Saturday, June 13, 2009

Spiritual Fascism and the Darwinian Resistance to Transcendence

I'm thinking of taking a little blogging vacation. One of the purposes would be to actually spend some time in the arkive, trying to organize things. There are now over 1300 lengthy posts down there, and if I don't do something soon, it will be like one huge pile of leaves with no possibility of ever getting to the bottom or relating them to the central tree from which they all fell.

In other words, the leaves may look rather diverse -- politics, mysticism, metaphysics, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, theology, troll-bashing, etc., but they definitely (will) form (someday) a (I hope) unity because they are derived from unity. There is an absolute self-consistency there, the reason being that it all flows from the Absolute -- from the top down, not the bottom up. But I'd like to make the consistency explicit instead of implicit.

For example, in combing through the June '08 arkive, I noticed that there is a whole series of posts on the metaphysical impossibility of Darwinism. The essays take a rather different tack than the "intelligent design" people, and I think my point of view is pretty much unanswerable by any intellectually honest Darwinian. It's the sort of thing I'd like to organize into one coherent stream of thought, instead of just a pile of leaves buried under more leaves.

Anyway, here's one of them, with some new random mutations and copying errors....

As Charles Darwin wrote, "While nature, making procreation free, yet submitting survival to a hard trial, chooses from an excess number of individuals the best as worthy of living, thus preserving them alone and in them conserving the species, man limits procreation, but is hysterically concerned that once a being is born it should be preserved at any price."

Nah, just pulling your leg. That was Adolf Hitler explaining his values, values which he derived from immanent nature, not the transcendent Absolute. Hitler was guilty of many things, but not an absence of intellectual consistency in comprehending and carrying out the implications of his first principles. It's just that his first principles were insane and impossible, but no less impossible than metaphysical Darwinism.

Am I invoking Godwin's law this early in the morning? No, not at all. As someone once said, fascism in all its forms is the violent resistance to transcendence. Therefore, Charles Queeg at LGF, or the goons at dailykos, or any other flatland guardians, are not Nazis, since they mostly engage in non-violent resistance to transcendence, as do the ACLU, or People for the American Way, or any other anti-religious wacktivist or plain old ignoramus. It always involves state coercion, but the violence is implicit and "lawful."

I don't know that we have a word for this "non-violent fascism," but we ought to. You could call them "infrahuman," but this is inevitably taken as an insult rather than an objective descriptor. When I use that term, I apply it to anyone who denies the ontological reality of the human station, and insists that man is nothing more than an animal. Of course such a person is infrahuman (even though no real animal has to insist that he is one).

Nor should we let religion off the hook, for when it goes off the rails and descends into madness -- which it often does, since it is always practiced by human beings -- it seems that it is often a result of a violent resistance to immanence. When this happens -- when people insist on the absolute truth of a transcendent ideal to the total exclusion of immanent reality -- it can often result in violence. In fact, this is what we see in the Islamists: a violent rejection of the modern world in favor of their transcendent ideal of a new Caliphate. All of the violence flows from that initial error.

And matters aren't helped by the Islamist's totally upside-down metaphysic, which crudely regards the afterlife in grossly sensual terms (the 72 doe-eyed virgins and all the rest). In other words, they impose their idea of transcendence on earth but then fantasize about a kind of immanent sensual perfection in heaven. Madness.

Thus, there is a deep reason for the leftist-Islamist alliance, and it follows from a similar metaphysical error. On the one hand, the left-fascist "takes heaven by storm." However, he does this not in order to enter it by the proper means, via contemplation, meditation, prayer, intellection, etc., but to destroy it by imposing his one substance/one level ontology "from below."

On the other hand, the religious fascist takes earth by storm, not in order to understand it (a la the scientific method) but to impose his own single-level ontology "from above." But the results are the same: the imposition of their idea of "heaven on earth," which can only result in hell on earth.

Obviously, the freedom-loving Raccoon has no desire to live in either form of spiritual tyranny, i.e., the twin terrors of absolute immanence or absolute transcendence. We firmly reject reductionistic Darwinism to the extent that it interferes with the absolute prerogative of our interior evolution, AKA, the Adventure of Consciousness, or What It Is All About. The Raccoon knows that the only cure for the senses is the soul, and that the only cure for the soul is the senses, within the vertical trinitarian space that recoonciles them in its ceaseless flow of novelty.

Now, Christianity in particular disclose a metaphysic that carefully balances transcendence and immanence, at least if properly understood on the esoteric plane.....

Excuse me for just a moment. We interrupt this post for a dream that had me last night. I was at Tower Records -- which no longer exists, and was even "crumbling" in the dream -- and there was none other than Gerard Vanderleun behind the counter. He directed my attention to the book section, letting me know that all of the books were on sale for only $3.00 each. I went through all of the titles; I remember that one of them was a coffee table book about Orson Welles, containing great photographic examples of the composition of his camera shots. In the distance, I saw an unhealthy looking Tony Snow, also working in the store; he was cheerful despite his sad situation.

I ended up purchasing two books, one of which was a new, three-volume edition of the Bible, put out by Alice Coltrane's Vedantic Center. Alice was the widow of John Coltrane and a unique jazz musician in her own right (are there any other jazz harpists?) who later became known as Swami Turiyasangitananda, and actually formed an ashram not too far from my home. When I hear Alice Coltrane "jam" on the harp, I am not the only person who coonjures aural images of hipster angels in Jazz Heaven.

We'll get back up to the dream later, if we ever do. Anyway, when we say that "the word became flesh," what we are affirming -- among other things -- is that the ultimate transcendent principle is present in the immanent/material realm (which is actually a realm of pure dynamic or energic activity).

In fact, this Ultimate Principle is the "stasis" or "motionless mover" amidst the otherwise "total activity" that would be incomprehensible in the absence of the Principle which both "penetrates" and "contains" it. It is why the world is intelligible to man's intelligence: because the vertical center is here at the horizontal periphery. That the Word became flesh assures that man is -- or can participate in, anyway -- the center here below. Call it the "Kingdom of Heaven" which is spread all over the earth, and yet, men do not see it (even when they implicitly assume it).

Thus, when the Darwinist protests that "you don't have to be religious to be moral," he is mouthing a pure absurdity, for he is presupposing eternal principles that cannot be explained on any Darwinian basis -- again, because Darwinism only accounts for change of outward form, not the permanence of what not only transcends form but in-forms it to begin with, i.e., the consciousness of virtue that results from transcendent interiority.

Our materialist trolls would have us believe that merely "having morals" is somehow synonymous with knowing the Good and acting in conformity with it. All people have morals. The question is, are they Good? It is a strict impossibility that one could ever arrive at the Good through natural selection alone. Frankly, it is an absurd argument that no remotely sophisticated person could take seriously. Intellectually consistent Darwinists don't make that argument. Rather, they will concede that "morality" is an illusion based upon, for example, inclusive fitness.

This infrahuman view is absurd on its face. For one thing, any spiritually developed person knows that virtue is consciousness of a reality, not some simply defined behavior. Yes, we have moral codes, but the code -- even (or especially!) the Ten Commandments -- represents a "descent" from the Principle. This is why it is possible for the true saint to transcend them back to their divine Source -- back atop Mount Sinai, so to speak.

But there is a world of difference between transcending this plane from above vs. obliterating it from below. Our generation very much confuses license below with freedom and transcendence from above. Bonehead comedians who lauded George Carlin's "fearlessness" come to mind, but nihilism is not transcendence; the left habitually makes this category error, which is why they always idealize the adolescent rebel who transcends downward.

One way or another, man is condemned to transcendence. He cannot stay where he is, but must either ascend or descend. This was something recognized by Vedanta, with their description of the sattvic (vertically ascending), tamasic (inertial or descending) and rajasic (horizontally radiating or dispersing) gunas, or principles. Most Racoons are of the sattvo-rajasic temperament.

You might say that the saint is no longer "constrained" by the plane of morality because he now contains it. He has become Virtue Itself, and radiates it from every pore -- just as the sage radiates intelligence from every limb. Again, remember the man who wished to meet the great rabbi, not to learn Torah from him but to watch him tie his boot laces -- to see the divinized intellect in action.

When asked whom they would like as a guest at their "ultimate dinner party," many people naturally say "Jesus." But we already have a good idea what he would say. I would actually like to see him move. I would like to see how he carried himself, his gestures, his eyes, his posture, for you must know that they were enshrouded in the utmost nobility, dignity, majesty, authority, radiance, and benevolence and/or severity. He moved and spoke out of the Great Silence of the Transcendent Center.

Far beyond (and above) the words, those with eyes to see must have at least been dimly aware of the eternal stillness of the "unmoved mover" animating his every gesture from the inside out (which is another way of saying "from the top down" or from peaceful whole to dynamic part). Every movement must have revealed the Transcendence that lends Immanence its metaphysical transparency to the uncreated intellect. Obviously we see the same principle at play in a great work of art, but this would be that very principle "made flesh," not just canvas or stone

Now, back to my dream, a dream of transcendence that has shaped this post from the inside out. Vanderleun is a fine example of a man who grapples with own immanence -- as do we all -- but whose writing constantly reveals a preternatural gift of transcendence, perhaps even "in spite of himself," so to speak, an ability to span the distance between the immanent Penthouse and the transcendent repenthouse without denying either.

When I think of John Coltrane, I think of a man who was as "low" into immanence as it is possible to be, trapped in the ravages of a heroin addiction which he irreversibly transcended in 1957. Of this, he wrote that "During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music." Later, he wrote that his aesthetic-spiritual goal was to inspire people "to realize more and more of their capacities for living meaningful lives. Because there certainly is meaning to life." I cannot say that I don't try to do the same with words.

In the dream I am "in the tower" where they "keep the records," but the tower is crumbling and "going out of business." In such a situation, precious things are almost being given away for free. No one recognizes their true value. Eternal wisdom can be had for a mere $3.00. Heck, Petey gives it way, since no one wants to buy it.

About that triple "Vedanta Bible" of Alice Coltrane's, one naturally thinks of the Trinity, the three gunas mentioned above, the "three-sided" god of Vedanta (Brahma-Shiva-Vishnu, each an exterior aspect of the one Ishvara).

I would say that if you want to live on the other side of the looking glass not so darkly, you must, in a sense, restore the immanence of Vedanta to the transcendence of the Semitic religions. But you certainly needn't do this by blending the two. It's already all there, just waiting to be realized, for the transcendent became the immanent so that the immanent might realize transcendence right here, in the midst of immanence. But be sure and realize this before the tower crumbles and goes out of business, for the long naught is coming, the cold and dark winter snow in which nothing grows and no man can transcend himself.

Rosebud!

23 comments:

julie said...

When asked whom they would like as a guest at their "ultimate dinner party," many people naturally say "Jesus." But we already have a good idea what he would say. I would actually like to see him move. I would like to see how he carried himself, his gestures, his eyes, his posture, for you must know that they were enshrouded in the utmost nobility, dignity, majesty, authority, radiance, and benevolence and/or severity. He moved and spoke out of the Great Silence of the Transcendent Center.

I would like to see him laugh. That would have to be one of the most beautiful sounds ever made.

Dougman said...

"One of the purposes would be to actually spend some time in the arkive, trying to organize things."

WV=palin, (no s*!t!)

Palinstine, I like the sound of that.

dloye said...

Every time you mention going on vacation I suffer a minor panic. (ok, I exaggerate... but only a bit) But mining the arkive is a worthy task, so if you need your blogging time to do it... vaya. Can you post an unedited relic for needy coons?

I can only say that I'm daily in need of a riff and reminder to work to find what I need to be doing to "glorify God." I would sorely miss this if it were gone.

WV plettl. Is that some sort of rosebud thing?!

julie said...

wv is in rare form today - next up is "keter"
Is that another draft I feel?

goddinpotty said...

...the ACLU, or People for the American Way, or any other anti-religious activist and/or bigot or plain old ignoramus.

These organizatons are not anti-religious; they are in favor of the separation of church and state. You people claim to be classical liberals; you should be on their side. Or would you rather have the government involved in choosing a particular flavor of religion and elevating it to official status? Might not be yours!

It is a strict impossibility that one could ever arrive at the Good through natural selection alone. Frankly, it is an absurd argument that no remotely sophisticated person could take seriously. Intellectually consistent Darwinists don't make that argument. Rather, they will concede that "morality" is an illusion based upon, for example, inclusive fitness.

You must never have met a sophisticated person. You could start here or here.

I think you lack imagination. You can't see how the natural and the transcendent interoperate, so you feel threatened by those who study the natural underpinnings of life and mind. You assume that any naturalistic explanation of a phenomenon makes that that phenomenon into an "illusion". This is a common mistake. But morality is both based on kin selection and all sorts of other mechanisms, and transcendent. Pretty weird, but unless you grasp both ends of the nettle you'll end up eating it.

Gagdad Bob said...

I rest my case.

Van Harvey said...

"Nah, just pulling your leg. That was Adolf Hitler explaining his values, values which he derived from immanent nature, not the transcendent Absolute."

And just as expressive of leftist thought today, as it was then. Dead on.

Van Harvey said...

"All of the violence flows from that initial error."

So very, very, True.

"This infrahuman view is absurd on its face. For one thing, any spiritually developed person knows that virtue is consciousness of a reality, not some simply defined behavior."

And it is reality which the leftist opposes in body and soul, from the very root.

"Yes, we have moral codes, but the code -- even (or especially!) the Ten Commandments -- represents a "descent" from the Principle. This is why it is possible for the true saint to transcend them back to their divine Source -- back atop Mount Sinai, so to speak. "

The idea that all is integrated from and through One, a single Truth which would show their whims and 'freedoms' to be in stark contradiction to, is anathema to them.

It burns....

Van Harvey said...

"I would say that if you want to live on the other side of the looking glass not so darkly, you must, in a sense, restore the immanence of Vedanta to the transcendence of the Semitic religions. But you certainly needn't do this by blending the two. It's already all there, just waiting to be realized, for the transcendent became the immanent so that the immanent might realize transcendence right here, in the midst of immanence. "

Ho!

"But be sure and realize this before the tower crumbles and goes out of business, for the long naught is coming, the cold and dark winter snow in which nothing grows and no man can transcend himself."

What, no bail out?

;-)

Van Harvey said...

"I'm thinking of taking a little blogging vacation. One of the purposes would be to actually spend some time in the arkive, trying to organize things."

Kinda thought that was coming soon again. I've got a utility that'll parse all the arkive posts and comments into a database... but unless you're super PC Geeky, the blogger tools are probably just as useful... but if you're getting in touch with your inner geek, lemme know.

Van Harvey said...

gulpingpotty said "You must never have met a sophisticated person. You could start here or here.

I think you lack imagination."

And you only imagine that you think.

Another steaming pile on the porch. I should let it go with Gagdad's comment, but being a flogger... no can do.

To cite Mark Hauser, and his ilk, as having a grasp of morality, is to confess intellectual bankruptcy... or IOW, that you are a leftist.

Leftist philosophy is at best a form of philosophical taxidermy; it takes concepts, vivisects them, guts them of their depth of meaning, preserves their appearances and arranges them in ‘lifelike’ scenarios, as if they still had any relation to human life and thought. It is anti-reason and anti-human, and the resulting affects of it are too obvious and abundant to list here, but just a glance at modern art, or your comments, or the posturing and painted but empty teens congregating in the halls and lots of a shopping mall on Friday night, will serve up more than enough evidence of its effects.

Please pardon a sizable snipped from a post of mine last year Teaching Justice at Harvard, starting off with a quote from a Hauser loving professor,
"
"This is a course about justice, and we begin with a story. Suppose you're the driver of a trolley car, and the trolley car is travelling down the track at 60 mph, and at the end of the track you notice 5 workers working on the track, you try to stop but you can't, you feel desperate because you know that if you collide with the workers, they will all die. Let's assume that you know that for sure. You feel helpless, until you notice that, to the right, a side track, and at the end of the track, there's one worker working on the track. Your steering wheel works. So you can turn the car if you want to, onto the side track, killing the one, but sparing the five. Here's our first question: What's the right thing to do?"

This is lifeboat ethics, even the very scenario of Marc Hauser that I noted in Dehumanism, and it is truly nothing but unethical. Having hamstrung them right off the bat and asked for a show of hands and explanations, he then launches into,

"What if you were instead standing on the bridge above, and a fat person is next to you who you know will stop the train if shoved over the rail, and save the 5 workers, what would you do?"

The express purpose of such a scenario, is to put the student into a situation where he has no time to think, and must just react, in order to 'do the right thing'. Somehow.

Look at that again.

A philosophy course, an introduction to philosophy, the study of wisdom, and in this case focused upon the central point of the jewel of Justice, which seeks to resolve issues into what it is good to do and what is wrong to do... dealing with the highest concepts and truths, requiring the most deliberate and refined practice of reasoning... and as an example of entering into this, the most concentrated form of thinking, of reasoning upon vital life changing issues, we are given, as the introduction … the choice made for setting the tone for the entire course, is chosen, chosen, a situation designed "to put the student into a situation where he has no time to think".

Where, I want to ask, is the Justice in that? He then rolls on with questions of Marxist derivation, and anti-justice thinkers such as Rawls... the students rapt attention at the entertaining philosophical vivisectionist at work upon them... horrifying.


And it is representative of the disgusting state of the leftist mind, that they consider it worthy of consideration at all, let alone as being even remotely related to morality.

Drink deeply from your potty, gulper, you have no Reason not to.

will said...

If I may address Mr. noes miyob from yesterday's post -

Glad you & the family had a grand time at Adventureland. FWIW, I'm there all the time.

Okay, let me disarm a bit and say that my comments re: "not leaving the house on Monday" were intentionally and I think obviously whack-excessive. I also occasionally promote the minor godship of Yottle who has assumed the form of a partially deflated soccer ball. So far, no reprimands, reproofs from the sincerely devout, not even me reprimanding myself. Most of us can see through the act. If you're new to my Grand Guignol spiel, hey, Yottle forgives you.

I'm leaving the house on Monday, along with approx 6 billion others, no choice. It's not me I'm worried about re: bad craziness, nor you. However, I will be taking a bit of caution, more so than usual, because there are a great many people who are unwittingly in thrall to astrological influence. On Monday, the influences spell erratic, bizarre behavior, particularly in the late afty and early evening. Some very bad moods could prevail, the flakes could be out, doing their thing.

Well, let's see what happens. Do me a favor, just look around your immediate environment on Monday, see if things don't seem a bit flakier, if there isn't something of a "dark intensity" on tap. Check the news, too, for reports of irrational violence, freak accidents - and I mean more than the usual slop of bad news on the airwaves and in the papes. Then get back to me late Mon, or Tues., tell me what you've observed. I have faith in your honest appraisal.

On another topic: "rosebud" - hmm, what was Orson Welles really getting at? (SEE: Marion Davies)

goddinpotty said...

Wow Van, that is one of the most worst cases of pernicious loggorhea I've ever seen. You might want to see a doctor of philosophy. You certainly spend a lot of energy parading your outrage, but it doesn't cover up the lack of understanding very well.

I wonder what it's like to live in a world where everybody from Kant to Rawls to Dawkins, everything from modern art to teens hanging out at the mall, is part of a vast conspiracy against you. Must be pretty depressing.

Oh, I see from skimming your output that you have gotten large chunks of it from Ayn Rand, the favorite thinker of adolescent nerds. That explains the long-windedness, the tone of smug self-righteousness, and the utter failure to comprehend the actual issues.

Van Harvey said...

gulping potty said "Wow Van, that is one of the most worst cases of pernicious loggorhea I've ever seen."

More where that came from.

"You might want to see a doctor of philosophy"

Ever looked into what one of those phd in philosophy requires? I could never restrict myself to such a narrow sliver of study... it'd be like being given the keys to the candy store and told you can only eat those made of black licorice. Blech. Besides, you know where phd's originated from, right? They are Doctors of Philosophy in the same way that Joseph Mengele was a doctor of medicine.

"I wonder what it's like to live in a world where everybody from Kant to Rawls to Dawkins, everything from modern art to teens hanging out at the mall, is part of a vast conspiracy against you. Must be pretty depressing."

Why is it lefties see conspiracies everywhere they look? Never mind, rhetorical question, answer coming in my next exercise of pernicious loggorhea.

"Must be pretty depressing"

Couldn't be as depressing as actually buying into everything from Kant to Rawls to Dawkins. Talk about depressing.

"...you have gotten large chunks of it from Ayn Rand, the favorite thinker of adolescent nerds."

Ah, the ad hominum confession of a leftie who understands nothing and is threatened by everything. Burns, does it? While I certainly got some fundamentals from Rand, and am thankful for them, she skips a few too many of the turns and scenic routes which I refuse to.

"...the utter failure to comprehend the actual issues"

Your comments and those whose ideas you give credence to, speak for themselves. By the way, out of curiosity, have you ever actually read Kant or Rawls or Dawkins? Descartes or Hume? Rousseau or Hegel? You're obviously under their influence, but have you ever bothered to investigate the sources of that influence?

Standard leftie answer would be "No... but... but they're right and Rand, Locke, Cicero and the rest of them dead western white guys are all Idjits!"... not that a leftie would answer that out loud, but I've found that to usually be the case, and it seems like if you scratch one collectivist, you've scratched 'em all... still, I wonder, now that you've gotten the name calling out of your system (as if), could you actually argue against and refute any of the ideas you denounce? You know, like the validity of the senses, individual rights, that the existence of Truth requires morality? Could you support any of the opposing ideas you believe in, not assert, but actually argue for their principles and show how they are in fact, true? Oh, I know, using principles, facts and truth would be kind of self refuting to your position, but... you know what I mean.

I dare you.

"...explains the long-windedness, the tone of smug self-righteousness..."

Nah, that's all me.

julie said...

Will - I see Bob's case has been made again. I thought your comment yesterday was both amusing and multidimensional, mostly in ways you couldn't possibly know.

Also, our waitress just came over and noted that it's been strangely quiet today.

That breeze is pretty nice, at least for the moment ;)

Susannah said...

The potty person doesn't seem to realize he's currently in thrall to liberation theology, does he? =?

will said...

Julie -

It has been a nice, relaxed, hot-air balloon ride of a day. Mellow, albeit a bit spacy, but we are soaring above that, yes?

Henry Miller, writer, fun-lover, philosopher, mystic, was an astrology fan who once averred that he read the scopes only after the day in question had passed and he could check back to see how accurate they were. He didn't want his life distorted in any way by preconceptions, but more importantly, he wanted to trust his intuition.

For the most part, I endorse this approach, have followed it for years, in fact, until fairly recently because - even the most conventional minds have realized that Things Have Changed, that the pitch is ratcheting upward. As you say, these days it's good to be four-armed. So yeah, I look ahead a bit, make note of astro storm clouds ahead, and then ask my intuition to go on red alert.

Once long ago I went stepping out on a Friday night. All day long I had been noticing "signals", a disturbance in the force, little things going oddly askew around me and not in a good way. A slightly sinister feeling in the air. Come nightfall, things got worse, but I convinced myself that I had a jones for Fri night entertainment, you know how it is. So out I went. Lot of hostile drunks out, some guy screaming his face off at a street corner, people nervously edging by him, couple of fights on Oak Street, and I'm starting to regret my decision to go out, but hey, as long as I'm safe . . . So I finally get home around midnight, and as I get out of the car in the garage, a couple of riff-raffs come out of the shadows and put a gun on my head. Not one of my more pleasant memories.

Next day, I checked the astro and sure enough, it had been a moon in Scorpio night with a lot of afflicting aspects, Halloween on a 'roid-rage. Ever since then, I've listened to my intuition and paid attention to the signals, and if they're telling me to cease and desist, that's what I do, if possible. These days I've added a bit of astro-forecasting to the mix.

I do keep in mind Henry Miller's dictum that - paraphrase - "Astrology came into existence the moment Mankind lost his Wholeness", ie., his divine intuition. Meanwhile, on our meandering way back to the castle, we should use what tools we have, astro included.

goddinpotty said...

Van:
Ever looked into what one of those phd in philosophy requires?

I didn't say you should get one; that's a little hard to imagine.

I was under the impression that Kant, Rawls, Descartes, Hume, Rousseau, and Hegel are just as white, male and dead as Locke and Cicero. I also thought that Kant's philosophy would be much more attractive to people interested in the transcendent than Locke's empiricism. But perhaps I lack your depth of insight.

could you actually argue against and refute any of the ideas you denounce?

Such as? You seem to have the monopoly here on denouncing things, so I'm not sure what you are referring to.

You know, like the validity of the senses, individual rights, that the existence of Truth requires morality?

And where exactly did I denounce these? I think you are confusing me with the voices in your head.

hoarhey said...

Turd worshipper.
Heh.

Cassandra said...

What "dlove" said.

Except for the plettl. As far as I'm concerned, plettl is tershfug.

Van Harvey said...

gulping potty said "I didn't say you should get one; that's a little hard to imagine."

Oh... now that hurt my feelings.

"I was under the impression that Kant, Rawls, Descartes, Hume, Rousseau, and Hegel are just as white, male and dead as Locke and Cicero"

Yeah... not surprising. But if you bother to look into the matter, you'll find that the ideas of the first 6 put an effective end (at least among the tenured) to the ideas of the last two who were representative of the full sense and ideals of Western Culture which the ideas of the first 6 implicitly or explicitly are in direct opposition to. Are you really that clueless about them?

"...also thought that Kant's philosophy would be much more attractive to people interested in the transcendent than Locke's empiricism."

So... I guess that's your admission that you haven't read either? I don't endorse empiricism, but there is much more to Locke than that, and despite his errors (which are more than forgivable due to nature of pioneering much of what he delved into), he enriched proper capital 'R' Reason and opened enumerable paths to the transcendent, while Kant barred the door to anything of any depth.

"But perhaps I lack your depth of insight."

Well... duh, but no need to include me in your comparison, you seem to lack any insight, as you've proved over and over already.

"And where exactly did I denounce these?"

Uhm... have you read any of the people you linked to? If you endorse them, you endorse their ideas and the sources they developed them out of (Peirce, Mill, Hume, to name a few), whose ideas are not only at odds with, but explicitly denounced those ideas and any ideas having the least relation to Natural Rights, Property Rights and all the rest. Perhaps you ought to make an appointment with one of your doctor's and have a chat? Try knowing thyself, rather than no-ing myself.

"I think you are confusing me with the voices in your head."

No... I think I am confusing you with the words I'm typing, unfamiliar as you are with the ideas they entail. Not used to thinking, eh?

Give it a whirl, you may still get the hang of it. Dare to dream.

noes miyob said...

Agreed Will. The mood of the day being what it is, establishing a baseline is no easy leave-homework assignment.

baldilocks said...

Leftist philosophy is at best a form of philosophical taxidermy; it takes concepts, vivisects them, guts them of their depth of meaning, preserves their appearances and arranges them in ‘lifelike’ scenarios, as if they still had any relation to human life and thought.

I thought I was the only one with a "coconut" scenario.

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