there will be a vast majority that is pro-life for their own reasons. — Samlw

Possibly. But I would turn it around, and ask what could possibly make a woman become unnaturally anti the new life within her? Whatever that is would certainly be a good target for legislation! Social stigma, isolation, lack of support, grinding poverty, responsibility for another without the means to fulfil the responsibility, homelessness, loss of the child, shaming, guilt, etc. Let's make laws against them during pregnancy and child-care, and then there will be little demand for abortions, except for tragic medical circumstances that cannot be avoided by legal fiat.

Around 60% of the world’s population has the right to an abortion. — Samlw

If you want to baffle the world with statistics, you need to do better homework. About 49% of the world's population is male, and of the rest, there are many prepubescent, many post-menopausal, and some infertile for various reasons. Thus more than 50% are ineligible for any right to abortion. Perhaps you mean that around 60% of the world' population live in countries where abortion is legal and accessible for women who might want or need it?

I must say I find it odd that folk who get very exercised about the sacred value of a foetus, seem to have little to say about the children killed day after day in wars and famines and from poor sanitation and lack of clean water and of easily preventable diseases. It almost looks like the real agenda is the control of women's bodies and sexual expression, not saving precious innocent human lives. But of course I am an old cynic as well as a pedant.

I point out that real estate is treated very differently to creative rights.

One can certainly assign copyrights and patents on a voluntary basis to another, but these rights have an expiry date. Fortunately, you do not have to pay my ancestors for their invention of the wheel.

I suggest that real estate should have a similar expiry date of say, the purchaser's life plus 50 years, or thereabouts. It does not seem right to me that the Duke of Westminster owns half of London just because his male ancestor 1,000 years back was William the Conqueror's bestie.

My family is going through a rough patch and the core of the problem is a poor understanding of love. — Athena

I'm sorry to hear that. I will venture some small insights that haven't been mentioned. It is a grave sin to test love. Because the test can only be to destruction. "Will you still love me if ... ?" The answer never satisfies until it becomes 'no'. We are all finite, and we all have a breaking point.

And do not measure or compare; do not count or keep an account.

And half remembered from Ursula LeGuin, I think — "Love is like bread, you cannot preserve it; it has to be made fresh every day."

Now, can you give an example of one those the truths? — Banno

Not on this message board, obviously. But there is a rumour that the mystical can be made manifest. That is what Zen is about, is it not? And the Dao, and the holy.

Talk is cheap and very limited, so one is obliged to wave a hand in the general direction of the uniqueness that is everywhere, all the time.

God preserve us from interesting philosophers!

So I wanted to ask if you guys had any advice for me. How do you engage with philosophy, whether when you're reading or discussing/debating with others? When do you feel like you learn the most? Thanks a bunch! — Jafar

Hi there, welcome home!

You ask good questions already, and you have some good answers. There is a good old Catholic and defence lawyer method advocatus diaboli whereby one tries to make the argument for a position one does not hold or that is unpopular. The benefit of this is that one does not mind losing too much, and more importantly, it gets one used to the sensation of changing one's mind, something that needs doing daily at least.

(And don't go taking no advice from no parrots.)

If I wasn't so spastic, my guitar might gently weep a bit like this...

When you explain the joke, it isn't funny.

You had to be there.

What can’t language express? Diddle-de-dum!

The state of mind that expects or offers a serious linguistic answer to this question.

Dance.

Language always only ever points beyond itself ...

The word is not the thing.

Can you translate Marcuse into English for me?

You're one of 'them' aren't you! — unenlightened

No, — Paine

It must be me, then. Yikes!

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I'm finally free,
I kissed goodbye the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me.
You'll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above,
And I'll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love,
And it makes me feel so sorry.

Bob Dylan, Idiot Wind.

Unless, of course, the speaker is one of the vanguards pointing this situation out. — Paine

You're one of 'them' aren't you!

The deep state is the atheist's substitute for God. What would be unbearable would be to accept that no one is in control at all. There are just a bunch of crazies all trying to be tin pot gods and get above each other, and fucking each other and us over as much as they can.

The concept of ownership seems very ill-defined to me. — Dorrian

It is defined by law. Human laws are various and varied through time and space, I am not the person to explicate the precise laws applicable to your particular interest, but then you are not looking for legal advice I guess.

But perhaps you do not want so much a universal definition as a rationale. In which case Marx is your man, more so than Rousseau or Hobbs. I have done a bit of lumberjacking in a small way, and I have never felt or imagined that I owned a tree that I chopped down. It would always belong to the landowner, standing or felled until she sold it or gave it away, or it rotted to nothing. I guess there might be a logging concession sold to a lumberjack such that they did own what they felled and then transported it and sold it on. These things are decided by contract and agreement, and perhaps that is why they seem ill-defined to you?

Anyway back to Marx. If you think about the beginnings of agriculture, that is when one begins to have something to defend, because one has to put a deal of work into a patch of land, clearing it of stones and trees and weeds, improving the soil with whatever is available, planting some seed one has saved and tending it, watering and so on. So one wants to defend it from wandering nomads, rabbits, birds, slugs, elephants, and humans. One invests all this labour, and one wants to reap the benefit. That is the rationale for property ownership.

He wrote 2 books; Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Lila. Read them in that order, or just the first. The first is about the metaphysics of quality (MOQ) and the second relates quality to morals. They are easy reads, written as novels.
He distinguishes static and dynamic quality and makes them -as it were - the fundamental substance of the world.
I don't want to say much more than this about the contents, they're not on anyone's curriculum because they were bestsellers. But I think they would resonate with your thoughts.

If you haven't, read Pirsig.

Also rather interesting and Modal. The harmonies remind me of the Uilleann pipes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WkrTyrR-WQ

I was reminded of these the other day. Neither jazz nor classical, but the dreaded folk.

So sue me, poseurs. Watch on youtube.

But we don’t need the notion of experi­ence as a mediating tribunal. We can be content with an account of the world as exerting control on our inquiries in a merely causal way, rather than as exerting what McDowell calls “rational control”. — Rorty?

I'm not sure if I understand this, but if I do, then it goes something like this:— the cliff doesn't mind if you have a theory of gravity or a theory of under-cliff trolls that will suck you down and eat your soul, as long as the effect is that you don't fall off the cliff. But when it comes to Psyche, and more so when it comes to Sophia, then either rational, or irrational control is what it is all about and the causal effect cannot be predicted at all either way, other than by a rational or irrational calculation that is itself in the purview of those same goddesses.

or does all science operate on the basis of historically changing social constructions? — Joshs

The stretch from psychology to all science misses a rather important difference that is peculiar to the 'human' sciences. When one studies electrons, or planets, or plate tectonics, one can reasonably assume that right or wrong, one's hypothesis about phenomena will not materially affect the behaviour one is studying. But human behaviour is radically transformed by human understanding, so that as soon as a psychological theory has some measure of success, it alters human nature and the phenomena one is studying change. This explains why psychology appears more like the fashion industry than a science.

Ironically, young people now are having less sex than ever. — Tzeentch

That's not irony - that's policy!

The book, along with many others banned by the Nazis when they came to power, was publicly burnt in the Nazi book burnings. Reich realized he was in considerable danger and hurriedly left Germany; first going to Austria (to see his ex-wife and children) and then to 'exile' in Denmark, Sweden and subsequently Norway. Reich was also subsequently expelled from the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1934 for his political militancy and his views on sexuality.[a] This book – and all of Reich's published books – were later ordered to be burned on the request of the Food and Drug Administration by a judge in Maine, United States in 1954.[11]

So which book was banned and burned by both Nazi Germany and the US? "They" do not want "you" to read this!

the best resolutions are not found in medication, but in meaning. Hence the emphasis on the psychosocial. — Tom Storm

Yes, but always psychological reform, never social reform, because ... actually, the medical model still informs the social structure that is psychiatry - one goes to the doctor, not the politician/lawyer.

My take on psychiatry, in sum, is that while most doctors are akin to mechanics in the sense of dealing with the more-or-less, and mostly more, known, psychiatrists by comparison are more in the way of witch doctors. — tim wood

We agree thus far at least, so I might be able to convince you to consider that the medical model may be somewhat at fault. Witch doctors have a rather similar model, in which 'evil spirits' play the role of 'chemicals in the brain'. One of the difficulties of the medical model is the way pathologies change over time. Anorexia and self-harm, for instance are modern epidemics, and in the complete absence of any physical explanation for such novelties, social change should surely be considered as a possible explanation? At which point one can ask "how does your society fuck you up, and what are your coping strategies/self-medication?" to psychiatrists and their clients even handedly,

Rigid thinking, along the lines that if I do not have absolute control, I have no freedom at all, is mistaken.

To the contrary, operating a brain is like riding a bike, one learns to both steer and balance by the same manipulation of the handlebars. The inherent instability of thought - its propensity to veer off in unexpected directions is the very feature that allows control by awareness. Mathematical rigidity must be laboriously imposed by much practice and training along with constant vigilance and a blackboard and chalk.
As the old witch spells have it, one cannot not think about a black cat to order, but panic not, you will stop thinking about it soon enough.

Maybe my small European brain can't fathom the profundity of combatting racism by making people's skin color and race their defining features. — Tzeentch

Yes, I think that must be right; your small brain cannot fathom that to address racism is not racist. You are by no means alone.

I imagine you can follow through the implications of the question. It comes from a book about Heidegger's Being and Time. — tim wood

You don't seem willing to entertain a social analysis, and at the same time seem reluctant to actually say what you mean. *shrug*

I suppose my point is that social approaches to mental health need not be conspiracy theories. — Leontiskos

It's an example. What it illustrates is that one's social condition and thereby one's psychological condition can be - as David Smail puts it - strongly affected by events beyond the individual's event horizon. One tends to take things like job loss to be personal failings rather than socio-economic adjustments or as you choose to call them 'conspiracy theories.'

One might ask the medical modellers, for example, why there seems at the moment to be something of a plague of paranoia and conspiracy theories. It's hard to see how 'chemicals in the brain' can be infectious (apart from prions of course).

I invite consideration of that "between." — tim wood

I'm willing to consider, but where do you want me to consider redirecting?

a more nuanced take. — Leontiskos

It's a hypothetical example - nuance is to be avoided in making the distinction between the personal psychological analysis and the social relations analysis. One can of course make use of both in the real world.

presuppose that something is wrong, then attempts to find a fit in wrongness in the DSM-V. Finding it, then treats according to the finding and according to the theory-of-the-day about the finding. — tim wood

There is definitely something wrong, that's not in dispute. The medical model is that there is something wrong with the patient; the social model is that there is something wrong between the person and their environment.
An example, Mr X goes to the doctor suffering from depression. says he hasn't been depressed before but the last year he's feeling down unmotivated. He used to be a skilled steel worker but he got laid off two years ago and hasn't been able to find a job. He feels useless, the house is about to be repossessed, his wife has left him. The social diagnosis is that he is suffering from a worldwide recession engineered by financial interests he has zero knowledge of, and what he needs is a new government. The doctor gives him sympathy and some happy pills.

Spoken like a true kool-aid drinker. Question: as you've worked with psychiatrists, you must know what they do: what, exactly, do psychiatrists do? If I pay for the services of a psychiatrist, what, mainly, can I expect to get? — tim wood

You get, in most circumstances, "the medical model". This consists of a history, interpreted by the expert to form a diagnosis, followed by a recommendation of treatment.

The medical model is what this thread is questioning, and suggesting be replaced with a sociological model, such that mental distress arises from a person's relationships, to the environment and particularly to significant others and various 'authorities'. One of those relationships is that between the person and the psychiatrist. One can look at the power relations involved and consider what about the relationship might tend to confirm or disconfirm the person's feelings of distress - of, for random example, persecution.

Generally we tend to focus more on the negatives in fellow humans than on the positives. — I like sushi

Is this not the natural consequence of having a generally positive attitude? I assume everyone is amenable, cooperative and kind, and so it is remarkable when someone is unpleasant, and that is noteworthy, or newsworthy. I don't mention or even notice that every slice of bread is delicious and satisfying, but the odd mouldy crust gets my attention.

This is how I go on here; mostly i assume posters are friendly and want to arrive at the truth and a better understanding together, and when there are accusations and unpleasant comments, they stand out as something that has to be thought about in an entirely different way. What is this person trying to do, here? Have I upset them?

Failing to find any plausible contrast, we realize that the modifier 'directly' doesn't do any work here: it is meaningless. — SophistiCat

This sounds right to me, and reduces contrast theory to the principle of a Venn diagram. a word has meaning by making a distinction between what it refers to and everything else, with the distinction drawn as a line between them.

We can know what a unicorn is - a magical horse like creature with a single horn on its head - even though we know there are no unicorns. but when we want t make useful functional distinctions, between forms of seeing and such, there has to be something on each side of the line for the classification to function. To say all seeing is direct, or all seeing is indirect does not draw a line in the world of seeing at all. The distinction does not function in the world of seeing unless it divides seeing into contrasting segments:- I see directly what is in front of me, and indirectly via the rear view mirror or via a camera or other apparatus —. and then we can argue whether spectacles, rose tinted or not, are to count as an apparatus or not.

That you ask this question suggests that you think some sum of money can compensate for centuries of total exploitation.
— unenlightened

First off, no, I don't believe that, and second, should we not try to compensate people at all even if it isn't nearly enough? Do you think that no reparations is the same thing as some reparations? — ToothyMaw

No, we should not. It is offensive to suggest that it can be done. And can we maybe address the case of mixed race folk both paying and receiving reparations presumably in some amount proportional to their ethnic origins?

If this were true, then why are the majority of people of color in favor of reparations? — ToothyMaw

People tend to favour getting something for nothing. But a better remedy would be a proper education of the history of white racism, and white people taking the responsibility for that and behaving differently. That you ask this question suggests that you think some sum of money can compensate for centuries of total exploitation. There is not enough money in the world, even if every white person were bankrupted, and all their assets sold off.

The damage of the slave trade and colonisation is irreparable. Reparations are for white people's benefit, to assuage their guilt; they cannot conceivably compensate for or repair what has happened.

Consider Mrs un. Her father was an Afro-Caribbean descendant of slaves, her mother a white
woman from a slate-mining town whose ancestors were exploited by the local land-owning family who also had slaves working on a plantation in the Caribbean. Mrs un might have to pay reparations to herself. She might have to resent herself for noticing. It's maddening, literally maddening.

I am, but with my own articles of faith.

To herd or control apes you have to commit violence against them, or proceed with the threat thereof. — NOS4A2

Such articles of faith are what you use to control people. It doesn't work in every case, but it works on average, and not even a threat is required.

An authority must monopolize violence and use violence in order to institute “non-violence”. — NOS4A2

Yes. Pax Romana.

speech is not violence — NOS4A2

A sheepdog gone rogue can herd a flock of sheep over a cliff without touching them.

I guess, but it is the UK that is falling apart. Public services are on the brink of collapse. The gov is at the point where they are arresting people for social media posts, which is authoritarian, but also stupid because the prisons are too full. A shithole. — NOS4A2

Yes indeed, the UK is ahead of the pack as usual. That is one of the ways I can foretell your future. But I love authoritarianism in the service of peace and non-violence.

What does this have to do with the topic at hand? — Leontiskos

This is the topic at hand, and it is addressed to christians.

Suppose you came to believe that Jesus was just a man. How would you proceed? What would you do? Make a choice and explain why. — Art48

You seem to be obsessed with mormons for some reason; I haven't said anything about them. You seem to want to police who can address the topic, otherwise there is no reason to endlessly discuss the boundaries of what a christian is.

As a one time protestant who came to believe that Jesus was just a man, my answer has been that it made little or no difference to the truth of what Jesus taught about how to live. I do not generally call myself a christian because it would confuse people like you, who expect supernatural belief in all religion.

As to mormons, i think they consider themselves christian, and I can see that you do not, and I couldn't give a flying fuck either way.