Don't you think a sensible first step in sociological critique would be to examine the lens through which you yourself view social relations instead of simply presenting it as the ultimate viewing aid? — Baden

If one happens to wear specs, this can easily enough be managed, but removing one's eyeball to examine it is not so sensible. Instead, use the mirror of relationship - visit an optician.

Thinking of foreigners as degenerate is xenophobic and prejudiced, which is bad enough, but not necessarily racist unless the reason has something to do with racial differences. — Baden

You seem to want to distinguish between xenophobia justified in terms of nature, and xenophobia justified in terms of nurture. But both can only be justified in turn by reference to the same historical facts and fictions. Accordingly, the subtleties of such a distinction are generally lost on both the xenophobes and their victims.

As a good xenophobe, I might consider it the white man's burden to educate and elevate the benighted savage to the joys of our civilised culture, whereas as a racist, I would prefer to leave them in their darkness lest they drag us down to their level, and/or pollute the gene-pool. But whether one considers the foreigner in principle reformable or not, in practice, they get largely the same treatment.

When students learn philosophy, they overwhelmingly learn the "Western tradition" — darthbarracuda

If we see our values as superior to other values, the question inevitably crops up: what causes this? Why did so much of this start in Europe? — darthbarracuda

If you only look in one place, you will only see one thing, and you might be under the impression that writing, paper, printing, decimal notation, sugar, spice and all things nice are European inventions. Our values are that we are cultural thieves who pretend the work of others is our own, and then start to believe our own bullshit. Thus we can simultaneously revere the Greeks and Romans as the cradle of civilisation, and despise them as idle and degenerate foreigners. Anything of value is ours, and anything despicable is foreign; that is racism.

No it's not a society built on laws, it's a society built on the violent oppression of some by others. And you are not concerned about the plight of women, but the plight of men; and you continue to express and defend that concern at the expense of justice for women.

Also, in using the term 'innuendo' in this context, you seem yourself to be guilty of innuendo.

An innuendo is a hint, insinuation or intimation about a person or thing, especially of a denigrating or a derogatory nature. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging (also called insinuation), that works obliquely by allusion.

You insinuate that the mass of what more neutrally would be called 'accusations' of harassment, sexual assault, and boorish and bullying behaviour are indirect, and somehow unreal. And you further insinuate that mere accusation in such cases is already injustice.

It's all about common sense. Sometimes it really is harmless. But the testimony of thousands and thousands of women is that quite a lot of times it isn't. And the testimony of one dead racist woman journalist does not negate those thousands. And if you don't like to hear those shrill complaining voices, then as Agustino implies, you should get off the planet.

I am troubled by the power of a viral mob, how it envelops people's lives and pushes its participants in a blind manner. This is not justice, it is guilt by allegation and that is not just. — Cavacava

Yes, but it seems you are not so troubled by the greater injustice of the status quo, to which the mob is a rough and ready balance. The situation whereby thousands have suffered injustice over years and decades and are only now able, in some cases to dare to speak out, never mind obtain any kind of justice, - this is injustice on a huge scale, on an industrial scale. This troubles you not at all, but only the possibility that someone somewhere who is a man, might be unjustly accused. Do you not get how ridiculously partisan, how unjust your troubling is?

The same way one decides what is up and what is down. Sometimes it can be difficult, but usually it's bloody obvious - just look where the shit lands, and that's down. In this case, to generalise, the movement of 'me too' is not a power establishing itself as an oppressor, but an attempt at negating an oppressive power; that much is bloody obvious. Within that, it is possible that an individual is taking advantage, but even so, the responsibility for the mob violence lies with the original oppressor, not with the movement of resistance.

I am struck by your being "troubled" by the "power" of the abused! Almost as if your whole world is threatened by the empowerment of women. Here's a thing to consider; most people don't get their just desserts; most people can't even safely speak out about their ill treatment exploitation and humiliation, never mind get any justice. Why worry about Carl Sargent, who might or mightn't have been falsely accused, and was definitely not very well served by his supposed comrades to the extent of thinking that men in general are the victims of their accusers and will all be driven to suicide because they are being oppressed? It really doesn't add up.

Carl Sargent had a deal of power, and that is a fact. That tells us immediately that his life was not one of being oppressed. It is possible that he suffered a few weeks of injustice.

What I find troubling is how the powerful the viral #MeToo has become... — Cavacava

A particular problem is the duality of the oppressed: they are contradictory, divided beings, shaped by and existing in a concrete situation of oppression and violence. ^
Any situation in which "A" objectively exploits "B" or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individ­ ual's ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human. With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence? How could they be the sponsors of something whose objective inauguration called forth their existence as op­ pressed? There would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation.
Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons—not by those who are oppressed, exploited, and unrecognized.

http://www.msu.ac.zw/elearning/material/1335344125freire_pedagogy_of_the_oppresed.pdf

I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn't want to hear it. I didn't think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it.

This. People don't want to hear about stuff, because it is painful and they might have to change. I don't know the dude, but he is saying what needs to be said right here.

"Actual abuse" as distinct from "imaginary abuse" - you don't get to decide, you, the admirable, who do not like to think and do not have to think.

Frankl's imaginary complaint about imaginary abuse 'proves' that there are imaginary imaginary complaints, but there are very unlikely to be real imaginary complaints as long as the admirable people do not like to think. Imaginary imaginary complaints give the comfortable illusion that the admirable people are thinking in an entirely balanced way about all this.

The Sun's appreciation of a large pair of tits has never been in question, but it is not my go-to source for an understanding of sexual politics.

Over time, her column featured her thoughts on society, values, popular culture and celebrity.[2] She displayed a consistent ability to provoke, and in 2002 during supermodel Naomi Campbell's privacy case against the Daily Mirror, judge Mr Justice Morland described Carroll's reference to Campbell as a "chocolate soldier" as "extremely rude and offensive".[1] She was described by Kevin Maguire, an associate editor at the Daily Mirror, as "the queen of columnists"

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

One woman's witty banter is another judge's rude and offensive racism.

It's up to the woman (or man) in question what to do about inappropriate sexual comments in the workplace. If they're comfortable ignoring it and firing back, fine, — Baden

I beg to differ. Casual humiliation passed off as humour is impossible to resist alone without appearing as a killjoy, pc mad, over-sensitive, behaviour nazi. It's up to all of us to set the standard for what is an acceptable level of insult, and allow the victim to show the strength of not being bothered while we observers get on our high horses, and ride roughshod over such jollities. Have we not discovered through "me too" that what is normal is unacceptable?

Wasn't Schopenhauer a student of Eastern philosophy?

The Useless Tree

- Chuang Tsu

Shih the carpenter was on his way to the state of Chi. When he got to Chu Yuan, he saw an oak tree by the village shrine. The tree was large enough to shade several thousand oxen and was a hundred spans around. It towered above the hilltops with its lowest branches eighty feet from the ground. More than ten of its branches were big enough to be made into boats. There were crowds of people as in a marketplace. The master carpenter did not even turn his head but walked on without stopping.

His apprentice took a long look then ran after Shih the carpenter and said,'Since I took up my ax and followed you, master, I have never seen timber as beautiful as this. But you do not even bother to look at it and walk on without stopping. Why is this?'

Shih the carpenter replied, 'Stop! Say no more! That tree is useless. A boat made from it would sink, a coffin would soon rot, a tool would split, a door would ooze sap, and a beam would have termites. It is worthless timber and is of no use. That is why it has reached such a ripe old age.'

After Shih the carpenter had returned home, the sacred oak appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'What are you comparing me with? Are you comparing me with useful trees? There are cherry, apple, pear, orange, citron, pomelo, and other fruit trees. As soon as the fruit is ripe, the trees are stripped and abused. Their large branches are split, and the smaller ones torn off. Their life is bitter because of their usefulness. That is why they do not live out their natural lives but are cut off in their prime. They attract the attentions of the common world. This is so for all things. As for me, I have been trying for a long time to be useless. I was almost destroyed several times. Finally I am useless, and this is very useful to me.'

That makes sense. Do you think being ethical is possible without this sense of doubt? I've met a few people who were convinced that they had good will and were ethically right regardless of what they did - they weren't sociopaths, just people who strongly identified with their own sense of right and wrong... The arbiter of right and wrong being their decisions. — fdrake

I hesitate to say it is impossible, but self righteous conviction most often looks naive and ugly to me:

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken. — Oliver Cromwell

And yet the man himself is the epitome of self-righteous conviction, and I quote him...

But Cromwell is perhaps more like Lord Vetinari - a good man because he owned the darkness

Can you elaborate on the darkness? — fdrake

Er, not really, I'm sorry. I call it darkness because it isn't clear. It seems necessary that there should be such a darkness, or blind-spot or whatever. If you come across someone who lacks (in their own imagining) that hesitancy and radical doubt, then they tend towards fanaticism. Is it St Paul... "For now we see through a glass, darkly..."?

There's a certain unreality to 'what I ought to do'. I have to imagine what a person of good will would do, because my will is not as good as I will it to be, and then try and act as if I had good will. If I actually had good will, all this would be unnecessary and I could just act naturally. We can easily disagree about what this imaginary person of good will would do in any situation, according to how we theorise good will, and/or the situation.

But I think there's some place for ethical systems. For example, if you're speaking with someone who has much different ethical intuitions from you, appealing to their self interest in terms of their decisions' consequences for them can help bridge the gap. — fdrake

Well it occurs to me that I was perhaps dealing with poor benighted utilitarians who thought me presumptuous and irrelevant in imputing motives to posters, whereas I rather thought the same of them for projecting consequences to posts. A matter of naming the darkness in which morality must operate.

Well, I have been having some disagreements myself recently in the world of practice, which you commented on briefly. Without, hopefully, resurrecting the controversy, it seems to me that there is no satisfactory theory to be invoked that will define unequivocally whether it is right or wrong at particular moment to speak up about wrong-doing, or poor judgement or behaviour. I can say I felt an obligation to speak born of a love of the community, and a love of fairness. But then I felt an obligation to question those motives at each stage, and the question, or the obligation revolves, for me, around the simple decision to act in my own interest against others or in other's interest against my own self-image or social status, or that of others.

So I suppose one can derive a meta-philosophy of sorts from the way I agonise, which seems to make more sense than trying to act out a meta-philosophy. It is focused on motivation, so you might call it emotivism, it is realist, and only marginally or indirectly consequentialist.

But can we please stop pretending that the way we live our lives is actually determined by the philosophical system of morality that we just invented. — fdrake

Does anyone do this? It seems to me that if what we ought to do determined what we do do, there would be no need for a moral system at all. It would just be part of the natural sciences. Of course I would like to pretend that I do what I think I ought to do, but I can't even convince myself for very long, and it is quite plain that every other bugger doesn't do what they think they ought, never mind what I think they ought.

In which case, morality is founded on shame and guilt and anger and indignation. From which we all would like to retreat as soon as ever we can to the land of theory and abstraction. @fdrake thinks we ought not to, and I agree - in theory.

So if you have no love, you have no virtue; and without virtue there is disorder.

Hmm, that seems to contradict what was said earlier in that statement. Clearly, there is some degree of order, so there is some virtue, which could mean there is some love. I think whatever love is, it has been corrupted, which is why we see a broken world. — Lone Wolf

Well the way I understand it, is that there can be partial order without love. As there is partial order in a fascist regime, but the order is really a systematic disorder. Or consider 'social work', where well meaning folk intervene in domestic situations to bring order and improvement, but when children are taken into the care of such institutions, the outlook for them is very bleak, and it is because there is no love, only sentiment.

But mainly what i think he is saying is that love is needed at the beginning; it cannot be something that is attained from, or by the state of lovelessness, and it cannot be something one has a bit of. This is where I differ from @Buxtebuddha, I think.

You know, actually we have no love - that is a terrible thing to realize. Actually we have no love; we have sentiment; we have emotionality, sensuality, sexuality; we have remembrances of something which we have thought as love. But actually, brutally, we have no love. Because to have love means no violence, no fear, no competition, no ambition. If you had love you would never say, ''This is my family'' - you may have a family and give them the best you can; but it would not be ''your family'' which is opposed to the world. If you love, if there is love, there is peace. If you loved, you would educate your child not to be a nationalist, not to have only a technical job and look after his own petty little affairs; you would have no nationality. There would be no divisions of religion, if you loved. But as these things actually exist - not theoretically, but brutally - in this ugly world, it shows that you have no love. Even the love of a mother for her child is not love. If the mother really loved her child, do you think the world would be like this? She would see that he had the right food, the right education, that he was sensitive, that he appreciated beauty, that he was not ambitious, greedy, envious. So the mother, however much she may think she loves her child, does not love the child.

So we have not that love. Now love cannot be cultivated, obviously; it is like cultivating humility - it is only the vain man, the man of arrogance, who can cultivate humility; that is a cloak to hide his vanity. As humility cannot be cultivated, so love cannot be cultivated. But you must have it. If you don't have it, you cannot have virtue, you cannot be orderly, you cannot live with passion - you may live with lust, which we all know. So if you have no love, you have no virtue; and without virtue there is disorder.

Source.

I think that love ought to consist of many virtues, such as trust, respect, kindness, and gentleness towards a person in order to count as true love. Therefore, loving a food is not really love, but rather mere enjoyment for the moment, and so forth. The same could be counted in a friendship also if one friend only finds satisfaction for a short time, but is disrespectful or even mistrusting of the other friend, then a true love in friendship does not exist and only temporary enjoyment of each other exists. — Lone Wolf

I think I cannot say, from here, what love is. Perhaps it is love to say, brutally, to a friend, you are walking over a cliff. But perhaps if I say it, and even if it is true, it is not love. And even if it were true, and even it were an act of love, my friend might see it as an indulgence or a manipulation or arrogance.

Friends can be like that when they're walking over cliffs.

Everyone and everything. And it's your fault. It's not like I'm hard to please or anything.

Is what what what is?

I'd still like to hear a more focused argument from you about where we are going wrong and what exactly you think we should do about it. — Baden

Ok, I'll have a go.You'll have to excuse a bit of pontification.

Moderators should be drawn from the best of the members, both in terms of their philosophical knowledge and clarity of posting, and their behaviour in terms of the guidelines. Generally, I would be looking for posters who defuse rather than escalate, for grace under fire. I have to confess that this does not come all that naturally to me, personally, but it is of paramount importance. Editing and deleting and banning are the enforcement procedures, which obviously should be carried out according to the guidelines and as fairly and transparently as can be managed.

However, the more important role of the staff is to lead by example and set the tone. As such, it is no defence at all to say that a moderator's posts pass the minimum standard below which they would be deleted, let alone that they would be deleted if they were not in feedback. If the best of us barely pass muster, the rest of us are really in a mess. And I fear this is what is happening.

Moderators should be uncomfortable; they should worry about their own behaviour, and that of their fellow mods. They should not be complacent, and they should not be sheep huddling in a fold. I don't know what discussions you have had in private about all this if any, and don't need to know. But this is the essence of my complaint, that I hold the staff to a higher standard than the members, because they ought to exemplify the best of us, not the minimally acceptable. That way leads to degeneration.

And now, let us pray ...

There's very little we delete in Feedback (and other off-topic) discussions. As far as I can see, Sap's passive aggressive insults are no worse than those of non-mods (which also haven't been deleted). It's really only the egregious stuff that gets removed. — Michael

I am absolutely not asking for anything in this thread to be deleted. In this case it would amount to tampering with the evidence and a cover up. What I would like is thoughtful, considered responses rather than more bickering and insults from the mods. Believe me, I know what a trying, thankless task it is dealing with bloody philosopher-posters, and you all have my sympathy, and gratitude. But you also get my stern criticism, I'm afraid.

You want constructive criticism? Stop being pissed off and come back into the fold. Despite your assessment of how bad we suck, I'd suggest you consider how many other boards have mods so tempered that they'd tolerate an ex-mod quitting and then lurking around and telling the others to fuck off. — Hanover

Whatever I'm doing, it's not lurking. I'm not pissed off either. And I don't want to come back to the fold because I'm not a sheep. I'm taking a stand for what I think is right, and doing it publicly and I'm fully prepared to take the consequences. Is that the limit of your ambition - to be not as bad as a lot of other places on the internet? Again, rather than address my criticism, you choose to denigrate my character. Again, fuck off with your 'romantic', your 'lurking'; it's ad hominem bollocks. The substance of your reply is

I think you're dead wrong — Hanover

which thought you are fully entitled to express, but argument ,analysis, and evidence would be more persuasive, to me at least, than patronising innuendo.

If my boss called me to the carpet for poor performance, I think it would be destructive for him to offer a public reprimand and then allow me a public reply and then to open it up to the floor for public debate. — Hanover

Indeed it would. And yet this is how the law works every day of the week, except Saturdays and Sundays, and it is fundamental that justice must be seen to be done, and not done in private or secret. Just in case your boss happened to be a serial abuser of his power in some way, as very occasionally happens, I have heard, then it would be constructive to bring such out into the open. There has indeed been a deal of unpleasantness in this thread, and there is bound to be unpleasantness when a complaint is made in public. Lawyers, police, and moderators deal in unpleasantness.

But my original post was about this very question.

So here, eventually, and in coded language, is a very simple question about this feedback forum: Are we allowed to talk about Kevin here? Are we allowed to say he is naughty? — unenlightened

And the very first response was prophetic.

I don't know about jamalrob, @Baden, or the other mods, but I won't delete such a discussion if you posted one. Although I'm certain it'll turn into a game of insult tennis and so a lot of offending posts will end up in the trash. — Michael

In the normal course of events, when there is a thread room brawl, one calls the mods with the flag system, or for something a little more subtle or complex, with a pm. But here in this very thread, I found a moderator brawling. I remonstrated publicly, I think I also flagged the post, but I may have forgotten to.

At this point, you are all tarred with the same brush, precisely because it is all public and you have all seen it and found it acceptable for a fellow mod to be openly insulting to more than one poster. Fuck you all therefore. Destruction is now necessarily what I am about. It will be my own destruction on this site no doubt, but that is no longer any great loss to me.

Oh, I know it's sick, but I love it when the shit hits the fan. It makes such a beautiful pattern. — Metaphysician Undercover

For your aesthetic delight...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/05/trump-commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-business-links-putin-family-paradise-papers?CMP=fb_gu

I always said that morals were objective. Evidence of what ought not be at last! And it's universal.

we each have a responsibility to give and is necessary is relativism, recognising these differences and being objective in our approach. I don't give a shit if you are upset because I disagree with you, for instance, or have a different belief to me; show me why I am wrong and we'll go from there. Why are you finding that so hard to understand? — TimeLine

I can show, that is, you will see if you will look, that your attachment to objectivity is an emotional one, that your not giving a shit is an emotional stance. The amount of ad hominem arguments in this thread is a illustration that claims to objectivity and the identification of indifference to others with some kind of clarity or commitment to truth is unsustainable. The fact is that everyone here is a sensitive little flower who hates being told they are a crap poster or crap moderator, or not objective.

Indeed it is precisely because emotions are the master of rationality that it is most important to have consideration for the feelings of others and sensitivity to one's own. The nature of moderation in particular, and philosophy in general is that it always involves judgements of those things that people most closely identify with - their words. It is simply the case that people are hurt when their posts are deleted, and when their arguments are defeated or their positions belittled. The only way not to be hurt is to have contempt for one's critics, but this is an emotional response, that prevents further communication or learning.

Thus decorum and sensitivity to the feelings of others is the supporter of rational discussion and objectivity, and not at all the enemy.

Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory.

I like Nagel, but I don't think it does follow. Or rather it does, given the condition that it must explain what it cannot explain. As if whatever I cannot see must be radically different from whatever I can see - because I cannot see it.

Sometimes I need a bit of an anthem.

I do not care for your hyperbolic, one-sided, verbal lynchings, and I will not permit them to drag me down to your eager satisfaction. You wish to characterise myself and others - male others - as dastardly villains, whilst venerate others - female others - as saints, or rather, damsels in distress. It is all so superficial and sexist, and the worst part of it is that you seem to think you're combating sexism as opposed to succumbing to it.

Generally, I don't think this forum is sexist — jamalrob

Do you then think that I am sexist because I propose that it is, as I am being officially told above? I'm sorry to be so much trouble, but the fence has become too sharp to sit on without getting a stake up the arse. I have dared to be explicitly critical of a moderator in feed back, alongside and connected to a general concern. Personally, I think this sort of ad hominem response is rather pathetic and brings the forum into disrepute. But it is not my business fortunately, it's yours.

I would ask you to justify your opinion, given the gender imbalance of the forum, the total absence of female staff and the general state of academic philosophy which google will quickly tell you about, not to mention the universal gender pay gap and... oh, really, I can't be bothered. Dream on bro.

Ok, I've given my feedback. I've given references. In the end, the staff decide for the forum, and members decide for themselves. It is rather a shame that I have not had any response from other staff members, but whatever is not a priority, is not a priority. I will get me to a monastery.

To regard philosophy as an analogue of war really says it all. The truth will prevail by aggression? War is madness, and this philosophy is also madness. Is this what you want, that might makes right? Excuse me, but fuck that!

I do not care for your hyperbolic, one-sided, verbal lynchings, and I will not permit them to drag me down to your eager satisfaction. You wish to characterise myself and others - male others - as dastardly villains, whilst venerate others - female others - as saints, or rather, damsels in distress. It is all so superficial and sexist, and the worst part of it is that you seem to think you're combating sexism as opposed to succumbing to it. — Sapientia

I didn't expect you to be thrilled by my complaints. I do expect the moderators in general to respond carefully to reasoned and evidenced criticism. I criticised your posting behaviour in a particular case and a particular circumstance. What I wish, is for you to stop moderating, and for the other moderators to take stock and make an effort to change the ambience of the forum. I do not deny being sexist, I am a product of the culture.

Philosophy remains the most male-dominated discipline in the humanities, both in its population and its combative methods. Instruction in philosophy often consists of being reprimanded for mistakes so small you need a magnifying glass to see them. At its worst, philosophy is something you do against an opponent. Your job is to take the most mean-minded interpretation you can of the other person's view and show its absurdity. And repeat until submission. Certainly the method has the merits of encouraging precision, but at the same time it is highly off-putting for those who do not overflow with self-confidence.

One tutor of mine, the very talented Hidé Ishiguro, who broke through many barriers to rise to her position as reader in philosophy, had a different approach. Sitting on the edge of her chair to pay full attention to what we said, she would take our stumbling comments, tidy them up, give them back, and tell us how they related to the history of the subject. She would observe that the views we were advancing, even if wrong, had been held by great philosophers of the past. Instead of feeling that we had embarrassed ourselves once again, we came away with the feeling: "I can do this!". Rather than a pedantic scrap over the details, her tutorials were a model of politeness and encouragement. Which makes me wonder: if philosophy is to be more "gender friendly", do philosophers have first to act, well, if not in more "ladylike" fashion, then at least with greater decorum?

source link.

In the end, I am not speaking for women, I am speaking for myself. The lack of women is merely a symptom of a cultural one-sidedness that excludes people like me - by which I mean people like I would wish I was, and like to blame people like you and Agustino for not being more so. My verbal lynchings - really? - No, actually, I manage to sustain an uncomprehending and passionate disagreement with Tiff about gun control, and a mutually respectful and friendly relation. So I know it can be managed differently. Will you engage with the topic at all, will you read the article , consider the evidence, and present at least something a little more substantial in your defence?

She fucking hated you though, and you were a big contributing factor in her leaving. That's just a fact. What actual female contributors has Sapientia made leave because of clashes of values and ideologies? How do you know what the women want out of their philosophy, do you attract them to the forum, or scare them outs? — Wosret

Anyone is entitled to hate me, and every staff member is likely to be hated by some. I'm really not interested in justifying my own posting habits here, (though if you have a specific complaint about my posts I'd like to hear about it) or claiming to know 'what the women want', as though that is even a thing. But I am giving feedback about the general conduct of the forum, that it is unbalanced. And to find a moderator being contemptuous of a female member in a thread about the more than somewhat male bias of the site deserves to be called out with some vigour. It is unacceptable.

It is the nature of philosophy to cut deep, and it is a requirement for a philosophy moderator to have a steady hand and not stab wildly. I am not so certain of my superior virtue as my history of modding might suggest; I did my best, and came to appreciate the difficulties from the inside. Now, I will do my best from the outside to be a member supportive of the good functioning of the site as I see it. I aimed for grace under fire, and a sharp scalpel, and the avoidance of sword fights. I'm still aiming at that, and missing the mark at times.

This is a shit-stirrer's thread, isn't it? I stir the shit and watch who vomits. But I do it with care; can you believe that?

Why am I even talking to you? We are not of the same calibre and I can think of better ways to spend my time. Good day, Tiff. — Sapientia

Hello Kevin. I wish it was nice to meet you. But it isn't. It's petty unpleasant. You lower the tone of the discussion and exemplify what I have wanted to bring to the fore. This forum is sexist, full of macho posing, competitive foulness, and locker room talk. Locker rooms are segregated, and you are doing your best to keep the forum segregated. I think you should stop being a moderator and moderate your own behaviour.

But then being a creationist does not directly imply being ignorant or stupid. It means you believe in the truth of a community different from the scientific community.

They teach the physical theory and not creationism at schools. How do they explain that? They surely have a criteria. — Meta

There are two traditions that conflict. We are in a community where those two traditions are meeting, and it is necessary to choose. But then one examines and chooses.

Suppose I came up with some universal criteria for choosing, and another came up with some different criteria. By what criteria would you choose the criteria by which to choose? It is an impossible question, and when one arrives at an impossible question, one has to answer with ones's life. Choose!

If you are a scientist, or a priest, or even a mathematician, you still have the same problems. One cannot check everything, and must rely on the community. The community can organise itself thus or so, and a discussion of what best serves the preservation of truth is a pragmatic one - see here, for example.

Oh the priest, obviously. We're not short on manipulating matter, but very short on living well together.

Both the priest and the scientist argue that their knowledge is true, observable and worth believing. — Meta

They claim it rather more than argue it.

it is unreasonable and impossible to test every (most likely contradictiory) belief system. — Meta

Yes. So all one can do, at best, is to seriously question received wisdom in one area, and take most of the rest on trust. Even if you're out of the chair. So I conclude that the accumulation of knowledge is a cooperative venture founded on trust with occasional reinvestigation. But the builders of the monasteries and CERN already knew that.