Comments
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On GuiltGuilt is the gift that keeps on giving.
I've felt guilty a lot -- sometimes for good reason, sometimes not.
Guilt is a critical piece of child development: guilt and fear. Sounds medieval? Well, I don't mean it that way. When children are raised, they are usually disciplined regularly (I don't mean cruelly beaten, or anything like that.) When children are punished for doing something their parents don't want them to do (like throwing a tantrum on the bus, in the supermarket, at church, whatever) the parents will spank the child, speak harshly, isolate the child for a while (solitary confinement in a "quiet space") and the like.
To the child, the punishment is frightening, because they fear the parent will withdraw their love and care. (We were always threatened with being sent to bed without supper, or being forced to get out of the car and walk home). The fear of punishment is learned, and internalized.
Guilt comes along with internalized morals: internalized fear. The child knows what he is supposed to do and supposed to not do, but sometimes does it anyway. Because the fear of punishment is internalized, he feels fear (called guilt) when he does something wrong.
Sounds awful, but this is what enables us to go through life obeying laws, not cheating, not stealing, not being unspeakably nasty to other people because they got in your way, and so on. In fact, it helps us be nice to other people, it helps us to be moral individuals.
Some people who have a brain disorder that interferes with the fear/guilt/obedience mechanism are classified as "psychopaths" or "sociopaths" to varying degrees. They don't feel guilt, and they can't feel responsible for what they do -- though cognitively they are perfectly capable of understanding guilt and responsibility. But they don't feel it, and feeling it is where the rubber hits the road.
So, a little guilt is a good and necessary thing, a lot of guilt is destructive.
When one feels guilty a lot, (like if one is religious, is gay, and can't square the religious condemnation of what one can not help but feel), then something has to give. Usually, and it's the best outcome, people decide their morals are too rigid, are incorrect, or just plain wrong. The alternative is to tear one's self to shreds feeling guilty for what one IS and can not change.
My solution to the Christian/gay/guilt problem was to decide that the church was wrong. Fortunately there were several religious organizations handy to facilitate this conclusion.
So, you can beat guilt. It doesn't mean you have to throw the moral bath water and the baby of principles out the back door. What you have to do is, maybe change the bath water and teach the baby better principles that come closer to matching your personal situation.
Good luck.
"In the name of mumble mumble mumble I hereby absolve you of all your sins. Go in peace." -
Poll: out of body and near death experiencesPlastic bag -- come on! I'm more technically sophisticated than that!
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Poll: out of body and near death experiencesI'm having an out of body near death experience right now. Oops, got too close. Bye...
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What's soupA doll house is not big enough for people to live in; is it a house? It is, yes. Even if it's a rather imaginary space, something a child has conjured up, it is "house" in as much as it is space divided up, and given a "roof" for shelter, even if for imaginary objects in imagined situations.
So, the doll's rocking char is no problem. It has the form of wooden rocking chairs, and if a rat sat in it, the rat could rock. Rat rocking contentedly, Hickory hickory dare; the rat rocks in the chair.
is this a table and chair or is it a "sculpture" as it is termed, put in a London park to encourage people to be creative? If an ordinary object is changed in scale, does it cease having the form that gives it identity? Hmmm, don't know about that.
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Bukowski's novel WomenBukowski wrote somewhere that bars were ruined by TVs. — dog
I'll drink to that. Video killed the bar stool star, too, I guess. Good bars don't have TVs, or music so loud you can't hear anyone talk. That's not accidental--when people can't hear anyone (can't hear themselves think, practically) they buy/drink more booze. I always thought the reason to go to a bar was to talk and/or get laid, certainly not to watch television. -
Bukowski's novel WomenThey didn't have to be Batman or Mick Jagger to live noble lives. — dog
Mick Jagger lives a noble life? -
What is the mind?I'm just not sure we can talk intelligently about this, because we can't experience anything about our minds when the mind isn't working away full blast. So, when you say "what is the mind without its content" what do you even mean?
We know from experience that when we give people certain anesthetic drugs (an + aisthēsis, sensation) systemically they become unconscious. When they wake up they have no memory from the period of unconsciousness. Sleep is similar, but we often wake up with what we believe are memories from that state -- dreams.
When we wire up the box in which the mind is presumably located, we know that whatever is going on inside the box keeps going on during sleep, and anesthesia, though not quite the same as when the person is awake. The EEG trace is not something we can read to see what we were thinking about, if anything.
FMRIs provide similar information about what is going on in the box, whether we are awake or not.
We can't get outside of our heads to objectively view our minds, and we can't directly observe somebody else's mind.
If we switch to what the brain is doing, we can make a little more sense of what is going on. -
What's soupA chair is a portable piece of furniture on which it is intended 1 person will sit with back support.
A chair is designed so that it will not fall over easily while in use. Four legs is the most common solution for stability, but other solutions are possible. A chair may include structures on which to rest one's arms. The legs of a chair may be attached to curved wood pieces so that a limited rocking motion can be made. The chair may be made out of wood only, metal only, plastic only, other material, or a combination. The chair may be hard or covered with cloth, leather, plastic, and padding. Parts of the chair may be movable so that one can recline in the chair instead of sitting upright.
The height of a chair seat is usually such that most people can rest their feet on the floor while using the chair.
Chairs A, B, C, & D; all different, all obviously chairs.
Christiansen
Saarinen
Marcel Breuer
Avant Guard
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What's soupThe difference between soup and stew is thickness, usually. Unless nothing worked out right, in which case soup and stew are indistinguishable.
In the midwest "chili" is all too often hamburger-kidney bean-tomato stew. -
Bukowski's novel WomenPOLITICS IS LIKE TRYING TO SCREW A CAT IN THE ASS
"Dear Mr. Bukowski:
Why don't you ever write about politics or world affairs?"
M.K.
"Dear M.K.:
What for? Like, what's new? --- everybody knows the bacon is burning."
I think that if Adolph Hitler were around now he would pretty much enjoy the present scene.
what's there to say about politics and world affairs? the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban crisis, spy planes, spy ships, Vietnam, Korea, lost H-bombs, riots in American cities, starvation in India, purge in Red China? are there good guys and bad guys? some that always lie, some that never lie? are there good governments and bad governments? no, there are only bad governments and worse governments. will there be a flash of light and heat that rips us apart one night while we are screwing or crapping or reading the comic strips or pasting blue-chip stamps into a book? instant death is nothing new, nor is mass instant death new. but we've improved the product; we've had these centuries of knowledge and culture and discovery to work with; the libraries are fat and crawling and overcrowded with books; great paintings sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars; medical science is transplanting the human heart; you can't tell a madman from a sane one upon the streets, and suddenly we find our lives, again, in the hands of the idiots. the bombs may never drop; the bombs might drop. eeney, meeney, miney, mo
now if you'll forgive me, dear readers, I'll get back to the whores and the horses and the booze, while there's time. if these contain death, then, to me, it seems far less offensive to be responsible for your own death than the other kind which is brough to you fringed with phrases of Freedom and Democracy and Humanity and/or any of all that Bullshit. — Charles Bukowski -
Bukowski's novel WomenI haven't read any Bukowski for many years, and I don't think I read Woman. I enjoyed his short stories a lot. A year or two ago I made an effort to read Kerouac and some of the other Beats I hadn't read when I should have, back in the 1960s; It was "OK". I liked Ginsberg's beatnik era poetry. I've tried Henry Miller several times and just don't like his stuff. Burroughs was not too bad. A reviewer said, "Bukowski is a disgraceful role model for any aspiring writer but he writes with extraordinary candor and conviction." Maybe not all that disgraceful, but he'd be a difficult act to top.
When I read him, the internet was in the future we now occupy. Just fished this poem out.
we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life
among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is. — Charles Bukowski -
Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!I believe the unit belonging to the handle, "ProgrammingGodJordan" may be having delusions of grandeur, just from the handle alone. Beliefism is for the birds.
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Wouldn't we be better off without most of the labels we apply to ourselves?Just because something is natural does not mean it is a good idea or should be a high priority. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Well, sure, true enough. Just because one's murderous rages are natural doesn't mean one should give free rein to them. Or just because the pie is so delicious, doesn't mean one should, therefore, eat the whole thing at one time.
On the other hand, just because something like wanting to belong is natural doesn't make it something to lament and overcome.
I am not convinced that people would not benefit from getting in touch more with their own interiority and worrying less about what jigsaw puzzle piece they are and where in the external puzzle they fit. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Of course people should know themselves more thoroughly. The unexamined life is not worth living, and all that. I am, and you, I should think, are also an inner directed person. Inner directed people generally know the territory of their interiority somewhat better than other directed folk. (One is not better than the other; different features have different advantages at different times.) Other directed folk probably get other people better than I do.
A shortage of labels makes it difficult to think clearly about one's self and about other people. One needs many pigeon holes and many labels to sort out the features of ourselves and others. "Nice guy" and "asshole" aren't quite enough categories. We are, I think, much more alike than we are different, but we are still all composed of many components. Components combine into various types of thinking and personalities. It gets complicated. -
How much can I, as an individual, affect political policy?One individual citizen usually can not sway public policy at all. There are exceptions: You might be presented with the opportunity to do something remarkable, and it might be photographed and published. Think of that guy who stood in front of the column of tanks rolling into Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. His brave act didn't bring a government down, but he made a political point that rolled across China.
Or think of the many thousands of people who individually and collectively worked to reduce discrimination against gay people in the 1970s or against black people in the 1960s. A lot of the work was carried out by very small groups of people planning and acting in their local communities. Sure, there were huge political demonstrations, but that was late in the game. In the beginning, it was mostly individuals and small groups.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. — Margaret Mead
Individual citizens always play a role in social, civil, and political change by making choices in their personal actions that support change. An example is when individuals won't cross a picket line to shop at a store where workers are on strike. This is usually not much of a sacrifice, but it helps.
Inform yourself. Decide what kind, or what specific issue(s) you find important and urgent. Read the literature of large groups. For instance, you might check out the Nature Conservancy or Sierra Club if the environment is your issue. Find your group.
But there are always local issues which are a piece of larger issues. Maybe there are people in your immediate neighborhood that have difficulty navigating because they have mobility problems (use wheelchairs or walkers) and the city hasn't made curb cuts at the corners which enable people with mobility problems to use the sidewalks more easily. (Assuming there are sidewalks, of course -- which a lot of places don't have.) One individual becoming a thorn in the side of a city council person or city bureaucrat can often get the city to do things.
You will probably find your city and county government more accessible than the state government, and the state government will be more accessible than the federal government. That's OK, because a lot of what government does is done at the local level. -
Wouldn't we be better off without most of the labels we apply to ourselves?
So, you are a non-drinking non-smoking belief transcending New Yorker with overtones of post-modernist pragmatic tendencies. OK, then, your group is meeting in suite 15-129. Lots of people for you to get to know up there.
NEXT
Labels didn't hurt Steve Miller's Joker
I'm a picker
I'm a grinner
I'm a lover
I'm a sinner
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a mid-night toker
We have terms for things, conditions, places, people, animals, times, behaviors, landscapes, and so forth. All LABELS. I can't get along without them.
Labels reach into the most privy parts of our personalities to pin down properties that we might prefer to be left free to wander from their named corral. But if we can't name them, what can we think about, talk about, know about, do about them?
The great discovery of each homosexual is that there is a label for what he feels, and the existence of a label leads to the knowledge that he is not the only one. Homosexuals (gays) may be despised and/or damned to hell, destined for a life of aesthetic superiority, or any number of labeled fates, but at least there is a category into which they fit. The label enables a linking up of many more labels that eventually adds up to knowledge. It's axiomatic that we social animals do not want to be so unique that we don't resemble anyone else. We don't really want to be "one of a kind".
So, we label. The problem is not labelling, the problem is slipshod labelling, or the pasting on of descriptors and tags that don't correspond to the object (person, condition, color, politics, etc.). Were you to have been raised among people who practiced no religion, had no superstitions, had never heard of incorporeal beings, and were entirely innocent of doctrine, neither "believer", nor "unbeliever" would be an appropriate label. The usual labels would just not fit. You might be labeled "innocent of religion."
The problem isn't labeling, the problem is coercive labeling which might be ever after inescapable. "Felon", "terrorist", "Christ killer", "nigger", "white trash", "faggot", "retarded", "sex maniac", "criminal", "narcissistic personality disorder". Negative labels can be a burden, and mislead. But so can positive labels when misapplied: "Presidential", "genteel", "distinguished", "inspired", "brilliant", "faithful", "royal", "Christ-like" and numerous other words, negative and positive can have outsized effects. Dorothy Day (founder of the Catholic Worker Movement) said, "Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed that easily." "Saints" are too good to be true for this world. Much admired, they are quite ignorable. Incorrect positive labels can lead to abject failures. -
The trolley problem - why would you turn?Thank you for providing moral clarity here:
It is not morally permissible to kill innocent people no matter how handy it might be to get rid of someone. The trolley problem is trying to get people to engage in sacrificial conduct. — Thorongil's Link -
Is Experience definable?an eye opened up onto the world — michael r d james
Not that it makes a bit of difference, but the first eyes did not have lids that opened and closed. They were light receptors wired into a nervous system. No blinking back then. No eye rolling. Just the simple organism with some light receptors sloshing around in the swamp. Eventually eyelids were invented so that higher creatures could avoid looking at disagreeable features of reality. -
On the possible form of a omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, GodWelcome to The Philosophy Forum.
Question: Where did the formulation of God as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent come from? What is the textual support?
I am opposed to this formulation because it seems to me to be
a. meaningless in human context
b. beyond human conception
One can toss the term "omnipresent" around, but can we understand a being who we say is present in all moments everywhere throughout time? And beyond that, knows everything there was, is, and will be to know, and can do anything about it that he, she, or it so desires?
I don't think we can get our time/space/knowledge-limited brains around such a being endowed with these infinite characteristics. We also lay at the feet of this being responsibility for everything that has happened, is happening, and ever ill happen. An omniscient being in whose cosmos we live is incompatible with us having free will. (If we did something that God didn't expect, this would violate his omniscience. If we can can do nothing that is unforeseen, then e do not have free will. Yet, we are supposed to have free will so that we can freely believe in god. And so on and so forth ad infinitum.
These "omni" concepts get us into muddles. Solution?
a. We know nothing, we can know nothing, about god.
Or
b. God is knowable to us, and isn't omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
But then, if he isn't all that Omni stuff, how did he manage to instigate the big bang or creation in some other form?
The more one digs, the deeper the hole gets. -
What happened to "Philosophy Forums"?The old forum moulders in its grave as The Ungrateful Dead. Don't hang around there. You may find a thread you are in suddenly collapses into a subbasement with NO EXIT. The monsters of the past lurk in untended prisons. Ghouls and zombies lurk in dark corners. It is as thoroughly contaminated by filthy lucre as Tsjernobyl is by radiation.
Abandon hope all ye who enter there.
Any other questions?
And welcome to this fine successor. -
#MeTooet al
This may or may not be of interest to anyone... But how do gay men behave toward each other in gay bars, and other working-class gay socializing or meet-up situations?
It isn't too surprising that the standards of behavior are somewhat different than heterosexual settings, but they aren't a world apart. One difference is that physical contact is often a stand-in or lead-in for verbal contact. Touch then talk. Not always, but often. Much more civilized. Physical contact can range from very frank sexual contact to much more tentative gestures. Not all forays are accepted, of course, and rejection is generally expressed also through ordinary gestures. Most guys don't take offense to unsolicited, unwanted gestures. If someone persists, they are verbally set straight, so to speak. No, it's not going to happen. Forget it.
Where gay men display more open hostility to unwanted contact is where their social status seems to be 'on the line', in public places like bars or gatherings. Some presumably socially insecure men almost display a "negative force field" around themselves when persons who don't enhance their social status approach.
The social distance between personal boundaries is generally smaller for gay men than straight men. This is especially obvious in the Midwest where interpersonal boundaries are generally the length of each person's arm. A lot of midwestern men need a couple of drinks to comfortably tolerate the crowdedness of a cruisy gay bar, let alone function socially.
At times and where possible, gay men also sometimes practice 'sexual contact before social contact', something that horrifies a lot of straight people. "How could that possibly be?" It's possible and it works quite well.
I've often thought heterosexuals would be happier if they operated on the same terms that gay men operate on. Sexual objects (other gay men) are fair game for a frank approach, and a firm "no" seems to work, partly because less is invested in the approach in the first place (less to lose), partly because there are lots more possible objects to approach (more fish in the sea, even if the sea is smaller than the heterosexual ocean).
This whole style of interaction does not work well for gay men who take an "only you and nobody else" approach. In that case, rejection isn't respected, and the campaign continues, often to the point of rather awkward, socially inappropriate, and embarrassing extremes of desperation. That's when gay behavior really begins to resemble some heterosexual behavior.
Are gay men always respectful, kind, decent, sexual partners, once the deal has been closed? No, of course not. Gay men are like other people in this respect, which is that people tend to be disappointing in ever so many ways. -
New Year FundraiserYou need a more self-confident ask. Your's is too wishy-washy. Just come out and demand everything!
Who knows? The next Hegel may start posting here, or the next Heidegger. Or the Real McCoy. And YOU could be held partially responsible! So dig deep. Just give us ALL YOUR MONEY!
That's right: sell your house, your car, your children; you wife, husband, spouse, significant other––whoever that loser is that you have been running around with; your tchotchkes, your books, pets, etc. Send the proceeds to infoatthephilosophyforumdotcom.
Unburden yourself. Be free at last of material burdens that keep you from achieving the ideal world you want to live in. Be free of inanimate impediments to the True Life of the Mind. You have nothing to lose but the chains of possession!
Giving The Philosophy Forum ALL YOU MONEY will not be a disaster. You will change the history of The Philosophy Forum forever. You will be remembered and mentioned frequently. Overcoming thingy attachment is not easy to master, but the rewards are INFINITE. Don't delay -- prevarication is the mark of merchants of mendacities. ACT NOW. Bank Tellers are standing by to receive your cash and issue Thank You notes. — Crank Promotions
Of course we will visit you in debtors prison.
Your poverty will not be our problem.
Donations are not refundable.
It was your free will choice.
Sell it all now.
Give it to us.
At once! -
#MeTooReally? BC, you have known me for over a decade and do you honestly think that I cannot tell the difference between a pat on the ass and rape?
Such an insult to the #MeToo movement. — ArguingWAristotleTiff
I'm absolutely sure that you can tell the difference. You, however, are a rational, thinking individual while #MeToo is a hashtag which is, perhaps, becoming something more complex and capable of differentiations. It's not there yet.
Two cases in particular can serve as an example of the misuse of #MeToo-ism: Al Franken and Garrison Keillor. Both men were accused of acts that hover around "bad manners" and "minor error in judgement" on the low end of the scale, not approaching sexual harassment and certainly not sexual assault. Both, however, were compelled to resign (Franken) or given the bums rush by their former employer (Keillor).
Harvey Weinstein's behavior was egregious, and lands solidly on the high end of the scale, at rape. Kevin Spacey's behavior with the 18 year old guy was in the middle, somewhere around deplorable--and actionable.
These are the sorts of distinctions that aren't being made by the #MeToo wave. -
Challenging the Status QuoI'm usually all for subverting the dominant paradigm, but "status quo" sort of covers the whole universe. Could you narrow this down, just a hair?
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Philosophy WebsitesAnd if you think wsws.org is anything else than a cesspool of conspirationist degenerates, than I cannot accept your judgement as valid. So I guess there it goes. :s — Akanthinos
Well... you don't like the alt-right, you don't like academic criticism of BS, and you don't like Trotskyist socialist rags, what the hell do you like?
Like I said, I've looked at a lot of left wing socialist stuff over the years. I didn't say so above, but I don't find most of their publications or web sites very satisfying. This one did have a perfectly straightforward article about a new class of HIV antiviral compound, which appeared to have just been picked up off a science web site without any editorial comment. On the other hand, they didn't strike me as a cesspool of degenerate conspiracists (or conspiratorial degenerates either).
This is probably a Socialist Workers Party product -- or something similar.
A good 50 % of their pieces in the last month were nothing more than postmodernism bashing or feminism bashing. — Akanthinos
Yeah, but I like bashing postmodernism. I like bashings of "feminist theory" or "critical theory" too. You may not like liver and onions, but that doesn't make it any less delicious. Same for drowning POMO kittens in ice water. -
Philosophical Progress & Other Metaphilosophical Issues"unconscious undercurrent"
Creative activity seems to be mostly unconscious. Stuff flows out of one's head, without one having decided exactly what one would do in the studio, at the typewriter, with the marimba and bagpipe horror show. -
Philosophy WebsitesI've looked at a lot of socialist web sites in my day -- http://wsws.org/ struck me as a good all around site.
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Philosophy WebsitesGee whiz, I didn't think they were alt-right sites. Is it not possible to criticize academic fads, feminism, and such without being tarred by the alt-right brush?
Lingua Franca (died some time back) and Quillette are very similar magazines. They are not right wing, they are merely critical of extremes in academic BS. -
Philosophical Progress & Other Metaphilosophical IssuesDidn't only Warhol say that? Regardless, — Noble Dust
According to Google search and Wikiquote (and how could there be any error in that) they both said it. It could be that one of them was quoting the other. Or, it could be they both had the same insight, though the likelihood that they would have both conceived this insight in exactly the same words and word order passes unlikely.
It sounds more like Warhol than McLuhan, though McL was quite capable of the snappy quote. You decide for all time: Just say which one said "Art is whatever you can get away with" and that will be that.
Don't literary and plastic arts also require knowledge of what the given mediums, the forms, can and cannot do? — Noble Dust
Sure, but not nearly as much as music. Sculptors would need a great deal of material knowledge in order to take a chisel to marble or a spatula to clay. So, I know I couldn't write a decent short poem in iambic pentameter let alone a longer one with a formal rhyme scheme. Iambic tetrameter I can manage, and can manage a rhyme scheme too for short poems. (Iambic tetrameter is ideally suited to drivel poetry.)
Paint? I've seen some modern paintings where knowledge about anything didn't seem to be required, or even helpful. But knowledge about paint should have a shallower learning curve than the curve for writing string quartets or odd instrumental combinations (bagpipes and marimbas). -
Philosophical Progress & Other Metaphilosophical IssuesSure, I agree. — Noble Dust
Good. Keep it up.
I think musical composition would have to be more intuitively integrative and experiential than literary or plastic arts, because the composer has to know what a voice can and can not do, as well as what a violin, kazoo, gong, french horn, oboe, piano, guitar, or whatever the instruments are that one is going to compose for can and can not do.
All creators of art have to know what they get away with--as Warhol or McLuhan said, "Art is whatever you can get away with."
The point I want to make is that it’s not so clear whether certain works have actually “stood the test of time”, given all of those factors we both mentioned. And, to stay on topic, perhaps the same goes for philosophical works and concepts. — Noble Dust
Well, right, just because there are several editions of Plato on the shelf, doesn't mean Plato stood the test of time for everybody that walked into the bookstore, or even bought one of the editions of Plato, or even read some of it. Shakespeare hasn't stood the test of time for a lot of people, because his large volume of work in early-modern English is at least something of a challenge for many to read, and there is a lot of it.
McLuhan thinks that the real art of our time is advertising, and at least to some extent I agree. One of my favorite shows is the British Television Advertising Awards that plays every year at Christmas time, at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The best of the ads are truly inspired, and are intense little nuggets of artistic creation. -
Philosophical Progress & Other Metaphilosophical IssuesI disagree. Of course an artist or philosopher builds off of what comes before. It’s well known who was influenced by who. — Noble Dust
And if influence is a hair too obvious, then we sneer dismissively, "Derivative".
But it doesn't matter whether we think the arts make progress or not -- all of us put together can not tell anybody how to produce the next masterpiece.
But what makes it compelling now can’t be what made it compelling then; the focal point of interest changes over time, and the same is true of philosophical concepts. — Noble Dust
Of course, some hermeneutical effort will be needed to get the maximum value out of the thing, and we will never be THE intended audience. But I liked it when I read it, and if a dunce such as I was when I read it can get something out of it, then many others can too. It was better than some contemporary experimental literary works I have had the misfortune to come across.
You are an artist? Musician? Somebody here is, I forget. But let's say you sit down at your clean, shiny, carved oak desk (no distracting pile of mail on it), ink well, quill, and paper in front of you to write a novel, poem, play... whatever. Want a candle? Add a candle. Sure, you will be influenced by what you have read previously. You will know, for instance, that the lines of a poem can have, may have, should have (depending) rhythm and rhyme. You will know (maybe) that a novel benefits from having an intriguing plot, very interesting characters, and lively dialogue. You'll know before you begin that plays are divided into acts, are all talk, but you get to provide stage directions. You will have poems, novels, and plays floating around your head, which you will want to keep at bay so you don't end up writing something too similar to last week's very popular episode of the horror show, Writer's Cramp on Amazon.
For the most part, though, you are on your own. YOU have to come up with all the amazingly good ideas, clever comments, exquisite word choices, etc., and no amount of familiarity with literature is going to help you very much. Evidence: how many Professors of English Literature (or any other literature) are also published authors of poetry, fiction, or drama that people actually enjoy? Few, few, few. Conversely, how many prize winning authors dump writing so they can teach at your average debased university English department? -
Philosophical Progress & Other Metaphilosophical IssuesNow, why do philosophy, art, literature, etc. not progress? Is it because they lack a goal towards which to direct their energies? Or? — Agustino
It's the nature of artistic creativity: It comes out of an individual's particular history, and that is unique to each person. Even if I study all prior literature extensively, when I write a novel it isn't a summation of all the previous novels, plus my special innovations. Philosophers, artists, writers--creative workers in general, start from scratch. And when they succeed, they all succeed equally well (or not).
An inventor of a mechanical object might also start from scratch -- creating a kind of device that had not existed previously. More likely he will pull together pieces of existing technology and create something new, using the features of the components. Telephones, televisions, and computers are examples.
There is no absolute rule to originally in either the arts or mechanics.
Some philosophers did build on pre-existing systems, and extend them. Chaucer didn't invent the idea of people telling stories to make a long trip pass more quickly. Boccaccio's Decameron did the same thing a few decades before the Canterbury Tales, and before Boccaccio there was... and some inventors have come up with de novo ideas, which I can't think of just off hand. X-rays? Close, but it was more of a happy-chance discovery. X-rays having been discovered, the inventor of an x-ray machine can't claim complete originality (and nobody will thing less of his invention for all that).
But cameras definitely made progress between Daguerre and the latest digital camera. (Wikipedia says Nicéphore Niépce is now usually credited as the inventor of photography and a pioneer in that field. News to me.) Serial tale-telling hasn't improved since Boccaccio and Chaucer.
Another aspect of progress, A play like Lysistrata is as good now as it was 2400 years ago. The epic of Gilgamesh is 4000 years old. Still works. Same for Homer's 3200 year old Iliad and Odyssey. Some very basic tools are as good now as they were 2 and 3 thousand years ago. A Roman's copper pan will fry an egg just as well now as it did 2500 years ago. Man's first good fishhook looks pretty much like the last fishhook I baited. I could skewer a TPF moderator just as well with a an ancient Greek blade as with a brand new bayonet. (I won't elaborate on the desirability or pleasures of doing so.) -
#MeTooBut sexual advances, wanted and unwanted, are an ordinary part of life and not in themselves bad, regrettable or traumatic. — jamalrob
They are a part of life, and people with normal cognitive processing are able to distinguish between "a sexual advance", wanted or unwanted, and rape.
A feature of the #me2 movement is that they are unwilling to distinguish between a pat on a woman's derriere and rape. The former can not be worse than annoying, and has nothing in common with the latter. Similarly, verbal requests for sex are not the same as rape. By collapsing all undesired sexual suggestion, touching, innuendo, humor, and so on into "assault" along with forced sodomy and rape, and then "catastrophizing" a joke of which a woman might disapprove, #metoo has created a movement which will burn out on flimsy grievances. -
#MeTooIf it's an attempt at humour then it's pretty damn tone deaf (and still nonsensical). — Michael
More evidence confirming diagnosis.
NOTE TO MICHEL: References to your diagnosis and lack of treatment options are mostly a joke, which, of course, you don't, won't, can't get, owing to your funny-bone impairment.
Here are three more jokes, cartoons. Please describe your cognitive processing of these cartoons.
BC
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