tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post3247494794622214687..comments2023-10-03T07:01:41.144-05:00Comments on Always On Watch: Semper Vigilans: Today's PoliticsAlways On Watchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08192688822955022541noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-12231183107076733362017-02-25T11:28:23.257-06:002017-02-25T11:28:23.257-06:00I'm sure Voltaire criticized his contemporarie...I'm sure Voltaire criticized his contemporaries just as readily as I criticize people like Milo.Jeznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-16213166391145361892017-02-24T12:12:31.971-06:002017-02-24T12:12:31.971-06:00Just call me Tito... ;PJust call me <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_clemenza_di_Tito" rel="nofollow">Tito</a>... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfKEiyyrlpU" rel="nofollow">;P</a>-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-52636604512859298492017-02-24T12:05:24.693-06:002017-02-24T12:05:24.693-06:00...but especially you, Portia! ;)...but especially you, <i>Portia</i>! ;)-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-70347303920162496142017-02-24T12:01:00.925-06:002017-02-24T12:01:00.925-06:00There are many legitimate reasons for "punish...There are many legitimate reasons for "punishing the other". But speaking your mind, IMO, shouldn't be one of them. The "virtue" of speech is that we can still simply "choose" to ignore it.<br /><br />The executioner/ punisher forms the underlying basis for all "power". As Nietzsche also said, (WtP), "This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!” <br /><br />But the whole point behind having "money" is to purchase social distance for one's self FROM the "other's" arbitrary jouissance/power. There's a LOT to be said for having "F You money". But then, nobody is more jealous of power that the poor weak soul who doesn't have power (Shylock).<br /><br />Nietzsche's point, "those with the need to punish are the weaklings". The powerful man shows "mercy". And we all appreciate the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPG3KcYXWSg" rel="nofollow">qualities of mercy</a>.-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-59586952321789599722017-02-24T11:08:17.733-06:002017-02-24T11:08:17.733-06:00FJ,
"Beware of those in whom the will to puni...FJ,<br /><i>"Beware of those in whom the will to punish is strong."</i><br /><br />And a lot of people have a very strong will do punish "the other." Perhaps that's human nature?Always On Watchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08192688822955022541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-35648678696570206132017-02-24T11:02:26.996-06:002017-02-24T11:02:26.996-06:00ps - Nobody hates an erastes/ eromenos relationshi...ps - Nobody hates an erastes/ eromenos relationship like I do. But why should Milo be permanently silenced for stating the reasons why they exist. The topic needs sunlight if we are to "judge" the "goodness/ badness" of non-cisgendered relationships.-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-296174408067847192017-02-24T10:56:52.646-06:002017-02-24T10:56:52.646-06:00Identity politics being completely subjective... t...Identity politics being completely subjective... the Left is averse to criticize Milo because he's gay (because he's a "victim" who deserves to be heard). The right is averse to support Milo because he's gay (a "vice" their religions abhor). Neither side want him to speak, but BOTH sides scream about a person's right to "free speech" and speaking "truth to power". Isn't "free speech" supposedly a "Western/ universal" right (virtuous)? Yet each side seeks to "punish" his practice of it. Both seem to believe that "free speech" should be reserved for those on "their" side.<br /><br />A Voltaire(?) once remarked, “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.”<br /><br />Yes there can be consequences of engaging in free speech. But as Nietzsche once remarked, "Beware of those in whom the will to punish is strong."-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-64509739442047434292017-02-22T12:24:28.498-06:002017-02-22T12:24:28.498-06:00this hasn't helped me much.
Of course some pe...this hasn't helped me much.<br /><br />Of course some people are insincere, but not all, and I can't imagine a world where everyone, even just the sincere ones, agree with you about what is or isn't virtuous.<br /><br />In this specific case, it seems like there's something about the right's pleasure in, and/or the left's dislike of, Milo's discourse that reveals each faction's insincerity regarding freedom of speech. Is that right? I don't see the contradiction in either case.jeznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-6260545114074197372017-02-22T10:14:34.110-06:002017-02-22T10:14:34.110-06:00Don't be so hard on them...
Against [empirici...Don't be so hard on them...<br /><br /><i>Against [empiricism], which halts at [observable] phenomena—‘There are only facts’—I would say, no, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations. We cannot establish any fact ‘in itself’: perhaps it is folly to want to do such a thing.<br /><br />‘Everything is subjective [for example, a figment of your reasoning mind],’ you say; but even this is interpretation. The ‘subject’ is not something given, it is something added and invented … [Is] it necessary to posit an interpreter behind the interpretation? …<br /><br />In so far as the word ‘knowledge’ has any meaning, the world is … interpretable, otherwise it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings—‘Perspectivism’.<br /><br />It is our needs that interpret the world; our drives … Every drive is a kind of lust to rule; each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all the other drives to accept as a norm.<br /><br />[D]eception, flattering, lying and cheating, talking behind the back, posing, living in borrowed splendor, being masked, the disguise of convention, acting a role before others and before oneself—in short, the constant fluttering around the single flame of vanity is so much the rule and the law that almost nothing is more incomprehensible than how an honest and pure urge for truth could have arisen among men. They are deeply immersed in illusions and dream images; their eye only glides only over the surface of things … their feeling nowhere leads into truth, but contents itself with the reception of stimuli, playing, as it were, a game of blind man’s bluff …<br /><br />The true world is unattainable, it cannot be proved, it cannot promise anything.<br /><br />You are aware of my demand upon philosophers, that they should take up a stand Beyond Good and Evil … This demand is the result of a point of view which I was the first to formulate: that there are no such things as moral facts. Moral judgment has this in common with the religious one, that it believes in realities which are not real. Morality is only an interpretation of certain phenomena: or, more strictly speaking, a misinterpretation of them. … [M]oral judgment must never be taken quite literally: as such is sheer nonsense. As a sign code, however, it is invaluable: to him at least who knows, it reveals the most valuable facts concerning cultures …</i> - Nietzsche, "Will to Power" ;)Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-76389396367810014492017-02-22T08:31:23.415-06:002017-02-22T08:31:23.415-06:00As an example: In his critical reading of Hegel, B...As an example: <i>In his critical reading of Hegel, Badiou proposes his own materialist rendering of the quadruple structure of the dialectical process: "indifferent multiplicities, or ontological unbinding: worlds of appearing, or the logical link; truth-procedure, or subjective eternity," plus the Event itself, the additional "vanishing cause, which is the exact opposite of the Whole." As we have just seen, we can find this materialist version of the dialectical process already in Hegel- apropos the British colonization of India, first there is the "indifferent multiplicity" of pre-colonial India; then the British colonizers brutally intervene, imposing the transcendental structure of the colonial order, justified in terms of Western universalism; then the Indian resistance to colonization develops, pointing out how, in colonizing India, the West is betraying its own legacy of egalitarian emancipation. The anti-colonial struggle thus refers to the Idea of India as a secular democratic state, an Idea which originated in the West. The Indian version of this Idea, however, is not a "synthesis" of the Western secular-egalitarian spirit and the Indian tradition, but a full assertion of the egalitarian spirit by way of cutting the roots that ground it in the Western tradition and affirming its actual universality. In short, only when the Western Idea is "ex-apted" by India does it achieve actual universality: when Indians embrace the European democratic-egalitarian Idea, they become more European than the Europeans themselves.</i><br /><br />So in America, instead of giving minorities "social justice", we give them the "justice" (objective) that we previously refused to afford them so that they can become "Americans" vice hyphenated "African/Hispanic/Asian -Americans".Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-45729516664775888992017-02-22T08:17:01.765-06:002017-02-22T08:17:01.765-06:00Plato's "truth's" were Objective...Plato's "truth's" were <i>Objective</i>. Social "justice" (progressive "truth's") is <i>subjective</i> and expose the "limits" of objectivity. So isn't it high time to procede to the <a href="http://farmersletters.blogspot.com/2017/02/vanishing-mediators.html" rel="nofollow">Hegelian "Absolute" truth</a>, to acknowledge the "falsity" inherent in BOTH forms but also drop the fantasy elements associated with "subjectivity"?Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-68114280369845623732017-02-22T07:52:20.730-06:002017-02-22T07:52:20.730-06:00Warren,
As are the fecal matter and the food. Heh...Warren,<br />As are the fecal matter and the food. Heh.Always On Watchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08192688822955022541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-66829247752096346742017-02-22T07:06:35.213-06:002017-02-22T07:06:35.213-06:00In the "Moral" chopping board and blende...In the "Moral" chopping board and blender of "Progressivism", it doesn't matter. Everything is relative. The garbage and the food are interchangeable. Warrenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17720528359843578475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-17365596519588571372017-02-22T06:53:20.573-06:002017-02-22T06:53:20.573-06:00The "Cardinal Virtues"-
courage:tempe...The "<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SACGvZBn2Ss/T1ehUZw8HfI/AAAAAAAACyQ/W7NVYyk7OMk/s1600/Good_Friday_Cross_Picture.jpg" rel="nofollow">Cardinal Virtues</a>"- <br /><br />courage:temperance::wisdom:justiceThersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-48114491606903353772017-02-22T06:50:31.494-06:002017-02-22T06:50:31.494-06:00Beauty, Symmetry, Truth...a veritable "Pagan ...Beauty, Symmetry, Truth...a veritable "Pagan Trinity". ;)Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-1056069239640672192017-02-22T06:42:17.187-06:002017-02-22T06:42:17.187-06:00from Plato's "Philebus"
SOCRATES: ...from Plato's "Philebus"<br /><br /><i> SOCRATES: And there is no difficulty in seeing the cause which renders any mixture either of the highest value or of none at all.<br /><br />PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?<br /><br />SOCRATES: Every man knows it.<br /><br />PROTARCHUS: What?<br /><br />SOCRATES: He knows that any want of measure and symmetry in any mixture whatever must always of necessity be fatal, both to the elements and to the mixture, which is then not a mixture, but only a confused medley which brings confusion on the possessor of it.<br /><br />PROTARCHUS: Most true.<br /><br />SOCRATES: And now the power of the good has retired into the region of the beautiful; for measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue all the world over.<br /><br />PROTARCHUS: True.<br /><br />SOCRATES: Also we said that truth was to form an element in the mixture.<br /><br />PROTARCHUS: Certainly.<br /><br />SOCRATES:<b> Then, if we are not able to hunt the good with one idea only, with three we may catch our prey; Beauty, Symmetry, Truth are the three, and these taken together we may regard as the single cause of the mixture, and the mixture as being good by reason of the infusion of them.</b><br /><br />PROTARCHUS: Quite right. </i>Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-52524030229993407932017-02-22T06:41:22.179-06:002017-02-22T06:41:22.179-06:00As Plato said about "virtue" in his &quo...As Plato said about "virtue" in his "Laches" (on Courage): <br /><br /><i>Soc. Then courage is not the science which is concerned with the fearful and hopeful, for they are future only; courage, like the other sciences, is concerned not only with good and evil of the future, but of the present and past, and of any time?<br /><br />Nic. That, as I suppose, is true.<br /><br />Soc. Then the answer which you have given, Nicias, includes only a third part of courage; but our question extended to the whole nature of courage: and according to your view, that is, according to your present view, courage is not only the knowledge of the hopeful and the fearful, but seems to include nearly every good and evil without reference to time. What do you say to that alteration in your statement?<br /><br />Nic. I agree, Socrates.<br /><br />Soc. <b>But then, my dear friend, if a man knew all good and evil, and how. they are, and have been, and will be produced, would he not be perfect, and wanting in no virtue, whether justice, or temperance, or holiness? He would possess them all, and he would know which were dangers' and which were not, and guard against them whether they were supernatural or natural; and he would provide the good, as he would know how to deal both with gods or men.</b><br /><br />Nic. I think, Socrates, that there is a great deal of truth in what you say.<br /><br />Soc. But then, Nicias, courage, according to this new definition of yours, instead of being a part of virtue only, will be all virtue?<br /><br />Nic. It would seem so. </i><br /><br />And what is the "good" to be produced?Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-39713910385394434952017-02-22T05:06:38.128-06:002017-02-22T05:06:38.128-06:00Milo owes his career to "PC". If it were...Milo owes his career to "PC". If it weren't for an audience hungry to hear unpleasantries and convinced that he wasn't allowed to say the things he went around openly saying, publishing and broadcasting (a paradox quite) he would have had no appeal whatsoever.Jeznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-53445589529104733802017-02-22T00:16:06.328-06:002017-02-22T00:16:06.328-06:00What is the difference between a fantasy and a gen...What is the difference between a fantasy and a genuine virtue which you don't happen to share or respect (not that you're a coward, but for example a coward would be quicker to dismiss bravery as foolishness). Ah, is it "virtuous" behaviour/expression divorced from the "virtue" character trait that worries you? (But is not the character trained through frequent practice of the behaviour?)Jeznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-91929762076407569562017-02-21T22:06:02.178-06:002017-02-21T22:06:02.178-06:00Te deadliness of the vicious Tyrant PEEE CEEE stri...Te deadliness of the vicious Tyrant PEEE CEEE strikes yet again.FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-9127857122886080932017-02-21T22:03:35.753-06:002017-02-21T22:03:35.753-06:00Touché!Touché!FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-983322468830175192017-02-21T17:57:57.864-06:002017-02-21T17:57:57.864-06:00I don't object to virtue, I object to fulfilli...I don't object to virtue, I object to fulfilling <a href="https://youtu.be/g1hP9EbCqJw" rel="nofollow">fantasy's</a> posing as virtues.Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-5696966715598674492017-02-21T17:54:38.465-06:002017-02-21T17:54:38.465-06:00was there some point in altering what I wrote?
I ...<i> was there some point in altering what I wrote?</i><br /><br />I thought that it missed the "Wish"/"desire" motive underlying the ideology's adoption. Its "why" we need to "change/censor our dreams" (why communism failed). Fantasy is what underlies the Lacanian Real, NOT "truth".<br /><br />Now, group dynamics sometimes involve suspending judgement and deferring moral judgement to a "leader" (ala Hitler) and behaving in a mob as if "hypnotized" (Freud), but that doesn't address "why" we allow the leader to hypnotize us to begin with.Thersiteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15751286903359745316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-47473041072100740862017-02-21T15:52:33.217-06:002017-02-21T15:52:33.217-06:00The Truth is very painful when it doesn't lett...The Truth is very painful when it doesn't letter your cherished notions. That is why mankind spends probably 90% of its time either running from the Truth or using every trick in the book to try to refute or deny it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-29854646290518000072017-02-21T15:21:00.539-06:002017-02-21T15:21:00.539-06:00@Thersites - was there some point in altering what...@Thersites - was there some point in altering what I wrote? Second hand views can just as easily be adopted and used as cheap virtue signaling.Constitutional Insurgenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03251746798758539951noreply@blogger.com