Economic hardship has been identified as a major stressor — frank

Right. In fact, economic hardship is widely recognized as a major contributor to a host of problems. I work in the health-care industry and the impacts of poverty on health is among the current topics of interest for improvement of quality of care. So focusing and addressing an underlying major cause directly rather than any one of the myriad, multiple, host of associated symptoms (all of which have a more complex causal profile) seems a much more reasonable approach. And, of course, poverty is nothing new.

If you look at the latest one, you'll see the correlation between mass shootings and recent economic hardship in the lives of perpetrators. — frank

Since economic hardship is not a rare thing, there is undoubtedly a wide set of correlations with economic hardship. I believe the saying is, correlation is not causation.

↪Philosophim
:up: :up: :up: — frank

:100:

And which is why I’ll reference, again and again, why that’s completely irrelevant. I’ll do so as long as it takes. I’m not interested in hand-waving, I’m interested in REAL POLICIES. — Mikie

To be clear, you are interested in laying the blame for something that pre-dates these policies on these policies. Got it.

The ills of any society will be seen to have something to do with government policies or the lack of whatever is needed to make the world perfect, so it's not a particularly meaty topic. — frank

Yes, you can easily argue that everything, whether because of regulation or because of lack or regulation, can be blamed on the government. Since this is true, the government might as well be tasked with fixing social ills.

Global Brain: The Evolution of the Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
by Howard Bloom

What was the Balbec passage that you were thinking about? — SophistiCat

The whole Balbec experience fails to coincide with his expectations. He savours the ideal 'flavour' of places by trying to encapsulate their ideal qualities, hoping to project those into characteristic individuals. Everything about Balbec, beginning with the fact that the church and the ocean are miles apart instead of juxtaposed, fails to match his mental image. Was there some specific reference you were wondering about?

I think it's just a matter of a shift in consciousness. The "merely real" is the sublime, when "the trivialities of the moment" do not intrude upon it, or in other words, are not seen as trivial. — Janus

Yes, the metaphysical conceit, in other words. That's definitely a contrasting literary tradition.

This thread is specifically about deaths of despair and their roots in the aforementioned (neoliberal) policies. — Mikie

Which is why I referenced anomie again (and again).

Oh? And what’s the larger problem? Remember: I’m keeping to real policies and their well-documented (and easily seen) results. — Mikie

And I'm saying (which I did say) is that the ailments you cited - and I presume you did so because you find them particularly illustrative of the damage produced by the key underlying causes - coincide very well with Durkheim's concept of anomie, which is also "well-documented" in that he wrote about it. So maybe these policies of which you speak are a symptom, as @180 Proof noted; but the underlying causes have been around a lot longer. And when you start calling old things by new names, you may be losing something of value.

This is not philosophy, this is propaganda politics. No one knows what you mean by this. Avoid such ill defined terms and write out some points. What specific aspects of neoliberalism ties the West to destruction? Why is it only neoliberalism, and not other political aspects of culture that drive us to this? — Philosophim

And with this I concur. It just smacks of political invective. It isn't that I disagree with the underlying sentiments, in fact, I very much agree. But I think the tone only appeals to people who already agree, and isn't going to educate or persuade. Ultimately, I do feel it overstates the importance of what is only one aspect of a larger problem; as Smith mentioned, an oversimplification.

it’s recognizing a set of very real policies that have been implemented over several decades, and the very real affects they’ve had on society. — Mikie

This I do. And I participate in petitioning against objectionable policies. :up:

Yep. An important thing to remember about neoliberalism is that it wasn't created by an elite group. The opposite is true. The present global elite was created by the success of a neoliberal policies. It's easy to condemn as if that's solving some problem. It's harder to understand why former leftist strategies failed so utterly. A real leftist would be interested in that question. — frank

I do think what we are talking about stems from the fundamental right-left orientations, and I'm very interested in root causes. For me, it's clear that, at is core, the right is privilege-centric; it is defined by the possession of a much-greater-than-average portion of advantage. But by that very definition, the core right must be a substantial minority. If that's the case, then the larger part of the identifying-right must be confused in their allegiance.

Neoliberalism is the set of policies mentioned, enacted over the last 40 years, with predictable results.

The people in government and business carrying out these policies are indeed to blame— whether they identify as neoliberal or not. — Mikie

And any policies that exacerbate the wealth gap are culpable of that specifically. And poverty is a leading cause of many ills. But as I pointed out, these problems are also older than those policies.

As you say, the people who are responsible may not be neoliberals.

My problem with your post is, if your thesis is true, then what? What happens if I pass the test? The people who create and implement those policies are only a small subset of the people who empowered them, and those people are one step further removed from policy formation.

If you are attempting to blame a specific set of people for a broad range of social ills then I would say the validity of your characterization speaks for itself. Let me guess, you are not a neo-liberal?

edit: the more likely common denominator for the problems you cite is the cause of poverty, which is the mal-distribution of resources.

No, it's not only an ideology. It's a set of real policies enacted by real people — Mikie

No doubt there are policies that could be described as neo-liberal in character. That doesn't mean they are being controlled by some underlying neo-liberal agenda. Rather people in various roles with various leanings are making certain types of decisions. One doesn't sign up to be a neo-liberal. It's a bucket term being used by people who aren't neo-liberals as a target for invective.

Both issues are a direct result of neoliberalism. — Mikie

Neoliberalism is, at best, an ideology. Ideologies in and of themselves do nothing. Even if some people claim to embrace an ideology, that does not mean that the things they do are caused by that ideology. In fact, ideologies often are nothing more than attempts to rationalize or legitimize what people want to do for altogether different reasons or motivations.

The same can be said even of much more concrete entities, like for example, a conservative party. A specific conservative party has an actual concrete extension. But that doesn't mean that the members of that party are extensions of the conservative ideology. So even if I claim, the phenomenon of anomie (which is what you are describing and which was studied extensively by Durkheim at the turn of the last century), even if I claim that is actually a product of the ever-increasing class and wealth gap caused by the ongoing controlling influences exerted by conservative governance, this likewise is a vast oversimplification of the true causes of social conditions.

A minor addendum from my currently reading. Engels take on Hegel's famous observation "All that is real is rational and all that is rational is real." Engels interprets: "not everything that exists is without exception, real. The attribute of reality belongs only to that which is at the same time necessary."

So while this moves in the other direction from my OP, it does offer the rather intriguing prospect of separating the concepts of existence and reality. Maybe I should have said, "the merely extant"? :chin:

↪RogueAI Bartricks was, in practice, a 'solipsist' and I'm getting 'solipsist' vibes from Zettel. — 180 Proof

I'm wondering if solipsism is a choice or an inevitability for some people....

We cannot know everything, so at some point in our quest for knowledge we will reach a point in which we will have to use that which we know to talk about that which we don't, and to talk about ways to explore that which we don't know. In my opinion, that's metaphysics; a tool formed from verified knowledge to probe the unknown. — Daniel

This coincides perfectly with my position. :)

It's one thing to state an unsupported sentiment as "I believe...", but quite another thing to state an unsupported sentiment as "we know...". The former may be a truth, the latter is a falsity. — Metaphysician Undercover

:clap:
My pet peeve. Consolation, that proclamations of authority generally belie the opposite.

we'll simply be offering a subjective, personal account, what we think is going on, not what really is going on. — Agent Smith

This is the essence of science. There are many, many expressions of theoretical physics (string theory, loop quantum gravity, m-theory) which are not mutually compatible. They can't all be right and none of them are complete. Science is as much about speculation as it is about evidence.

Further we are all taking positions on metaphysics. Take physicalists or naturalists. Seemingly - given the way metaphysics is a word often used perjoratively - far from woo woo, those two categories of people are making assertions about metaphysics. They have taken stands about metaphysics. — Bylaw

:up:

Philosophy means "love of wisdom". Wisdom requires knowledge, not belief, opinion, sentiment or personal view, else how does (read: "can") one 'know' who or what is wise? Unsupported and unsupportable metaphysical doctrines have gone nowhere — Zettel

Knowledge does not spring full-formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. Knowledge grows out of a sense of wonder at some unknown, and is cultivated through systematic labour. And all of our knowledge has its limits, beyond which there are still further unknowns. At the limits of our knowledge lie our metaphysical presuppositions, assumptions (conscious or unconscious) that attempt to fit what we know into the framework of what we don't. If physics is the least meta-physical of all the sciences, it is also the least complete, inasmuch as 97% of everything that exists (dark matter and energy) is still nothing but a place-holder in an equation.

Karl Popper has an excellent take on metaphysics acting as a guide and inspiration to further scientific inquiry, the metaphysical research program. This is the sense of metaphysics that I embrace: it is our attempt to structure our intuitions of the unknown, as we seek to transform that into knowledge.

Feuerbach: The Roots of Socialist Philosophy
by Friedrich Engels

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki.

Weird fiction from 1805 by a Polish count who thought he was a werewolf and killed himself with a silver bullet. As one reviewer says on Goodreads, "When there’s lesbian incest demon sex on page 11, you know you’re in for a ride." — Jamal

:gasp:

Yes, I trained in Shito Ryu Itosu Kai Karate for about 15 years. I was hoping to get my black belt within 4 years, when I would have been 21, but moving around for school disrupted that somewhat, I trained in Kung Fu and Tai Chi, it ended up taking me almost 8 years. Then I trained up for my second dan - twice I had over a dozen black belt kata down cold. Both times my knee let go at the end of my intensive training (I had had several surgeries for a blown ACL and meniscus).

So I can appreciate your perspective, I'm just offering the benefit of mine. :)

It must be quite disheartening for philosophers to hear someone say "This? This is merely real!" — Agent Smith

There is no property of "reality." People comprehend reality by means of various metaphors, like solidity, continuity, causality, etc.. I used the expression "merely real" to contrast the relative intangibility of the mundane concept of reality with the inherent sublimity of the products of the mind, whose reality is sometimes discounted.

:up:

If it is possible to have a science of introspection then he is an expert. As I noted, his observations fit well with the modern model of embodied cognition in many ways.

My take is that (in the context of consciousness which I take to be a definitive feature of what is in question) necessarily there exists some greatest thinking thing. Ergo that thing is by definition God (without attaching any further implications or speculations as to the nature of that thing, which, it would be invalid for inferior beings to do anyway).

Within this realm there is no ultimate satisfaction or peace to be found, because all is perishing, transient and ultimately empty. — Wayfarer

He definitely sets up a dichotomy between the transient and the eternal. It leans towards a mystical (more than eastern) conception of some kind of transcendental, supra-personal consciousness:

Perhaps this fear that I had...that is shared by so many others...is only the most humble, obscure, organic, almost unconscious form of that great and desperate resistance...against our mentally acknowledging the possibility of a future in which they are to have no part; a resistance which was at the root...of the difficulty that I found in imagining my own death, or a survival...in which I should not be allowed to take with me my memories, my frailties, my character, which did not easily resign themselves to the idea of ceasing to be....

Sorry for all the ellipses. Even thus edited, Proust's sentences are voluminous. Therein lies the magic that eludes some readers, I think. When you successfully wrap your head around his page-long sentences, you get a real sensation of having grasped something beautiful and intricate, something that required as much effort to create as it does to perceive. The abundance and beauty of the variety of tropes, metonomy, synechdoche, prosopoeia, metaphor, and the way they all blend and merge seamlessly and effortlessly into one another. If anything is more than real, for me, this is.

It all has to do with expectations. Reality stays the same, but a heightened sense of reality occurs at times. No, there's nothing "more real". — jgill

And yet, in encapsulating his disappointments, Proust's sublime text seems to create something more than real out of the shards of his expectations.

@Vera Mont @jgill @Tom Storm @Wayfarer
It seems like this attitude is a denigration of the real in favour of the ideal, but that the ideal is also a form of embodied cognition. So everything about his experience of the sublimity of the church at Balbec is subjected to the "tyranny of the particular." These passages abound.

The embodied cognition passages are even more interesting to me. He talks a lot about the omnipresence of habit, how habit governs the interplay of memory and perception: "most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely on habit;" and "the general laws of memory...in turn are governed by still more general laws of habit." He describes how the "better part of our memories exist outside us," in environmental cues; and the awakening disappointment of his expectations of Balbec is an awareness "to which [his] body would have to become accustomed."

"It is our noticing things that puts things in a room, our growing used to them that takes them away again."

There is an omnipresent theme of conceptualization being an expansion and improvement of reality, hinging on the text, which is itself both a representation and an enhancement of reality. I just finished a book on embodied cognition which made a lot use of the idea that our thinking is fundamentally structured around conceptual metaphors. Proust's technique of characterizing of people in terms of their towns, and of towns in terms of their must unique feature, strikes me as very similar to conceptual metaphor, perceptual metaphor perhaps?

To sum, I guess that someone who is abiding in a realm of "substantialized concepts" might well not agree with the general or traditional preconception of what constitutes reality.

Not getting your black belt should not keep you from honing your skills. And patience certainly should be one of the weapons in your arsenal. Focus on the skill and expertise, not the rank.

Should've been finished much sooner, but attention issues and all. Just finished Locke's Essay for a second time. Majestic and a true classic. I will forever be a fan. — Manuel

:up:

I haven't read this since uni but I remember being struck by the humility of the man who could write such a work, but still refer to himself as a humble "under-labourer". A must-read-again for me too.

Ditto! :rofl: :rofl:

The Birth of Tragedy: from the Spirit of Music
by Friedrich Nietzsche

If you are agreeing with my suggestion, that allowing oneself to be guided or governed by external influences when we have necessarily the ability to evaluate those influences, is still a voluntary choice, then ok. If you are saying that we are affected by those influences before we are able to fully evaluate them (as with children) then we are talking about diminished capacity (relative to a normal, responsible adult). People are free beings. I'm currently reading a book whose precise thesis and theme is the way and extent to which our thoughts and actions are influenced by unconscious processes, and even that author acknowledges that we are not necessarily "enslaved to our unconscious conceptual systems." (Lakoff & Johnson, The Embodied Mind) Awareness of those subterranean influences is what enables us to counteract them. And awareness is both our gift and our responsibility.

I think it can force you to see the world in a certain way. — Bylaw

It literally isn't forcing. It is tempting, urging, cajoling. People today are susceptible of this type of influence it is true, because of social and peer pressures, etc., etc., but it is always a choice to allow advertising to bypass reason, just as it is to allow social pressures of whatever kind to override our own ability to think.

Anyone who can be literally forced to do something has a diminished capacity in some way. If you are forced at gunpoint to strangle a baby you have a legally diminished capacity that absolves you of responsibility (although you still had the actual ability to refuse). If a small child is forced to spend all his money on an expensive toy by advertising it is because that child lacked the adult capacity of reason and self-control, which is why there are limits to what children are allowed to do and why important decision-making authority resides with their parents. As Kant says, "I can never be forced by others to have an end."

↪Pantagruel
He is taking aim from the balcony, not rebutting your thesis.

I carry an umbrella in case it rains. — Paine

:lol: :up:

Can we force people to believe things? — Andrew4Handel

Belief cannot be forced, any more than can choice. It is an essential feature of human freedom. Advertising does not force, it attempts to persuade. Advertising does not remove free will, it attempts to circumvent reason.