This is a philosophy forum. Presumably, you have a systematic methodology for distinguishing between who a person is and who you think said person is.
— baker
I was actually speaking of people I actually do meet in person and spend time with.
The philosophy forum is probably very limited in providing insight to a person's true personality. — L'éléphant

*sigh*

I asked, "And how do you distinguish between who a person is and who you think said person is?"
Replying, "Okay, seriously, by spending time with them" is below one would expect at a philosophy forum.

Does Joshs' post that I've now quoted twice say nothing to you?

No wonder. Ever notice how who you think the other person in your relationship is changes over time, and who they and you are changes through being affected by the reciprocal interaction of the growing relationship itself?
— Joshs
Thank you for formulating this so eloquently!
— baker

Interesting. I've never really felt anyone around me has changed much over time. Certainly not my partner or significant friends or long term colleagues. If anything people seem to be remarkably consistent. If by change we mean one is no longer being able to anticipate reactions and choices made by the person we think we know. As to how well we 'know' anyone, well that's a matter for a range of interpretations. — Tom Storm

@Joshs said:
Ever notice how who you think the other person in your relationship is changes over time,

and who they and you are

changes through being affected

by the reciprocal interaction of the growing relationship itself?

You say, "I've never really felt anyone around me has changed much over time". Or is it that you stick with your first impressions of someone?

Obviously, the outward appearance is "obvious". When I said closely, I meant you would need to ignore the superficial curtsies and social routine so you could see a couple of measures -- integrity, maturity, and respect, for example. — L'éléphant

This is what I mean, and to me, these things are obvious.
People's bodily appearance is like the picture of Dorian Gray: it depicts all their sins and passions.

And how do you distinguish between who a person is and who you think said person is?
— baker
By fucking them. Okay, seriously, by spending time with them.

This is a philosophy forum. Presumably, you have a systematic methodology for distinguishing between who a person is and who you think said person is.

politically correct culture that is so prevalent in the US
— baker
I still have a problem with people trying to say not being an insensitive douche is some sort of political culture. It's simply not being an insensitive childish douche. There's no politics involved in the quality of human character. — Outlander

I'm talking about political correctness, the American parody of common decency.

You can go overboard, sure. But the question remains the same, do we want to be governed by hotheaded, crass, uncaring children or measured, polite intellectuals?

The question is, rather, Do we want to be governed at all?

Which do you think would really be most on the average "lesser" persons side?

Neither.
And, better the devil you know. I think that in the eyes of most lesser persons, "the measured, polite intellectuals" are more suspicious and less trustworthy than crass populists.

What annoys me is annoying dickheads who justify their needless existence and burden on others by saying "oh you just need thicker thin, there's something wrong you". No, there is not. You are simply an annoying dickhead and burden to enlightened, civil society the world would be much better off without. End of discussion.

One has to wonder, though, why such dickheads not only survive, but thrive, and in considerable numbers. There, clearly, must be some evolutionary advantage to being that way, or else this trait would not have developed and persisted.

At the end of the day, people are dense. "Cheap taste and short memories", a favorite quote of mine. They feel if someone is either yelling or being rude, imprecise, and insensitive they must be telling the truth or somehow of a more trustworthy character. Definitely over someone of the opposite demeanor or tone of language. Psychological projection perhaps. People eat it up. Every time. Way of the world.

It's still not clear that they "eat it up". More likely, they simply are that way themselves. But also, there is more detail to this. They don't automatically believe someone just because that person is yelling etc. It also needs to be a particular person, saying particular things. I know this all too well from personal experience. It seems it has more to do with taking sides: people generally accept any kind of behavior from someone on whose side they are, and they are hypercritical of those they are against.

The mans no dummy that's for sure.

Absolutely, what I've been saying all along. So many of his critics underestimate him (and those like him), which could have disastrous consequences.

You're confusing two very different things. No one is disputing that it is an admirable quality to refuse to give up or remain steadfast in the face of adversity, even when you are losing. But that's different than refusing to admit that you lost, which is not an admirable quality. — GRWelsh

Admitting that you've lost is unamerican.

How many Americans actually believe that political elections are about what is good for the people?
It seems to me that people, Americans and others, generally view any level of government officials, including the president of a country, as simply yet another job, something one does for one's own sake. The rest is just rhetoric; it's about proving that one can talk the talk. It never was about walking it.
— baker

Sure, most politicians are doing what they do out of self-interest to some extent, but their job is to do what is good for the American people. Trump is just flat out saying that he wishes ill on the American people in order to have a good outcome for himself. There isn't any way to twist that around to be defensible, just by virtue of being cynical. "Oh, we love him because he hates us and is honest about it!" Yeah, right...

Read again. Indubitably, many people like Trump because he is what they want to be.

For (Early) Buddhism, existence itself is burdensome, something to do away with.

It seems to me that the Stoics had an overall positive view of life.

People don't like the ugly reality of our own nature being revealed to them, we like well manicured lawns, white picket fences, adorable canines, matching iPhone covers, and our freshly made deli sandwiches cut in delectable slices with a fancy cocktail sword skewering each. So much so those who actually wish to change the status quo, at least be a barrier and source of proliferation toward neutralization of the social ills that plague, not us but someone else (therefore not an immediate concern), are often ignored as if their message of awareness was as good as the degeneracy itself. We would rather shoot the messenger, before we would accept a message directed at oneself we find too intimately revealing or personal for one's concocted sense of morals and standards, guidelines that deep down we know we would break at the first hint of losing said vanities and "givens" we have enjoyed since time immemorial, provided it is reasonably likely we would still gain the upper hand and come out on top.

This is neither a critique or praise of Trump nor one of his supporters, critics, or those in between. Simply a reminder that this is the world we live in, and ignoring the grim if not revolting realities that come with existence, only benefits those who wish to proliferate and propagate them further.

Do you not agree? — Outlander

Exactly. And Trump has found an effective way to talk about these things and to take advantage of the politically correct culture that is so prevalent in the US.

That doesn't really answer my question. — GRWelsh

Hardly anything is more American than never to admit defeat, to remain confident and hold one's head high, no matter what is going on.

It's not about YOU, the ordinary American and what will be good for you and your family,

How many Americans actually believe that political elections are about what is good for the people?
It seems to me that people, Americans and others, generally view any level of government officials, including the president of a country, as simply yet another job, something one does for one's own sake. The rest is just rhetoric; it's about proving that one can talk the talk. It never was about walking it.

Trump hates America. Trump loves Trump, and that's it.

Such an American sentiment. It's why so many Americans love him.

Why do any Trump supporters think Trump can win in 2024? — GRWelsh

"In order to succeed, always project an image of success."

Of course, it should be no surprise that Trump sees no contradictiction there, as he's incapable of entertaining two ideas at the same time. — Wayfarer

Do you really believe this or is it just rhetoric?

appearance is what we see when we meet people or see them in pictures.

Who they are is their core personality. — L'éléphant

How do you tell which is which?

And how do you distinguish between who a person is and who you think said person is?

But there are outward clues as to who they are if you look closely.

"Closely"? I think it's quite obvious.

No wonder. Ever notice how who you think the other person in your relationship is changes over time, and who they and you are changes through being affected by the reciprocal interaction of the growing relationship itself? — Joshs

Thank you for formulating this so eloquently!

I have generally found that there is almost no correlation between a person's appearance and who they are. — Tom Storm

What do you mean by "appearance"? And what by "who they are"?

Why would one then need Buddhism as a religion when the praxis of meditation can be detached from it? My point is that there seem to exist an inability to look at many practices in isolation from many different religions. Key point being that the explorations in Buddhist practices do not require the whole religious package of Buddhism. — Christoffer

Bear in mind that within Buddhism, this view that you sketch out above is criticized. In short, by doing certain "Buddhist practices" while being detached from the Buddhist value and belief system, it is argued that one cannot arrive at the same goals as Buddhism proposes.
Also, if you google "negative side effects of meditation", there's plenty of evidence.

Just as a prayer in Christianity could be explored without the religious whole.

How on earth could one do that??

There's very little guidance and philosophies out there about this next step from nihilism toward a sense of meaning and that's what I'm interested in exploring and formulating.

Indeed, and this is what I'm interested in too.

I truly don't have any beliefs in gods or the supernatural. Yet I feel no nihilism in my bones. I don't act out such nihilism and I instead appreciate and love life. Am I not then a walking contradiction to your point?

Good for you. I think though there are some unsaids here that are working for you, and that yet need to be verbalized.

And in support of your stance, a point can be made that religions/spiritualities themselves do not hold a particularly positive view of people who turn to religion/spirituality due to personal crisis or trauma.

As I've mentioned with LSD, when I've heard people describing their experience and the experience of life after it, that sounds like a profound religious experience, without the need for religious beliefs and fantasies claimed as facts. Why would such induced experience be considered less profound or meaningful to these people?

I'm sure they are meaningful to those people, but they are not meaningful to me. The problem with the scientific approach is that it seeks to lump everyone into the same category. Just because Dick and Harry had a "profound experience" on LSD, must I do so too, or else think myself defective if I can't?

Because it's not within the framework of a religion? Or is it just that we've yet to actually looked into such experiences outside of the framework of religious beliefs?

Look into the experiences, and ignore the people ...

I see the role of renunciate philosophies as being especially crucial in today's world, because consumption obviously has to be drastically curtailed.
— Wayfarer

I agree, but that doesn't require the baggage of religious beliefs. Why cannot such life-styles and experiences be lived accordingly without having to accept a deity, God, pantheon or made up concepts of existence?

Only religions/spiritualities have the complex metaphysical framework needed to justify and endure a radical curtailing of consumption of material goods. It's not clear that people can change from high-consumption lifestyles to low-consumption lifestyles and consistently persist in them and without feeling deprived or tempted to abandon them, without having a complex metaphysical framework to start from.

e American traditions follow a simple idea of harmony with nature around them. Removing the spiritual and religious claims in their traditions still leaves a practice that embrace our bond to reality and nature for what it is. — Christoffer

But is that idea of harmony based on some profound insight into the workings of the universe, or is it primarily the result of low technology living at the mercy of nature?
Without those harsh living conditions, would they still hold to those ideas of harmony with nature?

What I see today is this basically appearing in two types. Either a life of religious belief filled with doubt, keeping it hidden from others in order to try and keep it from being exposed to criticism, hidden crosses, hidden shrines, never talking to others about personal faith. Or turning to fundamentalism, shutting out all influences from the surroundings, extremify the bubble, silence anyone or socially excluding anyone who risk installing any kind of doubt, and double down on dogmatic dedication, isolating themselves from the rest of society or join societies in which this fundamentalism is the standard.

How can that hard path not become impossible when the world is constantly infusing doubt on a scale and movement that has never been experienced among religious groups before? — Christoffer

Talk about human arrogance!
I find that you misunderstand religious/spiritual believers and that you project onto them your own thoughts and feelings. Obviously, what you say applies to some of them, but certainly not to all of them, and not to most of them.

If the illusions of religion are put aside, then what constitutes a real solution to the predicaments of human existence, other than comfort and standard of living? — Wayfarer

The effects of comfort and standard of living are not to be underestimated. They can make people what some older cultures would consider "shallow" and "vulgar". Some people really, truly, genuinely do not have meaning-of-life problems. For them, eating, drinking, and making merry (even if in moderation) really, truly, genuinely is all the meaning to life there is and all the meaning to life they need. In terms of modern psychology, this is the preferred type of humans. Unfortunately, they cannot teach one how to become that way.

Sure, better education in psychology in general would be good. But the authority? No.

Psychology should be seen as a bunch of what people at times found to be the inferences to the best explanation. However given the broader scientific perspective, it needs to be understood that psychology needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It's just the best we have for now. — wonderer1

That's not good enough. Do you really think you can convince a bunch of authoritarians with this kind of liberal relativism??

It's not possible to defeat authoritarians with kumbayah.
— baker
I don't intend to. I intend to keep posting facts about the case. — Wayfarer

The problem is that you (plural) don't know whom you're up against and you don't even care to find out what it would take to win against them.

This "posting of facts" is what exactly? A way to please yourself? To ease your conscience?

I am interested in a self-destructive individual, and how self-destructive tendencies can possibly be a source of spiritual pleasure that overcomes the pleasure of survival and subsistence. — kudos

This is pretty much a description of a Buddhist monk (albeit an incomplete description).

Do you think a human falling apart in mind, spirit, and/or body can itself be a valid social goal, in the sense that it is a force of thought directed against the overwhelming wave of subsistence as a goal?

In a traditional Buddhist society, yes, actually.
From a worldly perspective, a monk is "falling apart in mind, spirit, and/or body," and yet in a traditional Buddhist society, being a monk is a valid social goal.

This assessment would be opposite of someone who has achieved control over the 'will to power' as regards their attributed circumstances. Don't you find such individuals tend to come from backgrounds of adversity and pain? Would you represent this kind of character as common of someone who has been catered to every whim and pleasure their entire life? — kudos

The historical Buddha was "catered to every whim and pleasure their entire life" up until a certain point, as the story goes, and yet he gave up on the pursuit of worldly gains. The story is a lot more complex, though.

That is an authoritarian political philosophy. — Wayfarer

It's not possible to defeat authoritarians with kumbayah.
And you _are_ up against authoritarians.

There are words so dehumanizing that we refer to them only by the first letter of the word, as to not cause offense to our fellow members of society.
/.../
Is there any potential current or future harm being done? — GTTRPNK

The problem is much broader: in that the issue is framed as a matter of "offending people or hurting their feelings", rather than as a matter of morality.

As soon as something is framed in terms of a matter of "offending people or hurting their feelings", it can easily be dismissed. For one, because it's a blamable weakness of character to feel hurt by words; for two, because then people can easily blackmail eachother over all kinds of nonsense (e.g. "I feel offended when you don't address me with "Your lordship").

The foundation for a proper, moral use of language should be much more substantial than merely a consideration of what might "hurt another person's feelings."

I'm old enough and grew up in a backward-enough culture where it was (officially) still believed that if one calls someone an idiot etc., this speaks badly about oneself. It was considered that one demeans oneself by using such language; one was supposed to consider it beneath one's dignity to use such language.

More than good or bad looks, I have the feeling, aided by personal experience, that you can determine someone's personality from their face alone. Obviously, it is not fail-proof and not fully accurate, but someone's physiognomy tells you more about someone than ten minutes of conversation —or so I think. — Lionino

You know it when you see it.

It's just hard to put it into exact, systematic, interpersonally verifiable concepts.

The US populace badly needs education on the nature of narcissism. — wonderer1

No, they "need" education on the authority and validity of psychology.

Instead, he undermined confidence in the system, and fanned the flames of conspiracy theorists. — Relativist

If his actions "undermined confidence in the system" then there wasn't any worthwhile confidence in the system before to begin with.

Suppose we have satisfactorily resolved all our questions about first causes and unmoved movers. We don't think we need either. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But what would such a state of mind even be like?

If we had satisfactorily resolved all our questions about first causes and unmoved movers, would we still wonder about things such as "spontaneous creation" (or much else, for that matter)?

Your thought experiment requires that we work out of a state of mind that we are simply not familiar with, and as such, is impossible to carry out.

Ever heard of the reasonable person test? — Benkei

Would a reasonable person go on criticizing Trump the way so many of his critics do, on and on and on?

This is from the film "The Ides of March" (2011), two campaign managers from the Democratic Party talking to eachother:


DUFFY
None of this is about the
democratic process Steve, It's
about getting your guy into office.
Simple as that.


STEPHEN
This is the sort of shit the
Republicans pull.


DUFFY
You're right, this is exactly what
the Republicans do, and it's about
time we learned from them. They're
meaner, tougher and more
disciplined than we are. I've been
in this business for twenty five
years and I've seen way too many
Democrats bite the dust because
they wouldn't get down in the mud
with the fucking elephants.

And remember a wise saying by Democrat statesman and politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Everyone has a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.

It is a fact that Donald J Trump lost the last election and failed in 60 lawsuits to have the result overturned.

It is a fact that, in the words of the January 6th Committee, Trump called the mob, motivated the mob, and lit the match that resulted in the disgraceful, deadly mob attack on the US Capital on Jan 6th 2021. It was not a peaceful protest or a false flag event, but instigated and encouraged by Donald J Trump, who is due to face court for his involvement in these events in the next several months.

Hope this is all sufficiently clear. It will be repeated as often as is necessary in this thread. — Wayfarer

Wrong approach. If force and "facts" worked, don't you think we'd have seen results by now?

As long as Trump's critics play into his game, he's got the upper hand. Republicans and rightwingers of various flavors have one thing in common: the desire to rule. And they are not ashamed of it, they do not feel guilty about it. As long as their critics can't come up with a similar desire to rule, their efforts will be in vain. Because politics is about ruling people.

How can we abandon firm and stable grounds of self-nurturing while avoiding the pitfalls of self-oblivion?
— Number2018

Well, I don’t think following Habermas’s Kantian modernist path is the answer. — Joshs

Then what is the answer?

^Sorry, posting from the phone, it doesn't let me edit posts.

In the case of the Israel-Palestine discussion it just feels like a perfect example of neither side listening to the other, both handling facts and knowledge like weapons to win an argument without regards to their validity or caring to accept the level of validity of the other side’s presented facts. — Christoffer

I sometimes wonder whether this is actually the point of those "discussions". To verbally and vicariously extend and participate in the war that is being discussed. That not listening, not engaging fairly is a virtue.

I just discovered, while reading up on Die Kuns, Recht zu behalten[/bli], that there are textbooks teaching argumentation in law that instruct lawyers to use what in philosophy is known as informsl logical fallacies.

It is a good example, consistent with the adage not to discuss religion and politics. — Hanover

... in polite society.

My New Year's resolution is to stear clear of the political threads. — Hanover

Will you give up acting like a lawyer at a philosophy forum?

The threads tend to create bad feeling, accentuate our closely held personal differences, do nothing to cause reconsideration of our views, and generally piss each other off.

Not the threads/topics themselves do this, but the adversarial approach to interaction with others, as if this was a courtroom and the whole point was to win a debate before a judging audience.

but he doesn't need to be an Overman for the concept to hold water. — Count Timothy von Icarus

With Nietzsche, I can never tell what is merely rhetoric and what is it that he really means. Perhaps it was his intention to make a point of this dichotomy.

With texts like his, I always wonder how come the author published them*, or, if the individual author isn't known, how come they've become published.

For example, why did Robert Greene publish The 48 Laws of Power? It seems contrary to those laws of power to publish them. Similar with the Chinese Art of War or Thirty-Six Stratagems.

How is it that texts praising power, strength, supremacism, cunning get published at all?
The fact that they are published contradicts their content. What gives?


(*Granted, in Nietzsche's case, the publication of his works is convoluted.)

Umberto Eco is pretty good on this apparent contradiction in political narratives. His "Eternal Fascism," is a good example. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thank you for this reference. Eco's list of 14 features of ur-fascism seems rather general. But I agree, it confirms my intuitive suspicion that there is something fascist about, say, high EU politics.

I find esoterica quite interesting, but this facet of it can make trying to discuss it extremely tedious. "Oh, you don't agree with/love x, well then you absolutely cannot have understood it. It wasn't written for you." Ironic, in the esotericists themselves have a tendency to lambast competitors in stark terms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

"Those who can't, teach" comes to mind.

Someone who is serious about their own spiritual (and other) advancement wouldn't make a point of spending their precious time reading or debating opponents and those who are less than fit.

I'd go further and call this crap a cultural or human thing. Democracy has always contained the possibility of its own undoing, it just takes a majority vote of someone non- or anti-democratic. — jorndoe

More than this: people are typically not democratic to begin with. They like democracy insofar it means that the political option they favor can win (and for a short enough period of time to avoid bearing responsibility for their actions in any meaningful way). But they resent democracy when it means that they will be ruled by a party they don't like.

Democracy brings out the worst in people. It pits people against eachother. It breeds hostility. It encourages adversarial thinking. It pushes simplistic us vs. them thinking.

Those who believe he is a good business manager bought into a false image and are ignorant of his "small loan" from his father (one million dollars plus) his business failures, his cheating, his stiffing contractors, his misrepresentations, and his "business strategy of repeated bankruptcies.

He covers his failure to deliver on promises by making further promises. — Fooloso4

On the contrary, his, let's call that "specific business practices" are possibly what many people can relate to the most, because they themselves use those practices or wish they could.

It seems to be easier to propose that people are basically good, but weak; than to consider the possibility that people are basically evil and strong.
— baker
Both are distortions. Some people are basically good and others are not. Some are strong or weak in some ways but not others. There is no correlation between being weak or strong and good or bad.

I'm talking about what some of Trumps' critics might find more acceptable. It is easier on the ego of those of Trumps' critics to say that Trump has "mislead" or "deceived" people than to consider the possibility that many people already are that way, with or without Trump.

Doesn't countering other's arguments require reflecting them accurately rather than beating up on strawmen? — Count Timothy von Icarus

From what I understood, the theory of informal logical fallacies seems to be a rather novel development, and that in the past, what are now considered informal logical fallacies used to be considered valid means in debate.

When we now read, for example, Schopenhauer's Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten, we read it as satire, as examples of how not to engage in discussion and debate, but apparently he actually believed that this was how to go about conversations/debates.

You don't like him because you don't like me. — Vaskane

Lol. The self-importance!

Negation has traditionally been thought of as a lack, an accident, something standing in the way of and opposing itself to the good and the true. — Joshs

This has got to be a Western phenomenon, though, because in Eastern philosophy, the distribution seems to be more even. There, some desirable, positive phenomena or traits are defined in terms of negation (e.g. ahimsa 'non-violence'), but also some negative ones (e.g. avijja 'ignorance').

He wrote:

I am compelled to ask, with Nietzsche: ‘As for sickness: are we not almost tempted to ask whether we could get along without it?’—and to see the questions it raises as fundamental in nature. — Joshs

A Buddhist teacher once said that when going to the doctor, one should not say "Doctor, something is wrong with me", but instead, "Doctor, something is right with me", reflecting that in some other cultures, disease and other forms of hardship are considered an ordinary given of life, far more normal than in Western culture.

A common critique of Nietzsche is that his philosophy doesn't work in the social dimension. How does a whole community of Overmen interact and actually form a cohesive society? A common rebuttal to this is that Nietzsche simply isn't writing for the masses. He doesn't even want to be understood by most. He's writing for a small elite, the few.

But then why does this self-concerned elite need the reigns of temporal power, which also tend to bind? Can't they do their own thing? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems to me that overall, Nietzsche (and Rand etc.) are trying to do something similar as Machiavelli did with The Prince, except that unlike Machiavelli, they weren't actually functional parts of the ruling elite, and it shows in their reasoning.

I imagine that the true Übermenschen don't write books about Übermenschen, and don't read them either. It seems to me that for the actual aristoracts, the actual elites, actually making a point of saying the things Nietzsche (and Rand etc.) do would be considered vulgar and unbecoming, even if they, ie. the aristorcrats in fact believed those things and held them close to their hearts.

“Out of life's school of war—what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger.” (Twilight of the Idols) — Joshs

This is obviously not true on the face of it, as evidenced by many broken people who have survived a serious physical injury or disease, or a socio-economical fall.

It seems to me that the famous saying is actually intended as a motto, as a life maxim, in a sense like, "Make every effort to overcome life's hardships and don't allow yourself to be adversely affected by them."

There is an old trend of formulating advice or motivation in the form of statements in the indicative, as opposed to in the imperative or some other irrealis grammatical mood.

In Nietzsche's case it is a question of perceived by whom. He does not want to be understood by just anyone who reads him. His explicit about this. Perhaps being aware of the fact that a philosopher cannot control how he will be read, he attempts to have control over how he will be misread.

Our highest insights must–and should–sound like follies and sometimes like crimes when
they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for
them. The difference between the exoteric and the esoteric, formerly known to
philosophers–among the Indians as among the Greeks, Persians, and Muslims, in short,
wherever one believed in an order of rank and not in equality and equal rights –….
[consists in this:] the exoteric approach sees things from below, the esoteric looks down
from above…. What serves the higher type of men as nourishment or delectation must
almost be poison for a very different and inferior type…. There are books that have
opposite values for soul and health, depending on whether the lower soul, the lower
vitality, or the higher and more vigorous ones turn to them; in the former case, these
books are dangerous and lead to crumbling and disintegration; in the latter, [they are]
heralds’ cries that call the bravest to their courage. Books for all the world are always
foul-smelling books.
Beyond Good and Evil, 42 (aph 30) — Fooloso4

From the introduction to a Hare Krishna book:

This small volume will be well regarded by purified clear- headed individuals who are thoroughly honest. Narrow-souled superficialists or spiritually maladroit, externally oriented prakrita-bhaktas of meager metaphysical or internal devotional acumen will have to muster the requisite spiritual integrity to deeply enter into the spirit of this dissertation. The subject matter of this book, like the highly elevated topics revealed in the later cantos of Shrimad-Bhagavatam, should not be intruded upon by the ineligible, hypocritical, corrupt, or envious. If the boot in any way fits, promptly close the book. What need is there for any further introductory elaboration? It is as it is. Generously remitting the numerous literary imperfections herein, simply open your heart and allow the substance of this presentation to transport your inner- dimensional quantum beyond the confines of vapid ecclesiastico-conservative conventionalism to a Krishna conscious paradigm of enriched profundity. Hare Krishna!”

https://blservices.com/product/the-heart-of-transcendetal-book-distribution/

There's a pattern for dismissing some potential readers, and it can be found all over the places and genres. Once one has seen a few of examples of it, it starts to get silly. All these exalted, oh so special people. And so many of them, so many!