Friday, February 15, 2008

Osama bin Laden Pleased that Obama Bin' Leadin' (3.14.09)

I'm not sure if that title has anything to do with this post. It just popped into my head this morning, and now I'm inflicting it on you. Nevertheless, it's obviously true. As someone recently said -- I forget who, at the moment -- when Pakistan falls and al Qaeda gets its eager hands on the nuclear arsenal, whom do you want in the White House? Let's not kid ourselves. We all know who Satan would prefer to be tremulously wedged in the Big Chair, blinking nervously at the Joint Chiefs.

The XVth card of the tarot, The Devil, introduces us "to the secrets of the electrical fire and the intoxication of counter-inspiration."

But before proceeding further, let us take to heart the warning of our Unknown Friend (heretofore UF), who cautions us that "One can grasp profoundly, i.e. intuitively, only that which one loves. Love is the vital element of profound knowledge, intuitive knowledge." If you have ever wondered why true evil -- nazi evil, Islamist evil -- is so impenetrable, it is because the normal person obviously cannot love evil: "Evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology."

I suppose another way of saying it is that (in linguistic terms) "evil" is a signifier with no signified, being that true evil represents a genuine absence -- an absence or deprivation of the Good. As such, the essence of evil is that it has no essence.

In turn, this is why evil is truly a "bottomless pit." It is not actually infinite, since only the Absolute can be infinite. It does, however, tend toward its own kind of "false" or "bad" infinite (in the Hegelian sense), which is why man can only rise so high but can fall and fall without ever hitting bottom. I suppose the physics of black holes might provide a handy way to think about this negative infinity. This would be easier -- and less spiritually dangerous -- than trying to imagine, say, the bottomless darkness of the Berkeley City Council. Some things are so beyond the horizon of the human imagination, that they are best left alone.

UF goes on to say that in comparison to the luminous worlds of the celestial hierarchy, the world of evil is more "like a luxuriant jungle, where you can certainly, if necessary, distinguish hundreds and thousands of particular plants, but where you can never attain to a clear view of the totality." Do you know what he means? I do. It's like a collection with no ordering principle, just a blob or agglomeration -- which is the opposite of the Life principle, i.e., that which organizes, unifies, and synthesizes. Dynamic wholeness is the essence of Life, which means that evil and death must be related to dispersal and fragmentation. Thus, "the world of evil is a chaotic world -- at least, such as it presents itself to the observer."

Vertically speaking, order is "up," while chaos is down. No surprise there. In Genesis, God's first act is simply to separate. Without separation there is only the formless void of primordial chaos. If you don't understand the holiness and the sacredness of Separation, then you don't understand anything. Yes, this separation, or duality, can be transcended, but only from above, never from below. Better to live in Holy duality than to obliterate divinely ordained distinctions out of a self-deluded belief in bogus transcendence, which is what the "new age" is all about.

As is leftism, which might just as well be called "down syndrome," being that it is rooted in the anti-divine principle of blending. For the left, In the Beginning was Order. Now, let us gleefully tear it down and blend darkness with light, the upper waters with the lower waters! Examples are too numerous to mention, but one would have to include the obliteration of sexual differences, the trivialization of generational differences, and the effacement of the distinction between knowledge and wisdom; not to mention the conflation of transcendence and immanence, the con-fusion of moral relativism, and the abysmal fall into multiculturalism. All of these trends are evil to the core, despite the paradoxical absence of a core. Again, evil is essentially without essence. It is perpetually going from nowhere to nothing, while enjoying the... what's the word, Jeeves? Yes, the frisson of the fall.

Now, just as the right kind of obedience is freedom -- for example, fidelity to Truth -- the wrong kind of freedom is slavery. According to UF, one of the subtexts of the Devil card is that of slavery, in that it depicts a man and woman bound by the neck to a much larger androgynous entity.

Interestingly, just as the union of male and female can create the miracle of a baby to raise (and who shall in turn raise them in mysterious ways), it seems that a false kind of blending of their essences can engender another kind of being that shall lower them, so to speak. As UF explains, the card has to do with "the generation of demons and of the power that they have over those who generate them. It is the Arcanum of creation of artificial beings and of the slavery into which the creator can fall -- becoming a slave of his own creation."

Let's pause here for a moment. In this regard, I can remember the precise moment when I crossed over that line from leftist back to liberal (i.e., conservative); or, to put it another way, when it was no longer possible to be on the left. I simply asked myself, "who is responsible for my existential unhappiness?" I won't go into all of the details, as that would take us down a lengthy detour. But the point is, I realized that I was a slave of my own creation -- for example, an evil creation I called "Ronald Reagan." Of course, my creation had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual Ronald Reagan. Rather -- and this is critical -- not only was it my creation, but it was me. Just as in a dream, I was persecuted by my own elaborate production -- like the spider who lives in a web spun from its own substance.

I was reminded of this again last night in reading the liner notes to the new edition of Donald Fagen's excellent Nightfly Trilogy (nothing I'm about to say detracts from the music). As much as I appreciate Steely Dan (Becker & Fagen), like most people of their generation, their jaded cynicism does not extend to their own default moonbattery, which sits there like a kind of unexamined Holy Writ. Which it is. It is the genesis myth of the Baby Boom generation -- the idea that the evil is Out There in the Nixonian uncool ones who are oppressing us.

I know exactly what Fagen means when he reflects that "to a weekend hippie in the '60s," political paranoia "seemed kind of exciting." Indeed, for me, this was the appeal of a Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn -- that they provided a kind of secret gnostic knowledge, an alternative conspiracy theory that explained everything -- why the world is so off-kilter and out of joint, and more to the point, why I was so unfulfilled. Ronald Reagan hates me!

It's one thing to think this way in the '60s. But it is rather pathetic to still think it in one's 60s, as Fagen apparently does. He's still haunted by his self-generated demons -- i.e., mind parasites -- which have now appropriated the host, as suggested in the liner notes of the dark and dystopian world of Morph the Cat, released in 2006 (especially when compared to the idealism and optimism of Nightfly). As he writes,

"Paranoia just wasn't fun anymore in the age of al Qaeda." But not because of al Qaeda! Rather, he speaks disparagingly of Republicans taking over his city (New York) at the 2002 convention, and ends his notes with the following warning: "If you see some folks who believe that spirits and ghosts and hell actually exist and they're really sure about it and they're comin' your way -- RUN!"

I agree entirely. Better yet, just wake up from the dream, because you can't actually run away from your own ghosts, much less the Dreamer.

84 comments:

Stephen Macdonald said...

Bob swings for the fence again, and yet another one in the parking lot.

walt said...

Bob, you consistently expose distinctions that make a difference. Your recent uses of the words synthesis and blending is a perfect example.

Also, your description of the Life principle being one of organization.

Fine post!

NoMo said...

Yes! For once I did my homework. I appreciate when you mention in advance what you intend to discuss. Yesterday I read UF about the XVth card...I believe it furthered my understanding of "mind parasites", among other things. Anyway, back to reading...

James said...

I wonder if they ever really removed the pagan idols from the Kasbah in Mecca? If wanted to design a system to indoctrinate and enslave people to a group egregore, my system would look a lot like Islam. Islam does mean submission. That was my first thought after reading that chapter of the meditations, and it is my thought now. It would explain the spiritual power of Islam, and how something so obviously evil can be strangely seductive. What irony if millions of muslims have been duped into believing their egregore is really God. I don't have any proof of this, but if it was discovered that Islam is a hoax, a lie, used to control people I wouldn't be surprised at all. A lie that massive would fit right in with satanic principles. It would also explain how Islam has managed to yield nothing but bitter fruit throughout it's history.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

James, isn't the chief pagan idol the big rock there, anyway?

Anonymous said...

You say let nothing you say detract from the music. I am wondering how the person you describe could create anything with truly authentic feeling.

Gagdad Bob said...

If you expect musicians to be saints, you'll live in a pretty silent world.

James said...

River,

That's the story, but the Saudis don't let anyone look inside the Kasbah, so we have to take their word for whats in there. They haven't given me any reason to trust them. Its just a theory. I don't have any proof one way or the other. But Islam as an ergegore would explain just about everything.

Anonymous said...

>>Evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology."<<

Ultimately true, I think. Still I think that the spiritual aspirant must at some point come to the realization that he or she has the potential for allowing the most profound evil into their souls. Even if there had been only one serial killer in the history of the world, it follows that everyone would have the potential for becoming the same.

It also follows that if we do have the potential for becoming Christs, we must also have the counter potential. I think failure to realize this invites the "Europeanization of the mind," so to speak, ie., the notion that evil doesn't really exist and that the unruly can be dealt with via treaty and negotiation.

Evil might be essence-less in that it separates, is anti-cohesive, anti-order. However, I think it would be a mistake to believe that this essence-lessness is a powerless "nothing." In fact, evil does have great power; that is its seductive agent. It is, as Jacob Boehme articulated, the power of the primeval fire, the power that, through the sublimating factor of divine love, gave birth to Creation. If not sublimated, however . . . . satanic pride.

julie said...

My DH just forwarded me a link to this website:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/page/7/
Although the name is wrong - it should be "Stuff White Leftists Like."
Pretty funny, though, and #8 is apropos of Bob's post.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Jules, I nearly died. That is seriously funny. The best part is about organic food.

julie said...

:)

Stephen Macdonald said...

julie:

What a great find! That site is genuinely funny. I've already started forwarding the link around.

"Organic" food and "fair trade" coffee indeed. You know those squirt bottles you can use on an errant cat or dog? I wonder if they would work on people who use the term "fair trade" more than once per week...?

Anonymous said...

What exactly is the problem with fair trade? Or similar programs like direct trade? Knowing people who work in the coffee business, individual companies send their cuppers, tasters, buyers, and they taste the beans, the soil, they develop partnerships directly which give them access to a superior product. Contrast this to Dunkin Donuts, which buys its coffee from a company in LA, I forget the name, but they rate coffee on a 100 point scale, and then Dunkin Donuts will say, okay, we want a 75. There is little control over local variation, the result is the coffee is essentially inferior. Isn't this leveraging of direct relationships, information, talent (the people that work for the smaller coffee traders are the people who win the international taste competitions) - isn't that the point of competition & capitalism?

It's like, why would you buy Ernst & Iulio Gallo when there are superior wines?

Stephen Macdonald said...

What exactly is the problem with fair trade?

Nobody here has the time or inclination to educate you in the rudiments of economics (I mean real economic theory that applies to the real world, not the stuff you read about in the Nation).

So just stop it.

Anonymous said...

"It's one thing to think this way in the '60s. But it is rather pathetic to still think it in one's 60s..."

Germane to these last couple of Bobservations, Zombietime has posted photos, plus comments, of the Berkeley Marine Protest.(Parts 1 & 2)

Ya can't miss the disturbed meme being passed on to highschoolers. These pics speak for themselves.

http://www.zombietime.com/berkeley_
marines_2-12-2008/

Anonymous said...

I'm thinking the life principle might be two things at once, both order and novelty (novelty may not be quite the right word but I'll go with it), rather than just order. At one end there's total entropy, which is disordered motion, and at the other end there's perfect order, which is a kind of crystallized state. It's "heat death" versus the deep freeze, with neither allowing life to happen. So it seems to me that life is somewhere in the middle. And actually I suspect perfect life isn't in the middle but rather both ends at the same time -- i.e. it's an expression of perfect spontaneous order, or perfectly ordered spontaneity. It's the neverending surprise whose newness always flowers upwards (or something like that?).

julie said...

"It's "heat death" versus the deep freeze,..."

Rather like the rather fortunate (from a purely horizontal scientific standpoint) placement of Earth relative to the Sun, located just so around the boiling and freezing points of water, which just happens to be the fluid necessary for our kind of life. It is the eternal polarity necessary for all that exists in time to function, the space between the Word and the Verb; Free Will at its finest, located precisely between anarchy and fascism. The Third which lends purpose and meaning to the Duality...

(Okay, so maybe it's the wine talking, but I suspect the Raccoons can see where I'm going; it's a good thing I'm not driving, though)

Anyway, yeah, WalMart Shopper, I think you nailed it :)

Anonymous said...

I don't read the damned nation. The nation is filled with programmatic and ideological leftists that I don't care what they say, it will only be the party line. You need to stop assuming that people who have opinions that you may not share are leftists. I love the military, and military spending, and US hegemony in international affairs, and the whole system we have. But for Christ's sake, there is a point where I like a superior quality product and am thankful that the market provides for it.

I mean, at this point, you are alienating people like me, who are intelligent, and dissatisfied with the liberal ideology, who do believe in the Reagan revolution, who support markets and think America is top dog because of ideas and spirit rather; people who want to agree with you, because you say a lot of things that make sense, and then you say some squirrely thing about how only leftists can care for superior products, when in fact, these things are emblematic of the ideas that the market provides. I have seen the market work in practice - why is it that I have to be educated in something that will ultimately lead me back to the premise that you put out that I already agree with - a premise you follow until you decide that its implication for consumer choice is that only leftists could possibly choose fair trade or organic? I don't give a flying fiddle about 'environmental or worker's protections' but I DO want my coffee to be a quality product.

Anonymous said...

Anon,

I think most everyone here is just tired of the holier than thou leftist, put down, look at me buzz words like "fair trade", "green", "organic" etc. As if Dunkin Donuts is "unfair trade", you don't like it? DON'T BUY IT! It is possible to speak English and convey a point without using any of them. It's the implied superiority that people are sick to death of.
Being dissatisfied with liberal ideology says to me that at some point you were satified with it. Taking offense at somthing someone says and being alienated by it IS liberal ideology and something Ronald Reagan would want you to overcome. ;*)

Anonymous said...

This anonymous will go by Darsel, as Bob has this problem when he doesn't have to balls to defend himself and goes sock-puppeting around as other people(yes we know Bob, it's ok) but as of recent he seems to like to pretend as if some random anonymous wants to take back what he said. Now I don't have the time to sit on a message board all day and discuss where you people insert your fallacious logic, but you never justified any further what I had questioned from, what... 2 days ago? Don't remember. Recently.

Now, when it comes to light(which would indicate you couldn't see the light in the first place, which questions if you can even go beyond the horizontal which then questions how you even came to what you have) that nothing is going to happen, and you've demonized Obama just as fallaciously as some on the left have, then you'll realize you've lost it. I already think you have.

Now, most people are getting tired of fighting, and the moderates are now leaning towards the candidate with the least amount of negativity. Which I believe you have covered your concerns, but only the future, which will most assuredly come, will prove you wrong. I'll be glad when it does so you can go slap yourself. It will be defining time for somebody at least...

Ok, so moving on, since you seem to love straw man arguments and take little time understanding your opponents(the left, who don't really oppose you because, well I've tried to show your blog to my leftist friends and they often just laugh, because you have no idea what the left is actually about, because everybody on this board gets their ideas of what the left is from the right) So, I have on sitting here with me, so that I can cover all the bases(maybe you should go out and actually talk to actual people sometime, who aren't your clients.)

Firstly, they don't care to address what they believe you were implying by not being able to directly recognize evil, because you seem somewhat critical of something you cannot see, which is the hype around Obama. The participating party does not think you would understand what good they see in Obama, in fact, they think you are purposefully ignoring it so that you can proceed with your own baseless arguments(actually, my comment, you haven't even provided arguments, just accusations because you've provided no real evidence, just assumptions, if you can't know evil directly, you can't know evil at all, because having no essence doesn't indicate evil. It's like saying somebody is smart because they wear a suit.)

Secondly, apparently you think the left likes to blend everything into an indistinguishable blur. If that were true, my friend claims he can call you a woman and totally not be going against himself by your standards. Actually, he's laughing right now, and wants to continue calling you a woman. I will let him. But, the ignorance in your claims lies in that to the left, everything is distinguishable and has a place, but those differences are of no social/professional concern. Personal concerns yes, if not true then every liberal would be bisexual. Oh, my friend isn't interested in you by the way. I applaud his good taste.

On the rest of the post, you continue to negate what you've claimed but misdirect that claim at other people in relation to political paranoia, but it applies just as much to your claim about Obama. At this point, we both find it laughable that nobody has seemed to catch it, simply because it's just that obvious that your knocking other people for doing the exact thing you are doing, except on opposite ends of the spectrum. What a joke.

Oh, damn, I'm being forced away from the computer... I'm being told that wasting my time, "... with that crap is well beyond our dignity, maybe intelligence."

I suppose I just want to comment, that you really need to get out and talk to people who do not share your viewpoints, because people have no respect for somebody who doesn't even understand their side of things. I go out and talk to the left and right daily, and I know your full of shit. If you don't know that, that's not anybody else's problem but yours.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Darsel, my friend also points out that
a) I wrote beyond when he said below,
and b) he doesn't think you're accusing Obama of anything, as much as just pointing it out(I think it might as well be accusatory), but still finds your reasoning to be rather blind to a lot of issues. While understanding people do get excessive, he feels you have only focused on their rabid obsession

My comment: ... rather than their reasoning for it(maybe rabies.) You can claim you don't see what drives them, but that doesn't mean there's no reason at all. Some people do like Obama for something good rather than a lack of something. Now I'm told I'm being too aggressive. I'm out.

walt said...

Terrific! Thanks for clearing all that up!

Anonymous said...

Well yes, I think there is a lot of fine thinking described as liberalism (as in the shift from left to liberal). Even leftists have sometimes useful ideas.

But I get dissatisfied when actually talking to a lot of leftist and liberals. I remember a debate with a really good friend, where I was saying, obviously terrorism is immoral, and she was like, oh, but the context and! I was thinking - this is nuts, obviously killing people is wrong. Or you can go to alternet today, and their lead article is about the "horror" of middle America leading to these shootings at NIU, about how awful America is etc. etc. etc. It's like, saying killing people is wrong is "violence".

I don't think these sort of things have anything to do with how people grow and sell their heirloom tomatoes. I just want to spend my dollars on quality, and when you have a market society, there is always quality somewhere. Sure you could say, well that's just elitism. But just as I don't think I should have to accept pop psychology rather than actual psychoanalysis because the former is adhered to by more people and is de facto not elitist, I should not have to accept an inferior product.

julie said...

Anon (who's upset about fair trade) - first of all, I don't think Bob mentioned it at all. Secondly, I don't think anyone here is against superior products and the ability of people to purchase them should they have the means to do so.

The issue is rather the largish number of folks (and I know a lot of people who do this) who feel the need to wax rhapsodic about the organic food store of their choice, and how often they shop there. It's like a badge of honor to them, and is meant to demonstrate how much they care.

By all means, buy the stuff you like the best - that's what makes the economy go 'round, after all - but don't tell me about it every time you hear the words "Whole" or "Foods." Because I don't care where you shop, or what car you drive. These things generally don't, in fact, make one a better or worse person, nor do they make one more interesting and unique.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

My issue with fair trade is basically, uh, I'm paying more for a product that usually isn't better.

What's fair about that?

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Also, your issue is with 'Things White People Like', which as a person of light skin, I thought was hilarious. I do like farmer's markets and coffee, so the stereotype is not without merit. Mostly I like farmer's markets because the veggies are fresher (and taste better) and coffee, well, that's what we call 'accurate stereotyping'. And yes, coffee is actually terrible. The 'white person' word for that is 'acquired taste'.

Or am I just being facetious? I won't tell.

Dougman said...

This is what makes a website more than just interesting to me.
People interacting realtime,
(and I am accutly aware of the price of time).

Thank you for showing up on my screen Anonymous!
Although I wish you would use name. It makes it easier on me.

Anonymous said...

Anon-whatever,
Furiously typing words to fill space is no substitute for coherent sentences.

Slow down & try for complete thoughts.

Van Harvey said...

Julie said "Okay, so maybe it's the wine talking..."

Perhaps, but it's obviously a good vintage.

;-)

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse @7:39 said "...Now, when it comes to light(which would indicate you couldn't see the light in the first place, which questions if you can even go beyond the horizontal which then questions how you even came to what you have) that nothing is going to happen..."

Now that's the wine talking!

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse @7:39, OMG, please tell me that mess wasn't actually the product of a human mind? Please tell me that came out of some pomofo generator?

Please?

Anonymous said...

Darsel and Co.

Did you guys just smoke a BIG blunt before responding here this morning?
Later, after you've crashed, stop back by and re-read your post and experience what is known as the incoherance of the left.
If you're under the age of 15, nevermind, just run along.

Van Harvey said...

All right River, I was going to overlook the

"I'm paying more for a product that usually isn't better. What's fair about that?"

comment, no need to really point out that smart shopping isn't the same thing as free trade. But then you said,

"And yes, coffee is actually terrible."

and that just tears it! You need to get your (what did you call it Hoarhey?) Japanese Zero fighter pilot looking icon out from behind your computer and drink coffee! Lots of it! Mountain Grown, rich fully caffienated buckets of coffee! Now! In fact, I think you need to be pert near waterboarded with entire Starbucks brew kettles worth bubbling hot COFFEE! NOW! DRINK IT! GUZZLE IT TILL YOU LIKE IT AND SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO IT!!!

Hmm? Uhm... third cup... so far... why do you ask?

Dougman said...

Dammit Van!
Now I'm gonna go make another pot.
Mmnn...coffee, coffee, coffee...

julie said...

Dougman - I like the avatar :)

Van Harvey said...

Will said "...Evil might be essence-less in that it separates, is anti-cohesive, anti-order. However, I think it would be a mistake to believe that this essence-lessness is a powerless "nothing." "

Yes, but I think that the chief power of evil, is its siren song allure of being able to get you reality on the cheap. To get your whim made real without having to go through the unyielding requirements of reality. The power evil has, is only the power of a fracture, without the sound surface itself, it has nothing to offer, and unless you create or allow or participate in the disintegration yourself, the fracture can never begin, and so has no power.

On its own, evil can only offer you, literally, nothing, nihil, it can only encourage your own desires to circumvent what is Good and Beautiful and True, thinking that exiting reality can somehow actually lead you to the fruits of it, to more of the Good and Beautiful and True – via the route of the Bad, the Ugly and the False – as if their appearance would be as substantial as their reality - with their reality removed.

Once you introduce the fracture though, the separation from the One, it will begin to spiderweb and spread. Its real power is in your willingness to encourage the cracking to continue.

Dougman said...

Thanks Julie :^)

Anonymous said...

For SHAME Van! Ya can't REALLY be a fan of that Starbuck's CRAP - say it ain't SO!!!

Dude, you need to check out Costa Rica Tarrazu from Capricorn Coffees in the San Fransicko Gay Area:

http://www.capricorncoffees.com/
coffees_american.html

Brewed straight & espresso are phenomenal, but made by the Toddy-method is.......

Beyond Words

Back-story can be found here:
http://www.toddycafe.com/about/
news_pittsburgh1.php

Get with the program Van! No self-respecting javasnob would put in print such 'come back to haunt you' damning evidence.

Sheesh

Van Harvey said...

ximeze said "For SHAME Van! Ya can't REALLY be a fan of that Starbuck's CRAP - say it ain't SO!!!"

(head hung low in shame)

I'm a product of my environment. It's all because free trade has failed me - I have no other choices where I am.

I only drink it black.

I will follow the links. I will redeem myself.

(I'm so ashamed)

Anonymous said...

An expose of what Darsel really said:


Hi! My name is Darsel, but you can call me nobody, as I’m ignorant to the fact that Bob's personifying qualitative attributes of his self within the blogosphere is a very useful mode of communication; in short, this is my viscera talking. In the last couple of days, you guys, Robert Godwin specifically, have really made me angry for not wasting all of your time on the message boards correcting my “fallacious logic.” Don’t remember, well I do. Ha ha. I smarter than you!

Now, when it comes to pass that nothing (that is “darkness made visible”) is going to happen, and that you’ve demonized Obama-bad-mama just as goodly as some of the left has not, then I should realize that I’ve lost it. (A faint whisper within says, “I think I’ve lost it) What? Nevermind…

Now, most of us with endopsychic deformations/negative containers are getting tired of fighting, or trying to correct ourselves without any help from Reality. The moderates, from my view, are now projecting towards the candidate with the least amount of resistance to the way that we want reality to be, which, of course, I’m sure you’ve covered in some past essay that I’m in the dark about. (silent intrapsychic-whisper—“nevermind.”). The savior of the future is on its way, and reality will conform to my whims. I will prove you wrong, all of you! You’ll see! I’d love to slap you! That would be my defining moment, omnipotent, all consuming.

Ok, let push on with the unnecessary, since I love starting arguments for the stimulation of it. (Centrifugal intra-psychic turrets-like thought--Damn you! Give me attention!) Maybe you should go out and stimulate yourself like I do with useless conversation, maybe with someone like me? I’m not your client…

Firstly (interruption: arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, some gibberish, aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, growl, growl, more gibberish)…You can’t see me Bob! I’m invisible. I’m shadow…like Obama. The participating party, that is, people like me, don’t even think that you can see what we see in Obama; and they--ok, I’ll be honest, it’s my assumption-- think that the ignorance on your part is one of conscious malice. Look, Reality is not ultimately good essence, and evil the lack thereof. So, don’t come around telling me that deprivation is not good, morally or otherwise. I mean, Obama looks good in a suit, therefore he’s good. Dummy!

Secondly…You dirty whore! Laugh. (Anti-libido, in a specter-like voice says, “I love this!”)

You negate what I claim, and then, throw it back at me. (aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrr—attention dissociates) (the clown cackles below).. Suddenly, vis a vis the reality principle--"This has got to be a joke…"

Damn, this is a waste of time. I should distance myself for a while. Maybe I’ll come back later.

Well, what I really wanted to say here is that, I am a person with feelings and should be treated as such; by that I mean adhere to my viewpoint or don’t get in my way, else we’ll call for Obama-mama to punish you. You should really get out like I do: stroll the café shops, parties, universities, etc. Where ever there’s stimulation to distract me from my own nothingness, sides don’t really matter, left or right. People like you are a problem to me!

Whatever,
Nobody.

Anonymous said...

"Yes, but I think that the chief power of evil, is its siren song allure of being able to get you reality on the cheap."

Back when I was reading Guntrip's "Schizoid phenomena, object relations, and the self"--known for synthesizing folks like Freud, Klein, Winnicott, and Fairbairn--the issue of power and the anti-libido came up. From my understanding and experience, the anti-libido does contain a lot of primordial power, or energy, broken down and compressed into a dis-integrated container. Imagine a steel bar being compressed (impingement, weight) from top down: it first resist, then heats up, and next melts down. The container deforms and potentially sublimated energy regresses. The potential self becomes anti-self due to existential circumstance, and anti-self is the siren that always tempts. Light can't be tempted, whereas darkness can, I think.

Anonymous said...

this is laughable. a lot of you are just mimics and mindless defenders of the author of this blog. if you really embodied what he was talking about instead of pretending to be, by simply regurgitating the same language and ideas, you wouldn't post comments with such childish venom in order to try and please papa and the rest of the gang. you critize from your proverbial perch, but you yourself are still on the ground floor. some of those who disagree with you might actually appreciate a thoughful answer. no, really. i happen to fall to the same side as most of you, but i find it pathetic how some of you answer commenters who happen to disagree. grow up and give them something to actually think about. you could help someone see the light on a number of topics instead of continuing to alienate them.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm, the guy with the broken shift key is back and has decided to name himself lowell today.

Speaking of coffee, has anyone tried Rust's Rump Roast?
http://www.talk2rusty.com/site/product?pid=15518

Van Harvey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Van Harvey said...

lowell,

Here's something I see from my perch.

First, in a forum where writing is the only form of communication available, your deliberate non-use of the Shift key is an assault on the standards of written language. Perhaps you grew up without any conception of language and grammar beyond the ability to 'text' on your phone. I don't know and I don't care. With my middling ability to be grammatically correct, I know what I'm missing out on, and I know what you are pissing on. It is resented and undercuts any 'thought' you may be actually attempting to convey.

Second, if you actually cared about ideas, you would lead with one, not name calling and insults. That alerts us to the lack of content in your mind by the display of your chosen preference for using force, over argument.

Third, you did not present or convey a single idea, or an argument against any ideas presented here, except to let us know how angry you are that no one here appreciates your or your friends ideas.

In short, and to put it into terms you will best understand, Piss off.

Anonymous said...

Ok, let me give that exorcise a shot:


What lowell said:


I am laughable, since I am guilty of charlatan mimicry and mindlessly defending the childish leftist venom regurgitated onto this message board. If you really embodied what I thought Gagdad was talking about instead of pretending to not be, you would not be so hostile to the potential nobodies. You all are just trying to please daddy amongst sibling rivalry. So, stop it! If you don’t, I will have to keep myself elevated upon this faux perch, and I can’t hold it long before I fall back down to the ground. I kind of see what some of you are talking about, but come on!, just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean that you have to alienate me, I mean, them. Alienation could never lead to inspiration. Grow up!

Anonymous said...

Nice going Coonified & Rabid. At least your versions made sense, instead of blah blah blah rex blah blah blah.

lowell the lower-case said:
"you could help someone see the light on a number of topics instead of continuing to alienate them"

Typical whinerism from the diaper brigade.

Get over yourself lowell: the adults here owe you nothing, don't find you clever or charming & just find your splashing & piddling in the pool an annoying nuisance.

Nobody here is going to do your work for you. Come back after you're able to grow beyond just silly.

walt said...

Lowell suggested that some of us "try and please papa and the rest of the gang."

I know I've tried. I've left comment after comment here, many praising Bob, hoping (ever-hoping) to please him. And after all that effort, I ask you: What have I gotten for it?? Hah??

I tell you, this crowd at One Cosmos is a tough nut to crack!

Anonymous said...

Not even a lousy tee-shirt? WTF

I tried & tried to glue-my-lips & only got my name dyked off the side-bar for my pains.

At least, there is WALT, emblazoned in blue, for all to see.

Sigh..... no doubt he'll deny it, but Daddy does love some of his sockpuppets better than others.

Sniff

Gagdad Bob said...

Kits, don't make me come back there!

walt said...

"At least, there is WALT, emblazoned in blue, for all to see."

And don't ever think that the widespread notoriety derived from that sidebar promotion has not been sweet! It has! (Not to mention the increased sales...)

Anonymous said...

Still no demonstration[or even an attempt at one] of how any of what you say is true instead of false, or even that it can be true instead of false.

Nearly all of your statements have the same epistemic value; zero.

You write in rhetoric, not propositions. The things you write don't have truth conditions. Reading your posts is like reading an even less entertaining Derrida; All word play, no meaning.

julie said...

Xi - I doubt it would be possible to prove, to your satisfaction, that 1+1=2. Should the entire class be required to sit through remedial instruction just because you can't grasp the basic concepts?

Van Harvey said...

xibro,

The truth is, that we’ve found that the fine folks such as yourself who speak of ‘truth conditions’ and ‘truth value’, like Derrida and Foucault, generally have neither an interest, willingness nor even an ability to recognize the truth, let alone Truth.

So if it’s all the same to you, we’d like to pass on your Epistemology lectures, fascinating as they may be.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Anonymous said...

Xi said:

"Nearly all of your statements have the same epistemic value; zero.

You write in rhetoric, not propositions. The things you write don't have truth conditions. Reading your posts is like reading an even less entertaining Derrida; All word play, no meaning."


And yet you still keep coming back!

Anonymous said...

julie- first, there is a vast difference between an analytic truth, such as 1+1=2 and contingent, synthetic truths, which are the kind of thing Bob is attempting to state. The fact that you used an analytic truth such as 1+1=2 as an example demonstrates that you don't understand what I am talking about when I critique Bob's statements for not have truth conditions. Apples and Oranges.

Van- You clearly don't know anything about Derrida and Foucault if you think they talk about things like 'truth conditions'. My comparison of Bob with Derrida is precisely due to this. Both display a total disregard for serious and precise conceptual analysis or empirical investigation. Both mistake word play and self-referential, vague and arbitrary conceptual dissection for real analysis.

hoarhey- I have visited your site a total of four times[though I read ten posts from your archive on my first visit]. This hardly seems like compulsive behavior. Also, how is attempting to engage you in discourse somehow an admission of whatever it is you are insinuating by your remark? It is really just more rhetoric for your readers. Its alright if you want to play prophet, but just admit what you are doing instead of pretending you are some kind of serious thinker.

Anonymous said...

Xi-

Just because Bob has forgotten how to communicate with minds as coarse as yours, it hardly means that he's forgotten how to communicate. Stop projecting your pneumacognitive infirmity onto him, and go find a blog that deals in the types of lower truths to which your mind has access. Look, it's just a caste thing. You wouldn't understand.

Van Harvey said...

"hoarhey- I have visited your site a total of four times.."

?

Hoarhey? You have a site?

Dougman said...

King James Bible-
"Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins."

A worthy goal coons?

Xi
My mind is still coarse and willing to "wash your feet," so to speak.

Maybe I can be of some help.
The roommates at the place I call home might get pissed at me for bringing you home but, the OC ain't my blog.

Hit my name and jump in at the ECTN.

I must ask you to please keep the wording as simple as you can cause I'm seriously challenged in the vocabulary department.The fewer the words and concepts I have to research the better.

Van Harvey said...

"You clearly don't know anything about Derrida and Foucault if you think ..."

Sigh. How many times have we been down this road 'coon's? Well, it's not like I didn't see it coming I guess. I understand more than I care to understand of both, and more importantly, I've got a fair understanding of what gave rise to them and their extended and estranged family.

Now, I didn't realize what I said was that complicated… or maybe I just wasn’t clear… either way, since you sound like a grad student, I'll take it real slow. The proposition,

"...we’ve found that the fine folks such as yourself who speak of ‘truth conditions’ and ‘truth value’, like Derrida and Foucault, generally have neither an interest, willingness nor even an ability to recognize the truth, let alone Truth."

breaks down like this,

Set A - "fine folks such as yourself who speak of ‘truth conditions’ and ‘truth value’",
Set B - "Derrida and Foucault"
Union "...generally have neither an interest, willingness nor even an ability to recognize the truth, let alone Truth."

I could be wrong, but my guess is that you'll have some tedious belief in materialist and deterministic explanations for life, man, consciousness, etc, or an even more boring conviction (that always cracks me up, 'conviction') that reason has no true relation to reality. Either of which, by way of attenuated and modified truths (truth value, truth condition, relative value, equally valid, etc) succeed only in reducing the idea of Truth to material ‘facts’ or isolated ‘instances’, thereby discarding the proper conception of Truth, altogether.

Here, let me really tick you off: Derrida, Foucault, Heidiegger, Dewey, and for fun I'll even toss in Beckett and Jackson Pollack... all of your post-modernists, post-structuralists, linguistic analysts, dadaist's and ad hominem infinitim (yeah, I know), though they make nice shows of being at odds, are all actually but variations on a theme propounded at length (and by 'at length', I mean leeeennnnggggthhhhh-thuh by Kant (not to cut Hegel out or ignore their inspiration in Rousseau or Des...but... I'm working on that brevity thing), and one of his key tools to create all of you moonbats was his sleight of hand antics with 'analytic truths' vs 'synthytic truths', by which he successfully destroyed any meaningful conception of truth. Kant is the modern source of 'refined' logic, or scientific thought over judgment, and as such is the source of it's current state of disease. It also leads to the oh so tedious practice of eternal grad students such as yourself parading about their analytic and synthetic demonstrations to any bound and gagged audience they can find.

In short, give me good ol’ Aristotelian (or even Platonist) Rhetoric, over ‘real analysis’ any day of the week. And no, we don’t buy your “… attempting to engage you in discourse…” you want to engage in stilted and self flattering anal-lit-tic exercises in semantics and word play with no regard to Truth whatsoever, only anemic autopsies of ‘truth-conditions’.

You are no doubt much, much smarter than we, we are not worthy, so please please (me) spare us, and move on.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

He certainly has had to have had some kind of conviction, Van, to be in the prison he's in.

Anonymous said...

coons can be such bitches. hell yeah.

Anonymous said...

cous-dupree- your 'you simply can't understand our truth' is simply an invalid, authoritarian type of non-epistemology. This was my initial critique of Bob's epistemological method, or lack thereof. He doesn't offer propositions which can even be evaluated. They suffer from excessive vagueness and ambiguity, resulting in them being, quite literally, senseless. The only possible method for assessing their truth or falsity is to simply believe, without support, that Bob is correct since there is no way to understand with any precision[and precision is necessary for understanding] what he is or isn't asserting. This isn't a property of my deficient mind, but of the very language he uses.

van- first, in clear violation of the principle of charity[a basic norm of sound discourse] you assume, without any evidence, that I have no interest in truth or Truth. This is an incorrect assumption on your part.

Then you go on to make more assumptions than I can count about what I believe[again, with no evidence] in relation to a whole slew of issues[and pretty much everything you assumed I believe or what would 'tick me off' doesn't apply to me] that I not only didn't bring up but that aren't directly relevant. You assume I am a grad student[which I'm not] but then go on to pull the quintessential grad student move of name-dropping a whole bunch of names and terms, with little to no explanation, to give me[or other readers] the impression that you know a great deal. I'm not saying you do or don't, but what you wrote gave me no grounds to evaluate either way.

Also, I have never claimed, nor would I[since its invalid methodology] that I am smarter than anyone. Its not a question of intelligence, its a question of clarity and meaning. Trying to simply get me to go away[though I may do so] displays both insecurity that your views can sustain thorough critique and a authoritarian nature that dislikes being brought into question.

My original critique[which has yet to be even remotely addressed, and has instead been met with obfuscation] is that Bob writes statements that have the form of assertions but fail to actually contain evaluable sense and/or truth conditions. If Bob was speaking only of subjective states of mind, this might be a functional method[though still fraught will problems when addressed to a de-contextualized readership], but since he pretends to give an analysis not only of society or humanity, but also of the entire cosmos, his method simply fails in every conceivable way.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

My original critique[which has yet to be even remotely addressed, and has instead been met with obfuscation] is that Bob writes statements that have the form of assertions but fail to actually contain evaluable sense and/or truth conditions.

Honestly? I don't have the slightest clue as to what you mean.

Do you?

Anonymous said...

Xi:

Bob does not offer propositions to be evaluated or accepted. Rather, he speaks only of what every full-blooded Coon already already knows, but perhaps hasn't formulated consciously. These are spiritual exercises for vertical initiates, not arguments to try to convince people such as yourself of anything. The secret protects itself anyway, and there's not a thing Bob can do about that particular law. In short, Bob's writing is not intended for you or your kind, so you're wasting your time.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Also, xi. How do you explain the essence of God, which is beyond knowledge? Shall we accuse God of being without evaluable sense or truth conditions?

The psalmist writes, "Why do the heathen rage?"

Why, indeed.

Anonymous said...

xi:
All this vague stuff about epistemology makes my eyes glaze over. How about this. Give us an example of a statement that Bob made that you would like to see either proven or disproven. What do you want proved to your satisfaction? What do you want to disprove to uor satifaction? Are you looking for a sound argument for the existence of God? Do you want a precise definition of God's will? Proof positive that Moses didn't just think up the ten commandents all by himself?
Do you want proof, a modus ponens argument that those random seeming blobs of color in the stereogram will resolve into a three dimensional image? Some people can stare at the pattern all day long and never see the star. Be precise, and maybe we'll have something to talk about. Right now I'm tired, and I'm going to turn in.
I'll check back tomorrow.
wv: ewbxqbab. Exactly!
JWM

julie said...

"He doesn't offer propositions which can even be evaluated. They suffer from excessive vagueness and ambiguity, resulting in them being, quite literally, senseless."

Actually, Xi, for most of us regulars Bob's language makes perfect sense. Going back to my math analogy, which you apparently didn't comprehend: One who does not have a solid grasp of basic math (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), is not likely to find an algebraic equation to be reasonable, logical or comprehensible, much less trigonometry or calculus. You find Bob's terminology to be beyond your grasp; this does not mean it is meaningless, it simply means it is above your comprehension.

By your own admission you've been here (at least, I think that's what you meant when you said you'd been to Hoarhey's non-existent page) four times. Most of us have been here a few hundred. If a pre-algebra student walked into a trigonometry class and insisted the instructor made no sense, the student would rightly be told he wasn't ready for the material. He might also be laughed out of the classroom, if he were a jerk about it. However, if such a student were truly interested in learning the material and was respectful, he might be allowed to sit quietly at the back of the room and listen until his comprehension approached that of the other students. But the student would have an awful lot of catching up to do, and would in truth be better served by taking some lower-level classes before tackling the heavy stuff.

debass said...

"Even leftists have sometimes useful ideas".

Can you name one?

Van Harvey said...

xi said “…name-dropping a whole bunch of names and terms, with little to no explanation…"

Not name dropping, but admittedly, taking a shortcut, hoping to spare the regulars another rerun. I didn't say you were, I said you sound like a grad student, and I also said that I could be wrong, but my guess is, that based upon a couple of years of experience here with people who come in with the same tired old phrasing, sounding remarkably similar to you, they will have proven themselves to have either no interest in truth beyond their wackademic ideologies, or else will endlessly disapprove of OC's inability to meet their idea of what it should be.

If I'm wrong about you, honestly, I'm thrilled and eager to be proven wrong, but I gotta tell you, from your comments and observations so far, I'm not too hopeful. I'm sure you feel your insights are fresh and original, but I assure you that we've seen your same comments and objections and observations over and over and over again. It is clearly visible to the longtimers hear, we recognize your style, before the end of your first sentence.

Go through the Knowa's Archive, you'll find answers to all your 'critiques' - those you've made, and several of the ones you're getting ready to make.

But seriously, what it's going to come down to is that what you're looking for, what you are expecting, isn't going to be found here. You will eventually leave, quite certain we weren't able to refute you, and we will enjoy 'your' absence... until the next one returns again to enlighten us as to how what we enjoy fails to meet their standards.

We'll try to hold up under the shame of it.

Anonymous said...

riv-coc- Clearly you have no idea what I'm talking about. I, just as clearly, do. Its pretty basic linguistics/philosophy of language. Buy a few books on the subject or take a few courses on it if you want to understand it. Its not difficult.

petey- sorry, but you are writing in the form of propositions. you seem to think that you can engage in a kind private or semi-private language with its own rules which you make up as you go along. This is absurd and demonstrably false. Your usage of language is governed by the same necessities and realities as everyone else. Your claim of it being a spiritual exercise is a pretty poor cop out, not to mention its contradicted by the fact that you say that you and your 'coons' already 'know' the things you are writing, which implies that you and they do in fact 'know' them; an issue subject to epistemic investigation, even if you want to pretend it isn't. When you talk about things such as 'the left' or 'male and female' and especially when you write about existing persons like zinn or chomsky[or anyone else] you are very much indeed attempting to assert things about how the world is. And you once again resort to your pathetic canard that 'my kind' simply fails to be able to understand your oracular wisdom. Even if others don't see through this phony obfuscation, your intellectual bankruptcy is apparent.

riv-coc- I wouldn't even attempt to 'explain the essence of God'. Only fools attempt the impossible.

jwm- this isn't about anything being to my satisfaction. Its about Bob's writing failing to meet objective standards for clarity and sense.

julie- please don't pretend I didn't understand your simplistic math analogy. I get it. You think that Bob is operating at some high level and I don't understand his oh so fancy jargon because I lack education in the basics that his intellectual system is based on. This simply doesn't pan out. I've spent many years studying[thanks to generous grants and subsidies] studying secular philosophy and intellectual history but I grew up talking and studying with priests and theologians and was originally trained in Christian theology and comparative religions. That you think there is some meaning in what he writes, and that you assume I miss it due to some lack of education is beside the point. Its not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact that his language is faulty.

consider this example:

"Below the sub-atomic paradigm of entanglement dynamics lies a field of static ratios which define a set of bound variables which are asymmetric but engage inter-dependent Being. Those on the political Right under-assimilate a sub-set of those variables and replace them with the negation of that sub-set all the while valuing such impoverished, and backward, knowledge of their own lack of essences, which is in reality a kind of empty set thinking posing at virtue."

I could go on and on writing such gibberish, throwing in a lot more ad hoc attacks on certain groups, and be sure that a lot of ignorant folks who don't like the people I am attacking would agree with me and thank me for putting into words things 'they already knew but couldn't elucidate'.

But their agreement would be irrelevant to whether or not it had any sense to it, which it obviously doesn't.

Anonymous said...

Whah dah yah mean, non-existent page!

Anonymous said...

Xi said,
"Below the sub-atomic paradigm of entanglement dynamics lies a field of static ratios which define a set of bound variables which are asymmetric but engage inter-dependent Being. Those on the political Right under-assimilate a sub-set of those variables and replace them with the negation of that sub-set all the while valuing such impoverished, and backward, knowledge of their own lack of essences, which is in reality a kind of empty set thinking posing at virtue."

Are you kidding me? At first I actually thought that you had taken an example of Bob's writing from the archive and were going to make a point, as I read further, I realized you hadn't.
You're right, that is gibberish, but if you think that bears ANY resemblance to what Bob writes, you Sir are a fucking MORON!
What is your purpose here? You've already proven your ignorance and are wasting a perfectly good Saturday night trying to convince people that what they already understand, isn't. You're wasting both your time and Blogger bandwidth. And to think that my tax money has been going for generous grants and subsidies to "educate" this fool. Sheeesh.
GAZE.

P.S. Those last few sentences have been the wisest you've read in the last 20 years. Even if you are too dumb to realize it. While you may be able to dazzle your colleagues, you'll find no sycophants here.

Anonymous said...

As far as I know, God has never been formally proven or falsified, yet at OneCosmos God is held as a premise. Shouldn't that in itself have you running for the hills and not wasting your time here? But you're drawn here like scratching an itch.

You're either a lefty or an atheist/agnostic, or maybe there's some kind of Stockholm syndrome involved. Whatever the case may be, the root of your bitchiness is deeper than just problems with "truth conditions".

walt said...

Now, Xi described Cousin Dupree's statement as "simply an invalid, authoritarian type of non-epistemology."

I'm betting that Dupree has never been described exactly that way before!

Anonymous said...

Xi:

“you seem to think that you can engage in a kind private or semi-private language with its own rules which you make up as you go along.”

I was going to say something, but I don't think you understand yourself.

“our usage of language is governed by the same necessities and realities as everyone else.”

Like this. What kind of dogma is this? This supposes that everyone shares the same reality and, therefore, has the same necessities. Surely you don't think that the world (space-time) is flat, and that everyone shares the same disclosure of referents, therefore using and the same syntax (implies a triadic relationship between the signifier (what comes to mind), referent (object), and the signified (the word)) to talk about reality? Well, that's how you come across. One of the important discoveries of structuralism was that we human beings inhabit different "world-spaces," which if applied to a discipline like semiotics (study of deep structure of language), translates into a sort of semiotic pluralism, where the referent, e.g., an atom as pure object (not the philosophical atom), could not exist, did not exist for a culture, or person, without the necessary cognitive structure of something like Piaget's formal operations or higher. The signified, atom—the word—would have no meaning to someone several hundred years ago for the very reason that the referent, much less the signified (what comes to mind, the idea), was yet to be disclosed by the formop or higher cognitive structure. We could certainly say that the atom maybe existed, or rather, subsisted, as an intrinsic feature of within the ground unconscious, and therefore, the cosmos in its primordial totality, but even that would border an overly flirtatious relationship to unknowable facts, O.


“This is absurd and demonstrably false.”

Please correct me missing something, as may be in the dark. Bring me to light.

“Your claim of it being a spiritual exercise is a pretty poor cop out, not to mention its contradicted by the fact that you say that you and your 'coons' already 'know' the things you are writing, which implies that you and they do in fact 'know' them;”

If what I said above is even remotely true, we could propose that One Cosmos is in essence a point within space-time where common cognitive-structure, well, I’d rather say pneuma-structures, conglomerate together around the common goal of “fleshing out” what has already been disclosed to them--remember, referents may exist in the overall gestalt of reality, but features certainly aren’t differentiated, hence the self-evidence (soph-evidence) of what lies behind the syntax. I mean, just because the American founders thought that “We hold these truths to be “self-evident,” that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” doesn’t mean that they had to prove the improvable to anyone to whom it is not “self-evident.” It’s a useless endeavor. Heraclitus was right when he said "We must know that war (polemos) is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being through strife necessarily." War is necessary, cultural or otherwise, to bridge the schisms of ignorance.

Stephen Macdonald said...

Now, Xi described Cousin Dupree's statement as "simply an invalid, authoritarian type of non-epistemology."

I'm betting that Dupree has never been described exactly that way before!


To my knowledge Dupree has been described as a "simply a substance abusing, welfare-dependent invalid" by authoritarians (i.e., the police, social workers, et al), however they made no mention that I can recall of his epistemological position in the crime blotter...

Anonymous said...

xi:
OK, you win.
Now go away.
Please.

JWM

walt said...

Smoov -

My point, exactly!

NoMo said...

Xi - Jesus said to Pilate, "Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." Pilate replied, "What is truth?", then walked away from any answer. He didn't want one. Nor do you. You put a million words between you and the Word. That will only work for so long. Keep at it though.

Van Harvey said...

xi said "I've spent many years studying[thanks to generous grants and subsidies] studying secular philosophy and intellectual history but I grew up talking and studying with priests and theologians and was originally trained in Christian theology and comparative religions.”

Whatever your private or subsidized ‘training’ may have been, what they succeeded in instilling in you is the ideal of a labcoated, clipboard carrying quantifier of facts, but it was not an Education. Whatever the form and content of your training, that idea that true knowledge is quantitative, not qualitative, and true only to the extent that it can be repeated… that if it cannot be quantified, then it is invalid and not worthy of attention, that results from the line of philosophical thought descending form Descartes, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel. From that source, the ideal of Reason ceased to be a tool of Wisdom, and began to be a method of analysis alone, and the hierarchy of thought available to those adhering to it, has been ever flattening ever since.

“They suffer from excessive vagueness and ambiguity, resulting in them being, quite literally, senseless.”

No, they reflect concepts further up the conceptual hierarchy than you are familiar with, the problems you’re experiencing are more related to Intellectual Vertigo, than epistemic zero values. The higher the concept, the more general its properties and the more lower level concepts and instances it applies to. You dismissed Julies analogy, but it is in fact very likely apt for you. We know nothing about you, other than your apparent training, but we do know you by your words, what they attempt to grasp and at the same time convey.

Your attempts at deriving quantified truths are perhaps applicable to Aristotle’s treatises on logic, or biology, but they are wholly inappropriate to apply to the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles or to Plato’s dialogs, let alone something of the nature of One Cosmos. What your words actually convey is your lack of understanding of the importance of context and a fundamental lack of understanding of not only the principles of epistemology, but their application.

Perhaps you missed this in your training, from Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Book 1, Chapter 3,
“…We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs."

You’d do far better, gain far more, if you set your ‘training’ aside, and went back to the basics – Aristotle’s Ethics and Metaphysics would be a good place to start.

wv:doamad - hmm... ominous

Van Harvey said...

Oops... JWM, Walt, Nomo... probably the wiser course, sorry, I should have refreshed beforing posting.

Anonymous said...

This is two days late, but it's important enough to write anyway.

"One can grasp profoundly, i.e. intuitively, only that which one loves. Love is the vital element of profound knowledge, intuitive knowledge." If you have ever wondered why true evil -- nazi evil, Islamist evil -- is so impenetrable, it is because the normal person obviously cannot love evil: "Evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology."

There is another way to know evil, and perhaps even to understand it. Chesteron hit the mark when he wrote that one didn't want to be ruled by foreigners any more than one wanted one's house to burn down: because one couldn't begin to list the things he would miss.

But Chesterton couldn't have made that observation without having at least tried to make that list, and the person who loves the things he relies on in his world, and has some measure of gratitude for them, is also aware that they can be taken away. And knowing that they can be taken away makes evil conceivable, because evil does take those things away.

From a credit card, without which one cannot rent a car or sleep in decent lodging, to the "ceremony of innocence," when one realizes that things can be taken away the possibility of evil is real.

It remains to decide which are most important. "Are you willing to give up all that you are in order to keep all that you have?" (G'Kar, on Babylon 5)

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