The argumentative force behind my comment would have been the implication that for people like me, going to church or cooking might not be worthwhile or a better way of spending time. So any kind of general advice or demands that someone like me should go to church or spend more time cooking might be wrongheaded. — Sapientia

I don't think it has to be church specifically, but most human beings are not happy living a purely material existence and require some form of spiritual enrichment. Nothing of the sort, in my opinion, is provided by 'the open society' as it is in America now. The gambit of American culture is that we can live a purely material existence, and I think that's not so. And generally, I think Christianity is a richer and more interesting tradition than that coming out of its detractors.

Yeah, we disagree. Whether or not a Marvel movie is crappy is very much a matter of personal preference or taste. Perhaps not entirely, but very much so. — Sapientia

Nah, I think they're crappy. People might like them, but that doesn't make them not crappy. It's a matter of personal taste how you find the movie, but that's not the issue.

If you're free to say that sort of thing, in the way that you did, then why aren't I similarly free to object to it or express outrage? Doesn't it work both ways? — Sapientia

You're free to, sure, but I just don't see what relevance or argumentative force it has on the conversation.

Well, I thought that you were just telling people what they should do or care about or appreciate, when, for me, that sort of thing is more a matter of personal preference, taste, what you find appealing, or enjoy doing. Hobbies and such. And I got the impression that you were looking down your nose at others who don't share your opinion or preferences or whatever. — Sapientia

OK, well, I disagree. These things aren't just a matter of personal preference or taste, and transcend the individual. And culture transcends hobbies, and is more important than them.

Your tone was dictatorial. Do this, stop that, throw that away... I think of it as an art, so it's an art, and not a chore... — Sapientia

No it wasn't – I'm sorry if you read it that way. In the context of the post, those were clearly suggestions for someone like-minded, of what I thought were good ideas. If you think they're not, okay, you disagree with me, but I don't see why that is grounds for outrage. I think you're wrong, but last I checked, I'm allowed to think that without there being an outrage over it, as if I personally offended you.

Because I don't like your attitude, nor what you said, nor the way that you said it. Because I found it objectionable. And because some of what you've said is indirectly about me. — Sapientia

Considering I wasn't addressing you or talking about you, I don't know why you'd think that.

Do you really think that I'm the only person for which it is more of a chore than an art? It's neither one nor the other in any absolute sense. I wouldn't say that cooking is an art, I'd say that there is cooking and then there is the art of cooking. — Sapientia

But you haven't explained why an individual's opinion on what it is should matter to me.

To some it's an art, to others it's a chore. You and your cultural snobbery don't get to dictate what it is or isn't to anyone. — Sapientia

Did I ever say I got to? Why are you so defensive?

Whether or not you consider it a chore has no bearing on its value as an art. How bizarre to object that one person cannot decide what something is, on grounds that you have another opinion of it. But then, what makes an individual an authority on any subject, and why should individual reactions be the litmus for what is and isn't an art?

I think a lot of people in our generation do. It's very sad, a kind of alienation that we don't prepare our own food.

Cooking? That's a chore. I'll order a takeaway. — Sapientia

Cooking isn't a chore, it's a cultural art with a rich history that blends culture, personal creativity, and sensuality.

That certain things are inevitable is just something you've been sold on, though (perhaps, in part, by the German idealists). This is the 'wrong side of history' argument.

I don't know how you would remove those forces antithetical to family without a forceful, planned intervention (as you say, that would be that leftist way of treating things.) — csalisbury

If it were possible, it would happen by voting with your dollars. Media campaigns and social gaffes can now affect the profits of large corporations in volatile ways if anyone involved with that corporation doesn't toe some doxic line. Stop buying trash, stop watching shitty Marvel and Disney movies, cancel your HBO subscription, throw away all of your garbage newspapers, log off of FaceBook, and learn about your traditional music, cooking, and spirituality. Go to church. Read a book. Individuals have to take an interest in culture, and demonstrate that they're no longer interested in its destruction.

The thing to which people object in all of the discourse about isms and phobias is that it retains the raw flavor of youth who have JUST DISCOVERED that bad things happen to good people, (or worse, good things happen to bad people), that life is unfair, that individuals contain a host of contradictory values (and are still good people), etc. etc. etc. — Bitter Crank

Nice, yeah.

I'm not saying people are dumb or vote against their own interests (which IMO is an elitist, mostly leftist 'meme' used primarily to berate poor people), but rather that there is no connection between voting and what happens in the government. Democracy exists entirely in a self-perpetuating doxa or representation. There's no way to make people 'better American citizens' or to 'vote right.' The best you can do is become aware of the system to temporarily game it for your own benefit.

As for other systems, I don't know. I think to propose a system from out of nowhere that would be better would be a leftist way of looking at things, which I reject. The closest I could come would be that I'm suspicious of the distinction between government and family, and think the family is probably the only institution that works in any interesting capacity, in that it creates a situation where self-interest and altruism effortlessly align, and culture that binds members together forms spontaneously, along with love. A democracy has none of these things, and is generally poisonous to the family, which is now dying.

Well that was surely the intended effect of his speech - to demonstrate, to others, how people will interpret 'german idealism' as Nazism (which incidentally isn't alll that different from the actual tale of Nazism, but that's another story.) — csalisbury

It could be, but the fact that he started out with the Atlantis stuff makes me think otherwise. My first guess was, college student studying philosophy who on the spot ranted about something he knows about. He didn't really pick up on the responses interpreting it as Nazism and run with it.

But why did he do that? Obviously to be recognized by his online community as a master troll. (That's obvious to me anyway, what do you think?) — csalisbury

Probably because it's funny and he can say whatever he wants – which is the point. In a democracy it doesn't matter what you say, because everything is equally disconnected from reality. Asking if Trump is a German idealist is no more or less silly than asking if he's whatever else he's supposed to be.

I don't think democracy means the people realize their will immediately in the house/senate/congress, but I think the idea is they force the elected body to make compromises. It never works all that well, but it's like that Churchill quote, it's better than the alternative. It's obvious that the people often act against their own interests, and shouldn't simply be able to materialize their ephemeral passions as policy; but it's also obvious that a governing body of enlightened rulers will grow corrupt and decadent if they have no one else to answer too. Democracy is a forced tension between the two groups, I guess. — csalisbury

I think your mistake is assuming that there is some sort of systematic connection between the reasons that people vote or say things and what happens. Again, my point is that democracy is pure circus – it's not something that gets interrupted by circus when we're not vigilant, or whatever. People don't for or against anyone's interest, they vote based on IRL memes. Trump embraces the circus, at least to a degree that others don't.

Democracy is literally about 'representation.' It sets aside the doxa to give it authority in a principled way. Nothing a voter thinks or does connects in any traceable causal way to what results from those thoughts and decisions, so you're free to think or say or do whatever you want and blame someone else for saying the opposite.

What exactly do you think democracy is or expect it to be? Honest question. It seems to me that what you described is the pinnacle of a functioning democracy.

I think the German Idealism video is about, 'I can say whatever I want and it doesn't matter' – the crowd made it fit the discourse by thinking he was talking about Nazism anyway. Reality literally doesn't matter.

Is Trump a German Idealist?

I like that Trump is somewhat flippant – he strikes me as someone looking to win, and looking to have the biggest and best legacy he can. What that means is that where there is public outcry against a suggestion, he'll wheel it around and give people what they want. I don't mind it, I love this country and am repulsed by those who can't take the joke and can't take the show.

The tears at this point may qualify as mass delusion and hysteria, or maybe it's just weaponized crying. Whether Trump is actually racist etc. doesn't matter, as evidenced by the fact that there are literally genocidal ethnostates (real ones, not imagined ones) in existence at this very moment that no one cares about and even applauds whenever convenient. What matters is that people say that he is racist etc.

The revolving door is moving in several ways right now, and the Democrats have apparently decided 'I guess we're the Cold War panic party now,' and nobody seems to have noticed. It's like a Eurasia-Eastasia switch sort of thing, I guess. There is a flicker of intelligence behind a Trump's eyes in that he has some awareness he's playing a game, which his detractors may be too socially retarded to realize – they think they have principles.

Yeah, you can't really understand anything about political discourse in America if you think people have principles, IMO.

You don't, but there's an epistemological asymmetry in that whatever you take the 'subjective world' to be, denying it is more difficult than denying whatever you oppose to it. That's independent of whatever metaphysical characterization you ultimately give to it (and as you note, you probably have no knowledge of this anyway).

Dispositions to perception or subjective uncertainty in perceptual outcome.

The puzzle of the relation of self-identity is backward, since it's not that there are two things that already exist, or one that already does and one that will, and then a temporal or psychological link that has to be established between them. Rather the notion of there being the same person at another time is derivative of the phenomenology of the future. And the future is inherently ethical, what's not done but coming.

Human consciousness if you like is too immature to take responsibility for this connection.

I see your point, but it doesn't strike me as an interesting distinction. It seems like a polite way of saying euthanasia is preferable to murder, but either way Islam as it is has to go. What would remain would be unrecognizable as present Islam.

To demand that Islam be reformed to foreign influence until it is unrecognizable, in order to fit in with polite society, strikes me as no different from denying that Islam is incompatible with polite society. I mean, to even be coherent, you'd at least have to give everyone a 'hey, don't take the Qu'ran too seriously, mannnn' primer.

(And yeah, Christianity was destroyed form the inside and is in the process of dying off).

It make sense to speak, for example, a pro-gay muslim. — TheWillowOfDarkness

It also makes sense, I think, to speak of a pro-bacon Muslim, or an atheist Muslim. To want Muslims to be this that and the other, antithetical to the standard Islamic position on all of these issues, seems to me to be just a way of saying that you just want Muslims to be Westerners, except they wear hijab or something. Which is just a roundabout way of saying that Islam is incompatible with whatever you imagine polite society to be. It gets tricky, for example, if you ask people what they think about the relative authority of Sharia versus a Western constitution.

Criticising someone's beliefs, actions and values is to attack their place in society. It is to say they are too heinous or savage to belong. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Nah. This is crazy sauce. Yikes.

I think a start would be not to insist that Islam cannot be criticized.

Deeply embedded prejudice against gay people within Islamic culture in other cultures? We can't really touch that. It needs to be addressed from the inside. — TheWillowOfDarkness

OK, but I just don't believe this. Being from somewhere else on the planet doesn't give you free reign to do whatever you want to gay people. And they matter more than the feelings of Muslims whose religion gets criticized.

And if the 'disagreement' is between wether you get to live or die because of your sexual proclivities, then no, I don't have to live with people who disagree with me on that, and I won't be cowed into 'respecting' that opinion. I'm not interested in the relativist slant.

Us Westerns aren't the only ones capable of recognising the worth of gay people. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Do you think the West in the las 50 or so years has had a unique and unprecedented relationship with homosexuality? This is something I don't know the answer to, but looking at the world stage as it is now, it can certainly feel that way. There seems to be exactly one culture on this planet that's even pretending to give a shit about you if you're south of straight. When I want to fuck men, I'm going to go to the whitest, most Western place possible, ASAP. And I'm going to stay the hell away from Muslim nations (and Muslim neighborhoods).

I don't really have a priori respect for religious traditions, Willow – it seems to me that in the same way Christianity was a faith-healer and apocalyptic grassroots revolt that spun out of control, Islam was a war campaign that spun out of control. It's not obvious to me why any movement deserves a priori respect just for existing. The 'but my culture' line is appealing, but the problem is liberals aren't willing to grant it to the Confederacy, so on pain of consistency something has to give. You cannot love the religion and hate upwards of everything it actually does. Yet if you don't hate upwards of everything it does, you can't consistently be a liberal and dislike those things only when they happen at home.

It is interesting to me that I cannot say, draw a chalk picture of Muhammad on the ground in the middle of a Western university. What does a religion have to be like that people fear for their safety in doing these sorts of things, even in the hearts of supposedly liberal institutions? It's not a good situation. And I'm not comfortable with people coming to the defense of Saudi Arabia with accusations of racism if anyone decides to be critical. But OK, I have heard this discussion before and understand that there are genuinely racist people who hate Muslims.

Do you think it's racist to disapprove of Islam? Is it racist to disapprove of any religion? Is it ever fair to disapprove of a religion? What would a religion have to do, or what would it have to teach, to be worthy of disapproval?

Modern academia in the West has a historically exceptional place with regard to Biblical scholarship, though, since as a historical fact numerous disciplines and techniques in the humanities were launched from German Protestant Biblical exegesis and historical inquiry.

Also, I believe the Radical Abolition Party in mid 19th-centry America went around buying out individual slaves and releasing them, on the eve of the Civil War. I believe a man by the name of Smith of that party proposed a mass buyout before Congress, citing Britain as precedent. He was apparently trying to forestall war in doing so.

England's Emancipation Act of 1834 was essentially a mass buyout of all slaves in the British Empire – they paid off the slave owners with recompense to have it pass.

I read about this in some book, but I can't remember the details, and don't have good citations.

I don't know the amount of people who went along with it in England, and of course America's economy was more deeply tied to slavery, but it certainly isn't without precedent or fantastical.

I'm also fascinated by the left's defense of Islam. This isn't a genius idea or anything, but I think it may stem from the coherency of the enemy: white, male, capitalist, straight, cisgendered, Christian and so on. Any deviation from this is grounds for alliance, regardless of whether the different sorts of deviations from it are mutually conflicting (as with the European attempt to reconcile Islam with LGBT acceptance). Once your enemy isn't monolithic, things get complicated.

I also get the vague impression that leftists closer to the source, especially those fleeing Muslim countries for persecution, have far less patience for it. It's easier to tint it with roses when you don't have to deal with it. And it's of course the oppressive Christian countries in which you're free to be openly critical of the 'reigning' religious values.

A buyout would have been cheaper than a war. I think people only pay lip service to traditions until there's incentive to abandon them. Just pay them.

I'm talking about a government buyout of slaves, like what happened in England. I know I'm giving England a lot of cred lately.

America lacks spirituality in its politics, yeah. I think the Amish and Mormons have something like this, though some would argue that they (mostly the Mormons) have it in a repulsive way. Maybe in some respects, but I think there's an underlying jealousy in that criticism. No one, I take it, is afraid of Amish totalitarianism – or is that naive?

The closest thing to spirituality mainstream America has is Game of Thrones, which is like, okay, man can't live on Mountain Dew alone.

Personally, I would not elect to live in any sort of Islamic state, and would consider fleeing if the Muslim population got too large. I just think it's not safe to be a non-Muslim anywhere, with a Muslim majority, ever.

The skills like hunting, etc. could be metaphorically recast as any sort of independence or knowhow for survival apart from the system you are raving for dismantling. I.e., you want something overthrown because it displeases you, but you are ignorant of how it actually functions or why, and the way in which your survival is bound up in it.

Relevant to the race question and delusions of the approach of the left.

Everything collapses, yes. But not everything collapses quite so badly as it does in Bolshevik Revolutions.

I don't feel like one really needs an answer to this question, because I'm not committed to the preservation of a single society in the abstract, or even of humanity as a whole – we're all gong to die too, of course, and humanity itself isn't something to be eternally enshrined, but will pass away. What is important is to disavow atrocity when it's in front of you, and go step by step. The wheel turns. This is, incidentally, something that I think rationalist philosophies generally are less capable of understanding.

The abolition of slavery was also a human atrocity in the form of the Civil War.

How would a conservative end slavery, if not with the death of hundreds of thousands of people? Well, I'm not a miracle-worker, but here is a suggestion: buy out the slave owners' trade and release the slaves. It'd be a lot less expensive than a war, too. Then destroy the infrastructure that makes holding slaves economically viable, and once the whole institution has atrophied, sneak legislation in that outlaws it.

I'm not sure. I think that leftism isn't sustainable and collapses societies, often with a high toll in human suffering. So you have good reason to want to stop it – but it's been wildly successful and sowing misery across the world and shows no signs of stopping.

As I've said, I think it can't survive without academia, and there's a sense in which academia is a sick place, that often harbors people whose ideas in society at large would be otherwise unrespectable, and leftism and apologia for totalitarianism of various sorts often go hand in hand. Cf. Thorongil's comments on the professor who would prefer Islamic theocracy to living in America: I take it he's telling the truth about that, anyway!

But how do you stop academia from breeding this sort of stuff? I don't know. Academia is in a sense inherently divorced from reality, and so there are no real checks on it from developing fantasies.

I can't consistently advocate for sweeping changes that eliminate the rise of leftism as a possibility, nor would I want to. The most you can do is take responsibility for yourself – to be tired of what leftism offers you as a person, and to be frank with other people about this, and not to let them feel ashamed for disagreeing with obviously false things.