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On November 26 2013 09:42 MoltkeWarding wrote:
The legalistic epoch of Western Civilization appeared sometime during the apex of the Modern Age in the 18th century, reached its zenith during the Victorian Era and suffered a long and steady erosion since the shattering of the long peace in 1914. That today ethical legalism is being deconstructed by all kinds of "realists" is hardly insightful or revolutionary.
In 1914 Bethmann Hollweg's denunciation of the Treaty of London as a "scrap of paper" was shocking to the civilised world, precisely because it represented the violation of an ethical custom which, whatever shortcomings it may appear to possess today, was a positive constructive identity upon which a standard for civilised behaviour had been based for over a century.
And this is why Kwark as usual is completely wrong in his interpretation of the ethical significance of "Nazi Germany" in the 20th century: the Germans were merely the first to recognise the validity of his own principles: neither in 1914 and 1933 did they feel that they owed loyalty to outdated treaties, or an unpopular democratic constitution, or an illegitimate republic. Nor did it have anything to do with the "quality of the people"; the German middle-classes were the best-educated and most idealistic people in the world. That they were so exacerbated, rather than relieved the problem. During the first half of the 20th century, the German claim to moral supremacy over the "mercantile" English was based on an ethical self-conception, that German values of Bildung and Kultur were superior to shallow English values (well summarised by Biff's citation.) The Germans were the first to realise the supremacy of individual self-cultivation over petty legalism, and history will speak to its fate. For millions of Germans, the coming of Hitler represented a kind of liberation from a poisonous bourgeois order, from outdated modes of social duties and engagements which no longer seemed relevant for the modern world.
Something like Nazi Germany can't happen without a general breakdown in the morals and virtue of the people, which is implicitly acknowledged in your narrative above. If rights and relationships aren't determined by "petty legalism," then they are being determined by a more darwinistic order.
So yes, the Nazis were generally shitty people like Kwark says.
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edit: no no no I am not going to talk about this
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On November 26 2013 13:02 sam!zdat wrote:
edit: no no no I am not going to talk about this
Dude, I want to hear it. This is actually a very interesting topic, and I know that our resident Marxist has something to say.
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I have a lot to say but right now I am on mushrooms and i do NOT want to talk about nazis
but yeah this is a kind of thing that the western marxist tradition (and just western intellectuals in general) has spilled a lot of ink thinking about. I recommend a book called "Ordinary Men" by somebody or other
you can't just write a phenomenon like this off some essentialized moral weakness, that is an obvious dead end, but we will have to talk about this some other time
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On November 26 2013 12:45 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 12:23 IgnE wrote:On November 26 2013 11:39 Tula wrote:On November 26 2013 10:06 KwarK wrote:
I'm gonna stick with my "Nazis were shitty people" theory if it's all the same to you Moltke. And all of us here know that you are far too intelligent to make such a generalisation seriously. Though I must ask how we drifted to Nazi-Germany again? I seem to have missed a turn or two in the last page. Freedom itself isn't worth anything obviously, it is an ideal or state of being some people claim to seek. If you leave philosophy and consider how "free" you as an individual specifically are you'll find many things restricting your freedom that either benefit you, or that pay off in other less obvious ways. Classic example are families, often you will behave in certain ways (differing depending on the family obviously) to fit in with yours. On the one hand that makes you less free, but obviously you will gain things (love, acknowledgement, support etc.) from it. Society as a whole restricts quite a few of your individual freedoms to either set some ground rules of behavior or to try and make us get along. The amount of freedom people are willing to give up to live peacefully in a society was one of the basic tenents of the formation of states. You might argue that we have given up too much, personally I think in some areas that that is true, but the fundamental principle is still sound. On November 26 2013 10:10 IgnE wrote:
The world is the will to power. Legal conditions are simply anemic restrictions on the will of life, and are therefore subordinate to its goals. As Nietzsche would say:
A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general perhaps after the communistic cliché of Dühring, that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Right, so we should do away with legal order and go back to might makes right? I'm honestly confused what you are trying to say. Obviously laws try to regulate how we behave specifically to prevent that. Legal conditions (Laws in other words) are what enables us to live together semi-peacefully frankly I'm fine with giving up a bit of my freedom for that (in any other case I'd need to stop discussing this here and instead try to find the nearest bunker to prepare for a siege... to take this argument ab absurdum). Laws are manifestations of some other's power. Slave-slaveholder relations can also outwardly be pretty peaceful. Funny how all extreme views always seem to try to equate modern society with slave-holding society on some level at least to make their tortured point. Heard it from anarcho-capitalists asking what is the difference between taxes and slavery, heard it from communists saying any hierarchical ownership is equal to slavery. Now we have this equation of laws and slavery. People love their black and white views and flawed analogies.
It's not black and white at all. People love their simple truths.
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DUDE, THE BEST TIME TO TALK ABOUT NAZIS IN WHEN YOU ARE HIGH!
Edit: For the record, I wouldn't say that moral weakness was the "cause" of what happened in Nazi Germany. It is more of a result.
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They call me W-E-E crooked letter Y I'm so high
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On November 26 2013 12:45 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 12:23 IgnE wrote:On November 26 2013 11:39 Tula wrote:On November 26 2013 10:06 KwarK wrote:
I'm gonna stick with my "Nazis were shitty people" theory if it's all the same to you Moltke. And all of us here know that you are far too intelligent to make such a generalisation seriously. Though I must ask how we drifted to Nazi-Germany again? I seem to have missed a turn or two in the last page. Freedom itself isn't worth anything obviously, it is an ideal or state of being some people claim to seek. If you leave philosophy and consider how "free" you as an individual specifically are you'll find many things restricting your freedom that either benefit you, or that pay off in other less obvious ways. Classic example are families, often you will behave in certain ways (differing depending on the family obviously) to fit in with yours. On the one hand that makes you less free, but obviously you will gain things (love, acknowledgement, support etc.) from it. Society as a whole restricts quite a few of your individual freedoms to either set some ground rules of behavior or to try and make us get along. The amount of freedom people are willing to give up to live peacefully in a society was one of the basic tenents of the formation of states. You might argue that we have given up too much, personally I think in some areas that that is true, but the fundamental principle is still sound. On November 26 2013 10:10 IgnE wrote:
The world is the will to power. Legal conditions are simply anemic restrictions on the will of life, and are therefore subordinate to its goals. As Nietzsche would say:
A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general perhaps after the communistic cliché of Dühring, that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Right, so we should do away with legal order and go back to might makes right? I'm honestly confused what you are trying to say. Obviously laws try to regulate how we behave specifically to prevent that. Legal conditions (Laws in other words) are what enables us to live together semi-peacefully frankly I'm fine with giving up a bit of my freedom for that (in any other case I'd need to stop discussing this here and instead try to find the nearest bunker to prepare for a siege... to take this argument ab absurdum). Laws are manifestations of some other's power. Slave-slaveholder relations can also outwardly be pretty peaceful. Funny how all extreme views always seem to try to equate modern society with slave-holding society on some level at least to make their tortured point. Heard it from anarcho-capitalists asking what is the difference between taxes and slavery, heard it from communists saying any hierarchical ownership is equal to slavery. Now we have this equation of laws and slavery. People love their black and white views and flawed analogies.
Master-Serf makes no difference. The problem with the 'law' as is, is both the perception of the people that it is codified social engineering instead of recognition of justice and liberty, and that it is highly hypocritical (e.g. The State determines itself a monopoly on a wide range of services, but then 'outlaws' what it believes to be monopoly (having a certain % of market share), then there is the legalized thievery and barbarism of so-called Police who can beat you, kill you, etc. without provocation and then be heralded as hero's...Miriam Carey anyone?). The former is probably a bigger problem than the latter.
Society today has become a cesspool of petty tyrants all wanting to legislate their personal preferences - are you the nanny-state socialist, the bible-thumper, the inquisitor, the real petty tyrant who just wants to tell others what they can do, or are you the idealistic type who wants to mold everyone into his/her version of ideal, etc. The recognition that we own ourselves, and thus have inalienable liberties that have no justification to be aggressed against is hardly to be seen in the fabric of society. The Marxists say homesteading and the liberty of trade and contract is slavery, the Socialists say you the individual are a nuisance and the collective must be served (though the collective is always headed by an individual...who usually enjoys all the benefits at the expense of the lay people), the Bible-thumpers say the Kingdom of Heaven must be brought to Earth and any transgression should be highly penalized and outlawed, and here the libertarian sits and says, hold on, none of you have any right over the body and actions of another, that the law must be for the upholding of justice as defined as a violation of individual liberty, and shut the fuck up and start worrying about your own life instead of being busy-bodies and moral-do-gooders in everyone elses.
We're at a point in society where we just need to say Fuck you, your imposed systems, your hypocrisy, we're going to live our own lives and if you want a fight, we're more than ready. At least America has a tradition to look back upon...maybe we'll find that spirit once more.
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Something like Nazi Germany can't happen without a general breakdown in the morals and virtue of the people, which is implicitly acknowledged in your narrative above. If rights and relationships aren't determined by "petty legalism," then they are being determined by a more darwinistic order.
So yes, the Nazis were generally shitty people like Kwark says.
I guess. If you want to believe that Madame Bovary was about a character named Madame Bovary who cheated on her husband, you are welcome to it.
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On November 26 2013 13:15 xDaunt wrote:
DUDE, THE BEST TIME TO TALK ABOUT NAZIS IN WHEN YOU ARE HIGH!
Edit: For the record, I wouldn't say that moral weakness was the "cause" of what happened in Nazi Germany. It is more of a result.
With enough work you might come up with specific details what exactly happened, but in general nothing out of the ordinary happened in Nazi Germany. Not if you consider what happened in any other century of human history. Some were better, some probably worse. It is not like Germans were the only one doing fucked up shit even in the WW2. Japanese did possibly at least equally bad stuff. Nazi Germany just showed how strong a grip our nature has on us and how easily the ugly side of said nature can come to the surface. Correct dose of economic troubles, dehumanizing ideology and war and our norms degrade quickly and even otherwise normal people behave as monsters.
Recently read "Better angels of our nature" by Pinker and even though I am not convinced by some of his arguments, he presented a lot of data on this topic.
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On November 26 2013 13:58 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +Something like Nazi Germany can't happen without a general breakdown in the morals and virtue of the people, which is implicitly acknowledged in your narrative above. If rights and relationships aren't determined by "petty legalism," then they are being determined by a more darwinistic order.
So yes, the Nazis were generally shitty people like Kwark says. I guess. If you want to believe that Madame Bovary was about a character named Madame Bovary who cheated on her husband, you are welcome to it.
Or that Who's afraid of virginia woolf is about virginia woolf?
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On November 26 2013 13:56 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 12:45 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 12:23 IgnE wrote:On November 26 2013 11:39 Tula wrote:On November 26 2013 10:06 KwarK wrote:
I'm gonna stick with my "Nazis were shitty people" theory if it's all the same to you Moltke. And all of us here know that you are far too intelligent to make such a generalisation seriously. Though I must ask how we drifted to Nazi-Germany again? I seem to have missed a turn or two in the last page. Freedom itself isn't worth anything obviously, it is an ideal or state of being some people claim to seek. If you leave philosophy and consider how "free" you as an individual specifically are you'll find many things restricting your freedom that either benefit you, or that pay off in other less obvious ways. Classic example are families, often you will behave in certain ways (differing depending on the family obviously) to fit in with yours. On the one hand that makes you less free, but obviously you will gain things (love, acknowledgement, support etc.) from it. Society as a whole restricts quite a few of your individual freedoms to either set some ground rules of behavior or to try and make us get along. The amount of freedom people are willing to give up to live peacefully in a society was one of the basic tenents of the formation of states. You might argue that we have given up too much, personally I think in some areas that that is true, but the fundamental principle is still sound. On November 26 2013 10:10 IgnE wrote:
The world is the will to power. Legal conditions are simply anemic restrictions on the will of life, and are therefore subordinate to its goals. As Nietzsche would say:
A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general perhaps after the communistic cliché of Dühring, that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Right, so we should do away with legal order and go back to might makes right? I'm honestly confused what you are trying to say. Obviously laws try to regulate how we behave specifically to prevent that. Legal conditions (Laws in other words) are what enables us to live together semi-peacefully frankly I'm fine with giving up a bit of my freedom for that (in any other case I'd need to stop discussing this here and instead try to find the nearest bunker to prepare for a siege... to take this argument ab absurdum). Laws are manifestations of some other's power. Slave-slaveholder relations can also outwardly be pretty peaceful. Funny how all extreme views always seem to try to equate modern society with slave-holding society on some level at least to make their tortured point. Heard it from anarcho-capitalists asking what is the difference between taxes and slavery, heard it from communists saying any hierarchical ownership is equal to slavery. Now we have this equation of laws and slavery. People love their black and white views and flawed analogies. Master-Serf makes no difference. The problem with the 'law' as is, is both the perception of the people that it is codified social engineering instead of recognition of justice and liberty, and that it is highly hypocritical (e.g. The State determines itself a monopoly on a wide range of services, but then 'outlaws' what it believes to be monopoly (having a certain % of market share), then there is the legalized thievery and barbarism of so-called Police who can beat you, kill you, etc. without provocation and then be heralded as hero's...Miriam Carey anyone?). The former is probably a bigger problem than the latter. Society today has become a cesspool of petty tyrants all wanting to legislate their personal preferences - are you the nanny-state socialist, the bible-thumper, the inquisitor, the real petty tyrant who just wants to tell others what they can do, or are you the idealistic type who wants to mold everyone into his/her version of ideal, etc. The recognition that we own ourselves, and thus have inalienable liberties that have no justification to be aggressed against is hardly to be seen in the fabric of society. The Marxists say homesteading and the liberty of trade and contract is slavery, the Socialists say you the individual are a nuisance and the collective must be served (though the collective is always headed by an individual...who usually enjoys all the benefits at the expense of the lay people), the Bible-thumpers say the Kingdom of Heaven must be brought to Earth and any transgression should be highly penalized and outlawed, and here the libertarian sits and says, hold on, none of you have any right over the body and actions of another, that the law must be for the upholding of justice as defined as a violation of individual liberty, and shut the fuck up and start worrying about your own life instead of being busy-bodies and moral-do-gooders in everyone elses. We're at a point in society where we just need to say Fuck you, your imposed systems, your hypocrisy, we're going to live our own lives and if you want a fight, we're more than ready. At least America has a tradition to look back upon...maybe we'll find that spirit once more.
We live in times where you are more free and more prosperous than any other time in history in any reasonable objective measure you might choose. People claiming how bad things are compared to imaginary period in the past simply do not know the past. Things can be better and we should try to make them better, but saying there was point in a past where they were better is just either ignorance of that past or completely skewed perspective.
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On November 26 2013 13:56 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 12:45 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 12:23 IgnE wrote:On November 26 2013 11:39 Tula wrote:On November 26 2013 10:06 KwarK wrote:
I'm gonna stick with my "Nazis were shitty people" theory if it's all the same to you Moltke. And all of us here know that you are far too intelligent to make such a generalisation seriously. Though I must ask how we drifted to Nazi-Germany again? I seem to have missed a turn or two in the last page. Freedom itself isn't worth anything obviously, it is an ideal or state of being some people claim to seek. If you leave philosophy and consider how "free" you as an individual specifically are you'll find many things restricting your freedom that either benefit you, or that pay off in other less obvious ways. Classic example are families, often you will behave in certain ways (differing depending on the family obviously) to fit in with yours. On the one hand that makes you less free, but obviously you will gain things (love, acknowledgement, support etc.) from it. Society as a whole restricts quite a few of your individual freedoms to either set some ground rules of behavior or to try and make us get along. The amount of freedom people are willing to give up to live peacefully in a society was one of the basic tenents of the formation of states. You might argue that we have given up too much, personally I think in some areas that that is true, but the fundamental principle is still sound. On November 26 2013 10:10 IgnE wrote:
The world is the will to power. Legal conditions are simply anemic restrictions on the will of life, and are therefore subordinate to its goals. As Nietzsche would say:
A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general perhaps after the communistic cliché of Dühring, that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Right, so we should do away with legal order and go back to might makes right? I'm honestly confused what you are trying to say. Obviously laws try to regulate how we behave specifically to prevent that. Legal conditions (Laws in other words) are what enables us to live together semi-peacefully frankly I'm fine with giving up a bit of my freedom for that (in any other case I'd need to stop discussing this here and instead try to find the nearest bunker to prepare for a siege... to take this argument ab absurdum). Laws are manifestations of some other's power. Slave-slaveholder relations can also outwardly be pretty peaceful. Funny how all extreme views always seem to try to equate modern society with slave-holding society on some level at least to make their tortured point. Heard it from anarcho-capitalists asking what is the difference between taxes and slavery, heard it from communists saying any hierarchical ownership is equal to slavery. Now we have this equation of laws and slavery. People love their black and white views and flawed analogies. Master-Serf makes no difference. The problem with the 'law' as is, is both the perception of the people that it is codified social engineering instead of recognition of justice and liberty, and that it is highly hypocritical (e.g. The State determines itself a monopoly on a wide range of services, but then 'outlaws' what it believes to be monopoly (having a certain % of market share), then there is the legalized thievery and barbarism of so-called Police who can beat you, kill you, etc. without provocation and then be heralded as hero's...Miriam Carey anyone?). The former is probably a bigger problem than the latter. Society today has become a cesspool of petty tyrants all wanting to legislate their personal preferences - are you the nanny-state socialist, the bible-thumper, the inquisitor, the real petty tyrant who just wants to tell others what they can do, or are you the idealistic type who wants to mold everyone into his/her version of ideal, etc. The recognition that we own ourselves, and thus have inalienable liberties that have no justification to be aggressed against is hardly to be seen in the fabric of society. The Marxists say homesteading and the liberty of trade and contract is slavery, the Socialists say you the individual are a nuisance and the collective must be served (though the collective is always headed by an individual...who usually enjoys all the benefits at the expense of the lay people), the Bible-thumpers say the Kingdom of Heaven must be brought to Earth and any transgression should be highly penalized and outlawed, and here the libertarian sits and says, hold on, none of you have any right over the body and actions of another, that the law must be for the upholding of justice as defined as a violation of individual liberty, and shut the fuck up and start worrying about your own life instead of being busy-bodies and moral-do-gooders in everyone elses. We're at a point in society where we just need to say Fuck you, your imposed systems, your hypocrisy, we're going to live our own lives and if you want a fight, we're more than ready. At least America has a tradition to look back upon...maybe we'll find that spirit once more.
Libertarians prefer the tyranny of chance and call it self-made destiny.
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On November 26 2013 13:58 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +Something like Nazi Germany can't happen without a general breakdown in the morals and virtue of the people, which is implicitly acknowledged in your narrative above. If rights and relationships aren't determined by "petty legalism," then they are being determined by a more darwinistic order.
So yes, the Nazis were generally shitty people like Kwark says. I guess. If you want to believe that Madame Bovary was about a character named Madame Bovary who cheated on her husband, you are welcome to it.
“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
Sorry, I just really like that quote. Anyways, I don't think Madame Bovary is laden with political meaning or anything, it's not like its Atlas Shrugged where everything is allegorical.
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On November 26 2013 14:31 ticklishmusic wrote:
it's not like its Atlas Shrugged where everything is allegorical.
that's just a bad book. madame bovary is a good book. it's also about politics, but it a more artful way...
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On November 26 2013 14:06 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 13:56 Wegandi wrote:On November 26 2013 12:45 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 12:23 IgnE wrote:On November 26 2013 11:39 Tula wrote:On November 26 2013 10:06 KwarK wrote:
I'm gonna stick with my "Nazis were shitty people" theory if it's all the same to you Moltke. And all of us here know that you are far too intelligent to make such a generalisation seriously. Though I must ask how we drifted to Nazi-Germany again? I seem to have missed a turn or two in the last page. Freedom itself isn't worth anything obviously, it is an ideal or state of being some people claim to seek. If you leave philosophy and consider how "free" you as an individual specifically are you'll find many things restricting your freedom that either benefit you, or that pay off in other less obvious ways. Classic example are families, often you will behave in certain ways (differing depending on the family obviously) to fit in with yours. On the one hand that makes you less free, but obviously you will gain things (love, acknowledgement, support etc.) from it. Society as a whole restricts quite a few of your individual freedoms to either set some ground rules of behavior or to try and make us get along. The amount of freedom people are willing to give up to live peacefully in a society was one of the basic tenents of the formation of states. You might argue that we have given up too much, personally I think in some areas that that is true, but the fundamental principle is still sound. On November 26 2013 10:10 IgnE wrote:
The world is the will to power. Legal conditions are simply anemic restrictions on the will of life, and are therefore subordinate to its goals. As Nietzsche would say:
A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general perhaps after the communistic cliché of Dühring, that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Right, so we should do away with legal order and go back to might makes right? I'm honestly confused what you are trying to say. Obviously laws try to regulate how we behave specifically to prevent that. Legal conditions (Laws in other words) are what enables us to live together semi-peacefully frankly I'm fine with giving up a bit of my freedom for that (in any other case I'd need to stop discussing this here and instead try to find the nearest bunker to prepare for a siege... to take this argument ab absurdum). Laws are manifestations of some other's power. Slave-slaveholder relations can also outwardly be pretty peaceful. Funny how all extreme views always seem to try to equate modern society with slave-holding society on some level at least to make their tortured point. Heard it from anarcho-capitalists asking what is the difference between taxes and slavery, heard it from communists saying any hierarchical ownership is equal to slavery. Now we have this equation of laws and slavery. People love their black and white views and flawed analogies. Master-Serf makes no difference. The problem with the 'law' as is, is both the perception of the people that it is codified social engineering instead of recognition of justice and liberty, and that it is highly hypocritical (e.g. The State determines itself a monopoly on a wide range of services, but then 'outlaws' what it believes to be monopoly (having a certain % of market share), then there is the legalized thievery and barbarism of so-called Police who can beat you, kill you, etc. without provocation and then be heralded as hero's...Miriam Carey anyone?). The former is probably a bigger problem than the latter. Society today has become a cesspool of petty tyrants all wanting to legislate their personal preferences - are you the nanny-state socialist, the bible-thumper, the inquisitor, the real petty tyrant who just wants to tell others what they can do, or are you the idealistic type who wants to mold everyone into his/her version of ideal, etc. The recognition that we own ourselves, and thus have inalienable liberties that have no justification to be aggressed against is hardly to be seen in the fabric of society. The Marxists say homesteading and the liberty of trade and contract is slavery, the Socialists say you the individual are a nuisance and the collective must be served (though the collective is always headed by an individual...who usually enjoys all the benefits at the expense of the lay people), the Bible-thumpers say the Kingdom of Heaven must be brought to Earth and any transgression should be highly penalized and outlawed, and here the libertarian sits and says, hold on, none of you have any right over the body and actions of another, that the law must be for the upholding of justice as defined as a violation of individual liberty, and shut the fuck up and start worrying about your own life instead of being busy-bodies and moral-do-gooders in everyone elses. We're at a point in society where we just need to say Fuck you, your imposed systems, your hypocrisy, we're going to live our own lives and if you want a fight, we're more than ready. At least America has a tradition to look back upon...maybe we'll find that spirit once more. We live in times where you are more free and more prosperous than any other time in history in any reasonable objective measure you might choose. People claiming how bad things are compared to imaginary period in the past simply do not know the past. Things can be better and we should try to make them better, but saying there was point in a past where they were better is just either ignorance of that past or completely skewed perspective.
I don't think we live in the most prosperous time. Real wages have stagnated over the last 35 years, working hours have gone up. Third world diseases that were eradicated are returning. More children are starving. there is also less democracy(labor unions have been destroyed) and a more atomized society. I'd also argue that western culture peaked in the enlightenment when science and philosophy was like pop culture today, but it has been on the decline ever since.
Also on your earlier point, i'd point out that our current system was called wage-slavery and was a mainstream position by american factory girls in the 19th century. There are also arguments by good writers/historians that note that slavery for black people never really ended until after WW2, as black life was criminalized after they were freed-leading to a life that had just as little freedom as slavery. Being poor has been criminalized again over the past 35 years under the neoliberal period with the war on drugs.
Language and political power has an amazing amount of delusion to it though. It sees itself as logical, objective and fair. It's oppression is paternalistic, as it sees its subjects as inferior, stupid people. When it's subjects call their oppression wage slavery, they will change the name to wage labor. When it's subjects call their journalism propaganda, they change its name to public relations.
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On November 26 2013 14:47 stroggozzz wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 14:06 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 13:56 Wegandi wrote:On November 26 2013 12:45 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 12:23 IgnE wrote:On November 26 2013 11:39 Tula wrote:On November 26 2013 10:06 KwarK wrote:
I'm gonna stick with my "Nazis were shitty people" theory if it's all the same to you Moltke. And all of us here know that you are far too intelligent to make such a generalisation seriously. Though I must ask how we drifted to Nazi-Germany again? I seem to have missed a turn or two in the last page. Freedom itself isn't worth anything obviously, it is an ideal or state of being some people claim to seek. If you leave philosophy and consider how "free" you as an individual specifically are you'll find many things restricting your freedom that either benefit you, or that pay off in other less obvious ways. Classic example are families, often you will behave in certain ways (differing depending on the family obviously) to fit in with yours. On the one hand that makes you less free, but obviously you will gain things (love, acknowledgement, support etc.) from it. Society as a whole restricts quite a few of your individual freedoms to either set some ground rules of behavior or to try and make us get along. The amount of freedom people are willing to give up to live peacefully in a society was one of the basic tenents of the formation of states. You might argue that we have given up too much, personally I think in some areas that that is true, but the fundamental principle is still sound. On November 26 2013 10:10 IgnE wrote:
The world is the will to power. Legal conditions are simply anemic restrictions on the will of life, and are therefore subordinate to its goals. As Nietzsche would say:
A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general perhaps after the communistic cliché of Dühring, that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Right, so we should do away with legal order and go back to might makes right? I'm honestly confused what you are trying to say. Obviously laws try to regulate how we behave specifically to prevent that. Legal conditions (Laws in other words) are what enables us to live together semi-peacefully frankly I'm fine with giving up a bit of my freedom for that (in any other case I'd need to stop discussing this here and instead try to find the nearest bunker to prepare for a siege... to take this argument ab absurdum). Laws are manifestations of some other's power. Slave-slaveholder relations can also outwardly be pretty peaceful. Funny how all extreme views always seem to try to equate modern society with slave-holding society on some level at least to make their tortured point. Heard it from anarcho-capitalists asking what is the difference between taxes and slavery, heard it from communists saying any hierarchical ownership is equal to slavery. Now we have this equation of laws and slavery. People love their black and white views and flawed analogies. Master-Serf makes no difference. The problem with the 'law' as is, is both the perception of the people that it is codified social engineering instead of recognition of justice and liberty, and that it is highly hypocritical (e.g. The State determines itself a monopoly on a wide range of services, but then 'outlaws' what it believes to be monopoly (having a certain % of market share), then there is the legalized thievery and barbarism of so-called Police who can beat you, kill you, etc. without provocation and then be heralded as hero's...Miriam Carey anyone?). The former is probably a bigger problem than the latter. Society today has become a cesspool of petty tyrants all wanting to legislate their personal preferences - are you the nanny-state socialist, the bible-thumper, the inquisitor, the real petty tyrant who just wants to tell others what they can do, or are you the idealistic type who wants to mold everyone into his/her version of ideal, etc. The recognition that we own ourselves, and thus have inalienable liberties that have no justification to be aggressed against is hardly to be seen in the fabric of society. The Marxists say homesteading and the liberty of trade and contract is slavery, the Socialists say you the individual are a nuisance and the collective must be served (though the collective is always headed by an individual...who usually enjoys all the benefits at the expense of the lay people), the Bible-thumpers say the Kingdom of Heaven must be brought to Earth and any transgression should be highly penalized and outlawed, and here the libertarian sits and says, hold on, none of you have any right over the body and actions of another, that the law must be for the upholding of justice as defined as a violation of individual liberty, and shut the fuck up and start worrying about your own life instead of being busy-bodies and moral-do-gooders in everyone elses. We're at a point in society where we just need to say Fuck you, your imposed systems, your hypocrisy, we're going to live our own lives and if you want a fight, we're more than ready. At least America has a tradition to look back upon...maybe we'll find that spirit once more. We live in times where you are more free and more prosperous than any other time in history in any reasonable objective measure you might choose. People claiming how bad things are compared to imaginary period in the past simply do not know the past. Things can be better and we should try to make them better, but saying there was point in a past where they were better is just either ignorance of that past or completely skewed perspective. . I'd also argue that western culture peaked in the enlightenment when science and philosophy was like pop culture today, but it has been on the decline ever since. ...the enlightenment when 99% of the population were some kind of serf or slave? man, and i thought republicans with their lets go back to the 50s bizzaro nastaliga were weird...
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On November 26 2013 14:55 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 14:47 stroggozzz wrote:On November 26 2013 14:06 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 13:56 Wegandi wrote:On November 26 2013 12:45 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 12:23 IgnE wrote:On November 26 2013 11:39 Tula wrote:On November 26 2013 10:06 KwarK wrote:
I'm gonna stick with my "Nazis were shitty people" theory if it's all the same to you Moltke. And all of us here know that you are far too intelligent to make such a generalisation seriously. Though I must ask how we drifted to Nazi-Germany again? I seem to have missed a turn or two in the last page. Freedom itself isn't worth anything obviously, it is an ideal or state of being some people claim to seek. If you leave philosophy and consider how "free" you as an individual specifically are you'll find many things restricting your freedom that either benefit you, or that pay off in other less obvious ways. Classic example are families, often you will behave in certain ways (differing depending on the family obviously) to fit in with yours. On the one hand that makes you less free, but obviously you will gain things (love, acknowledgement, support etc.) from it. Society as a whole restricts quite a few of your individual freedoms to either set some ground rules of behavior or to try and make us get along. The amount of freedom people are willing to give up to live peacefully in a society was one of the basic tenents of the formation of states. You might argue that we have given up too much, personally I think in some areas that that is true, but the fundamental principle is still sound. On November 26 2013 10:10 IgnE wrote:
The world is the will to power. Legal conditions are simply anemic restrictions on the will of life, and are therefore subordinate to its goals. As Nietzsche would say:
A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general perhaps after the communistic cliché of Dühring, that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Right, so we should do away with legal order and go back to might makes right? I'm honestly confused what you are trying to say. Obviously laws try to regulate how we behave specifically to prevent that. Legal conditions (Laws in other words) are what enables us to live together semi-peacefully frankly I'm fine with giving up a bit of my freedom for that (in any other case I'd need to stop discussing this here and instead try to find the nearest bunker to prepare for a siege... to take this argument ab absurdum). Laws are manifestations of some other's power. Slave-slaveholder relations can also outwardly be pretty peaceful. Funny how all extreme views always seem to try to equate modern society with slave-holding society on some level at least to make their tortured point. Heard it from anarcho-capitalists asking what is the difference between taxes and slavery, heard it from communists saying any hierarchical ownership is equal to slavery. Now we have this equation of laws and slavery. People love their black and white views and flawed analogies. Master-Serf makes no difference. The problem with the 'law' as is, is both the perception of the people that it is codified social engineering instead of recognition of justice and liberty, and that it is highly hypocritical (e.g. The State determines itself a monopoly on a wide range of services, but then 'outlaws' what it believes to be monopoly (having a certain % of market share), then there is the legalized thievery and barbarism of so-called Police who can beat you, kill you, etc. without provocation and then be heralded as hero's...Miriam Carey anyone?). The former is probably a bigger problem than the latter. Society today has become a cesspool of petty tyrants all wanting to legislate their personal preferences - are you the nanny-state socialist, the bible-thumper, the inquisitor, the real petty tyrant who just wants to tell others what they can do, or are you the idealistic type who wants to mold everyone into his/her version of ideal, etc. The recognition that we own ourselves, and thus have inalienable liberties that have no justification to be aggressed against is hardly to be seen in the fabric of society. The Marxists say homesteading and the liberty of trade and contract is slavery, the Socialists say you the individual are a nuisance and the collective must be served (though the collective is always headed by an individual...who usually enjoys all the benefits at the expense of the lay people), the Bible-thumpers say the Kingdom of Heaven must be brought to Earth and any transgression should be highly penalized and outlawed, and here the libertarian sits and says, hold on, none of you have any right over the body and actions of another, that the law must be for the upholding of justice as defined as a violation of individual liberty, and shut the fuck up and start worrying about your own life instead of being busy-bodies and moral-do-gooders in everyone elses. We're at a point in society where we just need to say Fuck you, your imposed systems, your hypocrisy, we're going to live our own lives and if you want a fight, we're more than ready. At least America has a tradition to look back upon...maybe we'll find that spirit once more. We live in times where you are more free and more prosperous than any other time in history in any reasonable objective measure you might choose. People claiming how bad things are compared to imaginary period in the past simply do not know the past. Things can be better and we should try to make them better, but saying there was point in a past where they were better is just either ignorance of that past or completely skewed perspective. . I'd also argue that western culture peaked in the enlightenment when science and philosophy was like pop culture today, but it has been on the decline ever since. ...the enlightenment when 99% of the population were some kind of serf or slave? man, and i thought republicans with their lets go back to the 50s bizzaro nastaliga were weird...
You're going to make that point even when the enlightenment philosophy was against that?
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On November 26 2013 15:02 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 14:55 Sub40APM wrote:On November 26 2013 14:47 stroggozzz wrote:On November 26 2013 14:06 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 13:56 Wegandi wrote:On November 26 2013 12:45 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 12:23 IgnE wrote:On November 26 2013 11:39 Tula wrote:On November 26 2013 10:06 KwarK wrote:
I'm gonna stick with my "Nazis were shitty people" theory if it's all the same to you Moltke. And all of us here know that you are far too intelligent to make such a generalisation seriously. Though I must ask how we drifted to Nazi-Germany again? I seem to have missed a turn or two in the last page. Freedom itself isn't worth anything obviously, it is an ideal or state of being some people claim to seek. If you leave philosophy and consider how "free" you as an individual specifically are you'll find many things restricting your freedom that either benefit you, or that pay off in other less obvious ways. Classic example are families, often you will behave in certain ways (differing depending on the family obviously) to fit in with yours. On the one hand that makes you less free, but obviously you will gain things (love, acknowledgement, support etc.) from it. Society as a whole restricts quite a few of your individual freedoms to either set some ground rules of behavior or to try and make us get along. The amount of freedom people are willing to give up to live peacefully in a society was one of the basic tenents of the formation of states. You might argue that we have given up too much, personally I think in some areas that that is true, but the fundamental principle is still sound. On November 26 2013 10:10 IgnE wrote:
The world is the will to power. Legal conditions are simply anemic restrictions on the will of life, and are therefore subordinate to its goals. As Nietzsche would say:
A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general perhaps after the communistic cliché of Dühring, that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Right, so we should do away with legal order and go back to might makes right? I'm honestly confused what you are trying to say. Obviously laws try to regulate how we behave specifically to prevent that. Legal conditions (Laws in other words) are what enables us to live together semi-peacefully frankly I'm fine with giving up a bit of my freedom for that (in any other case I'd need to stop discussing this here and instead try to find the nearest bunker to prepare for a siege... to take this argument ab absurdum). Laws are manifestations of some other's power. Slave-slaveholder relations can also outwardly be pretty peaceful. Funny how all extreme views always seem to try to equate modern society with slave-holding society on some level at least to make their tortured point. Heard it from anarcho-capitalists asking what is the difference between taxes and slavery, heard it from communists saying any hierarchical ownership is equal to slavery. Now we have this equation of laws and slavery. People love their black and white views and flawed analogies. Master-Serf makes no difference. The problem with the 'law' as is, is both the perception of the people that it is codified social engineering instead of recognition of justice and liberty, and that it is highly hypocritical (e.g. The State determines itself a monopoly on a wide range of services, but then 'outlaws' what it believes to be monopoly (having a certain % of market share), then there is the legalized thievery and barbarism of so-called Police who can beat you, kill you, etc. without provocation and then be heralded as hero's...Miriam Carey anyone?). The former is probably a bigger problem than the latter. Society today has become a cesspool of petty tyrants all wanting to legislate their personal preferences - are you the nanny-state socialist, the bible-thumper, the inquisitor, the real petty tyrant who just wants to tell others what they can do, or are you the idealistic type who wants to mold everyone into his/her version of ideal, etc. The recognition that we own ourselves, and thus have inalienable liberties that have no justification to be aggressed against is hardly to be seen in the fabric of society. The Marxists say homesteading and the liberty of trade and contract is slavery, the Socialists say you the individual are a nuisance and the collective must be served (though the collective is always headed by an individual...who usually enjoys all the benefits at the expense of the lay people), the Bible-thumpers say the Kingdom of Heaven must be brought to Earth and any transgression should be highly penalized and outlawed, and here the libertarian sits and says, hold on, none of you have any right over the body and actions of another, that the law must be for the upholding of justice as defined as a violation of individual liberty, and shut the fuck up and start worrying about your own life instead of being busy-bodies and moral-do-gooders in everyone elses. We're at a point in society where we just need to say Fuck you, your imposed systems, your hypocrisy, we're going to live our own lives and if you want a fight, we're more than ready. At least America has a tradition to look back upon...maybe we'll find that spirit once more. We live in times where you are more free and more prosperous than any other time in history in any reasonable objective measure you might choose. People claiming how bad things are compared to imaginary period in the past simply do not know the past. Things can be better and we should try to make them better, but saying there was point in a past where they were better is just either ignorance of that past or completely skewed perspective. . I'd also argue that western culture peaked in the enlightenment when science and philosophy was like pop culture today, but it has been on the decline ever since. ...the enlightenment when 99% of the population were some kind of serf or slave? man, and i thought republicans with their lets go back to the 50s bizzaro nastaliga were weird... You're going to make that point even when the enlightenment philosophy was against that?
Why wouldn't he? The popular culture of the Enlightenment is only progressive if one defines "popular culture" as that enjoyed by an incredibly small minority of the Western world. Granted, this sort of inquiry then begs the question as to what exactly constitutes "culture" when the production of expressive forms is dominated by a small group of people, but I think the point of Sub40APM's post is that one effectively needs to ignore the majority of crushed peasantry (and population at large) in order to genuinely think that the bygone days of the Enlightenment were truly "better" than today.
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On November 26 2013 09:42 MoltkeWarding wrote:
The legalistic epoch of Western Civilization appeared sometime during the apex of the Modern Age in the 18th century, reached its zenith during the Victorian Era and suffered a long and steady erosion since the shattering of the long peace in 1914. That today ethical legalism is being deconstructed by all kinds of "realists" is hardly insightful or revolutionary.
In 1914 Bethmann Hollweg's denunciation of the Treaty of London as a "scrap of paper" was shocking to the civilised world, precisely because it represented the violation of an ethical custom which, whatever shortcomings it may appear to possess today, was a positive constructive identity upon which a standard for civilised behaviour had been based for over a century.
And this is why Kwark as usual is completely wrong in his interpretation of the ethical significance of "Nazi Germany" in the 20th century: the Germans were merely the first to recognise the validity of his own principles: neither in 1914 and 1933 did they feel that they owed loyalty to outdated treaties, or an unpopular democratic constitution, or an illegitimate republic. Nor did it have anything to do with the "quality of the people"; the German middle-classes were the best-educated and most idealistic people in the world. That they were so exacerbated, rather than relieved the problem. During the first half of the 20th century, the German claim to moral supremacy over the "mercantile" English was based on an ethical self-conception, that German values of Bildung and Kultur were superior to shallow English values (well summarised by Biff's citation.) The Germans were the first to realise the supremacy of individual self-cultivation over petty legalism, and history will speak to its fate. For millions of Germans, the coming of Hitler represented a kind of liberation from a poisonous bourgeois order, from outdated modes of social duties and engagements which no longer seemed relevant for the modern world.
On November 26 2013 13:56 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 12:45 mcc wrote:On November 26 2013 12:23 IgnE wrote:On November 26 2013 11:39 Tula wrote:On November 26 2013 10:06 KwarK wrote:
I'm gonna stick with my "Nazis were shitty people" theory if it's all the same to you Moltke. And all of us here know that you are far too intelligent to make such a generalisation seriously. Though I must ask how we drifted to Nazi-Germany again? I seem to have missed a turn or two in the last page. Freedom itself isn't worth anything obviously, it is an ideal or state of being some people claim to seek. If you leave philosophy and consider how "free" you as an individual specifically are you'll find many things restricting your freedom that either benefit you, or that pay off in other less obvious ways. Classic example are families, often you will behave in certain ways (differing depending on the family obviously) to fit in with yours. On the one hand that makes you less free, but obviously you will gain things (love, acknowledgement, support etc.) from it. Society as a whole restricts quite a few of your individual freedoms to either set some ground rules of behavior or to try and make us get along. The amount of freedom people are willing to give up to live peacefully in a society was one of the basic tenents of the formation of states. You might argue that we have given up too much, personally I think in some areas that that is true, but the fundamental principle is still sound. On November 26 2013 10:10 IgnE wrote:
The world is the will to power. Legal conditions are simply anemic restrictions on the will of life, and are therefore subordinate to its goals. As Nietzsche would say:
A legal order thought of as sovereign and universal, not as a means in the struggle between power complexes but as a means of preventing all struggle in general perhaps after the communistic cliché of Dühring, that every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness. Right, so we should do away with legal order and go back to might makes right? I'm honestly confused what you are trying to say. Obviously laws try to regulate how we behave specifically to prevent that. Legal conditions (Laws in other words) are what enables us to live together semi-peacefully frankly I'm fine with giving up a bit of my freedom for that (in any other case I'd need to stop discussing this here and instead try to find the nearest bunker to prepare for a siege... to take this argument ab absurdum). Laws are manifestations of some other's power. Slave-slaveholder relations can also outwardly be pretty peaceful. Funny how all extreme views always seem to try to equate modern society with slave-holding society on some level at least to make their tortured point. Heard it from anarcho-capitalists asking what is the difference between taxes and slavery, heard it from communists saying any hierarchical ownership is equal to slavery. Now we have this equation of laws and slavery. People love their black and white views and flawed analogies. Master-Serf makes no difference. The problem with the 'law' as is, is both the perception of the people that it is codified social engineering instead of recognition of justice and liberty, and that it is highly hypocritical (e.g. The State determines itself a monopoly on a wide range of services, but then 'outlaws' what it believes to be monopoly (having a certain % of market share), then there is the legalized thievery and barbarism of so-called Police who can beat you, kill you, etc. without provocation and then be heralded as hero's...Miriam Carey anyone?). The former is probably a bigger problem than the latter. Society today has become a cesspool of petty tyrants all wanting to legislate their personal preferences - are you the nanny-state socialist, the bible-thumper, the inquisitor, the real petty tyrant who just wants to tell others what they can do, or are you the idealistic type who wants to mold everyone into his/her version of ideal, etc. The recognition that we own ourselves, and thus have inalienable liberties that have no justification to be aggressed against is hardly to be seen in the fabric of society. The Marxists say homesteading and the liberty of trade and contract is slavery, the Socialists say you the individual are a nuisance and the collective must be served (though the collective is always headed by an individual...who usually enjoys all the benefits at the expense of the lay people), the Bible-thumpers say the Kingdom of Heaven must be brought to Earth and any transgression should be highly penalized and outlawed, and here the libertarian sits and says, hold on, none of you have any right over the body and actions of another, that the law must be for the upholding of justice as defined as a violation of individual liberty, and shut the fuck up and start worrying about your own life instead of being busy-bodies and moral-do-gooders in everyone elses. We're at a point in society where we just need to say Fuck you, your imposed systems, your hypocrisy, we're going to live our own lives and if you want a fight, we're more than ready. At least America has a tradition to look back upon...maybe we'll find that spirit once more.
Two quite brilliant posts. Whether you agree with the premises or not they are both well written and thought provoking.
What is most lacking today is a simple sense of humility. Too many of the over-educated spend their hours reinforcing their own beliefs and rejecting any quite legitimate counters or criticisms to their convictions. They read books which reinforce their beliefs, rationalize any inconsistencies, and look down on those who think differently than they do, as sort of a defense mechanism. And this, because they've come to personally identify with their philosophy. They have convinced themselves they know what is best for the world, and have rooted out all necessary doubt.
It's all quite common and quite harmless until these excessive convictions reach a position of power. A man of great conviction is a dangerous thing, especially when that conviction is not tempered with the humility to accept that you could be in error, and that imposing your will upon others because you are sure they are wrong could lead to not only their harm and ruin but your own as well. Unfortunately the more educated by modern institutions a person is, the less likely they appear to doubt their own learning. We've come too far from Socratic wisdom.
User was banned for this post.
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