It can't simply be anything goes with no guidelines, it would devolve into chaos in a couple of nanoseconds. — Wayfarer

I don’t disagree that there should be guidelines. But the nature of guidelines need not consist in the potentially arbitrary rule of an oligarchy.

@Banno

I was referring not to the opinion of the person banned, but rather to that of the other members who oppose it.

Putting mod powers in their hands would destroy the forums — Banno

It is the character of a tyrant to consider opposing opinions to be the work of those wishing to take away his powers.

Instead of debating the justice of bans after they have already been enacted, why should we not do so before? Wouldn’t this be more democratic? Wouldn’t the opinions of the members be valuable to the moderators in making their decision? It is much easier to change your opinion before, than after it has been expressed; much more difficult to reverse a decision after, rather than before it has been handed down.

I suggest that any moderator who is inclined to ban someone first publish his thoughts here, and invite the forum to weigh in on his opinion before he take action.

Perhaps because many in the West have the luxury of being able to put off becoming a responsible adult for many years it seems. — Tom Storm

The phrase “responsible adult” elicits an image of the citizen who “fits in”, takes a stable well-paying job, perhaps marries, has children, raises them, does everything in moderation, that is, without compromising his job or his family life. Is that what you implied by that phrase?

I would have thought that was the hallmark of our era. — Tom Storm

Nay Mr. Storm, in my opinion what distinguishes modernity from antiquity is rather the notion that there is no problem that cannot be solved, including, most crucially, the problem of the hostile relationship between philosophy and civil society. The ancients considered this hostility to be a permanent condition of life, and did their best through their writings to mitigate its effects—never thought of changing the relationship itself, which they considered to be inevitable.

@Fooloso4

You have reminded me of Cleitophon, O Morosophos:

Socrates: Cleitophon...as someone was just telling us, was conversing with Lysias and criticized spending time with Socrates, while he could not praise too highly the company of Thrasymachos.

Cleitophon: whoever that someone was, Socrates, did not recount for you accurately the arguments that I made about you to Lysias. For while there were some things for which I for my part did not praise you, there were also some for which in fact I did. But since it is plain you are holding this against me, for all that you pretend you couldn’t care less, I would very gladly go over these same arguments with you myself...so that you will be less inclined to think that I have a low opinion of you. For as things stand now, perhaps you have been misinformed, and that is why you appear to be more harshly disposed toward me than you ought to be. So then, if you give me permission to speak frankly, I would very gladly accept it, as I wish to explain.

Socrates: Why, it would be shameful indeed, when you are so eager to benefit me, not to submit to it. For clearly, once I have learned my bad and good points, I will practice and pursue the one and shun the other with all my might.


Lest I be charged with plagiarism, let me point out that this is from Orwin’s translation.

It is remarkable that after these words, Socrates never again speaks in this dialogue. I imagine him listening attentively and silently throughout, and later contemplating in private what he heard.

Also remarkable to me is Socrates response: that he wanted to hear his critic so that he might become better. How rare is that sentiment! As soon as we hear criticism of ourselves, our instinct is to defend ourselves, for no one wants to feel himself to be lacking in good qualities or otherwise deficient in anything that would attract someone else to him.

The development of “thick skin” to ward off the slings and arrows of opprobrium is what one often hears is needed as protection against criticism. Socrates here, however, offers us submission to them, in case that criticism is warranted...

...my mother once told me, “your solution to problems is to run away from them”. That’s the wisest thing I remember her ever saying, and I just stood there before her in silence... because I knew that what she said could not be contradicted.

Only know because she mentioned it on a thread. — Wayfarer

Reminds me of the old riddle, “A father and son were involved in an automobile accident. Responders on the scene pronounced the father dead, but rushed his son to the nearest hospital with critical injuries and in need of immediate surgery...

“...into the ER strode the surgeon with gloves and gown, ready for emergency operation, but after seeing the victim’s face exclaimed, “Oh no! This is my son!””


@Fooloso4 “Cheers, mate! I will echo a sentiment of Bloom’s and say that, though we disagree on much, our concern for the same things proves we have more in common than what separates us.

Ms., I think. :yikes: ) — Wayfarer

Yeah, ya never know nowadays.

But as the commentaries by Bloom's teacher Leo Strauss show, Xenophon was deeply ironic. that is to say, he cannot not simply be taken at face value. — Fooloso4

I think you meant to say, “he cannot simply be taken at face value”. I have not read these commentaries of Strauss’, but my impression in reading the Anabasis is that Xenophon is not so much ironic as elliptical, both in language and thought: he expects the reader to both supply the omitted verb or phrase, and to draw his own inferences from what has already been said. As evidence of this I would direct you to the Rousseau quote I previously posted, and I hope you amended my “wow” to “woe” there.

The problem inherent in the surface of things, and only in the surface of things, is the heart of things.

This reminded me of a very similar thing Bloom said, but I was unable to find it. Maybe you can? It was something like, “the surface is the depths”.

A funny story told by Seth Benardete — Fooloso4

...

...that WAS indeed a funny story! I belly-laughed. The book was received with such animosity (but also popularity, we must remember), that Bloom feared the American Mind would close upon and crush him. Maybe the deer would have licked his face, but the anecdote, if true, proves that he had little experience of that animal.

I had to charge a doe once when my dog got too close to her fawn and she tried to stomp him.

I have Benardete’s excellent translation of Plato’s Symposium, which I read many years ago now. I also have the Greek, but wouldn’t dare attempt to read it, as my Greek skills are yet in their infancy, and there are so many quotes-within-quotes in that dialogue.

It is a shame that you and I are not next door neighbors, for, sharing a common interest in Strauss and philosophy, we might have many profitable discussions on each other’s back deck over a beer and barbecue. I guess the internet is supposed to be the solution for this problem, but it’s just not the same. One wants to see a person face-to-face, to hear their opinions and experiences through ones own ears, to hear their “valved voice”.

Basically, would you agree with something like this:
As more people survive past childhood and live well into their 70's, human life and culture have become cheap, flat, superficial, lacking deeper meaning and value; lacking opportunity for true heroism and grit; commodities that are only meant to be consumed and then discarded. — baker

Yes, I would agree with all that, Mr. Baker. But I would emend “into their 70s” to read “into their 80s and even 90s.” I live with a woman in her late 80s who shows little sign of slowing down anytime soon. I work for a local nonagenarian couple: he is 95, ran to the opposite side of his ship to avoid incoming Kamikaze in the South Pacific; she is 90 and works her garden every day, lifts the other side of a heavy piece of furniture to move it whithersoever we will, feeds me lunch and takes up whatever tasks her invalid husband can no longer perform. The 80s and 90s are the new 70s and 80s...

...but what is an extra decade added onto an already long life? This was one of Socrates’ calculations when he chose to die at the ripe young age of 70. I was told by @Fooloso4 that this opinion of both Xenophon and Allan Bloom—that Socrates calculated his old age as a part of the reason he chose to die—was “not to be taken at face value”, ie, that it was part of some esoteric teaching; I pointed out to him, however, that 70 years were considered to be the “years of a man” in the Old Testament. But I failed to point out to him that, of the two contemporary philosopher-authors of Socrates, Xenophon is the least esoteric.

Bloom writes, “Xenophon tells how Socrates responded to Antiphon, the Sophist, who was trying to attract his companions or students away from him by claiming Socrates’ life was not a happy one, particularly because of his great poverty...

““Antiphon, as another man gets great pleasure from a good horse, or a dog, or a bird, I get even more pleasure from good friends. And if I have something good I teach it to them, and I introduce them to others who will be useful to them with respect to virtue. And together with my friends I go through the treasures of the wise men of old which they left behind written in books, and we peruse them. If we see something good, we pick it out and hold it to be a great profit, if we are able to prove useful to one another.””

“Xenophon comments, “When I heard this, I held Socrates to be really happy...” (Memorabilia, I 6).

“How naive! It is a naïveté we would do well to recover. But, oh, the difficulty of it! Rousseau understood this very well:

““Our bombastic lapidary style is good only for inflating dwarfs. The ancients showed men as they are naturally, and one saw that they were men. Xenophon, honoring the memory of some warriors who were killed during the retreat of the ten thousand, says, “They died irreproachable in war and in friendship.” That is all. But consider what must have filled the author’s heart in writing this short and simple eulogy. Wow unto him who does not find that entrancing!””

“Rousseau’s observation is even more appropriate to this passage, the only one in the writings of Xenophon, who had experienced so much and seen so many illustrious men in action, where he calls a man happy.”


Along with “cheap, flat, superficial, lacking deeper meaning and value”, I would add “coarse, vulgar and ostentatious”...

... I used to be a skilled roller-skater in the artistic style, 3-turns, spins on either foot, one-turn leaps, etc. I once visited an out-of-town rink and found there a fellow who was jealous of my skills. I suppose he was considered to be the local prodigy, and to do me one better, performed a backwards flip in which he landed safely upon his skates, followed by acclamation and applause of his friends. But despite this stunt, his style was rough and coarse and lacked general skill and subtlety. He seems to me to be a paradigm of the modern artist.

But the more astute novelists pick up insights consciously and unconsciously which correlate with actual human behaviour and motivations.
Amongst psychologists it's guys like James,freud,adler who also have great insights,but they are also exceptional writers,especially William James.
Even Nietzsche is great writer. Not your standard philosophical prose.
In contrast hegel,Kant,Wittgenstein,just turgid,with a few lines of oasis in a desert of jargon. — Mystic

What’s the difference between these two sets of writers? One adheres to and attempts to further the original purpose of the Enlighteners: to dryly and academically make sense of the idea that all men are created equal through the use of reason for both their own and their community’s benefit (Locke); the other promotes the notion (Rousseau) that ones own personal benefit and that of the community are at odds; that adjustments must be made, compromises with ones true self, in order to become a citizen.

I know hardly any music from the period of my youth 1970's and 1980's - I find it ugly — Tom Storm

Sounds like I’m maybe a decade or so older than you, but I find it surprising that you call music of the 70s ugly. Of course, some of it was, but certainly not all of it. Along with the coarser rock&roll, to which I was not generally attracted, nevertheless there was Seals and Crofts, John Denver and Dan Fogelberg, just to mention a few, who wrote/sang some beautiful music. Seals and Crofts were vapid lyricists, influenced by some fringe mystical religion, but their harmonic progressions could be complex and enchanting. Witness “Hummingbird”.

The only jazz that ever touched me was Dave Brubeck’s Take Five. Other than that, I have never been attracted to either jazz or blues.

yet often ones dislike for a form of music or literature isn’t just subjective preference , but an inability to assimilate the worldview expressed by that creation. It has seemed to me that the persons I know with only a passing interest in and acquaintance with pop music , and an intense interest in classical music invariably identify with a more traditionalistic worldview. When I listen to classical music from the 1700’s through the early 20th century I am inspired to think via older philosophical
tropes , but this same music represses my ability to push the boundaries of my thinking. — Joshs

I’m amazed that anyone of little acquaintance with pop/rock/rap music could be found nowadays. It plays everywhere you go, or if you stay home. It infiltrates all public and private spaces. More than that, it was the earliest musical passion of almost everyone still living.

By contrast, classical music is a fossil, something you have to go to a museum to experience. If we hear it now it is most likely the backdrop for some ostentatious car commercial, but there is no general fascination for it, as there is for the Queen and Royal Family.

When ones boundaries become the popular, the emergent; when what used to break boundaries becomes what sets them; when iconoclasm becomes a prejudice and ppl grow tired of breaking idols whose memory has become a fuzzy nebula; when we have forgotten what it was like to storm the Bastille, then the only plausible course to follow is to become a paleontologist and return to those old forgotten places. For they are the only ones remaining which might give us a counterpoise to what we are experiencing now...

...the last real fling America’s youth had with rock music that I remember was with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. He really captivated the souls of the young with his dark lyrics and gravelly-voiced melodies. But when you try to penetrate that darkness to discover depth, all you find is post-existentialist nothingness and despair. I suppose that’s part of the reason he took himself out of the world.

The world described by science is a single planetary environment; occupied by human beings, who are all members of the same species, and presumably, have a common interest in sustainability! The earth is a big ball of molten rock that we could tap into, to meet all our energy needs, and more! — counterpunch

Is this the life that science promised us when we were lead out of the dark ages into the light of technology? that we would, in the twenty-first century, have to worry about how to provide energy for their bodily existences to the masses? Sustainability!...one wonders if what we have is worth sustaining.

Isn’t human life supposed to be something elevated, something ethereal, something more than mere existence? “we are all members of the same species”, you say, and indeed that is true, but isn’t it also true that we all derive from different cultures? I suppose you would pejoratively describe these different cultures as “ideologies”...at least insofar as they interfere with the goal of modern science to provide all human beings around the globe with the things necessary for their material comfort. The problem is that the higher ideals of a particular culture often contradict the lower goals of that science.

The problem with science—after it became a political party as opposed to a private enterprise—is that it lost its interest in the higher things of the soul. Music, poetry, philosophy herself, became relegated to the dustbin of history, because they just didn’t matter anymore: all that mattered was that the material wealth and comfort of all everywhere be secured.

The problem with this is that human life is more than just its own sustenance. Yes indeed, our lives must be sustained—but only if there is something they are worth being sustained for. There is something more than just the material prosperity of man, and it is precisely this that modern science has nothing about which to say.

My question is, what can we tap into to meet all the energy needs of our souls? For it is these that are flagging while we worry about the sustainability of the resources that provide energy to our bodies. But I forget: the distinction b/w body and soul has long been discredited and forgotten. The latter, under Rousseau’s influence, became the self in modern psychology, an indeterminate and ineffable thing; or was subsumed under the heading of the former as the brain: a mere organ of the body which, however, can be manipulated through drugs and shocks to behave properly.

This whole artificial distinction between science and philosophy has something to do with the loss or banishment of the aristocracy: to truly understand human nature, one must have what I would call the “aristocratic experience”. For though it not be hard science, nevertheless it is necessary to complete our understanding of ourselves.

↪Janus

Yes, science is the source of climate change and pollution, in the sense that, without it they would not have existed. Science is the source of technology, which is the source of consumerism, pollution, global warming, environmental degradation, soil destruction, aquifer destruction, over-fishing of the oceans etc, etc. Science is also the source of increasingly effective technologies that can be used to diminish personal liberty.
— Janus

You haven't got to the root of the problem. Science is not just a tool that can be used for good or ill. Science is also an understanding of reality. — counterpunch

I think you have gotten to the root here, Mr. Contrapuncte. Allow me approach this situation from a linguistic perspective...

...the understanding of reality according to reason was an invention (and I use that term in the Roman sense of a “discovery”) of the ancient Greeks, who didn’t call it “science”, of course, but rather, “philosophy”. Later, when a distinction was made between, say, a Thales and a Socrates, the term “natural philosopher” was used to describe the former. The most important thing these various philosophers had in common was that they conducted their studies with the pure motive of, as you say Counterpunch, understanding reality...for themselves and their own personal gratification, not necessarily in order to help others.

The terms “science” and “scientist”, Roman terms, I suspect came into vogue and replaced “philosophy” and “philosopher”, Greek ones, during the Enlightenment, when Latin was the cosmopolitan language of the learned. This indicated that the natural philosopher had replaced the philosopher as the paradigm of the thinker. Philosophy eventually became relegated to “the humanities”, a conglomerate of disciplines that are supposed to elevate and enrich the human soul, but which got placed on the back-burner in favor of the “hard” sciences, those that could faithfully predict outcomes and that could conduce to the material prosperity of the plebs. When science did venture out into the arena of the things of the soul, it did not get named according to its blood ancestry, as “philosophy”, but according to its Latinized version, the “social” SCIENCES.

The Enlightenment project which appealed to the masses over the heads of the kings and barons and priests and taught us the prejudice that all men are created equal not only compromised the ppl by conducing to a depreciation of high culture, it also divided the thinkers, the very ones who initiated this project, into separate camps, into “scientists” and “philosophers” who have arguably different motives.

That is why the modern philosopher, the scientist in his lab-coat, is ambiguous: does he really only want to discover the truth about nature, or is his real motive the profit of mankind? Can it be both at the same time? Fauci is impressive, but he seems not to take the economy sufficiently into account. Does he take account of anti-vax sentiment? If he does, it’s not according to the principles of his science. Socrates would have looked at both sides of the issue from a much broader perspective.

I completely reject the idea of Machiavelli as a figurehead of the Enlightenment. His major work, the Prince - was advice to monarchy on how to retain power. While diabolically clever, there's nothing particularly enlightened about it. — counterpunch

I don’t know enough about this; but I suspect that it was Machiavelli’s suggestion that Fortune can be overcome—at odds with ancient philosophy’s belief that She cannot, but must be accepted on Her own terms—that resulted in the Enlightenment.

The scheme of the Enlightenment philosophers was roughly this: if they could persuade the rulers to leave them alone to pursue their studies “of the things under the earth and in the heavens” as they wished, free of persecution, the philosophers promised them that their discoveries—those of the nascent “Scientific Revolution”, as @Fooloso4 has mentioned—would benefit mankind by offering protection against disease, famine, death from violence, etc, and “ease their estate” generally through the application of the results of that science. This was at odds with with the ancient attitude toward philosophy, exemplified by Archimedes who, according to Plutarch, destroyed all his manuscripts describing his practical discoveries, machines of war, etc, as being beneath the dignity of publication and posterity because of their practical as opposed to theoretical nature.

Simply put, the philosophers said to the rulers, “Harken to us and quit listening to the Pope. He may appeal to the ppl by talking about heaven and hell, but the truth is everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. We know how to keep ppl from dying and make their lives easier here on earth, and if you leave us alone, we’ll do our deep thinking, and what we discover will benefit not only them, but also you, because you were wise enough to neither kill nor exile us as former unenlightened rulers did, but instead left us alone to practice our philosophy; and that will endear you to the ppl and cause them to support you against the church and the nobles”.

In other words, the philosophers became transigent, willing to compromise with the arbitrary rule of tyrants by buying them off. This their ancient kin were either unable or unwilling to do: unable, because science had not progressed far enough—though I suspect that it had: Archimedes’ war machines were quite impressive—unwilling, because they did not believe that Fortune could be overcome...

...the Enlightenment philosophers’ announcement that Fortune could indeed be overcome was good news to both the ppl in general, and to the rulers whose rule could now be based on the favor of the ppl (as opposed to cow towing to the priests and noblemen). By contrast, Plato’s appeal to the aristocracy in his writings in response to Socrates’ unjust execution involved no quid pro quo: it was rather a rhetorical appeal to that class in order to establish his preceptor among the heroes; to make Socrates the new Achilles in their eyes.

I'm not following your actual argument.

Is it that Mozart survived childhood, against the odds, and somehow this makes his work of greater value? — Banno

I make no causal connection b/w his survival and the quality of his music. My point is that, despite the fact that many more ppl died young in olden times, nevertheless, those who did survive enjoyed a richer culture, and I question the validity of the argument that science is undeniably good simply because it increases physical prosperity and longevity.

One pictures oneself as one of the survivors, not one of the many who died in childhood. Those who died are not free to pursue the good and beautiful. — Banno

But neither are the many survivors today free for this pursuit; not because they are dead, but because the culture is dead they were supposed to survive in order to enjoy. The very idea of the good and beautiful, along with that of the soul, has disappeared. It’s like the old adage, “what good is it to gain the whole world, yet lose your soul?”

The "wasteland of the soul" you describe is a consequence of the fact religion chose an antithetical relationship to science — counterpunch

I think science and religion are natural enemies. The recognition that there is a natural order discoverable by reason, and the authority of text revealed to man by god must necessarily collide, which was always the source of the persecutions of philosophers by the civil/religious authorities.

As the two [religion and science] diverge, the one claiming to be the source of all things spiritual, moral, aesthetic - appears falsified by contrast to the demonstrable truths of science. — counterpunch

The fault lies with science, not religion; and I mean by “science” what used to be meant by “philosophy”, ie, the pursuit of the truth about nature according to reason—including the nature of man, of his soul. That bold innovation of Machiavelli and his numerous disciples, the Enlightenment—was really just a power-grab: an attempt to wrest authority away from the pontiffs and prelates and rulers who bowed to them and place it in the hands of philosophers, that they no longer suffer persecution, and this was successfully accomplished by focusing man’s attention on his material as opposed to spiritual prosperity. It was this goal of philosophy that conduced to the division in philosophy b/w it and science in the modern sense, ie, “hard” science, the sort that is demonstrable and easily adaptable to material prosperity.

But if your deal was with the devil, he was wearing vestments and a mitre - not a lab coat! — counterpunch

The modern scientist casts an ambiguous shadow: does he really only want to understand rerum naturam as the disinterested theoretician, or is he the benefactor of mankind, the technician discovering things that can be used to increase our material prosperity? Everything lies in the motive, for it is not obvious that everything he discovers has practical application—especially in the realm of the soul. Aristotle’s lover of “beautiful and useless things” is not to the modern taste.

You have not established a causal relation or shown that science and art are incompatible. — Fooloso4

O Morosophos, once upon a time, depictors of the human body cared little of anatomical accuracy, but cared much about conveying in their works the spirit or soul encapsulated within the body they portrayed. After the Enlightenment, artists began studying anatomy in order to better represent the human body, its exact musculature, dissecting corpses...this change in itself is an indication of the alteration that philosophy (science) exacted upon aesthetics: more emphasis on physical exactitude, at the cost of psychic representation. Only compare Rembrandt with David.

As for genius, surely there are now more people alive as brilliant as Mozart or Einstein, than there were in their own age. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Potentially as brilliant, I would say— but there is something you’re not taking into account here, O ArchitectwnTwnThewn: though more ppl survive and live long lives now through the beneficence of science, and though they are as smart and crafty as any of the ancients, those artists and thinkers of yore lived in a day when the cultural/philosophic soil was more fertile...

...one is reminded of the parable of Jesus concerning the seed which was scattered among the thorns, which choked it, and in the fertile ground, where it grew up tall and strong: it doesn’t matter so much how many seeds you plant as where you plant them.

In other words, “the music is nothing if the audience is deaf”.

We'd literally be living in clay huts with a life expectancy of 40 years max and infant mortality rates up to 50% without science — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Well, both Keats and Mozart defied that infant mortality rate, and produced some of the best music and poetry known to man, though neither lived beyond the age of 35. You can argue that science is good based on the prosperity of the masses, but if the higher accomplishments of the soul are compromised by its success, better observers might begin to wonder whether it was worth it: are we better off living in a world that is safe and healthy, comfortable and secure and wealthy? or was the science we employed in order to obtain that world part and parcel of a philosophical/political scheme that also succeeded in diminishing the artistic/aesthetic potential of mankind?

After all, unless you haven’t noticed, we no longer produce Beethovens or Mozarts, Keatses or Dantes, Raphaels or Rembrandts. The generations that fed off that cultural richness died in the last century. Are we better off because we now lead longer, more comfortable and secure lives, when those lives are spent playing checkers in retirement homes? where we’re visited occasionally by sons and daughters who we know don’t care much for us, are just waiting for us to die so they don’t have to come see us anymore?

For my part I prefer a world less secure in which I am not guaranteed longevity and comfort, but in which I am free to pursue the good and beautiful with danger and discomfort and awareness of my mortality. The world we now have, bestowed upon us by science, is a world indeed full of longevity and comfort and security; but it is bereft of goodness and beauty. We seem to have as though made a pact with the devil: “Sign here and I will give you good hope of eternal life without fear of injury or disease...but your soul shall eat of the cursed ground all the days of your life...thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and it shall eat the herb of the field”.

This wasteland of the soul is what I fear we have received in exchange for a prosperous bodily existence. I know all the counter-arguments: “but more ppl than ever before have access to the greatest cultural achievements of man through the internet”. This seems impressive until you realize that the contemporary soul is unable to digest the fodder: the soul itself has been transformed by philosophy to recognize only the base concerns of the body, and to delight only in its barbaric emanations. Beethoven and Mozart are accessible to all; whose soul is moved by them?

I am not talking about the way of looking at them as done in books on dream interpretation, but on a deeper level. Jung spoke of such interpretation as being too generalised, because dream symbols have unique meanings for different people. — Jack Cummins

My girlfriend once related a dream to me in which there was a scarcity of collard greens in the area. Now, knowing her well, I immediately perceived the meaning of the greens: they represented dollar bills, and her dream was the expression of her fear of not having enough money to pay the bills.

The poor citizens however of a country whose paper currency is not green would presumably have such a dream in a different color, employing another metaphor. If it is orange, they might dream of a scarcity of pumpkins; if yellow, a scarcity of squash, etc. But I suspect that the color green may indeed convey a universal meaning of affluence to the mind of man, in that it is the general color of healthy vegetation; in the sense that, though water not dissolve everything, it nevertheless became known as “the universal solvent”.

I suspect there is a dream symbolism common to mankind regardless of his ethnicity or citizenship. An example is the representation in dreams of money as excrement, which symbolism I have seen in my own dreams; and I think this symbolism arises from a natural characteristic of money: it is the lowest thing we share that yet gives us a common measure of the value of things; a measure that, however, is also perceived to be woefully inadequate as a representation of their true value.

No need of scientific method here, just obvious rationality: Socrates has outlived and will outlive every one of us mere mortals. Isn’t he still on our tongues?

@TheMadFool

This reminded me of a time when I lived in a boarding-house, a large southern house dating back to the mid-19th century, with a large carriage-port, and sprawling front porch which I used to sit on of a summer evening. The old oaks in the yard shaded the entire porch, and it was quite pleasant to sit in the cool darkness and look out over the lamp-lit street.

As the season changed however, and the leaves began to fall, the lamp-light was able to shine through here and there and strike my eyes, causing me to shift my position so that the remaining leaves blocked the light, and I thusly avoided it’s annoying glare. But this became daily more and more difficult as the branches became ever more denuded, and the shifts of position more and more frequent and ineffective at evading the glare until, one night, there was no position I could find that eliminated it. I was now helplessly exposed to the annoyance of the streetlight.

The effect of this situation on my behavior however was not to drive me off my evening porch and indoors. With all the leaves now gone from their branches and all the lights glaring in my eyes, I noticed that, instead, the glare simply ceased anymore to be annoying. It’s omnipresence, like the air on our tongues and in our noses, caused it to become unnoticeable.

@TheMadFool

You should have punctuated with a question mark in my case. I am not university-taught. I learned to read Latin solely from books, and in a long and desultory manner.

@TheMadFool

You have honored me and my knowledge, sir.

@TheMadFool

No comment on the philosophy (I know nothing about Descartes), just a comment on the Latin. veritatem mendaciis is poor in a couple ways. Firstly, in a title, there is no need of the accusative case. Better is veritas (the nominative).

Secondly, mendaciis is ambiguous: is it ablative or dative? The former is obviously meant judging by your translation, but it should be made clear by the use of the preposition ex. So we have “veritas e mendaciis”, “the truth out of lies”.

The ancient notion is that reason should rule the passions (emotions). It is that idea that has been overcome in modernity, replaced by the notion that we must be allowed to express them in a “healthy way”. But when you are overcome by anger, for example, how can you express that in a healthy way? You are already overcome. The outcome of that expression is most likely to be destruction...either of yourself or some other(s) or both.

There are two different phenomena at work here: hyper-advanced egalitarianism, that wants everything, including human beings, to be absolutely equal; and Nature, that wants to differentiate b/w everything. The latter wishes to segregate—why are there different races of men?—the former wishes to unite—why are women just as intelligent, if not more so, than men?

Between these two poles, that of equality and that of segregation, the world must eternally turn.

Science became what we now know it to be only after the Enlightenment. Before then, scientists were “natural philosophers”, where nature in this sense was understood to be physical nature, as opposed to that of the soul. Socrates was accused of being such a natural philosopher, investigating “the things under the earth and the heavenly things”, like a geologist and astronomer, whereas he was obviously more a student of the human soul. But though he didn’t care much about atoms or eclipses, he had much more in common with a Thales or Democritus than our present day psychologists have with physicists or astrophysicists. That’s because, though Socrates dealt with something that “hard” science cannot be applied to, yet he used reason, and took as his axioms the common notions the men of his day had as to what justice or law is, what courage or bravery, what piety or faithfulness, etc...

...after the Enlightenment only natural philosophers, i.e. scientists, became important to the ppl. Before then they lived in blessed autonomy, studying the stars and the earth only with the intention of knowing for themselves alone how the world works and is arranged by nature; afterwards, having made a pact with the devil so to speak and sold their souls, they were forced to make vaccines...and atomic bombs.

In other words, the modern scientist, as opposed to the ancient one, is ambiguous: does he study these things out of disinterested desire for knowledge, or because his country needs that knowledge to placate its citizenry or overcome another country? Hitler drove the Jewish scientists out of Germany to America, where they collaborated to produce the atomic bomb, which we used to stop fascism. But those same scientists, whatever their political leanings, did not use the same intellectual rigor they employed in their atomic science when they chose what to do when they saw their ppl being oppressed and exterminated...

...this introduced a disparity between a Democritus and a Socrates that didn’t exist in ancient times. A Russian scientist relies upon his peers in other countries to gain the knowledge he needs in order to make a bomb or vaccine. This makes him cosmopolitan. But what he does with that bomb or vaccine depends upon the regime under which he labors, which makes him part of an autocracy. The Enlightenment’s merging of science and society produced both benefit to each...but also a compromise of both the former’s and latter’s aims.

This discussion makes me think of the philosophers; for so many of them have been convicted of their ideas which, allegedly, led to corruption and slaughter.

For example, Socrates. He was convicted of corrupting the Athenian youth. Was the fact that his intention was innocent, that he was only seeking rational truth, exculpatory? That so many of his disciples—Alcibiades comes to mind—were influenced by him to corrupt politics suggests he was the origin of that corruption.

Again: is Marx responsible for Stalin? Is Machiavelli responsible for any prince’s atrocities who came after? Is Nietzsche responsible for Hitler? Is Thales accountable for revealing that Zeus does not control the heavens?...

...on the other hand it is clear that certain freedoms allowed by the legislator in society necessarily lead, by nature, to certain corruptions. The left, in America, has always viewed violent video-games as free speech—yet who can doubt that such customary exposure to virtual violence leads to actual such? Women in the west have been allowed to dress suggestively now for a long time. Who would doubt that revealing young women’s bodies in public would lead to an increase in rapes and sexually inspired murders?

@god must be atheist

Your “hapless chap” seems to me to be like a piece of cardboard you pull out of a nearby dumpster or chance upon in the trunk of your car when you are stranded on the side of the road because you ran out of oil and lack a proper funnel: you take that chap and bend him in your hands into the shape of a funnel, stick his narrow end into the intake, and pour in the needed lubrication.

The same sort of thing can be done in a sudden war, especially when you have superior technology: you recruit the youngest most physically hale sorts of men, as the US did in WWII, and bend their unformed minds to operate guns and drop bombs...

...but it is better, if you can, to train your soldiers in peacetime for war...and to always keep a proper funnel behind your seat or in your trunk.

You can’t commercialize true ownership. If you want to own some property, especially if nobody else cares about it (in which case it is especially desirable), go visit it frequently, as I did in former times the Ararat River. There I stretched myself naked across the sandy beach, and swam in the turbulent waters, watched an otter fish for her young, a kingfisher dive for his prey; smoked some pot and and drank a couple beers; conversed with myself and nature.

That’s how you truly own a place!

I remember reading Thoreau, where he talked about visiting others’ “property” to enjoy the natural phenomena on it: he said he got much more out of that experience than did the poor “owners” of it did who had to work constantly to pay for it, and were still in debt up to their necks.

I have only seen uncommon wealth. And I wonder where that came from :chin: — TaySan

Wealth is pretty common now in the USA. I’m about to receive my third stimulus check, and my sister, worth over $2 million, is receiving hers too.

But, back to the topic: we in this day of advanced egalitarianism and extreme individualism tend to look at ourselves as isolated and equal individuals who can invent and re-invent ourselves. This shows how much Nietzsche’s ideas have pervaded our self-consciousness. But we forget that that philosopher was seeking to inspire a very rare sort of person; a civilization-constituting sort of being, like Moses Jesus or Muhammad—not a “creative” finger-painting kindergartner.

Human beings in ancient times, on the other hand, were very differentiated and unequal, much like their languages: Greek and Roman society was as complex, as full of hierarchies and differentiated roles as the conjugated verb forms and noun cases of Latin and Greek which served their various linguistic needs. It is as difficult for us to understand with our modern mindset such complexity in societal relations as it is for an English speaker to learn the accusative, or appreciate the subjunctive or optative.

That is why discussion in this thread of the proper or best goal or purpose of a human being is so aimless and subjective—when it is not at all obvious that subjectivism and individualism are the proper perspectives from which to view the question. For example, is it obvious that it is not the proper goal of a woman to remain in the home, tend to its economy and take care of the children? Does the fact that this idea is outdated and universally scorned mean that it is not true?

Again, is it obvious that no man is born to serve, to be subservient to his superior fellows, and others to lead? Don’t we instinctively sympathize with a man whom we see relegated to an inferior position by adverse circumstance, though his qualities suggest he should occupy a higher place? Don’t we likewise resent the advancement by good fortune of a man whose qualities indicate he should serve rather than command?

The democratization of society may lead to the optimization of each individual to set his or her own goals as freely as possible; it may also lead, on a mechanistic analogy, to a multiplicity of different natural “gears” failing to anymore mesh and set the machine of society in motion. In a clock each gear has a specific purpose, role and function; is human society like a clock?...or is it rather like a scale, on which individual equal weights are placed in order to come up with the right balance?

To discover the goal or purpose of a human being shouldn’t we first investigate the clearer purposes of the other things in nature?

For example, what is the purpose of a stone? Isn’t it to serve as a building block? On this analogy, a human being is as though the building block of the community, a proper and fit citizen to help form the commonwealth.

What is the purpose of a plant? Isn’t it to nourish our bodies? Then we are as nourishment for the polity, each doing our special work that sustains it. What the purpose of a horse or mule or cow? Thusly a general rides his cavalry to victory, carried on the backs of the citizenry and fed by the milk of his wealthy supporters.

What, then, is the purpose of a general? To guide his army to victory. And after victory is achieved and peace reigns? What then? He fashions his stones, waters his plants, feeds his horses and mules and cows so that, when he needs to go to war again, he has the best possible accoutrement.

And what is the purpose of an Alexander or Caesar or Napoleon? One who would rule the whole world? Who either died young, was assassinated, or exiled? And, finally, what is the purpose of a thinker, in his ivory tower, who, in his hard-fought-for leisure thought on these would-be world conquerors and meditated upon their meaning?

I am aware that a potential employer could google my name. — Jack Cummins

Out of curiosity I just Googled my own name. Of course, the famous tennis player topped the list, and I was a tournament player in my own day; but I didn’t win the NCAA championship, and never made it to the finals of the US Open. Of the other Todd Martins there I can only say that I am much better looking than most of them, even in my late middle age...but it is heartening to see that THIS Todd Martin, ie, me, am not included among the many dozens of first ppl with that same name listed on Google. I kept tapping the “see more results” icon over and over only to discover that, if someone wanted to find me through that search engine, they’d have to do a lot of searching and spend a lot more time than I was willing to.

And here is a funny thing: I did not intend to make my user name in this forum my real one. When I first signed up to join TPF, I was asked my name. I typed in my real one, assuming I would be asked later what I wished my proxy one to be. But then I discovered, to my dismay, that my actual name became my user- one!

But my dismay soon turned into equanimity as I realized that others here, like you, have posted photos of themselves and gone by what seems to be their actual names. Those who so dare, either by mistake or design, must consider themselves to be nobodies; ie, ppl no one would want to research or track down for any reason, either as a potential employee, or as someone they want to get even with.

but I am a bit cautious, — Jack Cummins

Well, and so am I. I reveal information about the character of where I live, its general location, my sex and race, certain details of my life that only a few would know, etc. But, of course, I don’t reveal my address, social security number, exact date of birth, etc. There are so many Todd Martins out there in the world, even in the Southern USA, that I don’t really fear anyone stalking me up in here...

...btw, this brings to mind an incident that happened to me a few years ago. I was standing on a street corner smoking a cigarette in the local town here, when I noticed police approaching on foot—not unusual, since the station was across the street, and they come by here frequently on their way to downtown. But they failed to just greet me and pass me by; instead they approached me directly, and one of them asked, “Are you Todd Martin?”

I replied that I was, and was then asked to accompany them down into the alley, to have a talk. I agreed, and followed.

In the alley I found myself opposite three police officers, and they began an interrogation: where did I live, what was I doing here, had I posted anything recently online, etc. I answered everything honestly, since I knew I had nothing to hide. As I spoke with them, I continued to smoke my cigarette, but I had nothing to do with my other hand, so I stuck it in my pocket. “Please, take your hand out of your pocket”, I was sternly admonished, which task I slowly and carefully accomplished. I was aware of the holstered pistols on three hips...

...soon my cigarette was finished, and I cast the butt aside onto the pavement. Now I had nowhere to put two hands, and, without thinking, began to slip them both into their respective pockets...”Please take your hands out of your pockets,” I was told by the middle cop: “you’re making me nervous!”...

...looking back on that moment, I realize how lucky I was to be a well-mannered unbelligerant white guy: a recalcitrant black fellow in the south would probably have had pistols drawn on him, if not fired. At any rate, I was finally asked to produce my ID...which was in my back pocket in my wallet; so, I slowly reached my hand back and slowly pulled it out, took out the card, and offered it them. The middle cop took it, looked it over, glanced at me and said, “Well, it looks like you’re not the Todd Martin we’re looking for”, and they took their leave of me...

...but not without apology: the middle cop asked for my phone number, said he would contact me after he had done a little research. Soon after, he called me, and invited me to join him in his office at the station, which I did...

...in his office, into which he graciously invited me, I sat opposite him as he described how a certain Todd Martin had posted threats against him on Facebook. He showed me the threats on his computer, and a picture of the guy (he looked nothing like me). Then he began detailing to me how these threats had caused him to contract high blood pressure, go to doctors; how they had disrupted his family life, etc. I felt sorry for the guy, a police lieutenant about to retire, and now faced with this! Just an hour ago he stood opposite me as an enemy...and now I sat opposite him as a confidante...I’m certain, had I been a dreadlocked belligerent black man, I would never have been invited as a friend into a police lieutenant’s office...

...so that, I suppose, is a commentary on having a certain name, being a certain sort of human being, and having a certain rather perilous occupation from which you are about to retire...if only you can save your skin so long. I suppose it is also a commentary on current race relations.

@Jack Cummins

Your response to my post has caused me to take closer consideration of the notion of “publishing” something...

...in its basic meaning, to publish something is to make it public, to reveal it to everyone and anyone whomsoever. This is, nominally, what we do here in this forum: anyone—at least anyone who is a member—may say whatever he will, and read the same of others—at least of other members...

...so it is not strictly true that what we say here is published; for it does not exactly go out into the general public. This fact lends a certain intimacy to it. I have spoken with several ppl in this forum, and we have exchanged rather personal details of our lives with each other. Were these revealed to the ppl I physically consort with in my geographical community, I might blush before them. This lends, as I have stated, a certain intimacy to conversations had here, and that is just one of the several advantages such a place as this, in the internet ether, has over the solid “real” places we inhabit as corporeal beings. That is why, early on, I resisted the impulse of the moderators to censure and ban certain posts and posters for inappropriate speech: for one of the dearest advantages of this space seems to me to be that one can say openly what he really thinks and feels—no matter how much it offend someone—or anyone.

Such a forum is encountered in The Republic of Plato. Socrates chances upon Adaimantos and Glaucon among others at Cephalus’ house, and when the last of these leaves to perform the ritual sacrifices, the rest are free, under Socrates direction, to debate the best form of government. This is the sort of salutary “publishing” I was NOT speaking of when I said that one should only publish something after long study and reading. The sort of publishing I was speaking of is the sort that Socrates never did: only his disciples dared do so (in writing), and only after they realized that philosophers and philosophy were an endangered species, and needed public support in the form of writings in order to rehabilitate them...

...but that same impulse, a millennium and a half later, encouraged a Machiavelli to publish The Prince—not intimately, just to his friends, but to anyone who could read. The world was becoming a different place: Copernicus and Galileo showed that man and the earth occupied no special place in the cosmos. If man and the planet were to become ordinary, how could any prince or king claim sovereignty?