This is truth as an alien object. This truth is an asteroid in the dark of pre-human time. What can "faith" mean if religion is an obsession with this person-independent object? — t0m

Truth is of course person-independent, what's wrong with that? Man is not the measure of all things, that would be ridiculously anthropocentric, not to mention based on pure self-aggrandisement and selfishness. As harsh as it is, man is in this sense not the centre of the Universe.

How does this not reduce religion to metaphysical arrogance? He who sees the Thing in its Truth gets to call the shots, right? — t0m

No, it wouldn't follow that he who understands or knows the Truth thereby gets to call the shots. Calling the shots is a practical and political affair, which has little correspondence with what is True, but rather with persuasion and influence. Truth cannot compel.

He who questions the objectivity of this object is a blasphemer, a revolutionary. For him the hemlock or the cross? — t0m

Paradoxically, it was Jesus and Socrates who believed in absolute truth, and those who killed them who didn't.

You've answered your own criticism, to change the structure of something is not to distill it out. How can one change the structure of something that is no longer there. :s — Baden

Well, evidently those means I mentioned aim to change the structure that has already been placed there by our culture & society through the way we were raised up. If you were raised up differently, in a different society and under a different culture and different circumstances, you would get a different structure in place by the time you grow up. We only need to change it, because our culture and society doesn't get it right from the first place.

Again, sure. And how does that work out in practice and why? — Baden

Depends on the epoch and how influential those practices/beliefs are in culture and society.

Kind of sounds like we're a bunch of chimps or something. :) — Baden

Hominization does happen precisely through cultural institutions, ritual, sacrifice, and prohibitions. If we eliminate those, it's not at all surprising that we start to return to chimp levels of behaviour.

And yet the most liberal societies (e.g.western Europe, particularly Scandinavia) are among the most peaceful that have ever existed. :s — Baden

Oh yeah the GREAT Scandinavia :-} - Scandinavia is not peaceful at all. Anders Brevik was from there for example. There are also many Neo-Nazi groups in those Nordic countries too.

And to judge the "peacefulness" of Western society based on less than 100 years from what were the 2 most brutal and bloody conflicts in human history is childish.

Perhaps you could quote some highlights. I'm not a subscriber, and I'd prefer to respond to a particular point. — t0m

Subscription is free for 30 days. Get the subscription, download the text, cancel it immediately. You'll still be able to use it for 30 days though, so you can download books and other things that you want. There's many books in the documents section.

There's nothing I want you to respond to in particular, I just think it's a different perspective from yours, and you'd find it interesting. It's a 30 page essay, it's a quick read.

I have had discussions with some Christians who believe this is the beginning of a great decline because Christianity is no longer at the center of our cultural vision. Is that why you feel the way you do, or are there other reasons? — T Clark

No, this isn't just about Christianity here. It's rather about the fact that no spiritual or religious tradition has currency anymore - Western man can no longer relate with the divine and with the transcendent - through no spiritual tradition for that matter. Man has been left to his own devices, and in-so-far as that is true, "God is dead", practically speaking. The West is dying spiritually. Paradoxically, it is the revelation of Christianity that has brought about this spiritual death, so far from not being at the centre, Christianity is now at the centre more than ever before in history. Christianity does not foreshadow peace and prosperity on Earth - but the Apocalypse. Whether this is "the end" or a partial end that will open upon a new beginning, that remains to be seen.

the Good as it relates to god's telos as set down in post Nicene Christian interpretations of this Idea? — schopenhauer1

:s

I presume the only hope you condone is one with a capital "H", right? — schopenhauer1

I said hope should be placed in what is eternal, not what is temporary and fleeting.

Same reason I've never met a leprechaun, I suppose. — Wosret

No Wos, it's actually quite a rational and mathematical reason. What's a superhuman? 1 in how many human beings? 1/10,000? 1/100,000? 1/1,000,000? If it's either of those 3, then the expected value of you having met such a person and known them rounds off to 0. You probably have met and known in your life less than 5,000 people. So you wouldn't exactly expect to have met and known a superhuman.

I did, and do. People are only super humans in stories, I've never met one. — Wosret

Well would you expect to have met a super human? Presumably, super humans are rare right? If they were common occurrence, they wouldn't be super humans in the first place.

No. — Baden

Right, you take the naive view that they are already inflamed, increased and redirected - naturally. Just look at chimps! ;) :D

saints are either lame, cowardly and simply incapable, or abuse their power, position, and influence, if they can get away with it. — Wosret

No doubt that some people who claim to be saints are as you describe here, but I very much doubt that you can make this claim about all saints.

Kristnamurti was doing his best bud's wife, whom also claims that he routinely humiliated, and emasculated, and kind of thought she was his reincarnated mother too. — Wosret

Yeah, it's possible he was, but the extent to which that went on for is unknown. And there was quite a lot of conflict it seems between Krishnamurti and Rajagopal, not to mention that Rajagopal's wife wasn't having sexual relations with him anymore. It may be that far from being Krishnamurti's initiative, it could just as well have been Rosalind's in her (and her husband's) attempt to control K. No doubt that K was also guilty, but it's hard to place the blame squarely on him since we don't know the situation very well. Obviously though, it does tarnish his reputation and makes his statements and philosophy suspicious.

That would be biology. — Baden

Well, obviously the origin of all sexual desire is in biology. No one would deny that. But you seem to deny that these primary desires can be inflamed, increased and redirected by many factors, the most important being society and culture for human beings (other animals too). So the sexual desire you encounter in society is by no means the biological desire for sex - that biological desire has been so manipulated and twisted that it is not even recognizable anymore. That's why I say that 99% of human sexual desire is not biological. That is for example why what excites us and sexually stimulates our desires changes - in one epoch one standard of dressing is perceived as hot and provocative and in another a different standard. So clearly when you see that "hot girl" it's not just a biological desire that is at play, but overwhelmingly it is a desire that is socially mediated and created - you've been taught that that type of girl is hot, that her way of dressing is hot and attractive, and that you should pursue her because you'll have higher status if you have her than if you don't, that she'd make a good mate - not in the English sense of mate :D . You'll also imagine how other men would find her hot and attractive and would want to be with her, which further fuels your desire for her.

Dominance hierarchies are natural in primates like us (and many other species) and the main reason to be on the top is access to mates (for males at least) — Baden

Dominance hierarchies tend to arise in all animal species where imitation is at the basis of their society. Human beings are a lot more imitative than chimps, so that's also why we have bigger and more complex dominance hierarchies than chimps do. Without a dominance hierarchy - which really is nothing but prohibition - an imitative society would erupt in violence, which would propagate itself and bring that society and all its members to an end. So dominance hierarchies aren't primary - they are secondary to the imitative nature of desire in animals like chimps, or humans. Without the stabilization of dominance hierarchies which act as a means of stopping the spread of imitative violence and conflict, such societies would not survive. The problem though is that dominance hirearchies no longer work in human societies, and nothing can be done about that - we need a new way to prevent violence, or we will go extinct.

You seem to think you can reprogram human behaviour from the top down and somehow distill out desires that have a natural basis. You can't. — Baden

Oh? Then what are we doing in advertising and marketing if not inflaming already existent and basic human desires, re-directing them, and so on so forth? :s What are we doing in psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, moral philosophy, etc. if not trying to change our structure of desire?

If you look at Franz de Waal's work on chimpanzees, for example, you'll see how closely chimp politics resembles our own. — Baden

Just like chimps have developed their basic dominance hierarchies and structures to prevent the outbreak of violence given their limited mimetic abilities, man has done the same. Just as in chimp communities there exist forms of behaviour, prohibitions and ritual which prevent the outbreak of imitative violence, so also there exist even more complex mechanisms in human societies to mediate this. If anything, chimps form an in-between the more imitative human and the other less imitative animals. For example, when a dominance hierarchy is established in certain species of monkeys, the male who has been "beaten" by his rival puts himself in a position of homosexual availability towards the alpha monkey. Why? Because the alpha monkey isn't only a rival, it is also a model - the inferior monkey wants to be like the alpha, it is fascinated by the alpha. And this ritual of submissions prevents the outbreak of violence by re-directing the desire of the loser from the sexual object (the female) to his model (the rival). One reason why all sexual rivalry is homosexual in its structure.

Because we are primates, and that's the way primates act. Culture can only mould the clay its given. — Baden

That is true, but to suppose that human beings are primates in the same sense that chimps are is folly. Our capacity for imitation is a lot greater, which means the potential for greater conflict, and the need for more complex social and cultural structures to mediate that. Sexual desire isn't entirely biological in primates either by the way - just that dominance hierarchies and other cultural and social elements that they have play a lesser role in determining their sexual behaviour.

I hit puberty and then I wanted to get as much sex as possible. And I don't think its much more complicated for most teenage boys than that (Hollywood or no). — Baden

I didn't ask for your 14-year-old self-understanding of your desires here. We already know that the process of desire formation happens largely unconsciously, behind the scenes. It requires analysis to be disentangled and understood. I asked you to reflect back on your experience and think if there weren't other factors that you could identify that were responsible for your sexual desire and the way it was directed. For example, why were you attracted to particular girls, and not to others? When you wanted to have sex with a girl and you saw one other guy or more guys wanting the same thing, how did you react? What did you feel and why? When you saw a girl that many guys liked, did you find yourself also liking her?

I'm not interested in the naïve self-understanding your 14-year-old self had, or the naïve self-understanding most people have. We have to look deeper than that. For example, the girl I would desire most - ideally - would be the girl that is wanted by all men, but only I have her. Desire always tends to focus on the impossible object. Yes, others are perceived as rivals, that is true. But without their desire, then the object of desire would feel worthless to desire in the first place. That is the paradox of desire, and it is why desire is a blind alley. But all this illustrates that our desire itself is imitative and ultimately violent - the more others desire one object, the more we desire it as well. I want sex because others want it. If others didn't want it, I might want it only when it was actually relevant, but would definitely have little desire to pursue it. Understanding the blind alleys of desire can get one to stop pursuing desire - be free from desire as the Buddhists would say - but it wouldn't necessarily stop one from feeling them once they have been placed there by the structure of society and the culture that they grew up in. Reason can indeed only work with what it is given, but what is given isn't biological in large majority, but culturally mediated. All religions, but especially Christianity and some forms of Buddhism encourage the abandonment of imitative desire as the solution to the ills of the world.

Agustino seems to think that a liberal society itself is the problem. — Baden

Your liberal society is not liberal at all, but illiberal. When rivalry is allowed to run amok, nobody can enjoy the object of desire - everyone is busy killing each other off, outplaying each other, competing, etc. - we all become fascinated with the rival, and the rival is more punishing than any law would be. At least the law is impersonal and applies equally to all - it doesn't torment us, it doesn't outrage us. Just because there is choice does not mean that there is freedom. The two shouldn't be confused.

In one sense, I do understand why society is becoming "liberal" - sacrificial mechanisms no longer work to keep the peace. But this becoming more "liberal" is identical with becoming more violent - violence becomes harder to control. Hence your "harsher punishments".

Perhaps, but those aren't the ones that motivate. — schopenhauer1

The point you're refusing to acknowledge is that what you put your finger on isn't a universal way of experiencing reality, or even the objective way. It's the diseased way of the modern world.

Read this.

Hope isn't the same thing as having a goal. Someone can have a goal and even pursue it without any hope.

I wish you had omitted me from the general censure. I acknowledge the darkness, while denying that it is the "truth" about life. It's one face or mode among others. — t0m

I also deny it is the truth about life. But it IS the truth about the modern Western world.

But presumably you see, yes? — t0m

No, you cannot see independently from your society. If you are born among the blind, you too are blind - and even if you're not blind, you can never see very clearly, because their affection is yours too.

I can't wait for the "we," or depend on the "we." — t0m

Yeah, you can't - or better said you don't want to. But we may not have a choice.

To be fair, he can "psycho-analyze" my position in the same way. That touches on the "limits of persuasion" in the Kojeve thread. Sophisticated reasoners can creatively enclose and neutralize criticism. Where is the neutral third party to adjudicate? The third party has his or her own "anchoring" ideas. As I see it, "pure" rationality looks more and more implausible that more one actually just listens and reads the creative collision of personalities. Hence "sophistry," including the sophistry that denies that it is sophistry (philosophy). [Yeah, this too is sophistry, but Aristophanes was right about Socrates. He's on the team.] — t0m

That's all about social interaction and zero about truth. Truth doesn't need anyone to affirm it to be true - it is indifferent to whether it is acknowledged or not.

Actually, if one believes the traditional account (Laozi may not have existed), then he was forced to write down his philosophy, otherwise the gatekeeper wouldn't have let him leave the city and create his hermitage in Western China. — Thorongil

And if you are forced to write your philosophy, would you write the truth, or a lie? >:)

Anthropocentrism? Are you saying that Heidegger is not talking about being? — TimeLine

Yes, he problematized the question of the meaning of being. That's prior to the possibility of any sort of anthropocentrism, and by reducing it to anthropocentrism and humanism you destroy that priority.

So, Dasein is not existence? Yeah, this is getting a bit awkward. — TimeLine

Yes, but it doesn't refer to the humanness of existence. It is true that only the human can be Dasein, as far as we know, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon of Dasein is tied to the humanity of man.

I don't think this is a faithful reading of Heidegger at all. Heidegger would be quite appalled by the humanism and anthropocentrism that emanates from that. Like for example:

Dasein is basically a person who is able to recognise themselves as a subject authentically — TimeLine

That's not what Heidegger meant. Dasein is more fundamental than merely human or person or any such a designation.

Oh how much we differ here. To me it's almost the very point of "religion" to provide transcendence, and I put that word in quotes because transcendence wouldn't be much if it left one dominated by the magic of mere words. — t0m

Yes, the point of religion it may be to provide transcendence and a link with the divine, but a dark age in the history of mankind is precisely an age where we have ears but hear not, and have eyes, but see not. Religion cannot do much when spirit and energy disappear.

You guys are all claiming to speak for humanity when you're really only speaking from your own self-indulgent despair. — T Clark

Our own "self-indulgent despair" is the symptom of our society and our times. What you do not see is that a man cannot be the shining light of a dark age that alone dispels the darkness - a man is rather part of the historical age in which he lives. Without a change in the historical tide, an individual cannot do anything. Being born in a wicked and corrupt age, we share, we inherit the despair. It is wrong to say it is "our" despair, and not also yours. The whole Western world is on the verge of collapse.

Unlike some other people in this thread, I don't think that sickness and despair are universal conditions of mankind - no, they definitely are not. But they are our condition today, as a society. So I don't claim to speak for the whole of humanity, only for the West.

"We probably never met a healthy person." What the fuck does that mean? — T Clark

It means that we are all sick, as a society, here in the West. The wisdom of a Lao Tzu seems far away from us, we can only stare at it from afar as a paralyzed man can stare at a piece of food while hungry, not being able to reach it. We hear and do not understand, we see and we don't perceive.

bailiwick — unenlightened

:-O I never heard of this word.

If that's your aim, you need to petition God, who will turn you down. — unenlightened

How do you know, have you already spoken to Him? :D

I think this was the wisest post in this whole thread >:O

There is a difficult balance to strike anyway, because given the chance, a student might use the power of threatened accusation - such things happen too. — unenlightened

Yes, but not around non-Western Eastern European countries lol. Here it's harder for the student to accuse the teacher, even with good reason. I suppose in some Western countries it's easier since it seems to be easier there for a woman to accuse falsely a man of rape, or for a student to accuse a teacher falsely, etc. - the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

As long as we can avoid 25 years of repeated abuse, we are making things a bit better, no? — unenlightened

I suppose so, but then this is more of a way of limiting the damage that a bad person can cause instead of preventing it.

Can I call @Michael by a nickname of my choice even though he says it's not his name? >:)

Yes, dear, class consciousness. Capitalists have it -- why shouldn't workers benefit from it as well? — Bitter Crank

Oh my... this is a typical case of projection, where one side dreams that the other side has what they lack. I think neither of them have "class consciousness". Why would you say that some have class consciousness and others don't? Working class person isn't aware that they are working class and therefore are under different conditions than the capitalists?

And how can "class consciousness" help prevent abuses?

It cannot be stopped entirely, but it can be helped to stop by having conduits for reporting and recording such incidents. — unenlightened

Right, but when you're say the President, you can't really expect that your employee is going to report you - you pretty much control the power structure she could report you to, or at least you have greater leverage over it than she does. Even in the student-teacher case, a student can't really report the teacher to the Principal, because the teacher has greater leverage and authority with the Principal than the student - things could potentially turn out badly for the student that way.

IF you want to be safe from the undesired advance, then something more than responsive court systems will be needed: What is needed are very strong employee class conscious unions that can collectively resist arbitrary and capricious actions of management — Bitter Crank

:-O Oh dear, class consciousness....

Like, think about yourself. The first memories I have of my sexual desire aren't of some biological kind but rather I remember hearing around, in music, etc. that real grown up men have sex with women, so then I started to desire it. That's how I actually got to having that desire. Then over time I started to see that men who had sex with more women were admired more than those who didn't, so then I started to desire that too, because I thought that's what it takes to be a real man. I didn't learn all that myself now, that's what society taught me. I suppose that if I was left alone with no such messages, I would have had to wait until I actually fell in love or was biologically attracted to a woman and figure things out for myself from there on. But that's not how it happened. I was taught that these women are hot, these women are not hot, etc.

The root cause is biology. Chinese emperors knew that. Hence Eunuchs. — Baden

No, the Chinese emperors needed Eunuchs because they themselves had 100 concubines. When you have that, you naturally cause other human beings who have a sexual biological function to become envious of you and try to imitate you because you show them that you are Emperor and what distinguishes you from them is the presence of the women. So that plays on the natural sexual desire and twists it in unnatural ways. So obviously you want eunuchs around, who have no natural sexual desire, so there's nothing to twist and create rivalry.

Yes, biology does play a role, but it is only aided by culture that it can produce such desires. Why do you attribute a sufficient role to biology alone to produce such effects of conflict and rivalry, and hence sin and immorality?

So if I have power do I just spontaneously start having desires to rape women and such? :s — Agustino

Do I become, as Nietzsche said, a "blonde beast" going around and pillaging things?

I'm not against you in principle by the way, Agu. In fact, I'm on your side but you are not demonstrating how power and desire won't work to achieve their goals in sexual beings such as we are. — Baden

So if I have power do I just spontaneously start having desires to rape women and such? :s Presumably I must have already had those desires, and the presence of power merely allowed them to manifest no? That's why we have to attack the root cause, which isn't power and desire, but rather that which puts those desires in our mind in the first place.

Stop confusing causation and correlation. Even as a joke. — Baden

>:O

But this seems laughable. As if those in power won't still be sexually corrupt. — Baden

First of all, they won't be sexually corrupt if their culture wouldn't have taught them that being sexually corrupt confers high status and is really something to be desired so long as you're not caught. That's what their culture teaches them, they're just emulating. Second of all, yes, presumably the first who get in power and implement those changes would have escaped from the conditioning of their society. You could say that that's wishful thinking, but that's the idea.

I fail to understand that. The left is of course eager to attack Trump. The question is why the left gives Bill Clinton a pass. — fishfry

And Baden's answer is that the left gives Bill a pass because the right gives Trump a pass - retroactive justification >:)

You refute yourself. Hollywood becomes irrelevant. The behaviour remains regardless. If it's not one cultural stimuli, it's another. So what then? — Baden

*facepalm* :-}

Right, if it's not Hollywood, then something else will control our culture, whether it's Plato's poets, or whatever. That isn't of much importance. What matters is that we have to grab control of this element of society that manufactures culture, just as Plato suggested in the Republic, and make sure that elements don't appear in the "myths" (or stories we're told by our society) that show that immorality is a cool thing to do. For example, that's why Plato complained about the Greek poets - they showed the gods as being immoral, so it passed through society and men became immoral as well, because why not, the gods did it first!

Yes, but in my view you tend to overestimate their influence and underestimate our natural tendency towards "evil" or "sin", or whatever you want to call it, in the sexual arena. — Baden

I'm not so sure that the natural tendency is clearly towards "sin" and "evil". I think we are corrupted by society to large extents - when society decides on what we should expect, and then creates hope and fear in us, it makes us irrational and immoral. For example, if I expect not to marry my high school girlfriend, then obviously I won't take my relationship with her too seriously - nor would I want to get too close for fear that it will be more painful to separate later on. Then because of that, I will actually make it into a self-fulfilling prophecy by changing the way I behave, motivated by hope and fear, based on expectations and desires that aren't even mine in the first place, that are actually imported from my society.

Non-sequitur. — Baden

How is it a non-sequitur if your desire being turned on by high heels is shown to be a product of your society? Then no wonder that Atilla the Hun didn't need high heels to turn him on - he had other objects/features that turned him on, as his society taught him. Clearly this shows that even in the example that you gave, you don't refute me, but merely prove my point.

In fact, your retort is laughable precisely because there's nothing about high heels that is supposed to turn you on - this is manufactured by your society.

Did Attila the Hun need high heels to turn him on. Give me a break. — Baden

No, but you can bet that his society taught him that a real man forces himself on as many women as he can. Even the Greeks and the likes of Alexander the Great were taught that the more women you have, the greater you are as a man.

Hollywood manufactures desire. Yes, there is a biological component to sexuality, but all research that I've read shows that this is highly mediated through society and culture. Meaning that human sexuality is 99% not biological.

You don't think there were Trump's and Clintons before Hollywood? There are Trumps and Clintons in chimp tribes, Agu, not to mention throughout human history. — Baden

Yes, in part also because those societies had something wrong with their culture. But in our society, culture is dictated by Hollywood - manufacturing culture is what they do.

Desire and the power to satisfy it. — Baden

And desire just arises all by itself, it isn't mediated through your culture? We're not told that we should desire women and lust after them, especially when scantily dressed, in red high heels, with long finger nails, etc. etc.? Precisely by being shown these things on TV, we're taught to imitate them, and hence start having those desires.