I hope that above all else, every pollster, media station, and complacent liberal who is 'surprised' right now takes a long hard look at themselves, and realizes 'I am completely out of touch with reality, with my country, and the desires of the people, and have little conception of the way that people think or what they value.' — The Great Whatever

Yes.

And people reading the polls (like me) need to be more careful. For instance, many of the polls I read have a "margin of error" of say, 3%. That means that there is a 6% range that can not be known. If the poll says Clinton is 3% ahead of Trump, it may be that they are actually tied. In a 3% MOE poll, a 2% lead may mean that the Clinton is actually behind Trump.

Early on, the distance between the candidates was very large and the MOE didn't matter very much. But as they came closer and closer, MOE mattered more and more.

The other thing people (like me) need to remember is that A POLL RESULT IS NOT A FACT. It may be that 2000 of 3000 people polled said they preferred Clinton. That doesn't mean they are definitely going to vote for Clinton, especially when the election is weeks or months off. It doesn't mean they are going to vote at all.

quoted Michael Moore saying last summer that "Donald Trump is going to win." Moore isn't the Oracle at Eleusis, but one does have to use "gut response" in prognostication. And one needs to watch out for crowd bias. Everyone I hang around with liked Clinton. If I suspected that somebody liked Trump I shied away from them. My siblings live in the small town America that grooved on Donald's affronts to good taste. We avoided the topic.

Unhappy people need to look at the means by which the Republican party engineered its victory. It wasn't just a bunch of whackos voting for Trump.

4 or 5 congressional cycles ago the Republican Party began a major effort to corral reasonably affluent (upper working class through upper class), suburban, more or less white voters and win control of state legislatures. This turned out to be very prudent. They were prepared in 2010 to control reapportionment based on the 2010 census (a process generally under the supervision of legislatures). In succeeding elections they had more friendly districts and were able to more efficiently elect Republicans to governorships, the senate, and house -- in state and federal elections.

Liberals, Democrats, etc. are going to have to work on this project too. They are also going to have to take more strenuous positions in the interests of the white working class, millennials--white or colored--African Americans, Latin Americans, et al. This isn't easy to do, because those interests are often at odds with the industrialist and ruling class interests. But Bernie Sanders showed that there is a large block ready to go that route.

Liberals and Democrats, etc. are, in a word, going to have to get "smarter" about winning. Running Hillary Clinton, who had a large following of people who already hated her at the beginning of her campaign--even if running a woman as candidate for president was a bold step--was not a good idea.

On the evening of Obama's election my partner and I walked around the neighborhood a bit; we talked to a few people who, like us, were elated. Obama's election had solid significance. So does Trump's election, but I wasn't having the same fuzzy warm vibrations.

US 2016 Election outcome

Liberal Arts majors (Literature, Sociology, Psychology, History, Music) really should have some grounding in religious literature -- like the Bible, and some texts in Buddhism, Islam, Hindu, and so forth. Within liberal arts studies (like English literature, Arabic, Hebrew, French, Russian, etc.) students read literature which has deep roots in religion, and knowing jack shit about the relevant religion isn't going to help them understand the literature. Same goes for the social sciences and psychology. Religion (whether ancient or fresh off the half-baked counter) is a field that needs to be familiar to researchers.

At which state universities is theology (as such) being taught? I would be very surprised to see "Theology of the Eucharist" or "The Theology of the Triune God" in the course catalog of a state-supported, or even a private secular university. Theological topics are very narrow subjects, and are primarily "vocational" classes -- like "State Codes for Load Bearing elements in High Rise Structures" would be a vocational class for an architect.

It might be quite appropriate for a state university to offer theology classes as part of a MARS program (Masters At Religious Studies) particularly in a comparative religion context. Comparing grace in Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism would require a base of theological knowledge in at least one of those religions, preferably some theological knowledge in each religion.

What wouldn't be appropriate is coupling active, religious evangelism and theology in a state-sponsored program. The professor can say that "Jesus IS salvation in Christianity" since that is a fact about Christianity. What he can't say is "Jesus IS salvation in Christianity: have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? Let us kneel in prayer for those heathens damned to hell who have not found Jesus yet."

State universities can offer classes like the King James Bible as Literature, Old Testament History, The New Testament in the Greco-Roman World, Ancient Near-East Myths, Eroticism and Family Life in Greece and Rome, Psychology of Religion, and so on. They can offer New Testament Greek, church Latin, and such pre-seminary classes.

It isn't that "training clerics" is beyond the abilities of a state university; it is more that one should be trained to be a cleric in a clerical context -- seminary. A state university can not healthfully be a seminary (these days -- probably not during the last 125 years).

Did the big bang make any sound? — MJA

The spirit hovered over the silent night of the deep and the moment of creation was not remarked in light or sound. Neither did light appear on the first day, nor in the first year. Not in the first century, even. 400 millennia passed before light illuminated the cosmos.

Why should I be honest? — MonfortS26

Being honest helps with PR.

IF you lie a lot you MUST have an excellent memory, else you start getting tripped up by your own lies. Like, "Which lies about my sudden wealth have I told to whom? There are 5 different versions out there already. I'm confused about who knows what. It's so hard to keep all these stories straight."

Yes, we do indeed all lie at times. Sometimes it is merely expedient to lie, sometimes the truth is too cruel to speak. But most people tell the simple truth most of the time because there just isn't anything to gain from lying. Sometimes people tell the truth even if there is something to be gained by lying, because they believe they should be truthful, and they like to think of themselves as truthful.

If you are going to lie about delicate matters (like "Where were you, dearest, last night when I called you at 2:00 in the morning?") you have to be able to think on your feet. Maybe you were busy screwing somebody when you should have been home in bed with your wife. If you are suddenly asked the question, can you come up with a plausible lie? On the spot? Liars need to be able to ad lib. If you can't, then one bad lie leads to another and another, until the truth is the only thing left. And the truth delayed is usually the truth that does the most damage.

But that is why I referred to William James' book, Varieties of Religious Experience, which is considered a classic in the area (although I read it about 40 years ago). — Wayfarer

I read it about 40 years ago too. What I mostly remember are his thoughts about finding a psychological equivalent to war. I don't remember whether he talked about this, but one of the Varieties of Religious Experiences is losing one's former secure faith.

Like having faith, losing it comes in a variety pack. Honestly, losing my Protestant flavored faith in God was a far more strenuous spiritual experience then getting or keeping it in the first place. It took a good 20 years of serious effort. What I settled upon was that 'faith in the existence of god'--religion--is our most distinguished cultural achievement. In the beginning we took mud and we fashioned gods after our own likeness, and imagined a cosmos over which god(s) ruled, and it was good.

It was, to be more precise, both good and bad, because we are both good and bad. We were proud enough of bashing the heads of infants against the stones to have God instruct us to do it. That's one version of the gods. Jesus and Buddha were kinder, representing the less bellicose angels of our character.

Believing that God is real is a great cultural achievement--and I say that without sarcasm. Faith is one of the great jewels in our cultural crown. I am willing to credit faith, ritual, prayer, contemplation, sacrifice, as very valuable cultural property. I can't credit them with being our creations and being independently real at the same time. We can cast wonderful idols out of gold, but believing the idol is a god requires delusion. Madness isn't required; all we need is ordinary, earnest delusory thinking.

Moses' encounter with God on Mount Sinai came from the same foundry as Baal. Same goes for Aeron, Ahura Mazda, Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Belatucadros, Dionysus, Freyja, Frigg, Heimdall, Hera, Yggdrasil, Zeus, et al. We could suppose (it has been supposed) that the numerous gods of many peoples are all reflections of one cosmos-pervading divinity.

Of course, we have more cultural achievements than just religion. Some say science ties with religion for largest cultural crown jewel, some say it exceeds it. I don't know. Both science and religion offer a way of apprehending the world, though on very different terms, and to some extent they are not mutually exclusive--unless one is a fundamentalist. But even fundamentalists generally prefer to be healed by doctors who studied science, rather than by a ranting preacher casting out malignant devils.

↪Brainglitch Simply, there are domains of experience beyond science and naturalism. All I can do on that is express a view, which you have taken issue with. I can't see that there is anything further to discuss. — Wayfarer

When people say things like this, they seem to be saying that there are organs and faculties that apprehend things that are silent, unmoving, insubstantial, and invisible. Science can't observe or understand these mysterious emanations of the divine, but ordinary people can--and believers can not explain how.

First-hand experience of religion tells me that we imagine that we have got hold of these emanations of the divine. If we don't recognize the imagined, then we think it real. The same thing happens when someone who is afraid of the dark fears the horrid things that are lurking there. They run in terror, because they don't 'imagine' that they are 'imagining' the monsters, they think them real.

The reverse is the same: If we don't recognize a swelling heart, and feelings of elation as the imagined movement of the Holy Spirit, then we are filled with confidence about the reality of all the things of the spirit.

It's not a simple trick we play on ourselves, it's a very complicated ritual that when done properly helps those who desire the divine feel like they have touched the divine. Is this harmful? No -- generally not. Indeed, I would think it was an enormous comfort. But that doesn't make it real. Those who are afraid of the dark and what might be lurking there (devils and monsters of various kinds) have completed a ritual too that leads to highly unpleasant results that aren't real, but the unreality doesn't help those who are hyperventilating with fear. What relieves their fear is the recognition that imagined monsters are "nothings" that we can and ought to dismiss.

Religious comforts are as "nothing" as monstrous fears, they are just more pleasant -- but no more real.

there is a lot to learn about American culture via analysis of such a form of entertainment. — Question

Let's downgrade that estimation. "We can learn something about American culture via analysis of such a form of entertainment" but American culture is far too complex for comic book analysis to yieldmuch understanding.

Whether it's ancient Greek culture, modern Italian culture, 19th century German culture, or post-soviet Russian history, one has to pull in the heavy guns. Like...

religious history
influence of literacy
the Bible
economic history
development of technology
immigration
European literary influences on American culture
military history
and so on.

In the big picture of contemporary life in 2016-2017, comic book figures are not the diamond point on which the world is spinning. Comic books, and the films that are made to illustrate the stories, are passive entertainment to entertain children and young adults. Superman or Strange just aren't very important.

It would be a simpler world IF one could psychoanalyze a comic book and thereby determine what is wrong or right about America. Not surprisingly, the world is much more complicated than that.

There is no alleged policy in the supposedly blesséd imaginary hereafter that justifies any action in the only world we actually know anything about. As far as we know, beneficial and harmful consequences for any action are limited to this present world.

EVEN if you believed that it was permissible to kill an infant to gain the benefits of heaven for the victim, you would still be held responsible for the infant's(s') death and would likely be punished severely.

It is a fraud perpetrated on believers to suggest that atrocities in this world will be rewarded in the next. Suicide bombers, for instance, who have been brainwashed to think that heavenly bliss awaits them after they walk into a food market and kill themselves and many other people, are hideous victims of their faith rather than noble torch bearers.

And I'm not in favor of social sanctions on speech, either, such as being fired just because you insulted your boss. — Terrapin Station

that is a good point. There is virtually no free speech at all in the workplace, and no free speech way short of insulting the boss. As it happens, many bosses are richly deserving of insult, but...

On a scale of careability, I rate this a zero. — Baden

Anyway, this isn't about Harvard or its students, its about grinding a boring old axe. — csalisbury

Granted, men behaving badly has become an axe nearly ground down to the handle during the election campaign. But sex isn't the primary issue here. The issue is the control of speech -- which Terrapin Station identified.

True enough: the limits of free speech have been hashed over for a long time. But the issue is regularly refreshed by authorities who wish to suppress various kinds speech for a variety of reasons. Unregulated speech is generally very inconvenient for the establishment (however and in whoever the establishment is constituted). The powerless of yesterday gain some power today and immediately set about fencing in "inappropriate" expression.

For example, gay people were an oppressed minority into the 1970s. In the 1980s there were gay organizations serving gay people and run by gay people. It didn't take long at all for the leadership of the gay establishment to dictate limitations on expression. In a memorable instance, a gay executive (classic: always suited, well educated WASP) leveled the charge of undermining progress and causing trouble against "radical fairies", cross dressers, and various politically deviant homosexuals.

Why does this reversal happen? Because people with even a measly bit of power jealously protect their mole hill of high ground. If a lot of power is involved then the restrictions have wider application.

So restrictive speech codes arise again and again. Sometimes it is a minority group that is protected, sometimes it is a minority group that is targeted. Either way, even if vulnerable groups are discomfited, restrictions on free and open speech should be resisted.

Another point: There are a lot of young people in the world. Young people like comic book characters. They inhabit a world of black and white, GOOD and EVIL, which is easy to understand, easy to relate to, easy to rout for. The super characters always (or at least 99.9% of the time) overcome all obstacles.

A lot of the cultural products that sell so well are intended only for the huge immature audiences around the world. Adults generally can't stand a lot of the crap that kids like.

I once saw a short piece about them on Al Jazeera and the strongest point was that America doesn't have a lore or people that are part of it's legend due to its rather recent advent in the world. — Question

Americans have been working at being Americans since about 1620 at the latest. That's about 400 years. Minds were not erased at Ellis Island. Everyone arriving here brought with them their culture, however ancient it might have been.

And, btw, Americans have plenty of "lore"--the least of which are the story lines of comic books.

Americans have had more opportunities than some people to reinvent themselves. When Europeans arrived on these shores (and the reason for coming to these shores in the first place) they were able to remake themselves to some degree.

Having 3.797 million square miles to roam around in, and believing that it was all ours before it was all ours (Manifest Destiny -- now there's another piece of Lore for you) proved to be a very stimulating fact of life. (By way of comparison, the UK only has 94,008 square miles. Of course they once had an sizable empire on which the sun never sat and the blood never dried.)

The 19th century entertainment industries morphed into the 20th century entertainment industries morphed into the 21st century business. They roll out products in every genre--everything from legitimate theater to comic books, radio to television to books, Gone With the Wind to Deep Throat. Parcheesi to Grand Theft Auto V. They sell to the world the same way IKEA, VW, and Sony sell to the world.

What people like, for better or worse, generally becomes popular. American chamber music written within the last 30 years might be very fine, but 99% of The People don't like it -- in the US or anywhere else. It's not popular. They do like adventure movies, they do like super-powered characters that transcend ordinary limitations, and they like a lot of the music we produce or distribute (and other stuff).

It helps having a population of 320,000,000 English-speaking people. It's a large market base all by itself. It helps having the capital to invest in producing high end entertainment products. Netflix spent $100 million to produce The Crown (about Queen Elizabeth II) which is now available. It's currently 8 hours long and is supposed to be 24 hours long when complete. So far it's superb. Spain, Italy, and Denmark can generally not cough up anything close to that amount to make equally good products.

The arts in the rest of the world aren't deficient because they don't have the huge volume of American cash. The highest quality art often comes from underfunded cultural companies. They just can't make anything close to our very big splash, most of the time.

Why is non existence before this lifetime any different than non existence after our deaths? — dukkha

It isn't. If you are non-existent you have nothing (literally) to worry about, or more to the point, nothing to worry with.

you cease to exist and rot in the ground ), but lately I'm not so sure. — dukkha

Well, dearest Dukkha, let's try an experiment: you die and then we'll put your corpse out in a field. We'll check it every now and then. How long do you think we should wait before we decide you are going to stay dead?

As soon as the vultures, coyotes, rats, weasels, and various insects and beetles start working on your former abode, I think we can say, "Yep; he's not coming back."

Deal?

According to scientists, there are at least two trillion galaxies. Each galaxy has 1 star around which a life-supporting planet revolves, and on which intelligent life now exists. That makes two trillion planets loaded with intelligent beings who are much more subject to harm than they are benefit. There are, thus, billions of trillions disappointed and annoyed individuals nattering away about the unfairness of life -- RIGHT NOW!

Right. If a red and blue-blooded Harvard man can't tell the difference between an '8' and a '6' on the female fuckability scale, then something is obviously wrong with him. Probably doesn't like women to start with. Fag alert.

because the boys failed to restrain themselves, thus failing to meet the the virtue of character the school requires of its students. — Πετροκότσυφας

My guess is that the soccer teem is being punished for a failure of good manners and not for a failure of good character. The definition of manners has changed, certainly. Where once the 'scouting report' wouldn't have been worth mentioning, it is now punishable--not because the team displayed a quality of character that might make them unemployable by Fortune 500 companies. (F500 companies might be concerned about character and manners, too, but less strenuously than Harvard--just a guess.)

People with bed-rock sound character are usually not inconsiderate slobs, but they might be. And we know that lots of people who are charlatans have very nice manners.

I would not argue that women should be subjected to physical abuse, rape, domestic violence, and so forth. They should not. Everyone has a right to be safe in their persons, and not be subjected to assaults with impunity.

Speech is not assault [excepting slander, lying, and incitement--hate speech codes to the contrary]. Calling someone sexually attractive--or not attractive--is allowable, even if framed crudely. We regularly attack each other verbally for being stupid, moronic, imbecilic, jackasses, idiots, crooks, jerks, assholes, pricks, fairies, whores, old hags, and so on and so forth--and surprisingly, everyone survives. Maybe we don't like being called a cocksucking fairy, but it isn't a fatal wound.

The relationships of those with more power and less power is not going to be egalitarian, no matter how much social engineering is undertaken.

You sound like you're arguing for some better basis for public knowledge than 'educated guesswork'. How would that go? I'm thinking it's the best we've got. — mcdoodle

Good point.

Anybody mention "harms way" -- out of which we try to stay"?

More people talk about God. Yup, love me some sacred cow. Yum yum yum. — Wosret

Double up good.

Not dying quite soon enough can be extremely bad. Like, if the stroke you had while driving had been just a little bit worse, death would have ensued immediately, but because the stroke wasn't quite bad enough, you lived just long enough to experience what it is like to find your delightful self engulfed in flames, and one's skin (then deeper flesh) being charred, and one's lungs filling up with hot, horrible smelling smoke, and yet you still aren't quite dead...

That's fairly bad. Even worse are Islamic terrorists causing sewers to back up and explosively ejecting great quantities of feces into the toilet stalls of America, including the very one you are occupying, drenching you in indescribable, unimaginable slime and filth.

25) The carrot and stick of hope.. anticipation that may lead to disappointment..unsubstantiated Pollyanna predictions that we are tricked into by optimistic bias despite experiences otherwise — schopenhauer1

25.5 The hangman's noose of despair.. altogether unbalanced Cassandra predictions that we are tricked into by pessimism despite experiences otherwise

27. Philosophical OCD

28. Tedious fixations on negative interpretation

29. Anti-Mame Syndrome: the conclusion that one is starving during a banquet.§

§Auntie Mame - Anti Mame -- get it?

I have agreed with quite a few of the point you have made recently, but now I am a bit worried here about where that leaves my reputation on the Left-Right Divide.

http://www.amren.com/archives/reports/the-color-of-crime-2016-revised-edition/ — dukkha

The site does, indeed, have a lot of information. Quite a bit of the site is frankly slanted in favor of conservative racial inferiority/superiority viewpoints. Of course, that doesn't mean that it is all wrong, but it merit some blinking bright orange traffic warning lights.

So what I mean is something like 'people of Asian descent are significantly less likely to commit violent acts than Black people, and a large part of this can be explained by biological differences between the two sets of populations.' — dukkha

That is the sort of statement that gets a warning beacon.

At the present time, Asians may be the group of people least likely to launch the next major Crime Wave, but it is absurd to suggest that they are less capable of violence than another group. Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians--to name the examples that readily came to mind--all proved themselves eminently capable of sustained and severe violence--WWII, the victory of the Chinese Communists over the Chinese Nationalists, the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, the khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, the Cultural Revolution, the pacification of Tibet, etc.

There are a number of aspects of American black culture that many people think are really unwholesome, but we do not have nearly enough information to blame genetics. It's far more likely that unwholesome black cultural traits are the result of sustained and enforced social forces -- like exclusion from paths to prosperity, like exclusion from civil society, and so on.

White people may be behaving more or less nicely right now, but Whites, just like Blacks, Asians, American Indians, and all other racial groups are perfectly capable of behaving in gawd-awful ways that bring shame upon the species as a whole. NO GROUP is better than any other group -- when viewed in even the intermediate run--never mind the long run.

So while we can say "Many blacks are performing very poorly in the United States." we should be looking at possible causative factors about which something can be done. Societies can be reformed. Genetics can not (not on the time scale with which humans are capable of working). Besides that, there used to be successful black communities in most major cities. I think it is safe to say that many of these communities were crushed through urban renewal programs, interstate highway construction, conspiracies by banks and the government to deny credit to black communities, and so on. There was certainly a time when other groups -- among them Jews and Italians -- ran the criminal rackets. There was a time when dangerous slums tended to be white. White hippies, for instance, could run into serious trouble in very square, unhip Irish Catholic South Boston in the 1960s.

The huge market in illicit drugs and licit/illicit guns can't be overlooked here. Guns and drugs are highly corrosive agents in most communities. But guns and drugs are way, way too big to blame on blacks. These two huge industries are largely controlled by and feed white appetites. Blacks are not manufacturing guns, and as far as I know, ghetto riff raff are not in charge of high-level wholesale drug importing, distribution, warehousing, or marketing. Sure, down at the street level blacks are dealers. They shoot each other. A few steps up the ladder, and there won't be too many blacks (as far as I know).

So, some welfare clients are smoking dope--wasting the state's money, and starving their children. Of course that happens sometimes. There's a few white welfare parasites doing exactly the same thing. But higher up the supply chain and there are no welfare recipients in the criminal enterprises. There are no uneducated, socially retarded blacks running the show. Higher up it's a sophisticated criminal enterprise spawning dysfunction and misery coast to coast. It's largely not pot. It's heroin, cocaine, meth -- hard stuff. And it's very dangerous pharmaceuticals being added to the mix. The upper levels of the drug business involve South Americans, Chinese, SE Asians, Africans, Europeans, Americans, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Russians, and so on. At the upper levels we're dealing with tonnage, not ounces.

And guns. They don't grow on trees and ammunition is not a backyard crop. Big business makes the stuff, and the big businesses are mostly white owned.

This was a nicely nuanced post. No disagreements. Let me draw a contrast that might further illustrate the problem.

I'm not trying to argue against more oversight of the police per se, rather I'm trying to show that there is an upper limit on the efficiency and the difference that more and more oversight can make toward reducing the statistical disparity of police use of violence used against black men. — VagabondSpectre

In the 1970s and through most of the 1980s, there was a lot of hostile interactions between gay men and the Minneapolis Police Department, particularly among the Vice Squad and Park Police. These two units had the official charge and the opportunity to act oppressively toward the gay male community.

Over a 10 year period of time, gay community-police relations evolved into a more positive and/or at least tolerant attitude on both sides. There were sacrifices on both sides, and gains too. Evolution was fostered by efforts in the courts, public relations efforts, some heavy weight political pressure, and community activism.

If the black community and police departments are to similarly evolve into a more beneficial relationship, more (much more) of the same sort of efforts will be required as was required by the police and the gay community.

One of the differences between the gay community and the black community is that in the latter part of the 20th century, the political, social, even religious acceptability of the gay people was in the ascendent. The period of black ascendency is over; what was rising is no longer. If anything, black people seem to be on a descending track (economically, and hence socially and politically).

Theoretically, carefully designed, properly deployed, and adequately funded social engineering can improve police/black community relations, but not in isolation from economic, political, and social trends. IF black people are to rise, then changes need to be made that will also help the large white working class, and other minority working class groups rise too.

Changing the nation so that all working class people can advance economically is where we hit the reinforced concrete wall that defines the lower limit of what is going to happen under the current regime. (The upper limit isn't even in sight).

God is not a God, not a Zeus or Indra or Baal. It was depicted in those terms because that was how people thought in those times... — Wayfarer

I have been putting forward that view for several years: God is inconceivable--which is not the same thing as not existing. I don't know whether God exists or not. But the inconceivable God is not describable. Any sentence like "God is..." "God does..." "God can..." will be, must be, wholly insubstantial. We have to be satisfied with the "I Am Who I Am" or nothing.

Which paradox are you positing life without?

1. a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory: a potentially serious conflict between quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity known as the information paradox.

2. a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true: in a paradox, he has discovered that stepping back from his job has increased the rewards he gleans from it.

3. a situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities: the mingling of deciduous trees with elements of desert flora forms a fascinating ecological paradox.

4. a pair o' docs removing a gall bladder.

I wish to second Wuliheron's motion.

There is probably little possibility of achieving agreement on this issue if the positions are too far apart. We can probably agree that beauty does exist.

Thank you for the greetings. I'm 70. Hope to be around for some time -- maybe another decade or so. Time will tell, literally.

What don't you agree with -- my last post or everything I said since the beginning?

I enjoy looking at Lucian Freud's paintings, and I wouldn't call them "beautiful" in the sense of comely, pretty, handsome, or any conventional term. It wasn't his intent to paint that sort of image. The features that I identified as characteristic of "beautiful faces" belong to real faces. We seem to like evenly proportioned faces rather than faces that are very disproportionate -- extremely small eyes, extremely big nose, very thin or very thick lips, etc.

As for the features of paintings, or features of faces, they are popular because we like them. Paintings of swamps just aren't as popular as paintings of wooded hills and lushly green pastures with holstein cattle grazing, with children playing by a brook. There is something about certain kinds of paintings that makes them popular.

Are you familiar with Thomas Kincaid's stuff? It's very popular. It's gawd-awful cliched crap, but it is popular. There must e something about it that appeals to many people: The color palate, the limited subject matter, the expected perspective, the inoffensiveness of the over-all effect, the frequently gauzy focus, etc. It isn't good -- I don't think you'll actually see his stuff on the walls of cheap motels, even. It appeals to people with VERY conventional tastes (which, by the way, is not a crime against humanity).

His scenes are from Never Never Land, the Wizard of Oz, somewhere over the rainbow -- certainly nothing that is real now, or ever was. It's escapist, it's phony, it's "pretty", it's "cute", and warm, and glowing and all sorts of people buy it. For them it is "beautiful". It's Christmas card art -- which also sells extremely well. Only the prickliest, snobbiest, most elitist, longest soaked in sauerkraut, grinchiest people fail to respond to Christmas card art. Is it great art? Hell no. But... people like it consistently.

How? — MonfortS26

People seem to recognize beauty in the human face consistently. "The beautiful face" is symmetric, the eyes are set at a certain distance apart, the nose, lips, cheekbones, chin, cheeks, etc. fall within a consistent range of measurement. Some factors vary by sex, of course. A beautiful woman and a handsome man don't have the same features.

Surveys of what people consider beautiful in art are also somewhat consistent. People like landscapes much, much more than they like abstract paintings. Whether people want to see wild or domestic animals, or children in landscapes varies a bit from culture to culture. Whether mountains or rivers are considered necessary for a beautiful landscape also varies somewhat.

Most people like primary colors in paintings -- blues, greens, reds. Most people do not want to see a lot of orange in paintings.

I can't tell you whether these preferences are innate or acquired. Do we think that a statue of Apollo from the classical era is beautiful because the ancient sculptor captured innate beauty, or have we been taught that classical sculpture is beautiful? I am inclined to think that that the ancient sculptor captured innate beauty, and that we admire the results--as we have been taught.

Talking about beauty this way is different than what individuals consider beautiful. Parents, quite properly, tend to think their children are beautiful, but the parents of 7.3 billion people can't all be right. Some people, IMHO, are not beautiful. Some people have beautiful parts: there are models whose feet, hands, legs, or torsos are considered ideal, without their whole body being considered so great.

Everyone has their own idea of truth, beauty, knowledge, love... and
they are nothing more than ideas that are used as a means to an end. They are empty words that can be used to summon people into action. — MonfortS26

One of the purposes of a "liberal education" is to investigate what truth, beauty, knowledge, love (and a few dozen other words) mean when people are speaking seriously. Yes, to some extent everyone will define those terms personally, but "truth", "beauty", "knowledge", "love", and so on have been analyzed and applied by very careful, thoughtful writers, and as you come across these ideas in your reading you may discover that they don't really mean just what every Tom, Dick, and Harry might think they mean.

And yes, they can be used as clarion calls for people to do something (probably under false pretenses, like "We will fight for TRUTH"). "Civilization is at stake." We must defend FREEDOM in Afghanistan or some such baloney.

I think that any argument involving what defines one as a person is circular. — MonfortS26

If you say "I am an honest man. I am an authentic being. I am proud of my self." you are not speaking circularly -- you, the subject, are speaking about yourself, an object. We can do that. What is circular is saying something like "I don't exist because I am a product of my imagination." It's contradictory.

I was raised in Christianity and I didn't question it until last year. I was afraid of questioning anything because I felt I would go to hell if I were to think critically about my life. — MonfortS26

I don't think Jesus had anything against people thinking critically about their lives. You might go to hell (figuratively speaking) but thinking critically won't be the reason.

Questioning is a good thing. Keep doing it.

II wasn't putting much thought into my life and spent most of my teenage years as an outcast because one of the beliefs I had adopted is that it isn't important to fit in and I didn't put any effort into life whatsoever. I just coasted through everything. If this can be true about me, then it can certainly be true about other people. — MonfortS26

Sure, and it describes me as a teenager too, in as much as I can remember back that far.

Don't kick yourself around for being the kind of teenager you think you were. It's a rough period (lots of stuff going on in the developing brain, among other things) and I think it is rougher now than it was 50 or 60 years ago. Think about the kind of person you want to become, the features of your self that you want to be prominent, and try to build those features up.

What I mean when I say the self is an illusion is that any conception of myself is a product of my imagination. — MonfortS26

This is circular. In order to imagine a self, you have to be a self, so the self isn't an illusion. The self can certainly imagine itself to be different than it is (actually we do this quite a bit -- we would like to be a different self sometimes).

It seems to me that beginning an argument by undermining the reality of the self who is composing the argument is a losing strategy.

I always sympathetic towards arguments attacking the role of commerce in commodifying everything, but I don't think that fits in well with your argument about the illusiveness of the self. I don't see the connection.

I'm really not sure what you mean by that — MonfortS26

I was sarcastically suggesting that your post was not as good as it could be because you were sick, and that maybe some Pepto Bismol (an old pink OTC anti-nausea medication) would help you argue better. From what I have read, you are a capable writer. The OP here didn't seem to be up to par.

Our concept of what is beautiful is in the eye of the beholder TRUE

we all have unique tastes in what we consider to be beautiful TRUE

our sense of self is an illusion HOW DO YOU KNOW?

and everything that makes up any of our preferences is simply the outer world reflecting back into us SO? If we have unique taste, the outer world will reflect back uniqueness, won't it?

From the perspective of beauty being an illusion, it leaves a opportunity to make money. SURE. WHY NOT?

The majority of people are looking to fit in TRUE WHY WOULD THEY NOT?

and don't put a terrible amount of thought into their lives FALSE

Constantly looking for approval in others would do very little to create any diversity in ones concept of beauty I SUPPOSE NOT

everyone's ideas of it would grow side by side PERHAPS

Any industry of art could capitalize off of that easily by using small variations of very basic ideas repeatedly TRUE BUT HAVEN'T RIP OFF ARTISTS BEEN DOING THAT FOR DECADES?

To me this is a morally corrupt action because it cripples our sources of individuality and harms our ability to critically think. TRUE, WHATEVER CRIPPLES OUR INDIVIDUALITY AND HARMS OUR ABILITY TO THINK CRITICALLY IS BAD NEWS.

From the perspective of beauty being an illusion, it leaves a opportunity to make money. — MonfortS26

People tend to find ways of making money whether beauty is an illusion or not.

Constantly looking for approval in others would do very little to create any diversity in ones concept of beauty and everyone's ideas of it would grow side by side. — MonfortS26

I can't quite tell what you are bellyaching about here.

Any industry of art could capitalize off of that easily by using small variations of very basic ideas repeatedly. To me this is a morally corrupt action because it cripples our sources of individuality and harms our ability to critically think. — MonfortS26

That's alright because our sense of individuality is an illusion anyway, and who wants the riff raff to think critically? For that matter, is it a good idea to encourage the riff raff to be thinking critically? Maybe we should just encourage them to seek approval from each other.

Like I said, you don't seem to be feeling well. Take some Pepto Bismol; it has bismuth in it -- it works.