Someone suggested that when we approach 100 comments I should issue another threat. Here it is: If you read any further, prepare yourself for self-indulgence.
Yes, I wanted to take the opportunity to clean off my desk during this summa vacation. There are notes all over the place, little seedlings, saplings, craplings, titles without posts, incomplete sentences, neologisms, insults, and other ideas for ideas. In no particular order, here are a few:
Retardentsia. Toxic asshats. Trignoculars. Deusluxia. Truth fairy. Cretinatious period / hiding the decline of civilization.
About That Whole in Your Head
I remember when nihilism used to mean something....
Reductionism is the intellectual blandmaiden of materialism.
Multiculturalism makes fairness impossible, because bad and dysfunctional cultures can't get what they so richly deserve.
Is it a birthquake or simply a crock?
Deploying Gnosis to Explore the Mysteries of Reason
The left and the MSM are expert at transmitting memes that comport with the prejudices of one of their constituent victim groups.
The left converts the adjective "poor" into a reified noun, a permanent state of being, in order to rob the person of hope and initiative, thereby legitimizing aggressive and destructive instead of constructive action.
Why does the left want to do so many "good things" for people they hate, i.e., Americans? If we're just a bunch of bigots, why obsess over the ones who don't purchase health insurance?
Leftist logic: if we defeat the terrorists, the terrorists will have won.
If this were a racist country, calling it so wouldn't be such an effective strategy for accumulating wealth and gaining political power.
If any species but humans were releasing so much CO2 into the atmosphere, they'd make it against the law to stop them.
Identity and Eternity
Atheism is just a subjective feeling that finds its intellectual justification a posteriori (i.e., no one actually "reasons" their way to atheism, since it is strictly impossible to do so).
Conversely, metaphysics is an objective and complete pneumacognitive system to which we attach feeling through faith, ritual, worship, etc., thereby conforming the whole being (body, soul and spirit) to truth and reality.
The left is always upping the ante-Christ.
Be a practitioner not just a theorist of evolution.
I is to Am as Life is to Matter.
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30 comments:
"I remember when nihilism used to mean something...."
It's the little nihil's that say sooo much.
;-)
Don't know if I should say this, but your wordplay and aphorisms remind me of another Bob: Bob Black, anarchist author, attorney, and absolute a-hole. Black was involved with the SubGenii for awhile in the 80s, but had a big falling-out with Stang, as he has with pretty much every other group he's been involved with over the past 30+ years. When he finally drinks himself to death, he'll probably be remembered mainly as the author of The Abolition of Work, and as the first person to systematically expose Ward "Sh!tting Bull" Churchill's various lies and pretensions.
Speaking only for myself, he didn't really remind me of myself.
And in the spirit of 'If you read any further, prepare yourself for self-indulgence.', here are some things which I think go well together - on the One hand, forming Western Civilization,
"Identity and Eternity",
"I is to Am as Life is to Matter.",
"Conversely, metaphysics is an objective and complete pneumacognitive system to which we attach feeling through faith, ritual, worship, etc., thereby conforming the whole being (body, soul and spirit) to truth and reality."
"Be a practitioner not just a theorist of evolution."
, and go along well with,
Pericles,
"place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining
the struggle against it.",
Ben Franklin on welfare laws,
"For my own part, I am not so well satisfied of the goodness of this thing. I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. -- I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. ...The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependance on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. Repeal that law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. ",
""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"
While on the left hand, dispensing with 2,500+ years of Western Civilization, there's,
"Cretinatious period / hiding the decline of civilization.",
"Reductionism is the intellectual blandmaiden of materialism.",
"The left is always upping the ante-Christ.",
"The left converts the adjective "poor" into a reified noun, a permanent state of being, in order to rob the person of hope and initiative, thereby legitimizing aggressive and destructive instead of constructive action.",
"Leftist logic: if we defeat the terrorists, the terrorists will have won.",
"The left and the MSM are expert at transmitting memes that comport with the prejudices of one of their constituent victim groups."
, and are inseperable from,
"I think, therefore I am",
"fundamentally transform America."
"We are the ones we've been waiting for"
&
"This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free"
Well. I know I feel better now.
"Why does the left want to do so many "good things" for people they hate, i.e., Americans? If we're just a bunch of bigots, why obsess over the ones who don't purchase health insurance?"
Good question. Doing anything good fir us bigots also is in direct opposition to the neo-marxist belief that we are over-populated.
Back in the day, most lefties believed there would be mass starvation due to over-population and a lack of resources.
Now, lefties believe abundant food resources are the CAUSE of over-population.
Of course, their entire premise of "over-population" is wrong to begin with. Perhaps the neo-marxists feel they do their part by supporting abortion on demand up to birth (and after birth, since mom's who murder their kids are "depressed" and therefor excused).
And that doesn't include the AlGorians who believe much of the same things that lunatic in MD believed about "dirty, filthy baby polluters."
God bless that sniper, who helped Lee put his faith into action.
I think, deep down, that the neo-marxists know Obamascare is bad, and are looking forward to the death panels where it concerns us bigots and Christians and white guys that are conservative and believe in liberty.
Of course, they'll scream bloody murder if a neo-marxist gets snuffed out due to the severe rationing that'll occur or a death panel mortuaryatorium.
"I remember when nihilism used to mean something...."
LOL! Due to PoMo you can't take anything a leftist says for face value anymore, especially since words mean whatever they want them to mean at any given moment (subject to change on a whim).
This is why leftists are immune to logic and reason, let alone the truth.
Afterall, for the leftist it's never about truth (or reality), it's about power and the ability to use that power to force everyone else to do their bidding, and they'll say anything to be perceived as "truthful" and "compassionate," only because it makes their work easier (as we have seen with the sudden desire of democrat candidates to appear conservative or bluedog to their constituents).
But make no mistake, when they are in power they will use force if lies and coercion don't work.
Dr. Sanity has a good post up that goes well with Thomas Sowell's latest comments about PoMo, multicult, PC, and the other pillars of neo-marxism.
"The left is always upping the ante-Christ."
Ha ha! This one is another home run, Bob!
prepare yourself for self-indulgence
:)
Maybe, but this is the good kind...
Re. the title, heh heh. heh.
That reminds me, the kid is developing a serious case of Beavis hair.
wv says it's wigee.
Ben said "But make no mistake, when they are in power they will use force if lies and coercion don't work. "
Or to put it another way, "But make no mistake, they will use lies and coercion if they don't have the power to use force."
(Hey there Cap'n!)
wv:suble
Yeah... as a cluebat.
Hiya, Ben! Does this mean you're feeling better again?
Hi Julie!
Aye! Much better! BTW, that was a funny link you put up in the last thread. Thanks! :^)
Good point, Van!
They sure do bark louder when they can't bite (no offense to dog dogs).
Love the Ben Franklin quote.
Retardentsia. Toxic asshats. Trignoculars. Deusluxia. Truth fairy. Cretinatious period / hiding the decline of civilization.
Along those lines, some sobering thoughts from Sowell at Dr. Sanity's.
In other news, Westerners are WEIRD. Which is completely unsurprising given our Judeo-Christian heritage, not that the article recognizes that fact nor sees the fruits of that heritage as being a particularly good or valuable thing...
It has become my passion to expand evolutionary theory beyond the biological sciences to include all things human.
Has any human culture ever contained at once such sublime greatness and such preternatural stupidity?
From Julie's article:
"I was inclined to believe that rejection in the Ultimatum Game would be widespread. With the Machiguenga, they felt rejecting was absurd, which is really what economists think about rejection," Dr. Henrich says. "It's completely irrational to turn down free money. Why would you do that?"
I had to do the Ultimatum game in a class for negotiation in law school.
I think I was offered $40 and took the offer. I was basically asked at the end of the game whether I would have taken a lower offer.
I said, yes, I would not turn down free money, basically operating under the economic theory that it was irrational to turn down free money. I had absorbed a lot of economics thinking at that point and I was into trying to operate from a completely logical persepective, supressing all emotion whenever possible.
In fact, most of the early part of my life was spent trying to be as cooly rational as possible, discounting any emotional impulses I had as being completely useless and irrational.
It was only later that I discovered that emotions actually contained information. I wish I had known that sooner.
I mean, what the hell is wrong with so many of these high-IQ academics, Nobel winners, and assorted eggheads?
Stephen Hawking this week presented an argument re creatio ex nihilo which was so patently stupid that even a typical 10 year-old kid, black hole, or a congressman could see through it.
Some great gems here! I especially liked this one in relation to Mark Steyn's discussions on El-Rushbo's show over the past few days:
"Leftist logic: if we defeat the terrorists, the terrorists will have won."
NB said “I mean, what the hell is wrong with so many of these high-IQ academics, Nobel winners, and assorted eggheads?”
Beginning with Hume, however much they play along as the feel they must, modernity has fundamentally rejected what Gagdad went through a couple weeks ago: Induction.
And when your answers don’t follow from principles derived from observable facts… they follow from wherever you want them to lead.
Few things sum it up better than Descartes did with “I think, therefore I am” – which is so arbitrarily bassackwards and inside out… is it any surprise that the world which bases its self upon it, resembles it?
Meat! It does a body good?
Joseph,
My alarm bells were set off with your use of 'categorical validity of reason', because I've usually found such wording to be a tipoff that Kant is lurking somewhere nearby. However to the best of my knowledge, which is a bit scant here, Ratzinger is usually on guard against that as well, isn't he? Wasn't he influenced by Josef Pieper?
Anyway, he isn't referring to it in that way, and in fact shows himself to be at least cautious about the same,
"...When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this programme forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.
...Behind this thinking lies the modern self-limitation of reason, classically expressed in Kant's "Critiques", but in the meantime further radicalized by the impact of the natural sciences. This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism...
...The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it."
It'd be nice if he more clearly identified the danger, came out more strongly against Kant (& Rousseau & Descartes) and didn't grant such legitimacy to him by using his terms, 'practical reason', etc, and more clearly decried the dehellenization of the West… but I suppose expecting the Pope to sound off like Ayn Rand is ... just a bit much, eh?
;-)
Joseph said “often lyrical discourse on the intrinsic unity of the spiritual and the intellectual, for the benefit of the intellectual practitioner.
If you are familiar with its themes, my hat is off to you.”
Um… you are familiar with the fact that that has been a key theme here as well, for five or so years… yes? Might want to browse the Knowa's Arkive, there are mucho many posts and discussions ranging over a fair bit of adventuring through the vaults of the Greeks, Romans, Desert Wiseguys & Church Fathers while engaging in various shades of Verticalisthenics... Freevangelical Pundamentalism ... Metaphysical Comedy & Pure Inscapism in a Laughty Atmasphere of Jehovial Witticisms to boot, right?
Just curious.
(And yep on Schall too.)
Nothing shuts up a leftist then the results of their knowledge and leadership. They will never admit it, but they know they have screwed the pooch. I can see November from my house.
"It'd be nice if he more clearly identified the danger, came out more strongly against Kant... 'practical reason', etc, and more clearly decried the dehellenization of the West…"
The address warrants several readings. I think you'll find that he did just that. It is a radical critique of Kant and his legacy, of Protestant as much as Islamic subjugation of reason, and of the equally dogmatic refusal of positivists to consider questions to which reason inevitably leads but cannot answer without the collaboration of faith.
Thank you for the thematic summary. I'm surprised then that Sertillanges wasn't on the syllabus.
Huh. Dominus vobiscum = Namaste? Or am I off base on that one?
On an unrelated note, I think this wv needs to be written down for future use:
ballity
Joseph said "The address warrants several readings. I think you'll find that he did just that."
By implication, I agree, and if you follow these lines alone,
"We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically falsifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith. "
, nothing of Kant could stand... it's just not as ... blatant as I'd like.
"It is a radical critique of Kant and his legacy,"
, not the description I'd use - by implication and principled meaning, yes; by tone, no.
But then again, Cardinal's & Pope's aren't (and shouldn't be) bloggers.
"Thank you for the thematic summary. I'm surprised then that Sertillanges wasn't on the syllabus."
;- )
Well... if you do browse through, you'll find Plotinus to Dun Scotus to Aquinas, & Schuon to Eckhart to von Balthazar... but of course there are always more fish in the see.
wv:mingle
hmmm... maybe later.
Julie said "Huh. Dominus vobiscum = Namaste?"
So it wasn't just me, ok.
Namaste: I bow to you.
Dominus vobiscum: The Lord be with you.
& 'Goodbye' =
'God be with ye'
'Bloody' = 'by our Lady'
'World' = 'Vir Ald' [old man]
& wv =rowro
row your boat!
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is freedom.
--2 Corinthians 3:17
A quotation:
"The student of [Roger] Williams' own writings will, I trust, perceive that, great as has been his symbolic role, he himself was thinking on a deeper plane than that which simply recognizes religious liberty as a way for men to live peaceably together. He was not a rationalist and a utilitarian who gave up the effort to maintain an orthodoxy because he had no real
concern about religious truth, but was the most passionately religious of men. Hence he is an analyst, an explorer into the dark places, of the very nature of freedom. His decision to leave denominations free to worship as they chose came as a consequence of his insight that freedom is a condition of the spirit."
- Perry Miller, Roger Williams: his contribution to the American tradition
Williams, a most fascinating man in America's early history, i.e. an interesting species of fish to see. :)
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