In the previous post we suggested that the practice of philosophy -- if successful -- transforms a merely useless man into a perfectly useless one. Pieper writes that
Philosophy by its nature is a free endeavor, and for this reason it serves no one and nothing.
But this idea goes waaaay back to the beginning of philosophy. For example,
Analyzing Aristotle's text in his Metaphysics, we find to our amazement that "free" there means the same as "nonpractical!"
Conversely, practical "is everything that serves a purpose." The operative word is serve, as in serf, service, servile, and slave. Philosophy is intellectual freedom truly lived,
insofar as it is not geared toward some purpose outside itself. Philosophy, rather, is an endeavor containing its own meaning and requires no justification from a purpose "served" (ibid.).
Just yesterday I was telling my son that when I first began hearing rumblings about the left's sinister plans to eliminate free speech, I assumed it was just the usual paranoid ravings from the fringes of the periphery of the outskirts beyond the pale of the fever swamps of the conspiracy theorists of the pre-MAGA insurrectionists.
Indeed, having once been a man of the left, I knew the principle of free speech was inviolate, and that no real liberal would ever question it.
But ever since then, we see how the left has rapidly disavowed every last liberal principle, culminating most recently in Brandon's fascist attack on half the population (but in reality the other half as well, except they're too stupid or indoctrinated to see it).
Back when I was a Democrat, I didn't even know anyone who would have disagreed that academia should be a free space for rational beings to indulge our irrepressible search for the truth of reality. No one outside the Soviet sphere would have imagined otherwise.
"Liberal arts" are "those that are oriented toward knowledge alone." Which is interesting, because today's illiberal arts -- or subhumanities -- are indeed useless (e.g, gender studies, queer theory, CRT, etc.), only in an inverted way, since they are detached from the freedom and truth that is their ground and telos.
In other words, in order to be perfectly useless, we must be silent and passive in the face of reality, which is the real instructor:
only in silence is hearing possible. Moreover, the stronger the determination prevails to hear all there is, the more complete the silence must be.
Conversely, science doesn't shut up, nor should it, for every answer is simultaneously the next question. And no answer is true per se, only falsifiable. Moreover, the questions are never about reality as such, rather, only particular aspects or objects which determine the method of approach. Therefore,
entire realms of reality are expressly "of no interest" right from the start. Seen from this angle, the philosopher's question, strictly, is no question at all: What is it all about?
Any questions?
9 comments:
No questions. Only listening today.
... today's illiberal arts -- or subhumanities -- are indeed useless (e.g, gender studies, queer theory, CRT, etc.), only in an inverted way, since they are detached from the freedom and truth that is their ground and telos.
In a way, they also aren't useless, because they do serve a purpose - namely, to warp minds, particularly away from being "brainwashed" by traditional or *shudder* Catholic ideals.
They are extremely useful -- to powers, principalities, spiritual wickedness, and rulers of the darkness of this world in general.
I was looking up something from an old post, and found these instead -- some homemade aphorisms:
God gave man the miraculous power to name things. True, but Satan gives progressives the magical power to rename them.
"Hate speech," "spreading disinformation," and "community standards" are to language as the Fugitive Slave Act was to freedom.
You can't fix your own life by meddling in other people's lives.
The credo of the left: in weakness, victimhood; in strength, revenge.
Man is a political animal. The progressive tribalist is an animal with politics.
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding the oppressive dialectic between indoctrination and stupidity.
A decadent paradigm becomes more complex in order to account for its lack of explanatory power. Anti-racism is the search for epicycles within epicycles to account for black failure.
News of the tautological: Survey Finds Self-Hating White Liberals Are Getting Progressively More Delusional.
There are few things as nauseating as the self-hating progressive. Especially given how the hatred always extends outward - thus, for instance, the extinction rebellion morons never do the world a real favor and start with themselves, and you'll rarely encounter a more smug, self-satisfied character than, say, a male feminist or an LGBTQ+adnauseum "ally." They hate because they care. So much.
Re. the gag about white people being loud in movie theaters, I'm just saying, I've never seen a whole family of white people run up and down the aisle screaming or hiding behind the seats while watching a scary movie.
Well, except the kids who used to go to the Saturday matinees, but that was because half the kids on base would show up with nary a parent in sight, so... white people bad in theaters, I guess.
I have many questions, but know that I'll only be slapped down by Dupree in his effort to deflect from his crossdressing perversion.
Julie, what you said literally makes no sense, not even to an honest conservative. But then, if you're only targeting those progressives who do actually hate themselves, then I must apologize.
As for the progressives who don't hate themselves, the male feminists I know really only want equal pay for equal performance. And maybe less sexual harassment for their female friends. They do not want equal jobs for unequal performance as dishonest conservatives are led to imagine they do. And the progressives who've been suckered into the LGBTQ debate by conservatives looking for a cause to rebel, they all just want the LGBTQ to be left alone since there are far worse problems that need to be addressed.
"They hate because they care. So much." seems like projection to be, because it was you who brought it up when nobody else did.
If soy could speak.
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