I wouldn't call that a false dichotomy. Constructed, artificial, often arbitrary, by all means, but not false. Gays of both genders have an equivalent dichotomy of 'butch' and 'fem'. Even a novice can distinguish a butch gay from a fem just by their dress and demeanour with fairly reliable consistency. Constructed social dichotomies are realised - (literally 'made real') by behaviour. Nor are they necessarily voluntary. If the S.S. decides you are 'a jew', it doesn't matter what you think you are, off to the extermination camp you go.

It’s becoming obvious that we are dealing with a false dichotomy. — Uglydelicious

What false dichotomy is that? Nature/nurture? I certainly agree that that is a false dichotomy, which can be demonstrated by simply removing either one and seeing that there is nothing left.

You're not supposed to answer Harry's questions, you're supposed to be impressed and devastated by them. Is your wife-beating the result of your genes, or your upbringing?

The great man, the great man
Historians his memory
Artists, his senses, thinkers, his brain
Labourers, his growth, explorers, his limbs
And soldiers his death each second
And mystics his rebirth each second
Businessmen, his nervous system
No-hustle men his stomach
Astrologers, his balance, lovers, his loins
His skin it is all patchy
But soon will reach one glowing hue
God is his soul, infinity, his goal
The mystery, his source
And civilisation, he leaves behind
Opinions are his fingernails

Incredible String Band, Maya.

https://www.tutor2u.net/sociology/blog/meet-the-perspectives-functionalism-part-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_organism.

These came immediately to mind.

The analogy of The collective as body is ancient and modern; scientific and pseudoscientific in its manifestations from time to time. I don't have a specific place for language in the body schematics of yore, but surely your efforts fit into this general tradition. The language itself records the analogy in terms like 'headmaster,' 'body politic', 'right hand man'...

anxious or concerned — Ciceronianus the White

Do you think there is a man who isn't concerned about his masculinity?

If you want to play the definition game, as this thread sets out to do, you really need to have regard to the distinctions the people who start talking about the thing are making.

Masculinity, as a manifestation of testosterone, has an inherent drive. Male H. Sapiens are naturally primed by the four f’s of evolutionary biology - you know, feeding, fighting, fleeing or (again, never mind). That Darwinian heritage — Wayfarer

What is inherent, what is evolved, what is natural, is called 'maleness', and 'masculinity' refers to social roles. The manifestations of testosterone include all things female: men have relatively elevated testosterone levels, and that is part of maleness.

Masculinity becomes toxic when men begin worrying about their masculinity. — Ciceronianus the White

There is much to recommend this. Except that it applies to every male from the age they become aware of their sex and learn to insist on a blue toothbrush not a pink one. Some of us are quite happy to say that gender roles and identities arealways toxic from the beginning, along with racial, and other socially imposed identities.

Thus I am a man, and therefore whatever I am is part of maleness and whatever I do is part of maleness, and there is nothing to conform to and nothing to perform. On this view, there is no achievement, no winning of the woman, or finding a place in the dominance hierarchy - I haven't had a fight for 58 years, but ain't I a man? A gay man is a complete man and a straight man is also a complete man, and a transvestite is a complete man. A celibate monk and a gigolo are both complete men.

But masculinity confines, restricts, imposes, on all men a single image to which one must conform or face penalties - sometimes the death penalty.

But one must remember the source of this language is the political talk of women. And in practice, the emphasis will be exactly what is being presented by some here as the essence of masculinity - domination, aggression and violence, domestic abuse, and at the extreme, rape.

how can I improve my comprehension and my memory regarding philosophy? — deusidex

I wonder why you want this comprehension and memory? If it is to gain qualifications, to impress the ladies, to be able to name drop impressively, and so on, then the advice you already have is sufficient.

But if you want to understand the world, then allow yourself to forget everything if it doesn't stick with you. Use a philosophy dictionary instead of a memory. What matters is what matters to you, and that you will remember without effort. What matters is what you live by, not what you can recite or summarise of someone else's philosophy.

Me liking something therefor I should do it is not a statement that logically follows. — Darkneos

I like ice cream, however logic doesn’t say I should eat it. All it says is that I like ice cream. — Darkneos

Indeed. logic cannot say you should do anything or not do anything, any more than it can tell you what I have in my pocket. Logic is weak, and it cannot sustain. This entire thread is just a riff on the word 'reason'. It has two senses, the logical sense of reasoning as in deductive reasoning, and the rather different sense of motivation. Pointing out that motivation is not logic is trivial. Nothing follows therefrom.

We've taken a turn for the noir! Suicidal men (and dames) might post. I'm not genuinely worried about this btw. — Kenosha Kid

I am concerned, and it is something mods have to consider. Which is why I emphasise the logic that anyone who commends suicide is not speaking from experience and has not practiced what they preach.

If logic can derive premises then what is it good for? If it can’t determine if a premise is true then what is it good for? — Darkneos

No, it is not absurdity. Logic applies to thought and language. But our relation to the world is one of sensation and emotion. One senses that shit smells, one has a feeling about the smell of liking or disliking, and logic tells one that if one dislikes the smell of shit one ought to build a flushing toilet.

That's a much more interesting question. I think it's something like this:

You know those town centre maps that have a label stuck on, "you are here."? These days sat-nav on phones probably does the same job. But when you weren't looking at the static map, you weren't there, so it was always true when you saw it.

"I'm there", says the linguistic animal; "I'm like that". A confusion of map and territory - of word and thing.

Dead men don't post. They don't fear arrest either.

Knowing that you could have the police called on you if you're too candid online is quite a deterrent from discussing existential issues "honestly". — baker

Everyone who responds has chosen to go on living for the time being. I fail to see why any explanation of this choice would be a police matter; plans not to, or advice not to are another matter of course, but that was not asked for and would be off-topic.

I was teasing. But if you were so fortunate as to be me, you would understand that whomsoever you might be, you could ask the equivalent question, in this case, 'why is Ori unenlightened?'

It's a question that proposes itself to the mind in all seriousness, but as others have hinted, it actually has no meaning, because there is no conceivable answer that would satisfy. Why is one lump of clay a brick, and another lump a vase? there is no reason, because clay can take any shape.

It's not even a mystery.

Could you point me to Banno's answer! I can't seem to find it!! — counterpunch

Banno likes you to think for yourself, but I prefer to spoon-feed you the right answers.

What is wrong with The Republic is that it is a tyranny. That is, if the tyrant is always wise and benevolent then it is absolutely the best form of government. But unfortunately, the tyrant is always merely human and very often an absolute stinker.

I don't know why I'm me — Ori

Everybody's got to be someone, and I guess you just got the short straw. It's sheer bad luck.

It's a tabooed topic. — baker

No it isn't. There is an endless supply of people complaining that life is all meaningless suffering. This thread gets repeated every few weeks with variations. What's worse though, is that the same people come back again and again to the point where one has to wonder if they don't enjoy their misery, and think themselves fine, wise and brave philosophers for facing the unpleasant truth.

A few actually succumb to this nonsense, but most grow out of it. What you don't see so much, is people who really live precarious and materially limited lives raising any question about the significance of life. On the contrary, when they are not actually starving or dying, they tend to be full of joy. Happiness is not at all a middle class privilege, but rather depression is.

Have you read about Unschooling? — Megolomania

Guilty as charged! I was involved in the FreeSchool Movement back in the day, and HomeSchooling with Education Otherwise.


Bibliography.

A.S.Neil. Summerhill.
Ivan Illich. Deschooling Society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti. Education and the Significance of Life.
And so on. As well as Steiner and Montessori.

But it is a greater challenge to educate students who start with much less social capital and increase their social capitalization (like the skills needed to acquire and use knowledge to their best advantage along with social connections). — Bitter Crank

Yes indeed, and that must be the socialist project. It requires a whole community approach rather than just children. It requires much humility from the teacher, to learn how to live in a community and serve it.

we collectively aren't even sure what education is supposed to be doing. — Bitter Crank

But we can learn if we are willing.

Sorry, you seem exercised about something, but I'm not clear what.

I assume you want to conserve what is good, and progress to what needs improvement. I assume Marx did too. I assume you disagree with him and maybe with me about what to conserve and what to progress. Hurling insults about at hypothetical interest groups and power groups is rather what I want to get away from. But if you don't want to, that's your affair I suppose.

I am suggesting that everyone is conservative about some things and progressive about others, and authoritarian about some things and liberal about others, and so on with social/ individual. So it's a question of whether in matters sexual one leans to a liberal or authoritarian approach, and so on. One's attitude to economics will obviously depend on one's own and one's country's economic situation as well as education religion and so on. Try to separate out gay liberation, the abolition of slavery, and the communist manifesto. They are not one thing. One can be in favour of the public ownership of the road network without being a Maoist.

For the physicalists of the forum, the stakes are high. If you are correct, their whole world-view collapses. So they want a lot more evidence than just you saying. If people could deja vu the results of the roulette wheel on a fairly regular basis, they might be at least interested, but a world shattering phenomenon that has no practical results - I'm afraid you will just be made fun of, more or less gently.

It's odd how people speculate about why people go on living as if it is something that they wouldn't consider for themselves, but surely there must be some reason such a lot of THEM do?

It doesn't seem like ...

An honest discussion ... — Darkneos

... to me. If you are a person, and you go on living, its personal isn't it?

Is everyone else 'tired of living', and feared of dying', but doesn't want to admit it?

I love it!

My feet hurt, my knees are giving way, my back is agony my skin has gone brittle, (I am old) but we have just moved house and there is a garden to dig, a greenhouse to erect, a home to decorate, and of course all the young dudes here to educate. "Don't stop me now, 'cos I'm having such a good time..."

Not sure how to parse "the conservative left." — counterpunch

I'm trying to provoke a thought or two. I oppose 'conservative' to 'progressive'. Everyone (I assume) wants to conserve what is good and progress to what is better. So this kind of argument revolves around the judgement of what can be changed for the better and what should not be changed for the worse. If you are able to use machines to increase your productivity, you will probably support that change, whereas if I can do that and you cannot, and you lose your livelihood as a result, you might well think my machines a bad thing.

So working class conservatism typically seeks to maintain traditional jobs in mining and heavy industry, restrictive practices, job demarkation, union dominance, skill hierarchies, male and white dominance and so on. Whereas entrepreneurial conservatism would be more progressive about working practices.

There's been a lot of talk here in the UK about "saving the National Health System", which again is a project of conservation but a social conservation rather than an individualist one.

There's a couple of dimensions there within the single left right dimension; conservative/progressive, and individual/social. Add in the authoritarian/liberal dimension and you start to get something a bit more nuanced by which to understand the varieties of political commitment.

I think that the major factor in education is not what is in the books or in the words of the teachers but in the social structure and the behaviour modelled by the teachers. A school that preaches freedom but practices rigid control, for example, will teach the rigid control and freedom will not even be understood.

A curriculum so prescriptive that every lesson is mandated by government and neither teacher nor learner is given any autonomy cannot result in self-motivated or creative graduates.
So if you want students not to be gullible, you should not treat them as empty vessels to be filled with your unquestioned knowledge, but as critical partners in the development of society.

They protested against manufacturers who used machines — counterpunch

Indeed, the Luddites exemplify the conservative left, seeking to conserve the traditions of working practice from the tyranny of progress and mechanisation. The Diggers and Levellers though were much earlier.

The conservative nature of the working class is sadly neglected by left-wing politicians to their cost.

In the US such laws are locally made — tim wood

As they are in every part of the world, the writ of human law being universally local. But the point stands against anyone who wishes to claim superiority of freedom, or of equality between the sexes, for their own enlightened culture. Inconsistency of rules across time and place with unmarked borders is not that great a virtue either.

There are enforced dress codes in the enlightened democratic rational West too. Some body parts must be exposed, and some must be covered. Walk down the street clad in a balaclava and nothing else, and see how free you are.

The original left — Pfhorrest

What was the original left? I'd suggest this rabble as setting the scene before the classification of left and right came into being. They were saved by complete failure from becoming like the bloodthirsty dictatorial fanatics of the French revolution. and the Russian revolution, and the Chinese revolution.

There you go. Turns out you can. — Isaac

... if you don't care about maintaining logical validity. — emancipate

So necessity has a scope in the domain of language that extends to valid reasoning. It does not extend to the world at large, because language and logic cannot order the world about. The world does what it pleases, and language tries to follow and describe. Logic and necessity keeps language aligned with itself.

If the op is simply saying that necessity does not constrain the world, then I agree. But if he is saying that it does not constrain sensible talk, then i disagree.

Well, if that's true, then I'm god. — god must be atheist

The programmer is the god of his virtual world. He can enter his world as an invulnerable super-avatar, or stop virtual time and rearrange things, or whatever he likes. Characters within the program will argue the impossibility of an omnipotent programmer to exactly the extent that the programmer has ordained. The programmer might even be able to write a program he cannot fully understand. Therefore, there is no programmer.

A room full of articulate opinionated know-it-alls from every corner of the world and every political and/or religious persuasion, discussing everything under the sun? Sounds like a proper love-in. The mods would need tasers. :naughty:

I was rather relieved by your response and then saw the response, of someone trying to justify the whole question, with 'Depends on the defect. — Jack Cummins

I thought that was a joke. As in it's ok to call caucasians 'melanin defectives'. Not.

I was an active admin on the previous incarnation of the site, but have retired. An open site like this must expect to have homosexuals, women, and even white males posting and reading, and must be moderated or descend into flame wars. Talk of defective humans cannot be allowed to pass. It is also inevitably the case that some flaming will pass and some innocent insensitivity will be moderated. Justice is the aim, and even a generous budget cannot achieve it. Unpaid volunteers cannot be expected to even pretend to be interested in every petty complaint. But play nice, suck it up when you hit some mod's go-button, and thank the community and staff for a comsfortable place to discuss a wide but not unlimited range of topics.

Damn. Arrested by the thought police again. I spit on your so-called ideology that is behaviourally identical with its opposite.

The who what now? Contradiction in terms. — Pfhorrest

Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the usual suspects.It has always been obvious to me that the political spectrum is spherical such that the extremes of left and right coincide like East and West do. Is this an unusual view? I think Orwell explained it in Animal Farm.

Or if you want a more modern version, the more dictatorial tendencies of the Green movement - see here for example.

Not being able to have a child with your spouse or significant other is a deficiency, simply. — praxis

Good grief! The amount of scientific energy that has been invested in controlling fertility declares that being able to have a child with your spouse is something strenuously to be avoided most of the time, via vasectomy, coil, pill, sheath, abstinence, or, praise the lord in His mercy, menopause. Oh yes, sexist, age-ist and frankly fuckwitted - literally.

My compliments. The "Bigotry is a defect" thread is yours to begin. — Ciceronianus the White

I think I would much rather argue that it is a sin. We are familiar with the language of classification 'defective' and the vile policies that flow therefrom. Or perhaps the culpably ignorant are not familiar. To them, I think the house policy dictates that they educate themselves via google or elementary 20th century history before they dare to consider starting a thread in this forum.

Well, it isn't clear to me that we're here to learn whether homosexuality, or being Black, or being Jewish, or being disabled, etc. is or is not a defect. — Ciceronianus the White

Perhaps not already knowing is a defect?

Is the argument that if I am critical of psychiatry, I must be in favour of murder and suicide?
— unenlightened

Yes, that's basically it. If you see madness as

necessarily social, and necessarily delegitimising.
— unenlightened

...then you get an increase in murder and suicide. — Isaac

If you were interested, you might wonder what I mean by 'social' and 'delegitimising'. But as it is, I am suitably flattered that you consider my views as so very puissant.

Yeah right. Because the 34 murders, including 8 children and 266+ of suicides in just one year* directly linked with schizophrenia, even with a strong psychiatric profession, were just them expressing their legitimate difference of opinion about who was and was not a demon/devil/whatever. How repressive of us to try and convince them otherwise. — Isaac

I'm not sure what your actual disagreement is. Is the argument that if I am critical of psychiatry, I must be in favour of murder and suicide? Cool! Really strong demonstration of the authoritarian response. I criticise psychiatry, I must be insane! Nice one Cyril! It used to be called "lack of insight|" but it probably has other names these days.