” to mean having the quality of corresponding to fact or reality. Then we would argue not only on this definition; but also of the definitions of “quality”, “correspond”, “fact”, and “reality”. This could go on for months.

You see both types of discussion on this site, those with vaguely defined terms which attract beginning philosophers,and those that begin with and maintain a high degree of focus and relative precision. — Joshs

But with vague terms such as “meaning” and “truth” defining them just leads to endless disagreement. I’m not sure this is any “better”.

Introducing names into this discussion tends to humanize the people we're talking about, and I'd rather think of them as hollow literary constructions we can ridicule. Also, telling me that this crazy ax murderer of yours mothered your children also doesn't help me in keeping her in non-human status. — Hanover

:lol: You’re funny.

You meet the rule perfectly. — Hanover

My point was that it is generally a fallacious Rule. It just happens to be true in our case.

You sound like you still love her. — Hanover

She’s the mother of my children. I don’t hate her. The love of my life is my wife, Crystal, whom I’ve been with for twelve years.

Well, most ex-wives aren’t diagnosable as “disturbed”, and ex-husbands who are called “assholes” by their ex-wives are not universally assholes to everyone, just usually to their ex-wives. We are more of an exception to the fallacious “Rule”.

She is also an asshole and I am also crazy (clinically when I’m off my meds). I was reciting nothing. If anything, you were being a lazy thinker when you assumed I was calling her “crazy” when I had not said that until you mentioned it.

You said I was “reciting” the “universal rule”. I am not reciting it. In our case, it happens to be true, whereas others are usually biased towards their exes when they recite it.

Well, I AM an asshole, but my ex-wife was in the “emotionally disturbed” classes in high school and was voted most likely to have a hit list. LOL. We still hang out and get along just fine, so you really don’t know what you’re talking about.

No. There is no 'good art' or 'bad art', nor is there any such thing as 'better' art. If the artist presents someting as art, it is art. Your part, and mine, is that we get to say "I like it" or "I don't like it". It's nothing more than personal taste. And every expression of personal taste is correct and unchallengeable, although other such expressions may contradict it. That's what personal taste is.

So no, there is not even "a little justification for this". — Pattern-chaser

I tend to agree with this, but I am always open to hear counter arguments. I would like to hear what @T Clark has to say on this.

I tend to agree that Shakespeare shouldn’t be taught in general education high school classes. It’s too advanced linguistically for many, and it just discourages them from learning. It should be taught as an advanced elective class in high school as preparation for college, though, I think. I can see Zhou’s point.

Art is still taught at my children’s schools. Sketching, painting, pottery, sculpture, etc. If Zhou is teaching at a school that has eliminated art for budgetary reasons, then he probably isn’t teaching a lot of privileged kids. If that’s the case, then the kids he is teaching probably have greater problems than deciding which Ivy League school to apply to, and they would be better served with a curriculum that engages their sensibilities than further stressing them out with something as remote to their daily lives as Shakespeare. Get kids to love learning first in an environment where they feel safe instead of intimidating them with all that “Get thee to a nunnery” and “slings and arrows” and “contumely” nonsense. If they begin to love learning by teaching them the sociology of Seinfeld, then maybe they won’t be so intimidated by the more esoteric teachings. Some might want to take Shakespeare as an elective then. It serves no purpose to force them to endure it if they can be better served by topics more germane to their lives.

Damn. That whole scene is just gold. And you forgot, "Nobody f***s with the Jesus!" — ZhouBoTong

Very well versed in Dudeism, I see! Kudos!

Personally, I didn’t find anything off-putting in your tone in any of your posts I’ve read. You seem like a very reasonable person. Not sure why you keep apologizing. Stop it! LOL

If people don’t understand you, then fuck ‘em.

I agree but with the proviso that women are better than men only in the narrow sense of legal behavior. I mean women tend to be more law abiding than men. — TheMadFool

Aren’t the vast majority of serial killers men? And rapists? And drug dealers (although there might be closer to parity here)? The mob bosses? Mob enforcers? It shouldn’t surprise us that men tend to desire power more so than women, so there are more men in power. This shouldn’t be the case, though. Just look at where a history of rule by men has gotten the planet. Maybe we should let the women have there shot at fucking up as the men have. It couldn’t get any worse, and I would bet we would see improvements (dare I say).

Look at it this way, say our eternal universe has a clock (its just a thought experiment). What time would it read? — Devans99

“Eternal” means “outside of time” where an eternal being would experience all of our time (past, present, and future) as an eternal present time to her. That’s how Boethius explained it anyway.

Yeah, well, uh, you know, that’s just like your opinion, man. :cool:

V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!

Shut the fuck up, Donny. :lol:

I like Hamlet because the character, Hamlet, is so sensitive and thoughtful. I think his fatal flaw was indecisiveness. I can relate to this. He was also kind of experimenting with his behavior to try to figure things out and it ended up driving him mad when at first it was an act. This along with the poetic language of the play make it my favorite play of all time. Say what you will about Mel Gibson, but I loved his portrayal.

Now, I am also a fan of The Big Lebowski. Lower brow art, but still very high quality in my opinion.