Phenomenology of Mind is really brilliant - I still haven't read it in full, but I find myself returning to it, again and again. I think there's a case to be made that Hegel was lightyears ahead of his contemporaries. But "important" can mean a billion different things, so this is a really hard question to answer!

I more or less agree with @jamalrob & @The Great Whatever

"Post-truth" had been seized upon by 'experts' (in the sense jamalrob used the word) at the exact moment their theories and narratives have been shown to be false (the 'surprise' of Brexit & the 2016 US presidential election etc.)

In many cases, then, "post-truth" is literally used to mean 'an atmosphere in which people no longer believe in our narratives and theories after those narratives and theories have been demonstrated to be false"

In other words: It's easier for certain groups (who Jamalrob's named) to believe that truth itself has been dismissed than to comprehend that they might be wrong about how the world works.

(& sure, there's something 'post-truthy' about e.g. global warming denial, but that sort of post-truth has been around forever, as tgw notes)

playstation vr just arrived - v excited, been daydreaming about vr since i was 6

the witness, it's good, got ffxv, kinda lame, some good parts

@Agustino

Yes the shame idea was indeed quite intriguing and good. However, you never took me up on it afterwards, but my inkling is that in some cases shame does and can lead to mental illness, but in others it may also be a stabilising force which prevents mental illness.

fair enough -

What do you think about people who fail to live up to their own standards? Don't you think they are also more prone to mental illness? And if the answer is "yes", does this suggest, to you, that one should have and maintain no standards for oneself? Would this offer a better approach to life? Or perhaps someone should do something entirely different, and if so, what would that be? — Agustino

It's not standards versus no standards but clear, achievable (even if challenging) standards vs unclear, impossible, perhaps contradictory ones. And it's also how the love or wrath of the standard-setter is entwined with those standards. When things get tooo blurry or impossible (double-bind-y), stuff starts to go haywire. One way of reacting is to recoil from the intense blurriness and/or contradictions and to make one's worldview and self-image super crisp, black and white. Sufferers of NPD, for instance, are especially prone to madonna/whore complexes, identification with saintly or powerful figures (while seeing others as sin-drenched or cowardly) and efforts to control their social interactions in a way that allows them to keep their rigid sense of self intact.

Feverish for sure. Everything is always urgent, settings shift rapidly, blurring any clear sense of time and space, and there's always a lingering sense of dread or imminent catastrophe.

While he may not have a refined style, his ability to fashion different voices is amazing. Even though his dialogue isn't quite realistic, he does seem to have a good ear. It's like he absorbs irl talk, with its tics and rhythms, and runs in through a sort of filter. The idiosyncratic rhythms, tics and preoccupations are still there, but the pitch is changed.

(tho hes certainly no faulkner stylewise - at least as far as i can tell in translation) faulkners on a whole other plane.

He doesn't understand how his well-being depends on managing those around him.

"Managing those around him" is an interesting turn of phrase, to me. Especially when it's used in relation to one's own well-being, and outside the context of relating to subordinates in a well-defined hierarchical setting (work, military, sports etc.) Can you expand on what you mean exactly?

Why do you think so? To me the story is obviously about the hypocrisy of the Church, not about how they set an impossible standard. And most mankind is condemned because they deserve to be condemned, like most thieves are condemned because they deserve it. To me, the whole idea of changing moral standards so that more people meet them is nonsensical. Moral standards should be what they are, if you don't meet it, then so be it, admit it and move on. What's the difficulty of saying X is wrong but I still want to do it? At least then there is some dignity there. — Agustino

First, comprehension of the parable comes not from holding it up to one's own ethical code in order to determine whether or not the two or consonant. "I believe x, and the Inquisitor says y, and, since x is right, the story must be essentially about The Inquisitor's failings" -- You miss all the subtlety that way. That you're ok with near-impossible standards is fine, but Ivan, the teller of the parable is not. To understand the import of the parable requires one to understand Ivan, which, in turn, requires attending to all of what he's said. It's quite clear that he sees the mass of humanity very similarly to the way the Inquisitor sees them. He sympathizes with those who aren't able to move mountains.

And shouldn't she feel guilty for what she has done? It is the guilt which redeems her, and which makes her do anything to pay for her sins. Without the guilt, no redemption would have been possible. — Agustino

Maybe she should feel guilty, idk. I imagine the guilt and redemption, the purity and sin, of Gruschenka, a woman, has a special fascination for you, but the point of my post was to hone in on the concept of redemption and fallenness as essentially other-directed and to discuss how that plays out in BK. It wasn't to weigh the sin and virtue of the various characters. That seems like a boring and unfruitful way to read BK. Who, but you, cares that you wouldn't feel resentful of Father Zossima? It's more interesting to try to understand how the resentment of the other monks and villagers works - where it comes from, how it manifests and morphs, how the attitudes of one's peers redirect or strengthen or weaken it etc. To say you don't understand it because you're above such things - well, damn, that's not very Father Zossima-like. I find it bizarre that you see yourself in him, btw. All I can surmise is that you reflexively identify with GREAT and PIOUS characters immediately, when they're discussed in those terms, because you can feel the author's respect for them, and ignore everything else about them. What of Zossima, he who had no place for hellfire, do you see in yourself?

How'd you first get introduced to Berdyaev? What determined the order in which you read his books?

I think you're right to bring Heidegger's being-toward-death into this. The whole point of being-toward-death is to get out of the Das Man doxa-pool and become 'resolute.' It's basically the source of freedom, as it is with Hegel (whom Heidi, perhaps enviously, devoured)...tho freedom for what? For Heidegger it's the freedom to authentically repeat a historical act in your own time and assume your destiny. It's all very grand, to the point of feeling a bit like the plot of a rpg. (or the plot of Nazism, which let's be frank, is not entirely alien to Heidi's thinking...his political engagement can't be written off as entirely external to his philosophy) Heidegger quickly degenerates into Bad Rilke. But to bring this back to freedom qua creativity, I think it's easy, as a young artist, to want to emulate the styles and attitudes of established artists you admire. That can mean emulating their fuck you! bad-assery (Dada, Francis Bacon, Pisschrist) or their no-nonsense formalism (I don't know enough about visual arts here - Mondrian? Kandinsky?), or their gentle delicate sensitive repose (impressionism, Russian Realism.) But you can't really understand what's behind their styles, or tap into it yourself, unless you come hard against some bad shit, however that manifests. To actually repeat your hero, you have to repeat the impulse behind him - and that means to actually feel the impulse, and if you actually feel that impulse you won't make what they made, but something entirely different. But in doing so, you'll be closer to what they did than someone who quotes or imitates them.

@John So the first time I read BK, Fyodor Pavlovitch was, for me, something like what Zizek describes as "the fantasmatic, obscene figure of the primordial father-jouisseur [father-enjoyer] not encumbered by any prohibition." A kind of obscene, undestroyable chaotic lush who can't be escaped and who overflows into any peaceful setting that would keep him out. And, I mean, he definitely is that, at least in part. But I didn't understand, at all, the way in which he was driven by shame. (and I somehow missed the passage that describes those night-panics where he desperately needs Grigory, because he needs another human, nearby, who won't judge him.)

I think you're right that the running theme is a mix of the need for redemption and 'hell is other people.' And they dovetail nicely because redemption is redemption in the eyes of someone else. And to be fallen is to be fallen in front of someone else who is standing. Ivan's famous Grand Inquisitor speech is about how Christ sets an impossible standard and thereby condemns nearly all of mankind. Alyosha makes Gruschenka feel guilty, and Father Zossima makes the other monks resentful. Katerina Ivanovna, in a weird twist, wants to be the one who redeems, and gets frustrated by those who won't allow themselves to be redeemed by her.

What's fascinating & terrifying, for me, about Fyodor Pavlovich is that he seems to have a genuine, deep understanding of the problematic and how others are trying to deal with it - he can see through people, to their true motives - and he settles into seeing it as one big sad joke, without trying to change anything about himself. He contents himself with pulling the rug out from beneath others. I see a lot of myself in Fyodor (and in Smerdyakov, alas) and it's kind of unsettling. I'd say, of the Karamazov family, I'm 1 part Alyosha, 3 parts Ivan, 2 parts Dimitri, 3 parts Fyodor, and 3 parts Smerdyakov. Not an ideal mix.

What do you think about people who fail to live up to their own standards? Don't you think they are also more prone to mental illness? And if the answer is "yes", does this suggest, to you, that one should have and maintain no standards for oneself? Would this offer a better approach to life? Or perhaps someone should do something entirely different, and if so, what would that be?

I don't think people shouldn't have standards, no.

oh man, can't post in full now, but I agree - and fyodor has actually become the most interesting character to me, so I'm glad you mentioned him!

haaa that was supposed to be an im, no idea how i accidentally posted it here. I won't apologize for euphonious tho, or God-y.

You mean like in an Aristotelian sense? That would certainly reverse what people like Aquinas say, which is that God is pure actuality, not potentiality.

I'm not sure, I don't know Aristotle as well I would like to. And I don't know Aquinas very well at all, though I find his name extraordinarily euphonious. I'm just spitballing here. Potentiality strikes me as relational - certain circumstances and encounters will draw out - actualize - different potencies. So there's a near infinite, unknowable, range of possibilities, which rely on 'hidden' potentials. That feels a little God-y to me. Divine embers cozying up to other divine embers and Lo! a spark. Something new! (and isn't the truly novel always a bit miraculous?) But, yeah, I'm not not drawing on any well-defined theological tradition, to the best of my knowledge (tho I'm kinda riffing on some metaphysicians i like)

STOP SIDING WITH THE QUACKS

What does hiding a relationship from your mother have to do with exceptional social skills won thru being an outsider? It sounds more like you had strict, intense parents so you learned how to conceal your actions better than kids with less intense parents who had less to fear

(1)I don't agree with your definition of mental illness.

(2) I think most mental illness stems from shame and most shame stems from bad early relationships which ppl grow up to project onto other ppl. Shame has to do with failing to live up to another's standards which, on a deeper level, makes you unsure where you stand in relation to another's love and wrath (i.e their desire) I also think - this isn't my idea but I agree with it, sry - that psychotic episodes result from double-binds where a person is torn between two mutually exclusive obligations (obligations felt on a deep, often unconscious level) and the self/ego is torn apart by the tension (sufferers of acute schizophrenia often literally jettison any stable sense of self in order to become a cosmic battleground or theater)

@ThorongilYou can do a thing of making God/Being the reservoir of potentiality and sustainer of relations(so the source of novelty, free will/desire & order) and then 'creation' is simply the actual, or existent - bodies in space.

@John@Noble Dust

Good convo, just want to toss in a parenthetical aside about Hegel's Master/Slave dialectic, partially to refresh myself.

The reason the master can't recognize the slave's humanity is because he can't even recognize his own. For Hegel, freedom arises out of self-consciousness, and self-consciousness is a recognition of one's essential negativity. Negativity, in this context, doesn't mean 'evil,' but the negation of everything 'determinate' about oneself (To make this more concrete, it's a bit like smelting one's identity by melting away everything that comes from one's contingent lifeworld - Who am I? Am I a Mainer? A US Citizen? A dispatcher? A brother? Importantly the same process has to be done with reference to what one desires too. What remains is not simple nothing, but the absolute freedom of self-relating nothingness.)

The slave, in Hegel's strange parable, is a slave because he has experienced the fear of total annihilation. He was utterly at the mercy of one who could kill him, but was spared and made into a slave. In experiencing this fear, says Hegel, he has experienced immediately his inner nothingness.

Then he is set to work, shaping the world not according to his desires, but to the desires of another. In (a) experiencing the nothingness of his identity and (b) acting upon the world with no determinate purpose of his own, he comes to understand, so the story goes, the essence of freedom, of what a man really is. His 'in-itself' has become 'for-himself' The Master can't understand this, because he's still totally immersed in his life world, acting out blindly inherited desires he's never questioned, but feels as his own.

He requires the recognition of the slave because he is not able himself to confront and work upon the world, but requires a mediating workman. Since he has not made his identity's in-itself for-himself, and since, for Hegel, an in-itself always needs to express itself, he must seek the for-itself in another. The slave, on the other hand, has freed himself from such a dependence (though this, too, is just the beginning of a much longer process.)

OK, but what kind of an explanation are we looking for? If we are looking for a motivation (why ought we be afraid), that's one thing. If we are looking for a "third-person" explanation of the phenomenon - that's another thing, or rather a number of things, depending on the chosen framework for the explanation - psychology, evolutionary biology, neurophysiology, non-naturalist metaphysics.

It's much simpler than all this - It's me who is going to be tortured, not someone else. Motivations come after - that it's me who will be tortured is the presupposition on which any other motivation must be founded. I'm not fishing for an account of fear (of distant events) but of that identity or mineness which must ground any such fear.

Not quite. I proposed earlier that self-identity is a mental construct, partly innate, partly a product of culture, personal development and even preference. As such, it doesn't have to strictly supervene on the body, the way, say, cognition presumably supervenes on the neurophysiology of the nervous system. However, the body does provide a natural preexisting "boundary" (as you put it) that most ordinary conceptions of self-identity respect at least in part. Certainly, the raw feeling of the continuity of self that we experience moment-to-waking moment goes along with the normal functioning of the body with its given boundaries. But the more abstract intellectual concept of self-identity can and often does extend beyond that boundary - in the hypothesized afterlife, for instance, or a reincarnation. Or sometimes in other directions as well: the ancestors, the tribe or the country, or even the world.

But you do think cognition supervenes on the neurophysiology of the nervous system and an 'abstract intellectual concept of self-identity' seems thoroughly cognitive to me. I'm going to assume that you think there would cease to be any such abstract concepts in the absence of cognition (correct me if I'm wrong). So I think the answer I've ascribed to you is still good. There's no me without my body. It's my body that's tortured. There's no body left after I die.

It's been interesting to compare my experience this time around to my earlier readings. When I first read it as a teenager, I was really only interested in Ivan & Alyosha, and even then only in the Big Ideas that I took those two to be vessels for. Reading it this time, I'm blown away by nearly EVERY character and it's the musicality of the dialogue, not the ideas per se, which is gripping. The ideas are still great, but it seems to me now that they're subservient to a musical whole - they're like intricate intellectual/emotional stances (ways-of-being? conatuses? wills-to-x?) made into themes. (And in many cases the character is his voice, his dialogue) It's kind of like all the characters represent (but that's wrong, not represent, are) ways of responding to a central question or crisis (still not sure exactly what it is) and the violent plot is simply a means of getting them to bounce off one another (tho the melodrama is actually kinda fun too)

I really wish I could put that better, but do you know what I mean?

I've read the first 1/3 twice, but when I was too young to really appreciate it ( 8th grade, 10th grade ) but I'm really enjoying it this time around.

Brothers Karamazov

The Ticklish Subject

Rising Up & Rising Down

Not mad - I already knew you were sexist, misogynist etc - just concerned, as ever, with your psychological well-being. You're a little obsessive, man.

Oh, probably not.

Just didn't understand the point of your response

?

man amy schumer is really gnawing at you these days

I'm working for myself

What's your business? genuinely curious.

But just as equally a late Heraclitean (who, as you know, can't be simply reduced to 'everything is flux') But I don't think it's all that fruitful to equate Nietzsche to systems theorists (who I'm assuming you don't like based on the derisive tone of your reply) and thereby discard his ideas bc you find it obvious that system theorists don't cut any sort of mustard.

Order vs Chaos is far too simplistic a reading of Nietzsche, imo. He was doing something more like: there is no fixed order, but rather there are temporary orders precipitated from the interactions of unstable forces. He saw God and christianity as (immanently generated) stabilizing centers in a sort of force-field. And he thought (in quite Hegelian terms!) that a 'slow weaving of the spirit' had undermined them from within. The difference is that he was neutral about this undermining. For him, it was a fait accompli, not an unconscionable wavering that ought be reversed. From dust to dust. Those ideas had been generated, had a good run, and were now disintegrating.

So, yeah, that's definitely a rather radical stance that can be argued against, sure, but I think it's coherent. And, to beat a dead horse, this definitely wasn't a science vs religion thing. He was doing something else.

If God is for Nietzsche a product of the human psyche, then the historical event would presumably be the exorcism.

I think Mongrel's right. But the death of of God qua historical event isn't just the the loss of the belief in a benevolent sky-father. It's kind of like: God had been this linch-pin which held everything together (philosophically, culturally, politically) - and the loss of that linch-pin was only the beginning of this slow-motion recoil, like a too-taut rope which has snapped and is flying back at us - and once it finally comes all the way back and hits it source (over many, many years) it's going to destabilize all the other ideas.

Being an atheist in Nietzsche's time, and in Nietzsche's milieu, wasn't all that radical. But he had a premonition that all the other atheists hadn't really understood what their atheism meant. "God is Dead" in-and-of-itself wasn't too wild - but N understood that, in terms of philosophical/cultural/political thought, it was like a distant explosion and the shockwaves hadn't quite hit.

One quick thing: If Nietzsche's invocation of 'fiction'* is to have any piquancy, it has to stand opposed to 'non-fiction.' In other words, it has to bring with it some idea of 'truth.' Which puts the Nietzschean in quite the muddle.

One way to dance around this is to say that 'truth' is itself a kind of fiction, but that the adherents of 'truth' have found a way to create a particularly spectacular fictional effect where one type of fiction ('non-fiction') appears to have this kind of eminent, majestic quality. So then the real question (tho what does 'real' mean!) would be how this non-fiction/truth 'effect' is produced (or, in a transcendental register, how it is producible at all.) But it's very hard to try to answer this question without recourse to a less sophisticated non-nietzschean (deflationary?) understanding of true vs false.

*as in "Why should the world that is relevant to us not be a fiction?"

Ok, that's fair - but to circle back around: I think it could be problematic to view concerns over racism in the Trump Administration (and what that means for racism all over the states) through the lens of a deep distaste for others within academia or similar social strata. It's not like there isn't a lot of racism outside the rich liberal enclaves.

The "problem" is that there is supposedly a question that cries out for an explanation: why do I care about something that is going to happen to me in the future?

Yeah, I wasn't as clear I ought to have been (and I lost sight myself of my initial strategy.) It's not that the fear of impending torture is a 'problem' itself - the idea is to elicit an explanation of why we should be afraid of such a thing that wouldn't apply equally to a fear of life after death.

And it looks like you have an answer (your intent to naturalize has indeed been obvious, I note neutrally) - self-identity is supervenient on bodily identity (& extrapolating: since the body loses its identity after death, there's nothing left to supervene on.) It will be my body that is tortured; there will be no body after I die.

Is that fair?

Heh, I guess the context clue of 'the thing you claimed caused the 2008 financial crisis' was insufficient.

Perhaps, but, man, you'd assume that someone making the sweeping claim that the catalyst of the 2008 financial crisis was government-enforced lending to subprime borrowers would be familiar enough with the oft-acronymized Community Reinvestment Act to get the reference. Right?

The what?

For real?

You sounded pretty confident when you said "The government also shouldn't be forcing certain banks to offer risky loans to under-qualified people, which was the primary catalyst for the housing bubble and subsequent crash."

How much research have you actually done on this topic?

I can't stand that kind of thing - and it makes me sympathetic to many anti-pc, anti-left voices. But I think you could reasonably compare it to similar meme/rhetoric-cultures on the right (i.e. the fact that a lot of right-leaning people listen to Rush Limbaugh and post dumb fb memes about Obama trying to end democracy doesn't mean that conservative intellectuals don't have fascinating, compelling arguments. I have a lot of respect for intelligent conservatives. )

All that being said, I think the US left does have a serious PR problem on all levels.