a close reading of the major text, The Ball of Kerrymuir. — unenlightened

Since no one has leaped forward to put their testicles where their mouths are, I'll make a few preliminary remarks myself. The text is sacred to an ancient Celtic ritual to do with the anointing of the King, known at the time as the 'Man-o-the-match'. (see Frazer's Golden Bough).) There are tantalising hints as to the nature of this ritual in a celebration called 'the Cup Final', a struggle for possession of, with much handling and kicking, a giant testicle, and in a surviving children's game called 'Cup and Ball'. The medical ritual whereby a doctor 'cups' the testicles while pronouncing "Cough please", which is thought to have been originally part of the wedding ceremony, is also connected. The most popular theory is that suitors for a princess would line up 'against the wall' (to prevent surprise attacks), and submit to various testicular ordeals until the last man standing won his bride.

So one must read the chorus with great care, because it is not only recited by the ensemble but repeated, and with each repetition takes on a different meaning, that has, as Wittgenstein has pointed out, only a family resemblance. To assume that the chorus has a single and stable meaning would be to entirely miss the subtlety of the text.

singing balls to your father
arse against the wall.

if you never get fucked on a saturday night,
you'll never get fucked at all

In the first recitation, the meaning is fairly straightforwardly describing the ritual, naming the day and the only slight difficulty is that 'fucked' means kicked in line 3, and married in line 4. But this much is surely obvious to most. I'll stop here before considering the first verse, in case any further insights are forthcoming, or clarifications needed, and with each verse in turn, revisit the chorus in the light of the verse.

Nah, she is stuck with the leadership of a party that unanimously despises her, but wants to keep her in place to take the blame, and she is stuck trying to implement a policy she does not believe in, and that nobody wants. As a consummate wiggler myself, I would in her shoes force both sides to support me by threatening to resign and thereby make someone else have to take the blame - ideally Corbyn. My real nightmare scenario for Labour is that she calls a general election, delays brexit and contrives to split the Conservatives, forcing a Labour win. And then it will all be their fault.

To further the general level of understanding of this important topic, I suggest we form a study group and make a close reading of the major text, The Ball of Kerrymuir. There are many editions, but this one is freely available, and fairly unbiased

I'm convinced that May will find a way to wiggle out of the Brexit — Baden

Have you seen her wiggling ability? I don't believe she could wiggle her way out of a cornfield.

I rather think we will end up with no deal brexit, because whatever happens will be very unpopular, and anyone who blinks will lose their own support without getting any new support. If May softens, the Tory party will split, if Corbyn supports a referendum Labour will split, and uniting around a horror of no deal does not amount to an agreement to act to stop it, in the face of the baying mob.And without an agreement in parliament on a change of course, even a delay is unlikely.

And then some civil unrest, economic collapse, the break up of the Union and we'll all wake up, those that survive, to find ourselves serfs on the Rees-Mog estate and grateful for it M'lud.

That's because it is even more undemocratic than the EU. But the British people were never consulted about joining the WTO, and we demand a referendum.

I don't think there is a large Finnish population in UK, but there are a million Poles, and approaching four million EU citizens in total. — Inis

Gosh, 4 million is a lot, I don't think my spare bedroom is big enough. But back to the WTO, that unaccountable undemocratic overwhelmingly foreign organisation imposing its trade rules on us. Let's take back control, Leave the WTO!

Let's forgo retribution and deterrence both. Most people obey the law and behave decently because they already find it more pleasant, and those who do not, are not much deterred by the threat of punishment. We have to do our best to protect ourselves from the violent, the cheaters, the manipulators and exploiters, and the way we do it at the moment is not very effective. Sometimes society needs to imprison someone for the safety of others, and such an exclusion and control is bound to be felt as punishment, and bound to increase the prisoner's alienation, isolation, and thus antisocial tendencies. This is only made worse by also treating them harshly, in the hope of frightening them into compliance, or as some bizarre negative payment.

Same applies across the EU. — Inis

Except Britain, of course, which has to put up with hordes of Finns coming here to take advantage of the wonderful happy life that we all lead here with our super-generous benefits system and state of the art health service.

I think people are seriously misjudging the mood of the British. — Inis

The British are desperate and angry. Unfortunately at entirely the wrong people. That something is popular does not prevent it from being a disaster. But you miss the point as usual. The WTO is an international governing body like the EU. We could leave, and take back control. It would be another really bad idea.

Trump: US will quit World Trade Organization unless it 'shapes up ...

We could leave the WTO as well - imposing its rules on us undemocratically.

Someone else talking about political trilemmas in a Euro-context.

https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/143465789704/david-pagnucco-the-eurozone-and-the-impossible

My view is that truth should have a very different status from that of falsehood. To censor truth is outrageous and to speak truth should never be a crime or a tort, except where there is a specific undertaking of confidentiality given, and/or demanded with good justification of public or private interest.

Falsehood, is another matter entirely. Honest error seems innocent unless reckless, but deliberate falsehood and deception by misleading, should attract consequences commensurate with the damage they do.

but the problem could be much bigger than official figures suggest. — Inis

The problem is the exact opposite of what the official figures suggest, because the officials take care to make the figures show them in a good light, and load their own benefits onto the poor as cost that they, the poor, fail to make.

Imagine a wonderful country where all the poor are somehow disappeared. Plenty of tax-paying bankers, teachers, policemen, politicians, entrepreneurs, and so on, and none of the terrible drain on society of cleaners, fruit-pickers, packers, and so on. It wouldn't last two weeks. Who suffers when the government shuts down?Is it the illegal immigrants, losing all those benefits they are getting?

Such calculations are curious. It looks like the main cost to government is the education of children. If one did a calculation for other groups on the same basis, it would surely turn out that poor people are always a cost to government. One wonders how the rich can afford them?

But a little thought reveals that most of the education budget goes to wages for teachers. Indeed most government expenditure is wages, and what is not spent on wages is spent on products of waged work.

But all these payments are billed in these estimates, not to the people who receive them, but to the people who 'should' pay for them. People who work for government are not the beneficiaries of government. Really?

The calculation of who is a net contributor or a net drain on society needs a little more care, and a lot less smug complacency on the part of the :- well are they the well off because they work so hard and contribute so much, or are they privileged beneficiaries?

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization...

Center for Immigration Studies - Low-immigration, Pro-immigrant.

What part of "non-partisan" do they not understand?

It's such a simple question. But put a human face and a human voice on the oyster, on the grain of wheat, on the screaming carrot. If you make a radical equality of all forms of life, then to eat is to be cannibal. Such extremity comes to folks rarely, but if to eat is to consume one's brethren, then there are those who will eat, and there are those who would rather die. I would rather die.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/white-house-rejects-supremacist-label-no-one-has-done-more-than-trump-to-prove-white-people-are-not-superior?fbclid=IwAR0oSiDcy5OO8EYTWZkOjaCrbzWQ2uHK8RVK6ur58qsSeMGErp9V1XrOYVE

Plato made a useful distinction between stuff and arrangement, having noticed that wooden house and a stone house were both more comfortable abodes than a pile of bricks or lumber. Theseus found the same thing with his ship, that the material could all be replaced as long as the form was maintained.

Indeed there is a legend that Theseus had more than one ship; that he had a teleporter that went wrong, or possibly a couple of shipwrights and some spare lumber.

How does a vegan justify living in a society that is based around consumerism? How does a vegan justify the use of anything beyond the bare necessities of life when such luxuries almost universally cause harm to something, somewhere? — Tzeentch

Probably, they don't, any more than the average meat eater justifies eating cow but not horse, pig but not dog, sheep but not caterpillar, and so on. My own justification for not in general eating meat is that it is grossly bad manners to eat someone to whom one has not been introduced. Thus I will happily eat my own livestock or my neighbours, but avoid anonymised corpse-parts at the supermarket.

I think the posited position of the identity theorist is that the brain state exists if and only if the pain exists.

Supposing otherwise would falsify their theory.

The trick for them is to find, empirically, the right brain state. — Banno

I think a large part of the trick is to replace 'state' which has a static connotation, with 'process'. Talking of brain states, I start to imagine the evil scientist inducing a 'state of pain' and then dropping the brain into liquid nitrogen and preserving the hell indefinitely. But that is not what anyone theorises, but rather that a static brain is unthinking unfeeling and dead.

And then, one could point out that part of the brain process that is identical with a pain is an ongoing sensation, accompanied by an ongoing interpretation and judgement thereof. Thus even if, empirically, one can induce the toe ache with a particular localised stimulation of the brain, nevertheless, the whole brain is part of the process, just as it is if one induces a toe ache by treading on the toe.

Here in Wales there has always been a great shortage of names, and almost everyone has to make do with 'Jones' or 'Williams'. Accordingly, there has arisen the tradition of appending the occupation to the name. This is not unique to Wales, and so there are many surnames that are occupations - 'Smith', 'Baker', 'Cooke', and so on.

So 'Bob the Builder' starts out as a rigid designator - 'Bob', and an appended disambiguating description. Just as there is more than one Nixon, so there is more than one Bob. Such names are rigid, but not definite. But once I have made clear that it is Bob the builder I am referring to and not Bob the sagger-maker's bottom-knocker, then it is the same person I am referring to whatever I am saying: "Bob might have been called 'Sam' and joined the fire service." If he had, of course he would not have been called 'Bob the Builder', but 'Fireman Sam'. But for this to have any meaning, it must be Bob who would have been called Sam, and Bob who would have joined the fire service - to suppose that Fireman Sam was called 'Sam' and joined the fire service is to suppose nothing at all, and simply to have changed the subject of discussion - It's a whole other story.

The rigidity of the name is inherent in the way we speak. In due course, Bob might have a son, who due to the aforementioned name shortage is also called Bob, and as often happens, he might follow his father's profession. And then we would need to further disambiguate Bob the Builder and Bob Builderson, or Bob the Builder Senior and Bob the Builder Junior, or some other scheme; thus there is a flow between names and descriptions...

But there is not the same flow between definiteness and rigidity. There are many builders named, Bob, and there are at least 2 philosophers named Bob on this very thread. But there is only one Bob the Builder, and here he is:



Accept no imitations! #therealbobthebuilder.

One might say that the rigidity of names is a function of their arbitrariness; they are Humpty-Dumpty-an in meaning exactly what the speaker intends:

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

This totalitarian anarchy becomes unworkable applied to the whole language, but limited to names, and signalled by a beginning capital, it seems to work just fine. 'Alice' means the Alice I am talking about and none other, and you don't know which Alice I am talking about until I tell you (It's Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass). In the same way, there are many builder's named 'Bob', but only one Bob-the-Builder.

Names are rigid even if ambiguous, whereas if descriptions are ambiguous, they are not definite.

To all: So is there a way to block a user? — Banno

You have tilt your head back so that your nose is very much in the air; then when you look down it at people, you will still be able to overlook them completely. We Brits are well used to the contortion, which we call 'condescension'. It does require sturdy boots though as one cannot see what or who one is treading on.

Those quotes are from the Addenda in the link on the first page of this thread:

https://academiaanalitica.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/kripke-saul-a-naming-and-necessity-cambridge-harvard-university-press-1981.pdf

Kripke doesn't talk about empty names, — Wallows

(e) SantaClaus,p.93andpp.96-7.Gareth Evans has pointed out that similar cases of reference shifts arise where the shift is not from a real entity to a fictional one, but from one real entity to another of the same kind. According to Evans, 'Madagascar' was a native name for a part of Africa; Marco Polo, erroneously thinking that he was following native usage, applied the name to an island. (Evans uses the example to support the description theory; I, of course, do not.) Today the usage of the name as a name for an island has become so widespread that it surely overrides any historical connection with the native name. David Lewis has pointed out that the same thing could have happened even if the natives had used 'Madagascar' to designate a mythical locality. So real reference can shift to another real reference, fictional reference can shift to real, and real to fictional. In all these cases, a present intention to refer to a given entity (or to refer fictionally) overrides the original intention to preserve reference in the historical chain of transmission. The matter deserves extended discussion. But the phenomenon is perhaps roughly explicable in terms of the predominantly social character of the use of proper names emphasized in the text: we use names to communicate with other speakers in a common language. This character dictates ordinarily that a speaker intend to use a name the same way as it was transmitted to him; but in the 'Madagascar' case this social character dictates that the present intention to refer to an island overrides the distant link to native usage./quote]
— Kripke

I hold similar views regarding fictional proper names. The mere discovery that there was indeed a detective with exploits like those of Sherlock Holmes would not show that Conan Doyle was writing about this man ; it is theoretically possible, though in practice fantastically unlikely, that Doyle was writing pure fiction with only a coincidental resemblance to the actual man. (See the characteristic disclaimer: 'The characters in this work are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone, living or dead, is purely coincidental.') Similarly, I hold the metaphysical view that, granted that there is no sherlock Holmes, one cannot say of any possible person that he would have been Sherlock Holmes, had he existed. Several distinct possible people, and even actual ones such as Darwin or Jack the Ripper, might have performed the exploits of Holmes, but there is none ofwhom we can say that he would have been Holmes had he performed these exploits. For if so, which one?
I thus could no longer write, as I once did, that 'Holmes does not exist, but in other states of affairs, he would have existed. ' (See my 'Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic', Acta Philosophica Fennica, Vol. 16 (1963) pp. 83-94; reprinted in L. Linsky (ed.), Reference and !vlodality, Oxford University Press, (1971 ; p. 65 in the Linsky reprint.) The quoted assertion gives the erroneous impression that a fictional name such as 'Holmes' names a particular possible-but-not-actual individual. The sub­ stantive point I was trying to make, however, remains and is independent of any linguistic theory of the status of names in fiction. The point was that, in other possible worlds 'some actually existing individuals may be absent while new in­ dividuals . . . may appear' (ibid, p. 65), and that if in an open formula A (x) the free variable is assigned a given individual as value, a problem arises as to whether (in a model-theoretic treatment ofmodal logic) a truth-value is to be assigned to the formula in worlds in which the individual in question does not exist. — Kripke

I, might as well address the elephant in the room and say 'why not'? — Wallows

The fictional elephant has left the building.

In your first diagram, if all Americans curse, the entire circle of Americans should be inside of the entire circle of cursing people. — fdrake

Well damn you for a methodological heretic! :naughty:

I just told him the opposite; to put in the entirety of possiblilities first, and then eliminate regions and populate regions according to the premises. This method has the advantage that the same diagram structure can illustrate the relations between the various syllogistic forms as per wiki link above. I also think it is easier to spot errors.

In the case where 'All Americans curse' it's also true to say 'Some Americans curse'. But 'All Americans curse' is a stronger statement than 'some Americans curse'. In terms of the Venn diagrams, 'some Americans curse' means that the circles for 'people who curse' and 'Americans' overlap a bit, whereas 'All Americans curse' means that the circle for 'Americans' resides entirely within the circle for 'people who curse'. The important difference here is that when there's only a bit of overlap - when we can't say that all Americans curse, but we can say that some Americans curse - this means that there is at least one American who does not curse. — fdrake

But here you are just wrong. The usual convention is that universals have no existential import, such that "All Martians curse" does not imply that there are any Martians, but merely denies that there are any that do not curse. Whereas "Some Americans curse" implies that there is at least one American that curses, and specifically and definitely does not mean that there is, or is not, an American that does not curse. In this sense syllogistic meaning departs somewhat from ordinary usage

That water is H₂O is an empirical discovery.

If we were to find a substance that looks, feels and otherwise functions like water, but had a chemical structure other than H₂O, it would not be water.

If we stipulated a possible world in which there is a substance that looks, feels and otherwise functions like water, but had a chemical structure other than H₂O, it would not be water.

That is, in every possible world, water is H₂O.

That is, water is necessarily H₂O.

Hence, there are a posteriori necessities. — Banno

There's no 'if' here. "Heavy water is a form of water that contains a larger than normal amount of the hydrogen isotope deuterium, rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope that makes up most of the hydrogen in normal water". Google tells me.

Is deuterium a kind of hydrogen? If so then D₂O is H₂O, but one has to say (necessarily?) that both the 'chemical structure' and the properties are not identical. I'm almost inclined to refer to H₂O as 'fool's water'.

Tritium oxide would be genius's water. What is the necessity here? That we talk a certain way?, that we prioritise element over isotope? Are heavy water and superheavy water 'really', 'necessarily' water, or not water? I cannot make out what the necessity is claimed to be.

A good example is Eco’s use of the notion of ‘rigid designation’. This is a technical term due to Saul Kripke, for a feature belonging to names and indexical expressions (‘this’ ‘I’, ‘here’) in natural languages, and distinguishing them from other referring expressions, notably descriptions (‘the first dog born at sea’, ‘Kant’s home town’). In a nutshell, the ‘rigidity’ in question means that when you use a name, even to talk about strange and different possibilities, you are still interpreted as talking about whatever it is to which the name actually refers. So if I say, ‘Had the political boundaries been slightly different, the people of Königsberg might have spoken Latvian,’ I am still talking about that very town, Königsberg. But if I say, ‘Had his parents moved south, Kant’s home town might have been Berlin,’ the description ‘Kant’s home town’ has become detached, as it were, from Königsberg. For I am not trying to say that had Kant’s parent’s moved south, Königsberg might have been Berlin. I am saying that Berlin is where he might have been born and raised. This is what is meant by saying that descriptions are not rigid, whereas names are.

Eco talks much of rigid designation. Unfortunately he identifies it by the ambiguous formula that a rigid designator refers to the same thing ‘in all possible worlds’, and then takes that formula in the wrong sense, as meaning that there is no possibility of the same name referring to something different. This is actually a misunderstanding against which Kripke explicitly and clearly warned, more than once.

http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/reviews/Eco.htm

Well it looks like your ex-contributors are as pig-ignorant as Umberto Eco, poor misguided souls.

So I was looking for Kant and the Platypus, because of this:

This analysis can also be applied to kinds. Considered extensionally that seems reasonable to me. If "Dog A" refers to a placental mammal, as does "Dog B" and "Dog C" and so on, so that we conclude that all dogs are placental mammal, we also conclude that being a dog involves being a placental mammal. SO something we come across that is dog-like but not a placental mammal, ought not be considered as a dog - the Thylacine being a case in point. The extension of "Dog" includes only placental mammals, in all accessible possible worlds. — Banno

Because of course the term 'mammal' is associated with the mammary gland rather than the placenta in the first place. And the controversy at the time speaks against the necessity of the necessity. It is a choice, to make causality the priority. We could have decided that All swans are necessarily white, and that those strange birds you have in Oz are therefore long necked crows, just as we could have decided that only Whites are fully human. (But surely that is unthinkable?)

All the referents there: you, Asda, Aldi are established by reference to this world, so I am not clear what point you are trying to make here un. — Janus

Which is the actual world, and which is the counterfactual world?
(A). I go to Asda.
(B). I don't go to Asda.

But all modal logic depends on what is the case in this world
— Janus

It's very very simple. One depends on the other, according to you, but you cannot say whether A depends on B, or B depends on A.

would be cool to know if I drew it correctly or not, I feel like if I can become good at drawing these diagrams I can finally understand logic. — Ulrik

Start off drawing three intersecting circles, giving 8 regions - outside all, A, B, C, A&B, B&C, C&A, and A&B&C in the middle. Then an 'all' or 'none' premise will declare some region(s) to be empty, whereas a 'some' premise will declare some region(s) to be populated. Shade out the empty regions, and put an X in the populated ones, (or on the border if there are two possible regions).

Then, if the conclusion is valid, it will not tell you to do anything you haven't already done, or to undo anything you have done.

If you try this on your example above, you will see how the validity depends on the interpretation of the premise 'Americans curse'. If you interpret it (as you have in your diagram) as 'All Americans curse', then the conclusion should be 'No Americans are decent', whereas if you interpret it as 'Some Americans curse', then 'Some Americans are not decent' should be the conclusion.

See the wiki entry especially the section on existential import.

I've said it before, but clearly it needs repeating:

But all modal logic depends on what is the case in this world — Janus

All reference in counterfactual discourse is established by reference to the actual world; — Janus

The latter is true, by virtue of the fact that is countered, but the former is false; not all possible worlds are counterfactual.

It is possible, even probable (if the Good Lord spares me), that I will go shopping tomorrow. I might go to Asda, or I might go to Aldi. Until tomorrow, which possible world will be actual is unknowable. The actual world of tomorrow is on equal footing with any (other) possible world of tomorrow - until tomorrow.

Can I say that "I" rigidly designates unenlightened here? That is, if @Banno tomorrow says "I didn't go shopping", that is irrelevant. Such is context; even in the possible world where the Good Lord does not spare me, it is unenlightened and not Banno who is not spared, and thus does not go shopping.

In practice, I think most philosophers are very much in tune with the zeitgeist of their time and the ideas prevalent in their social circle. Which is not what would happen if philosophy had such a shaking effect. We could not have philosophical periods and schools, as each philosopher would put into question the ideas in his or her environment and would build a unique path. That is not what happens. — DiegoT

Indeed. Most philosophers. But there is also a tradition of philosophers getting crucified, of being obliged to drink hemlock, or being threatened by the inquisition, and these are indeed dangerous thinkers for any time, not just the time they were in.

I'm not sure I have that much to contribute...

The first thing you have to realize about me is that I don’t agree that I am delusional (at least not all the time). — Noah Te Stroete

Back in the day, this was the Catch22 symptom, and was called "lack of insight". To put it crudely, if you experience a delusion as a delusion, you are not deluded. I see the lady being sawn in half, but if I 'know' it is an illusion, I don't rush the stage trying to save her. If I rush the stage, I am deluded - unless it turns out that there is in fact a dismembered corpse, which is fortunately rare.

But there is not much of what Noah recounts that has not been relayed on mainstream news, except the general sense that he has been singled out for special treatment that the rest of us do not suffer. See Edward Snowden, or Cambridge Analytica for examples. (I do not provide links, because just as scammers will use your virus paranoia to enable them plant a virus on your computer, so political manipulators will use your surveillance paranoia to feed you fear-based stories.)

But just to be clear, no one much cares what goes on in your head as such, but only what comes out of it in talk and behaviour. As such, mental illness is a social phenomenon, rather than a mental one; it's not a question of whether you believe the lady is being sawn in half or not, but whether or not you rush the stage. Or to put it another way, it is not false beliefs that are problematic, but fear and panic. My paranoia is that they are trying to make me paranoid, and that is what I try to resist.

I don't mean by this to dismiss the distress that people suffer, and 'whatever gets you through the night' by way of medication or therapy is valuable and important. But the distress is also socially mediated. In a culture where hearing voices and seeing visions is respected, for example, the person who here is regarded as mentally ill would be a prophet and a leader. "I have a dream, that one day, we will build a wall..."

I was brought up to believe that the Bible was infallible and True. — Andrew4Handel

strong contradictions completely undermine the bible — Andrew4Handel

It seems right to say that they completely undermine infallibility. Rather as a proof of contradiction undermines the truth of (at least one of) the premises from which it proceeds. But we already know that Jesus spoke in parables, and that parables are not intended to be taken as literally true, but more as thought experiments.

I used to command my two year-old daughter not to cross the road without holding my hand, but I was surprised and somewhat dismayed to meet the local doctor's daughter aged 14, still following the same commandment from her father. (This is both literally true, and a parable, and might illustrate that an apparent contradiction may be simply the result of having to speak to all people of all ages at the same time.)

But we know, of our own age, that even the holiest and most inspired of men are fallible, so why should we believe, like two-year-olds of their father, that our forebears were? And why should we accept or reject the whole on the basis of the least imperfection? Morality and spirituality are not logic and mathematics.

can anyone give me some laymen books in order to argue and defend my beliefs? Intellectual self-defense? — Drek

No. If you want to maintain your beliefs, I recommend not studying philosophy at all. Philosophy is always dangerous to the established intellectual order, and will throw all your beliefs into question.

He feels suspicious of blacks and he works in retail. He is kinda saying he has a better sample of people. Would this be a hasty generalization? And small sample size? Correlation and causation? — Drek

Try generalising the other way. Most white people are suspicious of blacks, and therefore they teat them with suspicion. They watch them more closely in shops, they are less inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, or offer them positions of trust, or generally treat them as full members of society.

This suspicion has a double effect; firstly, white folks will more often get away with their crimes, because they are not being watched as much, and secondly, black folks will be more likely to be resentful to society at their ill-treatment and exclusion, and thus be motivated to commit crime.

Such suspicions, when generalised, become a self-fulfilling prophecy both by appearance and in reality. One obtains one's identity from society: if every one treats you as ugly or a maths genius, or whatever, you are almost inevitably going to believe yourself to be so, and if you believe you are a maths genius, you will persist in the effort to solve problems when others give up, and thus solve more problems and become what you believe you are. White Americans are very fond of this notion of self-belief, but do not like to think that it is a social facilitation, imagining themselves to be rugged individualists - because that is what they have been taught to believe of themselves.

I actually find washing up therapeutic. — Andrew4Handel

I find mince pies and a glass of whiskey therapeutic, but I don't claim that it is anyone's duty to consume them.

It's obviously complete tosh.

If work were good, then labour saving devices would be evil. Ban the wheel!

Clean dishes are the good that make washing up have value, and that's why if the dishes are not dirty, no one washes them - work is not good, and that is why the devil makes it for idle hands.

On the contrary, civilisation is founded on idleness and the desire to avoid work. If washing dishes were good, no one would have a dishwasher. The whole thing is just fascist propaganda to persuade someone else to do all the work - 'Arbeit Macht Frei'.

I have the same problem with getting fit. I think if you want to climb the mountain of philosophy, you have to break through the logic pain barrier. A training buddy and a fitness instructor can be a great help in keeping you on the treadmill; try joining a class if you can.