Nicely put. There's very much a cult of 'things used to be better' from almost every quarter (but frequently for different reasons). Some people preferred things when minorities were silent and oppressed. Others think the past had better values and metaphysical frameworks. We are often said to live in a disenchanted era and everyone from Iain McGilchristt, Jordan Peterson to D. Trump are flogging nostalgia projects, seeking some kind of restoration. — Tom Storm

I don't think it's all that complicated. At bottom, people's values are and have always been the same - family, community, a decent life. I can't remember where I got this. Maybe from here on the forum.

To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economics, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save in so far as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit. — C.S Lewis

People having a connection to an inner core of value is not the same thing as saying that those core values were themselves inherently correct. — Pantagruel

Generally, when I hear people complain about the loss of respect for values, they have their own personal values in mind, e.g. a lack of commitment to traditional Christian morality.

Obviously, as our experience of the universe deepens, our understanding and appreciation of the nature of core values will also evolve. — Pantagruel

I don't see any sign of that happening. Am I being impatient?

post-modern crisis is our acute awareness of having forgotten our connection with the values traditionally safeguarded in traditional institutions, family, community, and religion. The famous state of "anomie" of Emile Durkheim, the decay of meaning brought on by the disconnection of life from value, the malaise of modern man. — Pantagruel

You can't convince or coerce people into respect and confidence in "traditional institutions, family, community, and religion," although maybe some people are in the process of trying to do that. The changes are metaphysical - they're about how think the world works and should work - about how we know what we know and what our goals should be - about what's right and wrong. I'm not sure there is any way to go back.

We should remember that the good old days were not all that good. Slavery, exploitation, and oppression were ok with full support by traditional institutions, family, community and religion. There were at least as many wars then as there are now, although the ones we have now are more dangerous. People died of diseases that are easily treated. Life expectancy has increased dramatically. Were things better then than they are now? Good question.

Confucianism, for example, sits right at this juncture of the material and the moral. It does not appeal to a god for justification (nor offer salvation). But it does seek to define morality as it can be best actualized in the here and now. In this, it is strongly akin to Stoicism. Values made real. — Pantagruel

I don't know a lot about Confucianism or ancient Chinese history and philosophy, but I do have a strong interest in Taoism, which, as I understand it, was developed in opposition to the rigidity and coercion of Confucianism. Taoism is often likened to Stoicism in that it seeks virtue not in institutions but in nature and will. By the way, I don't know a lot about Stoicism either.

Probably, but I don't think it matters. Taiwan is not important enough to US national interests to risk going to war there. I guess the best argument in favor of our continued support is that it will undermine the US's credibility to dump Taiwan.

In whatever language you read, the breadth and depth of your interest, commitment, and understanding is impressive. You also read really fast.

Wouldn't it be great that the US simply didn't mess around so much? It's a nice idea, but then we have to understand that not everything the US has done has been wrong. — ssu

Yes, my reaction to the idea of just getting out was a positive one. It seemed that, as Randy Newman put it...

No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around
Even our old friends put us down. — Randy Newman - Political Science

It also seems like many of our expeditions end badly, damage our national security, or both. I worry especially about how we have put ourselves at risk - right now I'm particularly concerned about Taiwan and Israel and maybe Ukraine. You and I recently discussed how some people around the world see US's role as a positive one. That and other world events have made me moderate my attitude some. If only we would stop tripping over our own feet so much.

Problem is, there are still a lot of people here who want us to keep taking on the "superpower" role. You see a lot of this here on the forum - people willing to risk world war for little potential gain beyond their own jingoistic pleasure. You see the same attitude from many American politicians. They want us to invade Iran or Cuba (or Greenland and Panama).

First and foremost, the objective has been to create Islamic revolution in the Muslim population itself, the Ummah, and to overthrow the secular governments (at least in the view of the radicals themselves) now controlling the Muslim states and pave way for the righteous Caliphate. A way to get to this is to attack the West. — ssu

Are you saying that jihadis would still target the US if we stopped our ineffective meddling in the Muslim world, especially the Middle East? That strikes me as unlikely, but you are more knowledgeable about world affairs than I.

Was it right to defend South Korea against a Russian sponsored North Korean attack? — ssu

I'm not sure, in spite of your affection for K-pop. I think we did it for the same reasons we went into Vietnam - to resist the USSR and China. Whatever would have happened in a unified Korea, I think the world would be a more stable place if we had stayed out. The same with Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Taiwan...

We can already see what happens when the US has lost interest: other regional actors take it's place. Just look at how active in Africa have the Gulf States have become (in Libya and Sudan). Look at the actions of Turkey. Or how Saudi-Arabia went to war with Yemen and nearly went to war with a GCC member, Qatar. — ssu

At least from the US perspective, who cares? It's not our job, shouldn't be our job, to stop all the bad things in the world.

So I think there is a role for the US to play in the Middle East, but more of leadership role than unitary actions. — ssu

Maybe... I'm not sure.

Which regimes you define to be repressive Islamic regimes? Do note that Islam is far closer to the state as Mohammed himself was the first leader of the Muslim state. Hence it's no wonder that Arab states, especially those which are monarchies, do have state religion. Do you put into this category Saudi-Arabia? How about the UAE or Egypt? What about Jordan? And how about the wavering states of Lebanon and Syria? — ssu

Good question. What comes to mind is pre-revolution Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, pre-war Iraq. Tell me I'm wrong. As I said, I think your understanding of conditions is better than mine, although I think your values are different - Europe-centric.

this has far more to do with domestic politics in the US than is about foreign policy and not because of the Jewish American voters, but because of the millions of Christian Evangelists who see supporting Israel as a religious matter. — ssu

I agree and it creeps me out. But I also think there is more to it than that. I think older American's, including Biden and other recent presidents, have a sincere ingrained belief we have a moral and political responsibility to support Israel.

Really interesting. Thanks for the context.

I wasn't clear to me from what you wrote, do you disagree with the steps I described, think they don't go far enough, or something else? Keep in mind that the goal I've set is not to solve the problem of jihadism but just to make it no longer the US's problem..

Melancholia, nostalgia, memories... all I love in literature. — javi2541997

Do you read everything in Spanish or do you sometimes read in English?

I wonder if @Pierre-Normand has anything interesting to say about this. He’s our expert on online artificial intelligence.

I hope you are just agreeing with him because you took an adversarial position towards the OP in the first place. NOS is being really unreasonable here, as usual. — ToothyMaw

I didn't take "an adversarial position." I disagreed with what you wrote. And I agreed with what NOS4A2 wrote in the specific post I was responding to.

Besides that, questioning a person's motives is not a legitimate argument.

You and I don't agree very often, but this is exactly right.

Islamic extremism is almost entirely a US-Israeli creation - the product of decades of meddling, — Tzeentch

I'm skeptical this is true. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I think your statement would be correct about the Middle East and our own status as a target for terrorism, but Islam has enough internal discord to explain a lot of other conflicts.

Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Chad, CAR, etc. Southeast Asia has had its share of Jihadi groups too. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I asked previously, why should we get involved with those areas? What possible good could we do?

That's a big if. — RogueAI

I think it's a small to medium sized if. If we can extricate the west from the religious and political conflicts within the Islamic world, admittedly a tall order, I don't see why they would care about us anymore.

Counterpoint: if the US and the rest of the region hadn't rapidly stood up a massive air campaign against IS as they advanced into the Baghdad suburbs in 2014 (and provided significant ground support) it seems fairly obvious that IS would have taken most of Iraq, all of Syria, and likely expanded into Lebanon by 2016. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The creation and expansion of ISIS was a direct result of the destruction of government and military infrastructure in Iraq by the US. We were stepping in to solve a problem we created. Let's stop causing those problems to begin with.

Many of the countries with the largest Jihadi problems are hostile to Israel and have essentially no footprint in the Middle East. Likewise, Iran, Hezbollah, and other "Shia kufar," threatened with Salafi Jihad are not exactly huge fans of Israel. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which other targets of jihad are you talking about? If it's not us or our allies, why should we get involved. Let them work it out for themselves.

the U.S. would still conduct counterterrorism operations, — RogueAI

If the terrorists stopped terrorizing, why would we keep conducting counterterrorism? Islam is not another evil empire coming to get us.

I genuinely wonder how you might rationalize what seems obvious to me: radical interpretations of scripture in the Quran tend towards producing mass-murdering maniacs at a (relatively) high rate. I consider that to be partially a problem with Islam, as those scriptures are given meaning by shared interpretations of a shared book. Although I think our policy definitely factors into the attitudes of jihadists heavily, and almost certainly fuels radicalization, one group just seems to be consistently more belligerent, at least in terms of acting violently for religious reasons, than others. — ToothyMaw

I am not a sophisticated student of Middle East or Islamic history, but it seems to me that what we call jihadism is primarily a political movement juiced up by religion. Solve the political problem and we solve the rest. We solve the political problem by getting out of the way. The jihadis are only a problem if they are coming after us or our friends. Within Islam they can work it out for themselves.

As far as I can see, this has nothing to do with Imams wanting to set up sharia law in western countries. They're not coming to set up the New World Caliphate.

For fuck's sake, T, did you even read the OP? I said that our current foreign policy makes no sense if we care about reducing jihadism. I agree with you that we should pull our military out of the middle east in an intelligent way and stop supporting Israel. — ToothyMaw

Yes, I did read the OP and just read it again. We created our problem with jihadism and we have it in our grasp to get rid of it. The OP is wrongheaded in suggesting there is some problem with Islam we need to address beyond the one we've brought on ourselves.

From a purely technical standpoint, I don't think that repeating a point (i.e., "stop supporting Israel") makes it more persuasive. Like, it just doesn't. — Arcane Sandwich

I wasn't trying to be persuasive. I was just stating the obvious with extra emphasis on what I consider most important.

I.e. put our fingers in our ears, bury our head in the sand and the problem should go away... right? Right? — BitconnectCarlos

The problem may or may not go away, but it will stop being our problem.

This is a wonderful OP. It rivals my favorite recent "In Support of Western Supremacy, Nationalism, and Imperialism" for naive, knuckleheaded hubris. If we, the US that is, wants to deal with jihadism, here are the simple steps:

• Stop supporting Israel
• Get US military out of the Middle East
• Stop supporting repressive Islamic regimes
• Mind our own business
• Stop supporting Israel

I have no idea what this analogy is supposed to be saying. This book is written before the double helix -- my copy says 1943, and google says double helix was 1953. I know the current theory but I have literally no clue what these geneticists were supposed to be doing, which makes the analogy hard to interpret. — Moliere

I don't know much about Sartre and I won't participate in the discussion beyond this post. The study of genetics did not begin with the discovery of DNA in the 1950s. Gregor Mendel did studies in the 1850s and 1860s that laid out the basics of sexual inheritance without identifying a mechanism. His work sat on a shelf until about 1900 when it was rediscovered. I don't know if this is what Sartre was referring to or not.

Probably not relevant, but Erwin Schrödinger of cat fame wrote a neat little book in the late 1940s that laid out what the mechanism of inheritance would look like without specific detail. That was added by Crick and Watson in 1953. Schrodinger's book is "What is Life." Here's a link if you're interested.

https://archive.org/details/WhatIsLife-EdwardSchrodinger

I think artistic types are the least likely to be interested in philosophy. It’s us verbal guys that get sucked into the intricacies of philosophical ideas. We prefer to be alone because we’re introverted and socially awkward.

Just watched "Here." No, not the one with Tom Hanks. A nice, gentle Belgian movie full of appealing people doing appealing things in appealing places. And making soup. Like all good continental European movies, nothing happens. Strongly recommended. If you watch it, please come back and explain the green light to me.

Meaning it's a regress, and therefore untenable? — J

Yes, that was my point. I don't get from the discussion where this "I think p" resides.

I vote '1 — Wayfarer

The usual response to ‘1’ is “p and I think p and I think that I think p.”

Yep - that Pat is right. — Banno

Another one of those rare occasions when you and I agree.

Well-written and interesting. In many ways you see things differently than I do, but I can see that, like me, you take your ideas seriously and personally. I applaud you putting them up here on the forum chopping block.

I would agree though that what you've written is a bit too much for a 10-month-old.

A year or so ago, I discussed "What is Life?: How Chemistry Becomes Biology," by Addy Pross here. I gave the book a generally good recommendation, but criticized it's pop-sciency tone. Here's an article by Pross and others that I liked much better. It's a journal article and much more focused and formal. And much shorter.

A lot of it was over my head, but a lot of it wasn't. Seems very plausible. Here's a link.

Towards an evolutionary theory of the origin of life based on kinetics and thermodynamics

The Dutch have had their colonial wars, but it's usually said that the Dutch have been quite smart when it has come to their colonies. But they tried to hold on to their Indonesian colonies, and had their own lost colonial war also. — ssu

It would take massive ignorance of world history not to recognize the role the Netherlands has played in the world since 1500.

Oh, to be in Times Square in 1963! — Tom Storm

My mother grew up in New York City and we used to go there once a year to visit my grandfather. It was magic to me then and it’s magic to me now.

The first time I became aware of Elizabeth Taylor was when, in 1963 I guess, I saw her up on a gigantic billboard in Times Square costumed as Cleopatra. That was before all the electronic imagery you see there now. I liked the old fashioned look better, especially the famous Camel cigarette billboard which used a smoke generator to make smoke come out of mouth of the man in the display, who changed over the years to keep up with the times.

I was merrily reading The Power Broker until Moses started getting really nasty. — BC

When we finally finished the book, my daughter and I agreed that we will never mention his name again. An amazing but despicable man. A genius. He could easily have been a Stalin or Hitler in a different circumstances.

It was recommended in a NYT editorial a few days ago. It is weirdly relevant. — BC

What you've written plus this from Kirkus Review's 1977 review, make me even more interested in taking a look at the book.

Coover skids between easy-target satire (Bruce, Sahl, et al. were there first) and melodramatic grandstanding, with no new insights worthy of his remarkable rhetorical talents. A provocative kernel lost in a dazzling, deadening morass: precisely the kind of book more likely to be talked about than read. — From Kirkus Review of The Public Burning

I think "Taoism" (if there is such a unified, identifiable, thing), is pointing in a direction away from the conventional attachment to, even fixation with, purpose. Be an uncarved block, it suggests. — ENOAH

Taoism suggests we remain free and easy about our Narratives so that we can navigate through them without getting caught or trapped. — ENOAH

Both your posts are good clear summaries of what Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu have to say. I'll steal it and use it when someone asks for a quick summary of the basics and a bit beyond the basics. I'll give you an attribution. I especially like your emphasis on narratives.

I was about to recommend you "One Thousand and One Nights" because I imagine it might be interesting to read a tale each night and then choose your favourite at the end of the year, for example. — javi2541997

We haven't decided finally yet. We may yet pick another book.

On Monday, my daughter and I finished reading and discussing "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro. We've been reading it 100 pages/month starting last January. It's the story of Robert Moses, the man primarily responsible for infrastructure construction in New York City, Long Island, and throughout New York State starting in the mid 1920s through the mid 1960s. He was amazing and brilliant man and a monomaniacal promoter of cars and highways at the expense of rapid transit. No one in history has had a bigger effect on the day to day life of New Yorkers. Great story, well told.

Now we have to find a new book for 2025. The criteria 1) We're both interested 2) We would never read it ourselves because of it's length 3) We'll get bragging rights and be able to pontificate for the rest of our lives. We're thinking about "Infinite Jest."

@MrLiminal, @Patterner
Another aspect of the writings of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu is a radical approach to morality. This is from Brook Ziporyn's translation of Chapter 8 of the Chuang Tzu.

What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more. — Chuang Tzu - Chapter 8

"Intrinsic virtuosities" is how Ziporyn translates "Te," as in Tao Te Ching. This approach conflicts with the principles of Confucius, which focus on following rigid social roles and behaviors.

@MrLiminal

Taoism speaks of the way of the universe, the way of nature. It speaks of what it considers the best way to live. That is, living without anger, hatred, frustration, and all the other negative emotions. Living as the universe exists, without effort or worry...

...That’s all you need to know. Such a simple thing, really. Give up desire, and you will be content. And in your contentment, you will be able to find happiness.
I could stop now. And if you followed that advice, all would become clear to you. But I'll explain the nuts and bolts of it all... — Patterner

This is a good description of Lao Tzu's and Chuang Tzu's vision of the Taoist path, as you note, the right way to live our lives, but I came to Taoism from a different direction. I tend to see things from an intellectual perspective and the part that first interested me was Taoist metaphysics. The description of the nature of reality in the Tao Te Ching recognizes that the reality we live in is fundamentally an interaction between an unformed, unnamed, unconceptualized reality and human thought and action. This is from Gia-Fu Feng's translation of Verse 1.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery. — Tao Te Ching Verse 1

As I understand this, the Tao is one, undivided, uncategorized, unnamed. The act of naming is what brings the multiplicity of the world we experience, what is called the 10,000 things, into existence. I see naming as a fundamentally human activity, although others disagree with this. This is Verse 40.

Returning is the motion of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
The ten thousand things are born of being.
Being is born of not being. — Tao Te Ching - Verse 40

As I see this, the Tao is non-being - it doesn't exist, it isn't a thing. The 10,000 things are being, the multiplicity of the world we live in.

I was a huge fan of the Kung Fu movie and tv show — Patterner

I was also a fan of the TV show. I don't remember the movie.

One interesting aspect of Chuang Tzu's depiction of Confucius is that it represents him learning stuff. — Paine

It's true and confusing. Sometimes Chuang Tzu depicts him as someone who doesn't understand and sometimes he treats him as a sage.