Diebert wrote:Buddha or how I imagine the teacher, spoke of "life is suffering" and then went on explaining what he meant with life and suffering. Life as the ignorant view on "self" and all effort to maintain it. All suffering is this ignorance. All suffering is this drama. The world needs to get rid of the false self and concepts of "life" which are not life at all, which are not as consequential as the false self keeps believing. This might sound weirdly metaphysical but in light of this thinking the whole old, stale, familiar world becomes quickly very weird and metaphysical; the false.
In the end, or at the beginning, I think this is where you most dynamically key-into the Quinnean doctrines and is also of course why you are forced to support the reductions of our dear brother Dennis. You have bought into and subscribed to the given doctrines at a core level.
This might sound weirdly metaphysical...
It is what it is. Let us not mistake the label 'metaphysical' for the factual content of your statement! But let us
stick with the
meaning of and in that statement. This is pretty important stuff...
Your opposition to 'me', and your attempts to label, oppose, resist, etc., the things I suggest oppositionally (taking as I do an opposing stance and in favor of a group of other ideas, meanings and ideals), is part of your cooperative service in defending the central doctrines of the founders of the forum. You are like a corporate front-man: the public relations man with a friendly enough face---a well-scrubbed face, an articulate voice, and most importantly an apparent neutrality---to appear before the cameras, to put the needed spin on things, but to always keep the discourse functioning within certain channels. When push comes to shove, though, you reveal your affiliations and your limitations. It is good, though, for you to reveal your basic affiliation. There is a huge amount of extraneous material that you carry with you but I think it is safe to say---indeed, you say it---that your viewpoint, your basic viewpoint, is expressed in the above paragraph. It is not at all easy to get you to 'fundamentally reveal yourself' because you appear as anything but 'orthodox'. But is it fair to say that at the base you, in your way, have established [what I call] a reduced platform around which to organize your ideology?
The rest of what you write about me: your attempts to corral me into your definitions, are not worth responding to. Or, as you know, it only brings me down into the area that you are quite comfortable operating in. [This is too a branch of 'petty tyrantism' and there are moments when you come out behind your veil and, at least I think so, one sees what is really there]. In fact it is your main area of operation, isn't it? Is it possible that this is what this Diebert is really about in the end? A shutting down of the possibility of conversation? A corralling of the conversation into tight, pre-established perimeters? The reduction of the conversation to some neo-Buddhist predicates? A desperate and concerted effort to uphold the predicates against all comers? But it is important to note that in articulating such definitions (of me), which are essentially inaccurate (whereas my definitions are
essentially precise) that, again, you reveal your chief function on the forum and to the forum. At various times I have called you 'the greeter on a philosophical Walmart' or a 'Dutch philosophical den-mother', and this was all devilish irony and jabs of course. Could it be that I was right? But I resolve only to pose questions here: What exactly
IS your role here?
Things are often only abstract to those not understanding the thing. Anyway, you assume to have defined "reality" in some way to be able to judge when people are retreating from it. But what you have is only your version of what you think is life and reality. Why even think it's shared? We can just as well define "being human" as the primal attempt to retreat from "reality", which has been described as a basic "absurdity" to our minds when we really try to look at it without blinders. Absurdity, utter absurdity, the preacher exclaimed, according to some scholarly translators. You can also find that view in some existentialist writing. What is the classification "neurotic" then apart from a convenient social structure to organize behavior inside a system. The same system you appear to oppose.
It is in this sort of writing that I say you get 'slippery'. When I say 'abstract' I am referring to a substitution of an idea-realm for that of a factual existence-realm, but the unnecessary mistaking of the idea-realm for the 'more real real'. This is the danger in any religious and theological system. And yet we really are symbolizing animals, and we hold a symbolic world in our mind and then 'relate' to it, interact with it. And though it is true, in a certain way, that 'reality' will always remain undefinable and even contended [as to what it is, why it is, and what we are to do with it], I nevertheless assert that you, Diebert, operate not from a position of clarity about 'it' but from one of self-obfuscation.
You are confused. But you are not alone, not by any means: and you are not in control, and it is not necessarily, a conscious attitude. And when you ask 'Why even think it's shared?' [this definition of 'reality' that constitutes my predicates] I would begin to answer by saying that an answer to that question can be attempted when we can define what is lost when our 'reality' is destroyed. So, what is 'real' for the South Vietnamese (as in the video Hearts & Minds) is not something abstract and difficult to agree on! It is, at that level of terror, the loss of the platform where life occurs, the destruction of it.
And this is why that whole issue [war, conquest, racism] had such poignancy and deep-relevance. It is when one faces what is lost, what can be or is destroyed, that one gains a certain sobriety. One very quickly 'locates' the 'real real'.
Now, you are not an unintelligent fellow, so you should be able to make this distinction, but in fact I don't think you can. So, we can start from a point of seeing and articulating a position of 'total loss', of devastation, and the cost to those who suffer such a loss. And then we build back up from that point. And we will absolutely arrive at 'agreements'
We can just as well define "being human" as the primal attempt to retreat from "reality", which has been described as a basic "absurdity" to our minds when we really try to look at it without blinders. Absurdity, utter absurdity, the preacher exclaimed, according to some scholarly translators. You can also find that view in some existentialist writing. What is the classification "neurotic" then apart from a convenient social structure to organize behavior inside a system. The same system you appear to oppose.
And you are right in certain ways to point this out. But while you say 'retreat from reality' I will say 'react to reality' and this changes it, subtly but significantly. And what seems to be the upshot of it [any system of abstraction] is how we chose to act with our abstractions in relation to 'real life' which, as I assert, is known when you start from the position of the utter destruction of the platform of it. When you start building it up again (factually of course, but here in this conversation
imaginedly) you then have a solid definition of 'reality'.
It is your essential problem, my friend, that you are stuck within loops of 'absurdity' and that you
choose to react as you do to that perception. I can't quite take your reference to Ecclesiastes in seriousness since what you have done is twist it all over to serve your own neo-Buddhism. But it seems to be pretty central to your own organization of your own perception of your own relationship to life and to reality. And it is useful I think to see you spell it out.
What is the classification "neurotic" then apart from a convenient social structure to organize behavior inside a system.
Sure, and that is a valid critique. Except perhaps in the present context. I am defining 'neurotic' against a specific backdrop. Again, such a 'neurosis' that might occur after, say, your village had just been bombed to smithereens and all your family killed, is an example of a pathological reaction. One could go into insanity, deep depression, a never-ending melancholy, or one could, somehow, remain engaged in life. The trauma we face either breaks us or we organize ourselves against it and maintain wholeness. For me, this is the test of 'reality'. Your definition of 'neurotic' is a little different: a social judgment of appropriate behavior. I am placing a much wider spin on it.
