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Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
:up:I hope he [The Clown] attacks every popular Republican governor in the swing states. That would be cool. — praxis -
US Election 2024 (All general discussion)Yes, interesting, but I was referring to the institution of religion as such (i.e. its social function/s) and not the belief-system or ritual-practices of any particular sect. IMO, active participation in a congregation tends to 'feminize' (i.e. de-emphasize 'masculine' strength, ego, aggression and competition) even though e.g. "Abrahamic & Vedic faiths" are predominantly patriarchal.
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Tragedy and Pleasure?
I interpret True Detective (s1) as a "modern tragedy" because the story, while very atmospheric could take place anywhere , is mostly about 'professional' (rather than royal / noble) protagonists who are inescapably driven by death (re: fear, guilt / ghosts, violence, despair) to 'the edge of status quo destroying' madness (i.e. an analogue for or symbol of the supernatural / demonic / revelation).180, what is the difference between a modern tragedy and an absurdist historical drama, whatever the hell that is ? What makes True Detective, S1 a 'modern tragedy'? — Amity
On the other hand, Deadwood I interpret as an "absurdist historical drama" because the story is, it seems to me, about the 'anarchic growth' (not planned development) of a specific place (the town "Deadwood in the "Dakota territories") at a specific historic moment (ca 1870s, gold rush era) inhabited or visited by many different types of protagonists who in different ways are desperately seeking to make their lives meaningful (again?) by putting down roots (i.e. finding their 'fortunes') there or elsewhere and violently leaving behind their rootless – meaningless – pasts.
Two of my all-time favorite television shows. I need to watch both again soon. -
US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
Speaking for myself, I only vote for a third party presidential candidate when living in a state that's safe for either Democrats or Republicans. I live in Washington state so I'll vote for Cornel West this year. In 2020 I lived in Georgia and decided early in 2020 to vote for whomever the Democratic candidate wound up being because polling trends showed Georgia to be a swing state for the first time since 1992. Biden won Georgia and I voted for him (only the second time since 1982 I'd voted for a Democratic candidate for president). As a non-partisan "progressive leftist" (who, like Bernie Sanders and most thoughtful leftists, abhors "identity politics"), I've considered the last sixty years of the Democratic Party policy agenda (i.e. neoliberal sodomy of the working class with lube (less harmful) the lesser evil compared to that of the Republican Party policy agenda (i.e. plutocratic / autocratic sodomy of everybody south of the upper middle class without lube (more harmful)), and therefore I always support the Democratic candidate when I live in a swing state. Btw, in 2016 I voted for Jill Stein because polling trends suggested HRC would lose Georgia (which she did by just over 5%).Is anyone considering Jill Stein in this forum? — Eros1982
This 'biological determinism' is too reductive to be meaningful at the complexity of level social practices and electoral politics. After all, it doesn't explain at all (e.g.) decades of robust male support for democratic market socialism in Scandanavian countries. -
Tragedy and Pleasure?
No, imo, it's more of an absurdist historical drama (if that's not too oxmoronic). Instead I consider the first season of True Detective to be "a modern tragedy".↪180 Proof Would you consider Deadwood as an example of a modern tragedy? — Tom Storm -
US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
My fuckin' hero! :clap: :cool:I'm an elementary school teacher, and I can tell you the education system was not designed for boys. I incorporate a lot of breaks throughout the day because I know my boys need to get up and move. I've been criticized for this my whole career. I'm told I should teach "bell to bell", but I'm tenured, so fuck those people. I do what I want. My school even banned football, because it led to fighting. I let my boys do it on the sly. — RogueAI
I think so. However, are both parents in the home? or in the daily lives of their children? Are the parents mature, stable, healthy, educated? or immature, unstable, addicts/drunks, mis/un-educated? Are they sectarian or secular? bigoted or cosmopolitan? Is the home run by a single mother raising boys? Etcetera ...Are parents the real educators of their kids nowadays? — Eros1982
My guess is, having been neither a parent nor teacher, that schools and social media only reinforce, even amplify, what the parental / family home cultivates in children in the first place. Just like getting drunk doesn't make people a-holes, alcohol only takes away the sober inhibition to expose their a-holery. Reactionary culture and politics, imo, is like booze and "boys" learn to be resentful a-holes to a social order increasingly stabilized by 'pro-female' policies and institutions not unlike the single mother / wife-dominated households they were (mis)raised in.
In contemporary (US) society there are at least three institutions in particular which, again imo (never having belonged to any of them myself), mostly tend to (but do not always) feminize males: religion, marriage & prison. Not (primarily) schools – though RogueAI might disagree. Thus, males react violently against the first two and embrace the pack-animal, alpha dominance of the third (à la gang / thug-life ... or as enlisted military).
According to exit polls, in 2016 & 2020 more women overall voted for The Clown than against him. In 2022, those same women lost their reproductive healthcare rights; whether or not they still like The Clown, I'm confident most will against him this year to get back what was taken from them, their daughters and even their granddaughters.I really can't imagine a mom telling her daughter Kamala is great and then telling her son Donald is great.
That said, some "sons" want a surrogate daddy to rule the country the way their absentee or divorcee fathers did not rule their single mom-dominated homes. Quite a few "sons" are easily triggered by their deep-seated "mommy-issues" which is why jackbooted reaction appeals to many of them as a cartoon-masculine, hyper-caffinated, faux-expression of manhood (e.g. alt-right, incel misogyny & homophobia).
This hypocrisy doesn't bother me at all because Kamala Harris – in fact, any (moderate) neoliberal candidate for president – is not the clear and present danger to US national security, the constitutional rule of law, all civil rights & the US economy, so the proper emphasis should be on promoting whomever can/will eliminate that danger: DonOLD The NeoFascist Clown.I have been surprised, however, with CNN, the Guardian, NY Times and a fewliberal[corporate media] outlets that seem to have forgotten what they used to write about Kamala Harris just three or two years ago. — Eros1982
Roevember is coming! :victory: :mask: -
Tragedy and Pleasure?
:death: :flower:A sense of the absurd and humour can help with perspective. Life is tragi-comedy. A mix of tough and funny. We get on with it — Amity
:100: :zip:But most people, most of the time, don't want to reflect and contemplate; we just need distractions. Mass entertainment provides a good laugh or cry or rant to blow off emotional steam. The problem today is that there is simply too much of it. You don't have to seek out the distraction most suited to your mood; distractions pursue and harass you everywhere; jarring graphic images and BAD MUSIC are inescapable. — Vera Mont
:up: :up:A larger problem for young people is that life experience blurs into, is confused with and sometimes subsumed by virtual, electronic life. It's not a problem for old people like me... — Vera Mont
@Jack Cummins Besides George Steiner's Antigones I recommended in my first post, his earlier book The Death of Tragedy (1961) analyzes how modernity itself and 'mass culture' – the root of today's ubiquitious p0m0 vidiocracy (vidiocy) that Vera reflects on – marginalizes or 'deadens' the cathartic function of tragedy as a communal artform that has been mostly 'repackaged' as a consumer product for increasingly atomized individuals. IMHO "the pleasure of tragedy" is, for most folks today, just one more distraction among countless many others, and only a "problem" of growing irrelevance in a self-anaestheticizing (numbing, blurring, manic multitasking) marketplace. -
The Human Condition
They are just text or links with [#] on the end that corresponds to a (keyboard function) superscript¹ appended to a term or phrase. All the same text format. Idk how others do it but that works for me.First, how do you get footnotes installed? — isomorph
There's nothing "ideal" aboutyour use of 'functional defects' gives the sense of an ideal sapiens species
because every member of our species has these vulnerabilities; thus, they constitute our "nature", no?defects (e.g.) thirst-hunger, bereavement, insecurity, shame, mortality, confusion, illness, exposure, etc — 180 Proof
Why do you think so? H. sapiens have adapted themselves for tens of millennia to almost every ecosystem on Earth and have for over a half century in limited fashion lived in space off of the planet, no doubt as a prelude to future permanent extraterrestrial settlements. No doubt (in my mind, based on the anthropological record), humans are uniquely primates-which-are-also-more-than-primates. :monkey:... it is illusory [to] think humans are other than autochthonous. — isomorph
Clearly, in fact, it is "illusory" to suggest the "ideal" that, as your "autochthonous" remark implies, if humans were meant to fly, we would have wings ... Maybe limits-surpassing – limits-extending – goals are "illusory" but for tens of millennia so far these human illusions – sciences, histories, philosophies, arts ... fauna-flora domestication, exploration, trade, migrations – have worked spectacularly well (though, of course, not without significant costs as well). -
Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)Just more Trumpian racist bullshit to give ignorant MAGAts the warm & fuzzies. Here's a good summary:
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/31/trump-nabj-interview-black-jobs-rhetoric -
The Human ConditionI think "human nature" (re: aptitude) consists in two aspects: (a) h. sapiens species-specific functional defects¹ (i.e. physical & psychological vulnerabilities – needs – which can become temporarily, permanently or fatally dysfunctional when neglected or acutely deprived) & (b) our suite of evolutionary cognitive biases².
On the other hand, I think "the human condition" (re: competence) consists in a plurality of ensembles, or repertoirs, of social relations-practices (like a habitus³) which generate various arts & kinds/degrees of knowledge (i.e. cultures).
defects (e.g.) thirst-hunger, bereavement, insecurity, shame, mortality, confusion, illness, exposure, etc [1]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases [2]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_(sociology) [3]
And so I think of the human condition in sum as the struggle to preserve human nature while simultaneously striving to surpass (all of) human nature's inherent limits (e.g. immorbity ... immortality ... immateriality ...) :fire: -
US Election 2024 (All general discussion)2August24
IMO the best alternative to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (from the short list of "six prospective running-mates" according to press reports) is Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Of course, the Harris campaign has nothing to worry about selecting her running-mate since almost any elected mouth-breather with a working brain will embarrass the hell out of MAGA Mini-me Vance ...
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Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)"I love my black job ♡"
~Simone Biles, the most decorated Olympic Gold Medal & champion gymnast in history
https://x.com/Simone_Biles/status/1819284274224173147 -
US Election 2024 (All general discussion)2August24
A "Black job"? Madame POTUS ...
Roevember is coming! :victory: :mask: -
Tragedy and Pleasure?Pardon my ramble ...
Grist for the miill. 'Stories' which reflect on or puzzle over questions raised by "news in the media" intrigue me most and inspire me to re/tell them. As far as 'the tragic' goes, my creative stance is much more attuned to 'absurdity' – the distorted lenses through which I watch the world turn my stomach while I laugh to stop from crying. It's almost impossible to create at any level out of ashes or raw sewage of the daily bilge of wanton cruelty and duplicitous stupidity. And yet "You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on" a master clown says more about 'making art', I imagine, than merely living. Nonetheless, I try to ground my story-telling in mere life (e.g. "Try again. Fail again. Fail better") without self-referentially – cleverly ironizing about – 'making art'. Maybe it's the social uselessness (ergo "sovereignty" someone said) of 'making art' that's 'tragic' today, and yet feeling the absurd compels some of us to try again and again and ... just in order to breathe freely. 'Well, there ain't no clowns in foxholes' – yeah but why effin' not (since that's probably where clowns are most needed)?! :fire: :monkey:One concern of mine is how 'news in the media' can overwhelm minds to the point where their own creativity is affected ... How have you found your story-telling affected? — Amity -
US Election 2024 (All general discussion)"Black jobs?"
"And when [DJT] attacks, he reveals a bit of himself; and what we saw was an elderly, obese, orange-tinted racist with a comb-over." ~Steve Schmidt, Never Trumper & former GOP campaign official :up:
Yeah, keep running your trashy, gutter mouth, DonOLD The Clown. :sweat:
Roevember is coming! :victory: :mask: -
Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)Re: DonOLD The Clown
:smirk:He was always of White heritage, and he was only promoting White heritage. I didn't know he was Orange until a number of years ago, when he happened to turn Orange, and now he wants to be known as Orange. So I don't know, is he White or is he Orange? I think somebody should look into that. -
Tragedy and Pleasure?
Interesting topic. (But why do you refer to "Fuller"? What does s/he have to do with Nuttall's book?)I am reading, 'Why Does Trajedy Give Pleasure? by A. D. Nuttall (1996) — Jack Cummins
Anyway, fwiw, 'studies of tragedy' I've found most insightful (among the ones already mentioned and others) are Antigones by George Steiner and Joyful Cruelty by Clément Rosset. As an artform, 'tragedy' allows the audience/readers to play 'the game of death' – slip the mask of daily denial of mortality – and perhaps live on moved/wounded ... like Jacob wrestling his Angel.
The "problem", I think, is that the "pleasure" of tragedy is much harder to come by, or fully experience, in our time than in premodern times because, by comparison especially in today's hyperconsumerist West, we are mostly urbanized – de-nature-ized – and thereby overstimulated (i.e. benumbed, anaestheticized) by hypersensationalized trivia continuously. Every misshap is now called "tragic"; ubiquitous vidiocy trivializes 'the game of death' (i.e. the real).
Pardon my superficial gloss, Jack, @BC has said it much better. :fire: -
Is the real world fair and just?Read Camus' anything but futilistic interpretation of Sisyphus (rolling 'the philosopher's stone' aka Life) – a mythic dramatization of Nietzsche's amor fati or eternal return of the same (Ja-sagen!) :fire:
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A (simple) definition for philosophy
That's merely a metastatement (@Lionino)a statement about another statement. — Tarskian
IMO, a "philosophical statement" is a non-propositional expression (i.e. proposal) of a presupposition or an implication derived from a proposed answer to a philosophical question or from a philosophical question itself. A philosophical question, OTOH, is a counterfactual supposition (or thought-experiment) that cannot be definitively answered by either empirical or formal means (i.e. propositions).
Example:
I'm not satisfied with this simplistic example but I think it works well enough. My point is that philosophy's sine qua non is her questions (even meta-questions) – the how what when & why of them – rather than any answers, or "statements". In Socratic manner, I think, philosophizing strives to reason to more probative questions (or more clear, precise formulations of a question) and not just the academic penchant for masturbating each other with cleverer and cleverer logical puzzles.Is the world (i e. a concept of "the world") deterministic or indeterministic?
If the world is deterministic, meaning that every event is caused by a prior event (i.e. non-random), then every person's choosing is epiphenomenal (or an illusion).
However, if the world is indeterministic, meaning that every event is uncaused (i.e. random), then, yet again, every person's choosing is epiphenomenal (or an illusion).
Suppose the world has both deterministic properties and indeterministic properties, meaning that any chain, or sequence, of events consists in alternating causal and noncausal relations, which therefore implies that every person's choosing is unconstrained-within-constraints, or compatible with the world conceived of having both deterministic and indetetministic properties. -
Is the real world fair and just?
Well, fwiw, I see no other way but to interpret Spinoza as both an immanentist and acosmist sub specie aeternitatis (though sub specie durationis also as a pandeist, which (for me) ontically relates him to that other great immanentist Epicurus).I actually interpret Spinoza as a sort of 'acosmist', so not sure I would call him an immanentist ... — boundless -
Is the real world fair and just?
For Spinozists, reality (Deus, sive naturans) is ineluctably immanent – the encompassing horizon that reason necessarily cannot encompass (i.e. explain, or transcend) – and exhausts all of our other rational ideas, concepts & categories. Absurdists might say "reality is the subject of transcendental despair" (i.e. void, anicca, dao, sunyata). Also, faith (i.e. "hope") isn't needed because in practice denying or ignoring reality tends to be hazardous. :smirk:Reality seems to have replaced God as a subject of transcendental hope. — Tom Storm
On the contrary, with all due respect, perhaps the world (naively) seems "imperfect" to us only because each one of us is "imperfect" ... Philosophy can be a practice – "spiritual exercise" (Hadot) – for learning (again) to see the world as perfect and thereby, like Sisyphus, always striving to perfect our communities and ourselves (e.g. ethics-as-tikkun olam). -
US Election 2024 (All general discussion)Yeah, the favorite candidate of racists and nativists DonOLD The Clown made those deplorables "proud" today.
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US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
:100: Exactly.The Party is not a democracy and has its own process for nominating the nominee and had every option available to it to not nominate Biden at the upcoming convention. — Benkei -
Is the real world fair and just?What do your questions have to do with either the OP or what I have written in this thread? I have not stated or implied that "mind" or "subject" "experience" does not exist, only that imo these terms have been misused by antirealists (immaterialists) such as Wayfarer, Gnomon, bert1 ... and now, it seems, you too.
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Is the real world fair and just?Consider ...
"The mind is the subject of experience" is inept or even deceptive. Experiences are had only by minds [subjects], so what might seem profound is little more than tautology. — Banno -
US Election 2024 (All general discussion)31July24
DonOLD The Clown – adjudicated¹ ra[c/p]ist, MAGA-GOP candidate for "dictator-for-a-day"– who is very afraid of a much younger & stronger, incredibly smarter, and charismatic black woman (who happens to be the current VPOTUS) and too chickenshit – must be them ol' "bonespurs" – to debate her in the fall.
¹1973 & 2023 respectively
Roevermber is coming for you, Bonespurs! :victory: :mask: -
Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)31July24
DonOLD The Clown – adjudicated¹ ra[c/p]ist, MAGA-GOP candidate for "dictator-for-a-day" – who is very afraid of a much younger & stronger, incredibly smarter, and charismatic black woman (who happens to be the current VPOTUS) and too chickenshit – must be them ol' "bonespurs" – to debate her in the fall.
¹1973 & 2023 respectively
Roevermber is coming for you, Bonespurs! :victory: :mask:
:lol: -
Is the real world fair and just?
Philosophy reflectively-critically examines whatever is assumed to be "obvious and central" (e.g. intuitions, folk psychological ideas, values, etc) no?both obvious and central — Wayfarer -
Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body:100:
:up: :up:
@Sam26 is dogmatic on this (spiritual / supernatural / o-dualistic) topic and, as I've found at length, his poor reasoning incorrigibly persists despite counter-arguments of the lack of public evidence, conceptual clarity & parsimony of so-called well-documented "NDE/OBE" (like "alien abduction" or "demonic possession") testimonials.
180 Proof
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