it's actually hard to understand that the majority of students back then were far more conservative than the hippies that are now described as to be the dominant group back then. — ssu

You are correct. I was a student at a midwestern state college in the 1960s. The student body of my midwestern state college had no hippies; it was conservative--socially as well as politically. We were also politically inert. There were no protests to speak of. A sociology professor who began his sociology 101 classes with provocative readings was lucky to get a weak reaction, let alone outrage.

My guess is that a lot of colleges are still fairly placid places. There are outstanding exceptions of course, where everyone is on somebody else's thin ice.

One thing I don't quite understand is why college administrators are so vulnerable to small hot-headed gangs with a burr up their butt about transphobia, homophobia, incipient fascism, racism, et al. Have the administrators inadvertently believed their own bullshit? It seems like they would have the wherewithal to deal with a dozen students who wanted to deplatform an instructor in the 1-member Kyrgyzstan Studies Program for offending some twit in campus Antifa gang.

It sounds to me that arguments about what constitutes "right" and "wrong" are mere opinions — Darkneos

You are reducing a significant question to a matter of mere personal whim.

Morality is the distilled product of humans trying to settle on common rules of right and wrong. There are some major exceptions, but most people have agreed over time that arbitrarily killing people is wrong. Rape, theft, arson, and like acts are likewise considered wrong. We recognize that IF we are going to live together peaceably then some acts have to be condemned and punished. We also recognize actions which contribute to peaceable life together--love, loyalty, generosity, flexibility, and so forth are considered right.

No manageable moral system will cover everything. About many issues, like whether you should paint your house white or yellow, are areas where mere opinion rules. Do you prefer labrador retrievers or collies? Mere opinion. Gray cats or yellow cats? Apples or oranges? Rayon, nylon, or polyester? Pastrami or peanut butter? All mere opinion.

considering we made up morality — Darkneos

"We" did make it up; that doesn't mean it is merely arbitrary and capricious opinion. It's is also true, especially in your case, that your mere opinion will not outweigh everybody else's.

I attribute some of my worst experiences to family and I'm still working on myself to erase the negative impressions created during my growing years. — OneTwoMany

Of course! Family is where we all come from, and we are approximately as screwed-up as they are. Good, bad, and indifferent genes have been biologically transmitted; good, bad, and indifferent ideas and practices have been socially transmitted.

It's not so much that I was conditioned by so many lies, as it took a long time to figure out that much of what I thought I knew was actually false--mistaken, inaccurate, mythical, misleading, wrong, and so on. For example, you can be anything you want to be isn't a lie as much as a myth--not to be taken literally. Actually, nobody ever told me that--expectations were too low. So that was one lie I missed out on.

I seemed to have absorbed a lot of "non-reality" growing up. Hollywood reality, maybe. Or religious magic. Villager idiocy. Whatever it was, all that crap, I took as TRUE whether it was intended that way or not. A lifetime has been required for decontamination.

Santa Claus was good while he lasted, but the hope for some sort of imaginary gift-giver, some sort of sugar-daddy, lingers on.

You are conflating romance, love, and marriage. The first two may lead to the third, but not necessarily. It is in the marriage ceremony that we agree to love and care for each other in sickness and in health, for better and for worse. And, worth mentioning, "marriage" isn't merely a ceremony. It's a contractual arrangement sponsored by the state for the purpose o encouraging stable families. Once married, you are supposed to make a good faith effort to care for each other. Of course, lots of people do no such thing, which is one of the reasons a lot of marriages fail. Another reason a lot of marriages fail is that a lot of people believe their own bullshit about romance and love.

Don't take this the wrong way: I'm totally in favor of romance, love, and marriage (if a couple wants it) but things work out for the best when people understand what it is that they are feeling and know how deep their feelings are (or are not). As the joke goes, you could wade through many people's feelings and not get your feet wet.

What say all you really smart people? — synthesis

Some people over-value their cognitive resources and under-value their affective or emotional resources. It's through the limbic part of the brain that we "feel good", and are motivated to do much of anything--good, bad, or indifferent. Some people who don't think about how to maintain good emotions end up in the ditch.

Has your intelligence helped you to become a better person, a more balanced individual, more content, or has it done just the opposite? — synthesis

Of course it has. Or, if one is a thoroughly wicked person then one's intelligence helped one become a really bad person.

There is a huge exception, though, to claiming full credit for one's personal success or failure: Genetics, environment, outside interventions, and chance events all contribute to our personal outcomes. Finding one's self in a position where one can fully utilize one's intelligence and experience sometimes involves a certain amount of luck.

I don't know why Jack Cummins thinks that compassion has been "thrown into the rubbish bin of philosophy ideas." Compassion doesn't get a lot of airplay on this site, but we are hardly a big part of P philosophy.

We don't talk a lot about mercy or forgiveness either. We could, but we generally don't. Those topics are much more the province of religion. Maybe lots of philosophers are writing about mercy--I wouldn't know.

A lot of religion is a cluster of emotions and memories which add up to what the believer experiences internally. Some of it is sweet, some of it is bitter, some of it good stuff and some of it is baloney. All of this 'religious affect' is inside the head. It's one piece of religion.

Another part of religion is action -- enacting the commandments or principles, or teachings. Praying is an action. Eating the Eucharist is an action. Giving alms to the poor is an action. Shoveling the snow off the old people's walk next door is an action. They are both real -- the affective and the effective. Personally, I give an edge to the effective--the stuff that people DO. The comforts of religion are affective, but the works of mercy are effective. Never mind about faith vs. works -- that's another can of worms.

You didn't ask me, but I don't see why you are having a problem with "compassion". The minimum definition is 'concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others'. In that usage compassion is a state of mind. "Having compassion" (for refugees, for victims of horrible diseases, for the homeless...) is 'feeling concerned'.

The feeling of compassion and 50¢ will not get you a cup of coffee. It won't advance your admission into heaven, either. Ebenezer Scrooge (A Christmas Carol) did not even feel compassion for the unfortunate. "Are there no prisons? Are the work houses full?" he snarled.

Enacting compassion is what is important. Actually doing something to assist those you recognize as victims of significant misfortune is what is important.

Do compassionate acts need to be affiliated with compassionate feelings? I say no. If you feed the hungry and house the homeless you have acted compassionately, even if it was done to improve your reputation. If good PR was your motivation, then you have received your reward, as Jesus put it. In the larger ethical tradition in which Jesus stood, feeding the hungry and housing the homeless is still important--whatever the motivation. (Jesus being God had inside information about motivation; The rest of us should not worry about motivation. We should just ask whether the hungry were fed, or not.)

Some people are motivated to act compassionately because they do not want to go to hell. Some people worry about the purity of their motivation. They feel guilty if they feel pleasure in helping other people (See: No good deed goes unpunished).

Why should atheists act compassionately? For the same reason that believers should: Because they can imagine what suffering is, and can understand that if not saved by good fortune, it could be them lying in a ditch. It could be them starving. It could be them with metastatic cancer, etc.

But I do see it as independent of religious contexts because its importance is not based on any necessary belief in God or particular set of spiritual beliefs. — Jack Cummins

It can be independent of religious context, certainly. But there are far more people whose ethical direction comes from religious teaching than there are people who get ethical direction from philosophy, per se. Combining Bhuddist, Abrahamic, and Hindu totals around 75% of the world population.

Philosophy seems to be more suited for defining what a good society is like, than is religion (in my opinion). Religion may be better for motivating virtuous individual behavior than philosophy might be, but philosophy can (presumably) perform that task as well. The difference between the two is that religions fund teaching and philosophy as such does not. Pragmatists, Stoics, Epicureans, Existentialists, Nihilists et al are not offering regular instruction, as far as I know.

I do not know whether compassion has been dumped into the rubbish bin or not. Personally, I don't look to philosophy per se for guidance on acting compassionately. I rely on the Gospels here.

However one thinks about compassion, or however one comes to act compassionately, the critical part is to DO compassion. Dig a little: find out what needs exist in your community; find out about the severity of need; find out who is addressing the issues; find out what you--an individual--can effectively do.

I don't think it is at all difficult to identify bleeding, open wounds in the body politic. Really, one has to avoid information to not know what it is that people are suffering from.

In Matthew 25, Jesus states the terms of Judgement: 35 'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

These are examples not an exhaustive list, but any one of them is a good starting point.

Compassion takes practice -- not just to do well, but to develop the desire to be compassionate. Compassion needs to be planted and cultivated.

To quote a line from Phil Ochs, "I'm sure it wouldn't interest anyone outside a small circle of friends."

The actual importance we ascribe to a life increases to the degree they are part of our life (as opposed to a theoretical, abstraction). There will soon be 8 billion people; an estimated 150,000 of us die every day--all sorts of causes. To their family and friends, each of these lives and deaths is significant. Outside of that circle, not so much.

Still, we try to put some force behind abstract, theoretical valuations of persons. We do that more to protect economic and political stability more than protecting individual relationships among small circles of friends. We do that because we know stability and security are protective of individuals--particularly ourselves and our small circle of friends.

Do I highly value people I know? Of course. Do I highly value the people who I know only from a headline, "33 people killed in a Bagdad market bomb blast." Honestly, no, but not because I de-value them. There just isn't the necessary connection of personal knowledge.

I don't know about other people, but I don't have the capacity to feel badly about 150,000 individuals dying.

They lowered taxes on the wealthy. That made no sense. — frank

Very true, and they greatly increased the deficit by continuing larger discretionary expenses and decreasing income. Of course the Covid-19 stimulus packages contributed to the deficit, but there are two or three trillion dollars above and beyond that. Republicans used to be committed to balanced budgets and debt reduction. For that matter, many Democrats did too.

Problem is, we can't keep cutting taxes on the wealthy without cutting spending -- if you want a balanced budget and debt reduction. A lot of discretionary spending (apart from mandated expenses) Is in the military area; the wealthy who own military supply firms (like Martin Marietta, Raytheon, etc.) are the prime beneficiaries (assuming that the average American is not actually benefitted in any significant way from increased military spending). Certainly Americans are not actually that much safer for all the money spent.

Bernie Bros are a faction because Sanders represents the kind of representative that we would like to have voted for, but was/is almost never on offer. There have been just a few others like Sanders.

I would expect some differences between an open vote and secret ballot - for any group of people where volatile issues are in play. There are many days in which I call a plague down on both the Democrats and Republicans, but over the years (not just since Trump) the Republican Party has become more extreme, more out of sync with its longer term history. There used to be such a thing as "fiscally conservative / socially liberal Republicans". This major portion of the Republican Party rejected Goldwater in 1964, but then in the 80s Reagan's faction moved the party to the right where it has pretty much stayed.

Trump enabled a further rightward shift (for some, into the 'crazy' zone). We'll see what happens next. I expect that the Republican Party will not move toward more liberal social policy. As far as fiscal policy goes, they have shown zero fiscal responsibility.

Once anti-Sanderites crawl back under their rocks and stay there, we won't have to call them anything.

How can you tell the Trump Republican politicians from Republican politicians being held hostage? How much difference is there? They are all just so many peas in a pod.

Bernie Burners?

Do intelligent women ever? find average to a little bit slow men attractive? — TiredThinker

Of course that happens. But attraction depends on more than an assessment of intelligence. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower has something to do with it. "Finding attractive" may not be simple but maintaining a long-lasting relationship is much more complicated. Brains or not, a similar approach to money management helps a lot. Success at sex matters. Economic security helps. Et cetera.

I haven't read much Dostoevsky (shame shame shame). Say more about his feed-back loop observations, would you.

2/6/21 - 9:04 p.m.

I had got into a negative state of mind prior to my experience of getting knocked down by the bicycle. Strangely, I had been in a most atrocious mood on the day when I got knocked down by a car. — Jack Cummins

Over the years I have had a series of running and biking accidents (starting in 1983). These resulted in broken bones, painful muscle injuries, and wrecked bikes. One of these crashes could easily have been fatal. The common theme in all of these accidents was being in a distracted foul mood--so foul that I was not thinking straight or even paying attention. These were clearly my fault.

I didn't find a solution, apart from not riding for maybe... 15 years. (I don't drive.) I'm in a much better state of mind now. I wish I knew what cured me so I could put in a bottle, but whatever it was is a mystery.

Around 4 years ago I got a new bike and have been happily riding again to do errands and just for fun. I don't get lost in angry ruminating while riding any more, and I pay attention.

2/6/21 - 9:00 p.m.

I do think that what we experienced in life affects the whole way we think and form our ideas. — Jack Cummins

Absolutely. The pragmatist philosopher, William James, thought there was a connection between behavior and emotion. He posited that fear could be amplified by danger-avoiding behavior. Are we running because we are afraid or are we afraid because we are running? (He wasn't claiming that going out for a run won't make someone fearful--not in itself, anyway.) Some very fearful people reinforce their fears by behaving in excessively cautious ways. The cautious behavior validates their fears.

"voluntary laughing" or "joyful dancing" can improve mood. Breathing deeply helps bring about relaxation.

Experience shapes cognition, too. Shopping in a supermarket (without getting hit by a bicycle when departing) presumably has a subtle, at least slight effect on our thinking, positive or negative. Driving on a crowded highway would too. Work tasks (a huge variety), household tasks, recreational tasks -- all sorts of things are likely to affect our thinking. Performing a difficult task successfully is likely to strengthen our sense of confidence; exercising executive agency is likely to strengthen our sense of personal 'efficacy', the belief that we can actually accomplish goals. (The reverse would be true too.).

Glad you are OK; better that way.

feel like some kind of vagrant — Jack Cummins

I get it. There are so many public areas that are devoid of life under the various Covid-19 cautions.

I had quite a bad yesterday and even got knocked down by a bicycle on the road. — Jack Cummins

Oh no! Were you walking or were you on a bike yourself? Did you get hurt--scraped up, lacerated...? Getting run over by a bicycle is not as bad (and probably not as final) as getting run over by a bus, but I dread it myself.

It just feels like we have to find meanings and not give up. I had also been reading the thread on reasons for living and that seems to be about finding solid, logical reasons for carrying on life. — Jack Cummins

We are certainly advised to find meaning (or make it up). Whenever I try to do this, I end up with results that I do not find personally compelling. Life pushes us forward and we go on OR it doesn't, and we are not here anymore. Life's insistent perpetuation seems to work across the spectrum of all species.

Life is its best reason for carrying on. Reasons for living that we devise are after-the-fact. If they help, good. If not, OK. Life keeps pushing on. If life depended on good reasons, we would not be here.

Life--whether it intended to do so or not--gave us an active inquiring intelligence. We WILL look for meaning. And we will find it or we will make it up. We want meaning, and we also want to be happy -- whatever 'happy' means. (I have even fewer clues about how to be happy than how to find the meaning of life.) Do stuff that makes you happy. Maybe that will help you find meaning. Even if it doesn't, it's better to be happy than be miserable.

local time: 1:41 p.m. February. 6, 2021

So that leads me to wonder whether life can be viewed as an experiment. — Jack Cummins

Who is the subject of the the experiment; who is the experimenter? You? Us? God? Benevolent (or not) overlords?

God made the World in six days flat
On the seventh he said, I'll rest
So he let the thing into orbit swing
To give it a dry run test
A billion years went by
Then he took a look at the whirling blob
His spirits fell as he shrugged
Oh well, it was only a six-day job. Rhymes for the Irreverent-Chad Mitchell

My opinion: Life is not an experiment. It is a largely unscripted experience of very mixed quality.

It was queried whether we were being indoctrinated. I believe that we were adopting feminist ideas because we were all critical of sexism. — Jack Cummins

Were you against sexism because you had first hand experience as the victims of sexism, or were you indoctrinated by others who were, or thought they were, first (or second) hand victims of sexism? I'm not suggesting that you (plural) should be sexist; it's just fairly likely that the men in the group were probably not first hand victims of sexism so needed a push in that direction.

Consciousness of exploitation (class, race, sex, orientation, etc.) is usually acquired from first hand experiences, and/or it is acquired through teaching, discussion, reading -- indoctrination. My consciousness as a proud gay man (back in the halcyon days of gay liberation) was greatly aided by indoctrination. My consciousness as an exploited worker (mostly during the presidency of Ronald Reagan and George Bush I) was acquired largely through indoctrination.

For me, it's less a question of whether one is indoctrinated, and more a question of WHO is doing the indoctrination, and toward WHAT end. IMHO, there is way too little working class indoctrination to balance out ruling class indoctrination.

One particular one is how some radical lesbians have been fairly hostile to transgender people. — Jack Cummins

I generally stay clear of radical lesbians. My experience with them hasn't been very positive.

Lesbians in general tend to have more complex sexual histories than exclusively gay men. I don't know exactly why that is, but it is probably related to the available roles that women have had open to them, and the way women in general socialize (which is different than the way men in general socialize).

Some radical lesbians and some heterosexual women both have been very hostile toward transsexuals. I have my doubts about trans-genderism in general, and the deeper one gets into politico-sexual theory (radical and not) the murkier it can become. Like... mud?

There used to be a Friday night coffee house for lesbians in Minneapolis (held in a church basement). the radical lesbians in the group disapproved of lesbian mothers bringing their very young male children into the space. Women-only -- period. No XY chromosomes allowed.

So, there are many possible issues and debates, and they are all relevant when thinking about the whole nature of prejudice. — Jack Cummins

Indeed.

Here's a quote I like by a lesbian writer:

There's nothing better for a city than a dense population of angry homosexuals.

Lots of people here born in warm, snug, semi-posh academical families with ”progressive” values, seemingly. — Ansiktsburk

Warm, snug, semi-posh, academic progressives--hmmmm. Yes, please. Unfortunately I missed the boat on that one.

But then you add the word "seemingly".

True enough, progressives (whether they are warm, dry, and academic or not) are not perfection personified. Neither is any other group on the continuum between troglodyte and enlightened.

So what?

" I'm not a racist, but..." — Kenosha Kid

"I'm not a murderer, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." (attributed to Mark Twain)

I think that the idea of 'cleansing' of prejudice is a bit problematic as a metaphor. It reminds me too much of the whole racist of the idea of ethnic cleansing. It also conjures up images of antibacterial gel and disinfectant, as if being applied to our thoughts and feelings. — Jack Cummins

It's not problematic a bit. Your memory associated the word "cleansing" with "ethnic" and we are off to the [horse] races. I used the word "fumigating"; when I typed the word, I remembered that Zyklon B was used to fumigate insects and rats from food storage areas. It was invented by Fritz Haber (1868 - 1934). It was also used to fumigate Jews in the gas chambers. Oh, oh -- Fritz Haber must be a very bad man. Well, no--he also discovered how to make nitrogen fertilizer from air (Haber-Bosch process -- Nobel prize, 1918). It is said that 2 out 5 people on earth owe their existence to Haber -- because his discovery enables the world to greatly increase food production. Are you going to avoid Bayer aspirin? Bayer was part of I.G. Farben--the manufacturer of Zyklon B.

Just because we free associate one word with another, doesn't mean there is an operative connection there.

I try to be critically aware of how I feel about groups of similar people.

Yes, I am biased, I am prejudiced -- not severely, but still. I have been reasonably successful in not enacting negative feelings towards groups of people. I disapprove of people entering the US illegally, however it is done; establishing footholds with anchor babies, evading immigration authorities, marriages of convenience, et cetera. I have become prejudiced toward immigrants, particularly South American ones. Worse, I suppose, is that I am reverse-prejudiced--favorably disposed toward other illegal immigrants -- Europeans, Asians, and Africans. That said, I don't seek out platforms to express anti-immigration views or act negatively toward immigrants, even ones that are probably undocumented.

One of the issues brought up during the BREXIT debate was the number of immigrants in Britain. One group was very unhappy with all the Poles that were in their community. My first thought was "what could be negative about Polish immigrants?" I thought. Many cities in the US have had large Polish neighborhoods for a long time--Chicago and Detroit for instance. But then the whole US has been an ethnic mixmaster for a long time. Britain not so much.

I hadn't ever come across the idea of any gay bars being exclusive to any specific ethnic group because I don't think that there are any in England which are. One thing I am particularly aware of is the way in which gay people who are of African descent often have an extremely difficult time within their families and in their communities. — Jack Cummins

We can probably thank Christian and Moslem missionaries for Africans' difficulties with homosexuality. Some Africans (specifically, Ugandans) I've talked with believe such a thing as homosexuality simply doesn't exist among them. African American communities have a much stronger representation in very conservative Christian denominations than in liberal ones. Gay black men in fundamentalist families/social groups have a tough time finding acceptance there.

I have only been in one British gay bar, so my sample is 1. In the US, gay bars in cities like Minneapolis do not have large enough minority population to support exclusively black gay bars. Chicago, New York, and LA do, however. I should add that the bar culture seems to be fading--not just because of Covid-19, but also because of hook-up apps like GRINDR seem to be faster, cheaper, better--for a quick hook up, anyway. Were I 35 and not 75, I'd probably use GRINDR too.

critically aware — Jack Cummins

That is the crux of the matter.

Humans are probably not born "pre-loaded" with a set of highly specific biases and prejudices, but we may well be born with a propensity towards being biased or prejudiced, one way or another. And then we seem very prone to developing bias and prejudice as we develop. (There are many items in the list of cognitive biases, for instance.) In addition, we have preferences, dispositions, personality traits, orientations, and so forth -- some of which may be pre-loaded, some of which we develop later on. Add the unconscious mind which isn't readily interrogated.

The idea that we can be cleansed of our biases, prejudices, dispositions, preference, et cetera is a non-starter. Frankly, I don't want anyone fumigating my mind for any reason.

That said, behavior can be, and is, subject to at least some social and personal control, and behavior is where the rubber of prejudice hits the road of discrimination. Then there is the feedback loop between behavior and thought. The loop may strengthen or weaken biases, depending on various internal and external factors.

Deploying housing policy which forces identifiable groups (like blacks ) into ghettos is a behavioral intervention which enforces prejudice. Integrated housing is also a behavioral intervention, first intended to improve conditions for black people, but secondly to bring about more casual, normal interaction between blacks and whites.

Another example: Gay bars which encourage/accept a racial/ethnic mix create what may be a singular opportunity for gay men to get to know ("know" in the Biblical sense) other men with whom they might never come into even casual contact. Sexual interaction may decrease prejudice. Gay bars which are rigidly white or black may maintain prejudice.

Class prejudices are not as popular in public discourse these days as racial ones, but a lot of policies are directed toward maintaining class advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I'm in favor of maintaining working class prejudice against very wealthy people, and radically decreasing the advantages of very wealth people (like, by eliminating their wealth).

I've argued elsewhere against over-reliance on commencing with definition. it's often better to allow the definition to grow alongside the conversation. — Banno

One of the annoying features of god-talk is defining god (particularly the Abrahamic God) at the start, then getting tangled up in the barbed wire resulting from the definition, like "can an all-powerful god create a weight too heavy for him to lift?" Or "Is a god who [creates] [allows] evil to exist evil?"

Or, "Can an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omni-et cetera god do or not do such and such?" Hmmmm, one wants to ask, "How do you know that a god or God is any of those things, and how would we very finite creatures even think about being present in all times and in all places, knowing everything that there is to know, and being unlimited in any way?"

People make things up. That's fine as long as we remember the difference between what we made up and what actually exists without our help. Unfortunately, we tend to believe our own bullshit.

It was during that time, based on reading and many factors that I really began exploring and entering into a sort of limbo wilderness. — Jack Cummins

College often erodes religion, not so much because of what is taught in classes (though that may well have an effect) but more because of the social aspects of college -- especially if one lives on campus where everyone is trying out new roles for themselves.

Leaving home, working in new environments with varied people, establishing new social circles--all that can undermine old pieties (religious and political). Then having to establish a sex life (especially if one is gay, back when) further undermines one's homespun virtues.

Before long one has become a different person than the child our parents sent off.

This sort of stuff leads to the killing fields. — NOS4A2

I wasn't proposing that we sentence even one of them to a firing squad. I would divest them of their ill-gotten wealth. After that, they would have to get a job and work like everybody else does -- work appropriate to their skills, but not involving re-accumulation of their wealth.

I think losing their wealth and having to live like ordinary people do would be quite severe punishment.

What do you think your education was good for? Any of those things? I really don't, yet I still think it is the most significant thing I possess. I can think of no better way to say it than it allows people to live up to their full potential, to the object of their creation, whatever that might be. — Hanover

Yes, my education helped me achieve much more of my full potential than I would have without it. I shudder to think where I would be without it.

Giving people the means to achieve their potential is very good work, but I'm not at all sure what form of education will serve best--today and tomorrow. I was educated in the 1950s and 60s; but that world doesn't exist (literally and figuratively speaking).

I'm saying though that it seems reasonable to say that the living only truly know their own time — Gregory

Actually, one could argue that the living don't know their own time all that well. It's just damn hard to know what the hell is actually going on. Can you tell me where current events are leading us? We can guess, and we can project optimism or pessimism, but when the culmination arrives it is almost always a complete surprise. 9/11? Fukushima meltdown -- or Chernobyl? Hurricane Katrina? Covid-19?

I'm not saying someone can't have a certain type of certainty about the Bible or Shakespeare, but ones person's certainty is another person's doubt — Gregory

There is much more doubt about what the Anglo Saxons Chroniclers said than what Shakespeare wrote, or Chaucer 200 years earlier. As is the case with other ancient writings, people wrote histories using sources we no longer have access to. Did they make things up or did they copy earlier errors?

Shakespeare in particular contributed quite a bit to the shape of Modern English. There are much more recent writers that are a lot harder to understand than Shakespeare.

You brought up OT religious texts. What about the Greek and Roman philosophers, or poets and playwrights. How is it that Lysistrata is still an amusing play? Well, one reason is that a dildo is still a dildo (which Lysistrata called "her leather consolation"). How certain can we be about Plato? (Probably pretty sure.).

Before the Rosetta Stone and related scholarship, translating Egyptian hieroglyphs was just creative writing--free-association to figures of unknown meaning. Pre-Rosetta and post-Rosetta translations bear no resemblance. (Or so I've read)

I raise the question of how important it is to be right in relation to the whole personal, emotional relationship which we have with the ideas which we have. — Jack Cummins

How important it is "to be right in relation to ... the ideas we have" depends on how much tolerance one has for ambiguity, ambivalence, and dissonance. I have a very strong preference for consistency. Let me compare thinking to interior decoration: Replacing an incongruous lampshade is a small matter. Taking out walls and raising the ceiling is a very big deal.

I was raised to be a good Protestant and did not have major problems with God until I was in my late 30s. I found I didn't believe, and didn't want to be counted as a believer, and one day announced to myself that I was not a believer. This was a much bigger change than replacing the incongruous lampshade. This was changing the floor plan of my mental house. I wanted to live in a knowable world, and a world run by an unknowable God was causing way too much cognitive dissonance and emotional distress. (It is much easier to remodel ideas than remodel emotions.).

The upshot is that the ideas we have, and may wish to change, are supported by emotion (and/or instigated by emotion). Being right (consistent, clear, consonant, content) is very important. That's why discussions become heated. That's why we toss and turn in our beds trying to solve a conflict. That's why the intellectual merry-go-round keeps spinning.

Humans don't do well with a tangle of conflicting, unresolved questions squirming around in their brains like a can of worms. Either we get the worms straightened out and pinned down or we toss the whole thing out.

That's because you have a strong libertarian streak and view the government as your most probable enemy. Meanwhile, the capitalists are screwing you over left and right -- which you don't notice, apparently.

So you don't want to punish the whole class at once? That's fine; we can try and punish them one at a time, if that makes you happier. We'll start with the richest capitalists and most powerful members of the ruling class first, then work our way down to the bottom of the top 1%. Better? After that, we'll deal with your unfortunate case. Don't leave town.

I refuse to acknowledge the notion that “speech has consequences” beyond the immediate physical effects, for instance the movement of breath from the mouth or the application of ink to paper. Since no one but myself can control my motor cortex, I believe the activities you described are the consequence of other, more personal factors. But I can understand the folk psychology of the notion. — NOS4A2

You are taking an extreme position here, and of course you have company. It's a rare idea, indeed, that only one person holds it. A whole folk/pop-psychology school--holding that individuals are entirely responsible for their ideas, reactions, feelings, and so forth, and that no one can influence anyone else--agrees with you. You proclaim the sovereign individual.

We have to agree to disagree, because there is only a small patch of common ground. I hold that we are, in the end, social animals and are influenced by each other. You proclaim the sovereign individual.

Rather than "reparations" for past crimes committed against whole peoples (genocide, slavery, ruthless economic exploitation, etc.), we should defund the class -- the ruling class -- that perpetrated the wrongs in the first place (and they are still at it).

Defunding the ruling class (through expropriation and public ownership of their wealth) would allow for the kind of economic redistribution that could help.

Even if there were a revolution and the ruling class were economically neutered, there are huge cultural problems to over come, and I am confident that we do not know how to do that.

i oppose censoring speech (verbal/written/symbolic). At the same time it is plainly clear that speech has consequences, quite positive as well as quite negative consequences. I think free-speech advocates must acknowledge that speech has real power with real consequences.

Once acknowledged, we are able to manage the consequences. Take Trump's speech on January 6, 2020 and the immediate subsequent trashing of Congress as an example: had the Capitol security force been proactively alert to the potential for a forceful attack, appropriate measures could have / should have been taken to prevent what happened.

Shutting down free speech in Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020 would not have been the appropriate response (referencing the riots that followed George Floyd's death). What would have been appropriate was a more forceful response to looting and arson. Instead, the police and fire departments withdrew from the area, ceding control to rioters.

A free society, where free speech is plentiful, will see political skirmishes in the streets because speech has consequences. Plentiful free speech doesn't mean that all consequences have to be tolerated.

There used to be a few blocks on Boston's downtown Washington St. called "the Combat Zone'. There were bars, strip joints, porn stores, pizza by the slice shops, whores, sailors, soldiers, gays, straights, all sorts. Sleazy in flagrante delicto. One of my coworkers at Boston State Hospital observed that "people need places like the combat zone to be human -- to get in touch with their basic humanity". That struck me as profoundly true. (This was back in the 1960s)

Nude beaches with their attendant sex-on-offer feature serve a similar function. They are places to get in touch with some basic human animal urges. Because gays have been outsiders, or outliers, in the past these venues have been primary. So do other places for other people -- like Mardi Gras, or Carnival, just for example.

It's unfortunate that many straight folks have nothing similar--no place to serve as a place to get in touch with one's most basic urges, without strings attached.

Maybe such a thing not only does not, but can not exist for most people. Civilization depends on sublimating those basic human urges into productive activities.

In my opinion it’s a good thing that marginalized groups are depicted in high status positions, such as surgeons, because it may alter general perception to some degree — praxis

Sure. It's a good thing.

hot lesbian sex has wider appeal (and I confess to that myself). Years ago I remember being on a nude beach where a couple of hot... — praxis

I'll take your word for it's great appeal. I just hope they don't show up at my favorite all male nude beach.