There is a critique of identity politics along these lines that is leftist, rathee than xenophobic.

One stray thought, or a parallel lens on the matter: You could consider power, in some sense, as the ability not to have to justify ones actions to those over whom you have power. Lacking absolute power, you'll have to give an account of yourself or actions to someone else, in a language they recognize. Which strengthens their power, by reinforcing the map by which they recognize the world. Denying identity in this regard would be refusing to yield to anothers 'map', to deny others the request to explicitly situate yourself in relation to their world.

Authenticity plays a funny role here, since it, too, seems to avoid being mapped by others.

It isn't gonna happen - that glorious moment where the final fertile person agrees to forego procreation. It's not a realistic cause - its a fantasy. So what ought the antinalist do in the face of that fact?

Then I haven't followed your point. Are you agreeing that "good" is indefinable? — Banno

Yeah, I'd agree with that. "fdrake" did a good job of digging into how broad a concept 'good' is.

But the structure of the op suggests that this indefinability somehow segues naturally into :

Moral judgements, like all judgements, are true, or they are false. This follows from their predicate-subject form.

Moral propositions imply an action. That is, one ought act in accord with true moral propositions. — Banno

Whether that's true or not, I can't see how any of it follows from what, in the OP, precedes it.

But I took it that we were instead considering if someone says "Good is this". — Banno

You lost me. Isn't that what I shifted to in the rest of my post (the unquoted part)?

If someone says 'this feels good' we know what they mean. It would seem weird to ask them what they mean - they've already said it. If someone says 'this is good', the question 'how so?' or 'what do you mean?' makes perfect sense.

So, if we drop the moral question, in which we may have some theoretical stake, and look at actual linguistic behavior - there is something going on. What's going on?

Hah! They want the same kind of shit as anyone else, you know, stuff they haven't got, stuff that is impossible. They want everyone to be middle-class, conflicted and peaceful. — unenlightened

In terms of the theme of this thread, the Namby-Pamby wants above all to transcend his own culture, and to stand outside it in a judgement of perfect impartiality.

That's it! They want everyone to be part of the book club. I do too. Because if everyone's part of the book club, everyone's huddled within, attacking the outside. But if the outside's gone, the whole thing goes to pieces. The important thing is to maintain the symbolically violent gestures - attacking the other.

My feeling is its irresolvable. And most of the effort is dedicated to a well-choreographed dance around not-attacking. But, nevertheless- we attack.

If you say that is a conceptual operation - applying ontological status to a feature of the world- then your critique would apply to any metaphysical claim — aporiap

My critique - but it's too shoddy to be dignified by that title - is a 'critique' of any philosophical operation that tries to find some way of characterizing 'everything.' I think that any feature of the world is capable of having an ontological status applied to it.

I don't think their different arrangement should matter that much. Spatial and bonding relations, which serve as the basis for difference between objects, are not fundamental or substantial, they just are ephermal states. e.g. You have a bunch of lego blocks and build a bridge and man out of it. Sure, they look different -on face value- and that's because of how you've arranged the blocks, but I don't think anyone would say the man or the bridge are their own separate substances, no the substance is the thing which is invariant and composes them. — aporiap

I think you're right - and that anyone would agree that both were composed of legos. Both the bridge and the man are decomposable, in the sense you mentioned. But what is the face-value distinction - the 'looking different' - composed of? And is it decomposable? What is the 'ephemeral'?

What I’m trying to say is that the difference between saying there’s a difference and saying there is no difference is that, in one case, you’re giving ontological status or significance to relations between parts and in the other you are not- and only give ontological status to the parts themselves — aporiap

What I'm saying is that the 'relations between the parts' is doing a lot of metaphysical work. And that's worth digging into - because are relations fundamental?

One answer:

As it always is with the british empire, and its epigones - they want the 'world' to remain a resource, accessible from home.

I don't think its melting-pot. Or colonialism. Exactly, anyway. "let the world become a melting pot" - sure, but the reading group on conrad still assumes you've read conrad, or at least have a good excuse, this week anyway.

They have the right to defend themselves, we don't.

Back to social security, which I think we oughn't leave. (Back me up, Naipaul!)

You're breaking it all apart, but I think it's clear what it is - The schemers in the other room know just as well as the namby-pambys that culture is relative - Kissinger made trendy 'realpolitik' after all. The anthropologists have been consulted.

If the reading group is safe, there's sympathy. If it feels threatened, the fangs will show.

Only -- reading groups are sentimental, but we, philosophers, have the (post-cave platonic) concepts that allow thorough self-abuse. (or the twice-distanced post-cave platonic concepts that function the same)

What do 'namby pambys really want?'

[real question ]

I find in this notions of self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. A mature adult comes around to understanding who he or she is, and, perhaps with some difficulty, accepting himself as he is. This runs to understanding the extent of difference - to some extent. That is, difference points to uniqueness. It's useless to want to be other than you are, not because you are different, but because you are unique. Of course there are things you can change.... — tim wood

My trouble is I don't want to accept who I am. On balance, I don't like it.

All this is how I explain to myself how guys deficient in every respect in comparison to my own glory always got the girl - I just didn't understand myself well enough to assert my self. It's about becoming a somebody - at least insofar as a person can both speak and answer for himself, even to God. — tim wood

Getting the girl can be damning in itself though.

fundamental means not decomposable.

Face-value difference is not fundamental...the components of these objects are fundamentally the same -physical particles.

Here's the philosophical 'gotcha'. But I think it's legitimate. The challenge then is to decompose the face-value difference itself. Trees and bananas are, obviously, composed of physical particles, differently. No 'face-value' differentiation required. So how do you decompose the difference between the face-value difference of trees and bananas - and trees and bananas with no face-value difference.

You seem savvy, so I'm sure you anticipate this kind of thing. Nevertheless - how?

That's all confused, but its confusing.

@StreetlightX

I think the facade thing you describe is very close to what I feel. It's almost like that romance trope, where someone enlists another to write his love letters - it works, but everytime the beloved professes her love, there's that cutting feeling that the love is really directed at someone else.

But then it also feels like what @Baden is describing. Or it's weird. Minimal-identity through self-punishment is dead-on. I think this can morph (or metastasize) too - like 'cringe humor.' You can build a way of thinking and being that is recognizing what is undesirable. So, then, you can build a certain kind of relationship over laughing at others. And that's safe.

"Leav[ing] oneself in a potential vacuum where one is now pushed to identify with one's "weak" self and the locus of power shifts to the unpredictable external"

There's the anger at the facade being recognized, and then there's also, behind that -- 'anger is a secondary emotion' -- there's also a really churning frustration that the weak self behind the facade is too weak. And then the anger at the facade being also a frustration that you can't do anything else. Which is a frustration at how you deal with the external! I'm poor, but I think I understand why rich people get mad when their reservations aren't honored at fancy restaurants.

Part of the frustration, for me, is the mixing. Like - there have always been parts of me that I consider real, that I do let out, that do bleed through the facade. It's real sometimes. But then I feel like an actual life, and relationship, requires bringing that self out into the world. It's not enough to be yourself at home. You have to be able to bring it into the world. And then when someone likes myself-at-home - there's the anger, like - you like me now, but once there's some challenge in the world, I'll be laid bare as weak.

So then the anger is mixed. It's like the other person can't differentiate between what's real and what's facade, so can't see what will collapse at a dinner out, if, say, we happen to run into people from my past - or people from other segments of the other person's life. I mean: they can't tell the limits of my being-real, and when that will transition into a facade.

I think that's it. I can handled being liked for a second. What I can't handle is the differential between what they consider lovable and what I do ---- plus the suspicion that, given the right situation, they'll end up agreeing with the criterion I impose (they'll see me through a superior's eyes) - and so abandon me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, for me, it comes down to not having a good balance between private and public identity. I can feel accepted one on one. I can't feel accepted by a group. So the tension between that causes problems for me, with both poles.

also love the bakery theme

Being Al Yankovic being John Malkovich — Baden

solid gold

Guys - I missed all of these posts, because I didn't realize this subforum doesn't show up on the main page. Just seeing them now.

I'm still very on board. But it's striking to me how strange Dante's thought is. I guess it's easy to assume that High Canonical works are going to be sleek, monumental things. But the Comedy, so far, is bizarre in its assemblage of myths, theologies, esoteric schemas and how easily it shifts from the universal to the particular etc etc. Which I guess is a virtue in itself. I just haven't quite gotten used to it.

Tho I see aspects of myself in every circle of hell so far, the ones I've most related to are the sullen:

'Sullen were we in the air made sweet by the Sun;
in the glory of his shining our hearts poured
a bitter smoke. Sullen were we begun;

sullen we lie forever in this ditch.'
This litany they gargle in their throats
as if they sang, but lacked the words and pitch.

I think its interesting that the sullen are introduced just after the wrathful, lying beneath the surface of the water that the wrathful endlessly roil. And that they're in the same canto as the hoarders and the wasters, whose punishments mirror one another. Reminds me of the old idea of depression as aggression turned inward. Sort of like the wrathful are anger-spendthrifts, and the sullen are anger-misers.

I think @ssu is on the right track. A lot of this has to do with power.

A couple things that come to mind. (Focusing only on one aspect here. I think it's more complex than this.)

(1)

Potlatch. In showing generosity, one enhances one's own prestige. Potlatch increases one's prestige because, in order to take care of others, one has to have at one's disposal resources far in excess of what one needs to take care of oneself (or family). So the feast is symbolic, but a weird kind of symbol. It's a symbol that symbolizes one's capacity to create the symbol. Sort of the same logic behind diamond rings - they don't just symbolize love, they display, in-and-of-themselves, that the lover has the means to buy a diamond ring (and the means, by extension, to take care of the beloved. )

Both potlatch and diamond rings reinforce existing power differentials (or shift them to the advantage of those throwing the party). To give 'selflessly' is also, often, to say : You need me more than I need you. Which is also to say: It would definitely not be in your best interest to threaten my power, or to find a source of power for yourself. (The inherent connection between diamond rings and patriarchal norms and the independent heroines of 19th century novels dying in squalor )

(2)

For each and every virtue tied to economic and power differentials, there corresponds a 'spiritual' one.

"you can't provide for others unless you can provide for yourself."

"How can you love someone before you love yourself?"

The familiar Hegelian and Nietzschean point that many of the more ethereal virtues are direct inversions of earthly ones. Epictetus, the stoic, was a slave - 'slave morality.' "You may have power over me irl, but I have power over you in my mind. " Later, the marxist point that bourgeois sanctimony conceals actual exploitation. What still matters, ultimately, is economic power - only now lip service has to be given to its opposite. To the point where people are genuinely confused about what they value (disconnect between behavior and professed values.)

(3)

Those who are pro-immigration usually discuss the issue in those ethereal, moral terms. It's true that they focus on what immigrants lack materially. But the guiding idea is generally that it is good/humane to provide for those who lack.

Those who are anti-immigration usually come at the question in terms of physical, economic and scoial security. They are worried about crime, loss of jobs andoverburdening the welfare system.

Both arguments exist along a spectrum. At the hyperbolic end of the pro-immigration side, you have those who want totally open borders and seem to display symptoms of spiritual megalomania. On the anti-immigration side, you have open racism and seething resentment.

Both sides often slip into characterizing the other side in terms of that side's most hyperbolic proponents.

(4 - the main thing I want to get at.)

There is way of excluding others, quietly, through quiet signs. What allows one into highly exclusive, or partially exclusive subcultures? Just south of those groups inclusion in which requires very Old Money, its usually manners. Ways of talking, or other of the 'critical social graces' @Bitter Crank spoke of. It seems like belonging to a group which won't take in just anybody is crucial for some part of the human soul. In the same way you can't really feel loved by a lover who would just as easily love someone else, you can't feel like you belong to a club that would include everyone. So, like you said, identity (especially in the mode of belonging-to) is built on exclusion.

Back to potlatch. Those who are most of assured of their own exclusionary clubs are those who will most freely dispense that generosity of spirit which excludes exclusion itself. Those whose aren't are going to get nervous and defensive. It seems to me (caveat: no studies conducted, or even consulted) that pro or anti immigration views usually correspond less to income than to social security. For those who have it, its often invisible, taken for granted. In the same way Kant talks about the transcendental conditions of perception, we could talk here about the social conditions of the virtue of inclusivity.Perception can't perceive its own conditions; It's only through reason that it's able to reflect on itself. In the same way the virtuously inclusive are often blind to what allows them their virtue.

And, because of this, they have no trouble seeing their virtue and moral judgments as exemplifications of a universal virtue ethics or a universal moral matrix which can - and should - be applied to everyone. Again, this is similar to Marx's criticism of bourgeois morality.

(5)

If there's always, inherently, a kind of social power differential in play when it comes to providing for others, then there can be no universal moral answer or heuristic here. While there any many patterns that repeat, the specific power dynamics of any place are complex and singular. The knots of reason come when, from consideration of one particular situation or set of situations, there is extracted a universal ethics, which is then turned around and applied to all situations.

I mean maybe I'm a bit lonely from time to time, but loneliness is independent when it comes to the validity of a philosophy or ideology. — AppLeo

I don't disagree. I guess I'm thinking in terms of valuation. I think independent types tend to think in terms that valorize the worldview which accommodates the type of life they're living. There's a natural, rational drive to create an ideology that fits one's own circumstances. It's hard to separate that kind of valorization from the ideology itself.

Well I don't know. I like to argue with people and see how wrong they are when they make their arguments — AppLeo

Arguing is fun. But when you talk about seeing how wrong others are - how could that be anything but antagonistic? Not that that's a bad thing. But it seems like it would be good practice to admit the antagonistic nature of it.

So you're low-key saying that I'm a lonely person? Who do you like now since Ayn Rand no longer appeals to you? — AppLeo

I don't know if you're lonely. I'm saying I liked her when I was. If you're not lonely, mine is a case to pass over quickly, noting how its particulars are inapplicable to your case.

I like the philosophers in my bio - Sloterdjik, Lyotard, Sellars, and Hegel.

What do you mean? You think I'm drawing out antagonists? — AppLeo

It seems that way, but I may be wrong. What were you looking for in posting?

@AppLeo

I liked Ayn Rand back in the day. As I got older, it became clear to me that what I found appealing in her was her valorization of a life of excellence lived alone. And it became to clear to me that I found that appealing precisely because I was alone. The less alone I was, the more her appeal wore off.

I don't know where you're at in your life, and how alone, or non-alone, you feel. But I do know the thing of setting something up, in order to draw out antagonists, in order to defend it.

One, tentative, answer would be something like: we're formed young. Our threat-detecting faculty forms slowly, mostly during childhood. In the language of neural networks its 'trained' on the 'data' its fed. If you grow up in a high-threat environment (vindictive parents, bullying peers etc) then your 'threat-detector' is trained to recognize a whole host of situations as dangerous. And if that environment is inconsistent - if a parent, or a bully, can sometimes, unpredictably, go from zero to a hundred - then it makes good sense to always assume the worst. Either brace, or launch a pre-emptive attack.

So the settings on your 'threat-detector- are on crisis mode, because they needed to be. Then you grow up, and leave the environment. And you're totally uncalibrated. The world is mostly harsh, but, still, most environments only require a medium-level threat-detecting setting.

The problem is the 'threat-detector' can't just be reset --- it grows organically, like a neural network. So you have to consciously try to relearn, which is really hard.

If any of that made sense, that's my two cents.

I struggle with vindictiveness too. You mentioned an explanation of this behavior relating to 'eliminating demonstrated threats.' That makes sense to me- anyone will attack when backed into a corner. And any community will expel those who threaten that community. My hunch is that problematically aggressive defensiveness- vindictiveness - comes about when the ability to accurately identify threats is faulty. Like, if its oversensitive. If you get a lot of false positives. And if you chronically misgauge the intensity of threats.

If that's right, then the key to your struggle would be less the question of punishment tout court and more like - why and how does the human capacity to detect threats get thrown out of whack?

Sorry Wallows, I think I took things off course.

I'm willing to talk in PM if you want.

I agree. But the only way to tell is to take a look at what's being said. I'm not attacking a wittgensteinian approach that disntinguishes between well and ill posed questions. I'm casting judgment on a reflexive 'this is dumb' approach.

(I'll duck out now tho. All I wanted to say.)

've never understood the issue here. We can imagine things that aren't the case. What's the big mystery?

Philosophy has always seemed to approach fiction like someone with a significant learning disability. — Terrapin Station

As with most philosophical problematics, its the conceptual nitty-gritty of fleshing out how these things work that presents the problems. It's unlikely that the philosophers who engage with these issues are unable to engage felicitously in everyday discussions of fiction-- unable, in such discussions, to distinguish between the fictitious and the real.

It's their capacity to engage with the dense webs of conceptual implication that draw them in, without their having to forfeit their capacity for making everyday distinctions.

But, of course, there's always and ever a temptation to momentarily puff up oneself by parsing such considerations as an index of the other's stupidity. It's an easy way to move through the world - either everything fits into my understanding, or, if it doesn't, it means others are stupid - children do this all the time, and we don't fault them. They've simply reached the limit of their understanding. If it inevitably comes down to 'You're saying something I agree with' or 'you're learning disabled', then there's nothing for it. All you can do is wait for them to be ready to try to move beyond what they already know, and, in the mean time, allow them to wear themselves out yelling 'you're dumb.'

@StreetlightX

All that said, I feel like I mostly agree with you, content-wise. It's the name, or label that throws me.I just don't like the 'materialist' thing.

Prima facie a small quibble. Still, I think it touches on something I feel is less-small - & that's the thing of insisting that this or that course of thought is tied to this or that political stance*. I think they should be separated. Not because we should ignore politics. But because we shouldn't pretend doing theory is in any way political. You can make any theory fit any politics, easily, with a little rhetorical facility.


----
*'materialism' as its used by Zizek et al, seems like a political, more than a theoretical, distinction.

(I)

If idealism is taken to refer to any metaphysics reliant on either overmining or undermining - if eliminative materialism, physicalism etc can be considered forms of idealism - and, if 'materalism' simply means 'not idealistic in this sense', then you don't even have to ask 'why not materialism?' or whether theres's room in the materialist 'house' to accomodate reality as it is.

(a) The materialist house has plenty of vacancy, since all of its long-time tenants have been evicted.

(b) 'Is there no room in this house for the class of guests defined as those for whom there is room in this house? '

If I understand our last few exchanges, it seems like you were accepting, at least for the sake of discussion, that the Zizekian approach - the identification of 'materialism' and the logic of the 'not-all' - doesn't provide an intrinsic justification of this identification (or, at the very least, would require too involved an exegesis- which I think is fair. There's a lot of moving parts when it comes to Zizek).

And so you'd shifted the terrain of the discussion. Instead of asking why the non-all should be considered materialism simply by virtue of being non-all, you asked what about materialism bars it from incorporating this logic. But in explaining why it isn't barred, it seems to me that you've just repeated the Zizekian approach.


(II)

In response to the whiff of 'third-way' politicking - a rhetorical move that draws much of its power from its anticapitalist resonance - I'd counter that this cuts both ways. There's also the gentrification of concepts. A bar with a long history in a once-vibrant neighborhood - say Greenwich village or Haight-Ashbury etc - is bought out, but the new owners do their best to uphold the facade of fidelity to the original spirit.

If its true that the old is often presented, deceptively, as new, its also true that the new is often presented, deceptively, as continuous with the old. You can furnish examples of either of these, which are pro or anti-capitalism( pro or anti-anything for that matter)

(III)


You may not want to talk about consciousness, because such discussion always stalls out in the same place, and I sympathize with this sentiment.* But you could also imagine the new owner of a bar who's not interested in discussing whether their incarnation of [bar x] is faithful to its history, because such discussions always tend toward the same bitter, irresolvable dispute.

Consider: a materialism that only excludes two things:

(1) exclusion itself
&
(2) the very mention of the thing its usually taken to exclude.

This is a kind of schema in its own right.

One variation:

Here, we don't try to exert power over anyone, except

(1) those who want to exert power over others
&
(2) those who want to talk about the people we're usually accused of exerting power over.

Supplement this last part with a barbed and contemptuous dismissal, indicating that bringing up the unspeakable reflects poorly on the character of those who bring it up.

(IV)

If you define 'idealism' through a linguistic maneuver by focusing on a particular meaning of 'idealize,' certainly it would be fair for someone to make the not- controversial point that materialism suggests something like 'everything is matter'?


------
* There's a way of dealing with this without barring discussion. You can treat it as something that inherently stalls discussion, for a reason, and then incorporate it as that kind of thing, without either

(a) orbiting endlessly around it

or

(b) ignoring it

if idealism and materialism both need to 'exclude' something to define themselves by, idealism 'excludes' parts of the world in favour of others (undermining/overmining), and materialism excludes attempts at exclusion, — StreetlightX

Doesn't materialism, by definition, exclude that which isn't material?

But even if you stretch it, so it doesn't mean that, and means something like 'the material is fundamental', or 'determinant in the last instance', or something - well, can't you very easily find parallel (tho of course inverted) forms of idealism? (and even you couldn't, wouldn't it be a cinch to construct them?)

Trying to get a better grasp on what work 'materialism' is supposed to be doing, when it doesn't mean what 'materialism' usually means. I feel like I'd want to focus on this:

the whole point of idealism (in my understanding of it), is that it by definition aims to idealize one part or parts of reality over others (or, using a different topology, aims to idealize an extra-reality over reality — StreetlightX

& ask:

1)What do you mean by 'idealizing one part of reality over others?'
2)What makes something 'extra-real'?

I really really wanted it to be a good spiritual poem, ala Dark Night of the Soul, but it's seeming more and more like a hugely imaginative poem by a bitter exile, mapping out his psyche with all its inconsistencies.

Dante's Comedy

I'm not sure what I think yet. I'm at canto iv. He seems to have a lot of good insight about spiritual progress. but then he'll suddenly declare himself equal to Homer, or use his poem to shit on some other enemy from his personal life. And he constantly flatters Virgil, obsequiously, while still casting judgment on Flatterers. So I don't know.

I agree with all of this! And I don't necessarily want to press the point. But I just don't see how any of that is 'materialist.' Not that that's bad, one way or another. It seems 'beyond idealism and materialism' - and that the 'materialist' thing is a provocation. Or, if not a provocation, then a kind of safe-haven one retreats to after advancing ideas that go beyond 'vulgar' materialism, while also anticipating misguided attempts to pigeonhole one as an 'idealist'. Which is understandable, because that happens, the idealist-pigeonholing. But, among friends, is 'materialist' really anything other than a rhetorical device here?

It seems like a hangover from a soviet thing where you have to appeal to the big Other, while actually saying something different. Yes, yes, I'm a materialist of course, but...

But with the analogy of senses, appendages etc - all these things combine together in order to allow some being to navigate a larger world within which that being is embedded. Everything can't be embedded in anything else.

Why would there not just be a strict dualism then? This might be the way we are using language but if there is the One and there is illusion, then there is no longer one, as the illusion still "exists" in some fashion (even if just as an illusion). Thus, the illusion has to be accounted for itself. Wherever/whatever the illusion "is"- call it mental space, mentality, experience, this is what is to explained. — schopenhauer1

The 'illusion' is only parsed as an illusion from a monistic, material perspective. "Dualism", here, is a response to materialism, a rejection of that standpoint. But it seems like reality is so much richer!

An example makes this clearer. Take a 'scene' in some city or region or era. Beat culture or grunge or fin-de-siecle modernist literature or vaporwave or cyberpunk. It's extremely difficult to reduce these to either material 'stuff' or consciousness or both.

I've always had a softspot for those who, chasing a beautiful lady, trip on a banana peel, and fall facefirst into a pie. Those who, after falling, are revived by the scent of a steaming turkey. Who, so-revived, flutter their arms as though they were a bird, flapping their way toward the scent's source. Who, flapping, encounter the finality of a well-aimed frying pan. Who, laid flat, consider the unerring circuits of birds flapping in haloes round their head, chirping.

These experiences make me believe that society does not care if a man is hurt when he has his testicles damaged. — darthbarracuda

Society also seems to be indifferent to expressive animals who take an anvil to the head. And poor folk falling victim to descending safes.

In what sense? In what way? — tim wood

(a month late.)

I meant that real life will keep funneling you challenges, challenges you have no choice but to address, and that exceed any rational, philosophical framework. You have to address these problems in order to even begin to discuss the phil stuff, online. Transcendental conditions of the possibility of posting, if you like.

You have to take care of the details of living before you post.