Author Topic: Philosophy Culture  (Read 1902 times)

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Offline Michael Hardner

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Philosophy Culture
« on: October 24, 2018, 05:59:24 am »
http://www.powerofchange.org/blog/2010/9/26/what-sacred-games.html

In our current context, thinking about Nietzsche.  I am no philosopher, and only know enough to misrepresent it when I write.  But it seems to me that we are in a kind of celebration of the end of God.  Nihilism, morality and hedonism seem to be uniting in a personified messiah of ignorance, leading a party and a nation that is turning itself inside-out as it all comes apart.

From the 'Power of Change' Website:

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Thinkers had placed the knives of reason upon thinking itself and began to come to some stark honesty about what they really believed about God, truth and morality. The pariah Friedrich Nietzsche, whose work only became popular after his death, was perhaps one of the most honest.  Many of the conclusions were that God was dead1, truth was perspectival rather than universal and morality was a fake, a ploy to keep people in chains when they were made for greatness. Nietzsche wrote many works addressing these realities many times using metaphors to describe his views. 

Nietzsche wrote:

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God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. “How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

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Offline kimmy

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2018, 03:45:33 am »
From the 'Power of Change' Website:
Quote
truth was perspectival rather than universal and morality was a fake,

I guess it depends what they mean by "truth".   There are objective facts that exist regardless of perspective.  But what about a statement like "man can't fly"?   "Sure I can, I just hop in my helicopter and away I go." "Well you're not really flying, you're riding in a vehicle that can fly." That's a difference of perspective.  It gets muddier if you add in an unknowable element like "If God meant man to fly, he'd have given us wings."    True? Not true?  Completely  unknowable?  I think that a lot of questions about morality are questions whose answers are completely unknowable.  The notion of an absolute morality rests on the idea that these questions can have definitive answers, perhaps gleaned from the pages of a magic book of some kind.

From the gist of your message I gather you're talking about people who've decided to disregard the premise of objective reality in favor of a make believe world that conforms to their preconceived notions.   Hypothetically an orange president who will look at an advisor's data and say "nah, that's not true, I don't believe it" and wander off to watch golf on TV. I propose that such people have always existed.

 -k
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2018, 05:57:40 am »


I guess it depends what they mean by "truth".   There are objective facts that exist regardless of perspective.

Yes, but it seems like a continuing effort of philosophies is to turn as many facts into opinions as possible.

The Treachery of Images from René Magritte



Quote
But what about a statement like "man can't fly"?   "Sure I can, I just hop in my helicopter and away I go." "Well you're not really flying, you're riding in a vehicle that can fly." That's a difference of perspective.  It gets muddier if you add in an unknowable element like "If God meant man to fly, he'd have given us wings."    True? Not true?  Completely  unknowable?  I think that a lot of questions about morality are questions whose answers are completely unknowable.  The notion of an absolute morality rests on the idea that these questions can have definitive answers, perhaps gleaned from the pages of a magic book of some kind.
 

What's the least 'muddy' thing you can say ?  Morality is about the muddiest thing: 'Stealing is wrong' 'Err... unless you're starving' 'Oh... and stealing requires there to be an agreed-upon notion of possession' 'Err... and laws' 

Quote
From the gist of your message I gather you're talking about people who've decided to disregard the premise of objective reality in favor of a make believe world that conforms to their preconceived notions.   Hypothetically an orange president who will look at an advisor's data and say "nah, that's not true, I don't believe it" and wander off to watch golf on TV. I propose that such people have always existed.

 -k

Nietzsche famously says 'God is dead' and determines that humans created morality because they had to... or for reasons.  The 45th President has effectively bent the religious and moral majority into a 180 degree opposite from what their religion was supposed to do.  They are buying into Nietzche's thesis, and using it.  They effectively believe that the 45th president IS morality, so lying and supporting his behaviour is now moral because it helps him.


Offline kimmy

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2018, 10:01:50 am »
Yes, but it seems like a continuing effort of philosophies is to turn as many facts into opinions as possible.

The Treachery of Images from René Magritte


 

That's a pipe.


Nietzsche famously says 'God is dead' and determines that humans created morality because they had to... or for reasons.  The 45th President has effectively bent the religious and moral majority into a 180 degree opposite from what their religion was supposed to do.  They are buying into Nietzche's thesis, and using it.  They effectively believe that the 45th president IS morality, so lying and supporting his behaviour is now moral because it helps him.

That process didn't start with Trump.  That process has been underway for a long time.  Scholarly articles have been written about the merger of US evangelicals with the Republican Party, the politicization of US evangelical faith, and so on.  Trump didn't bend religion. Its leaders took it this direction, starting some time in the 1970s.

They don't think God is dead, they think God wants them to support Trump.   They think what God wants is to stop abortions, stop the homos, and stop the commies.

 -k
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Offline Squidward von Squidderson

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #4 on: October 25, 2018, 10:20:10 am »
Quote
What's the least 'muddy' thing you can say ?  Morality is about the muddiest thing:...

But you think an ancient book with a few pronouncements clears things up because Jesus says so?

Offline cybercoma

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2018, 11:31:45 am »
That's a pipe.

 -k
If it was a pipe, you could smoke it but you can't.

Offline Omni

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2018, 11:44:04 am »
If it was a pipe, you could smoke it but you can't.

But it can take you back to the days when you did smoke one, and re imagine that lovely smell when you lit up. Now I'm going for a walk to get that off my mind.
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2018, 04:54:03 pm »
But you think an ancient book with a few pronouncements clears things up because Jesus says so?

It doesn't follow.  I don't think I said that, exactly.

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2018, 05:22:37 pm »
Nihilism means ancient magic books don't create right and wrong and we can use our brains to create our own idea of right & wrong.
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2018, 06:04:17 pm »
That process didn't start with Trump.  That process has been underway for a long time.  Scholarly articles have been written about the merger of US evangelicals with the Republican Party, the politicization of US evangelical faith, and so on.  Trump didn't bend religion. Its leaders took it this direction, starting some time in the 1970s.

They don't think God is dead, they think God wants them to support Trump.   They think what God wants is to stop abortions, stop the homos, and stop the commies.
 

You don't think that Trump's influence represents an iteration on how far Christianity has moved from its original mission statement ?

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2018, 06:09:30 pm »
But you think an ancient book with a few pronouncements clears things up because Jesus says so?

You seem to have some kind of problem with the great religion known as 'Christianity'. 

1. The age of a book or practice says nothing of the thing's value.  Eating is pretty old and I would hate to go without it, even for a day.
2. Any book with pronouncements may speak to you, or not.  As a youth, I learned things from the Gospel, George Orwell, and Jughead Double Digest
3. Since I don't believe in divinity, the fact that Jesus or any author says it is irrelevant.  You can evaluate their words against other works, or their own other works I guess but the value of the work comes from elsewhere than the author's reputation, at least for me.
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Offline cybercoma

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #11 on: November 06, 2018, 06:51:36 am »
Nihilism means ancient magic books don't create right and wrong and we can use our brains to create our own idea of right & wrong.
This is essentially what Nietzsche meant by "God is dead," yeah. We have the capacity to rationalize morality, rather than it being a prescript from otherworldly sources.

Offline SirJohn

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #12 on: November 11, 2018, 02:55:24 pm »
From the gist of your message I gather you're talking about people who've decided to disregard the premise of objective reality in favor of a make believe world that conforms to their preconceived notions. 


But did it start with Trump or did it start with the downfall of academic standards at universities?

Nevertheless, the poisons of post-structuralism have now spread throughout academe and have done enormous damage to basic scholarly standards and disastrously undermined belief even in the possibility of knowledge. I suspect history will not be kind to the leading professors who appear to have put loyalty to friends and colleagues above defending scholarly values during a chaotic era of overt vandalism that has deprived several generations of students of a profound education in the humanities. The steady decline in humanities majors is an unmistakable signal that this once noble field has become a wasteland..


https://quillette.com/2018/11/10/camille-paglia-its-time-for-a-new-map-of-the-gender-world/
"When liberals insist that only fascists will defend borders then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals won't do." David Frum

Offline kimmy

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #13 on: November 12, 2018, 02:09:41 am »
But did it start with Trump or did it start with the downfall of academic standards at universities?

Nevertheless, the poisons of post-structuralism have now spread throughout academe and have done enormous damage to basic scholarly standards and disastrously undermined belief even in the possibility of knowledge. I suspect history will not be kind to the leading professors who appear to have put loyalty to friends and colleagues above defending scholarly values during a chaotic era of overt vandalism that has deprived several generations of students of a profound education in the humanities. The steady decline in humanities majors is an unmistakable signal that this once noble field has become a wasteland..


https://quillette.com/2018/11/10/camille-paglia-its-time-for-a-new-map-of-the-gender-world/

I'm pretty sure that the merger of the Republicans with the evangelicals has little to nothing to do with universities.  Most of those people aren't big on "fancy book learnin'".

 -k


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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Philosophy Culture
« Reply #14 on: November 12, 2018, 07:34:15 am »
I'm pretty sure that the merger of the Republicans with the evangelicals has little to nothing to do with universities.  Most of those people aren't big on "fancy book learnin'".

 -k

Right, but they slid right in their and 'rationalized morality', as Cybercobra explains it.  In this case they redesigned Christianity to be... whatever it is now, I guess.  They made it into a tribal code, ie. protect our people, rather than a morality based on principle of caring for others.