Statement about Solway and Trump

[jimhaz]

Because Trump and his cohorts are clearly far more unhinged and ignorant than preceding administrations, their behaviour is far odder, the times are far stranger and the normal democratic checks and balances are not as healthy as they used to be.

I found the following essay presented well structured points that relate to “checks and balances” – see “8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against”.

Although the essay isn't likely to contain anything folks here don’t already know, one can see what the end outcome of Trump’s team attempts to remove checks and balances, is likely to be.

http://donellameadows.org/archives/leve ... -a-system/

[Diebert van Rhijn]

[Can you understand that when someone campaigns on rolling back the involvements in overseas conflicts and as well announces to roll back government size, it could sound like a good plan in principle?]

Like his nuclear..umm..policy/statements/rant/fucked up tweets?

That has nothing to do with the total size and scope of current government programs or involvement in overseas conflict. By the way, it's not that difficult to follow Trump here: 1. we need less of those horrible weapons, preferably none at al, but 2. since others are still acquiring them nevertheless we should be top of the pack with modernisation. This is just the same old Obama's $1 trillion modernization plan. Plus indeed others in the world were already expanding there own programs.

So all we have is dozens of dumb and fucked up interpretations and speculation on tweets (and yes Trump should not tweet).

I found the following essay presented well structured points that relate to “checks and balances” – see “8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against”.

Although the essay isn't likely to contain anything folks here don’t already know, one can see what the end outcome of Trump’s team attempts to remove checks and balances, is likely to be.

http://donellameadows.org/archives/leve ... -a-system/

It's entirely unclear what you want to say with the article on this topic. Much of it could be used in favour of Trump as well. It doesn't address all the democratic checks and balances embedded in all the institutions, including the military, which are upheld actively every day through law and instruction, by reviews and challenges.

[jupiviv]

Jup,

Dan Rowden demonstrated this perfectly with his wall of text containing names of previous forum members!

What do you imagine was my purpose for posting those names, btw? I suspect you are misunderstanding it completely.

I was only following the "logic" and "evidence" you and David (and other liberals) use when piling shit on Trump/the alt right. Which is ironic because there's so much room for legitimate criticism.

@David Quinn,

Here I'm seeing one more example of what Diebert said earlier - "linking philosophy directly to a certain life style, politics and ideas how society should practically work".

These things are always linked. I don’t support the lifestyle of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, because my knowledge of reality and human psychology sees through that kind of sham. Nor do I support pedophillia (because my knowledge of reality and human psychology sees into the terrible affects of such behaviour). And so on and so forth.

You're avoiding the issue, which is your direct *support* - not *rejection* - of a specific lifestyle that has no more to do with wisdom than any other, even though it may differ from such on other counts.

Given the reality of how deluded and evil people are, democracy is normally the safest bet as it decentralizes power and spreads it across many different sections of society. It works as a kind of harm minimization strategy - although, admittedly, it is not working too well at the moment.

This is like saying that time-sharing methodologies allowed computers to become exponentially faster. Putting the horse before the cart, in other words. Harm minimising democracy functions only when harm minimising conditions exist. It's not some magic ideal that works as long we believe it does, to quote your words from earlier. A wise man's focus should be on the common origin of *all* beliefs in magic instead of concurrent salubrity.

Anarchy only leads to criminals and thugs taking over, and I don’t see any value in that.

I usually remember what I read:

http://theabsolute.net/phpBB/viewtopic. ... chy#p74319

if everyone in a community was enlightened, then anarchy would probably be the natural outcome.

So I guess you'd need at least a majority of sages to support anarchy. The exact same logic applies to all other governmental forms, including liberal democracy.

They may well have been irresponsible and ignorant, but Trump and his cohorts have taken it to another level completely.

You've made this up. All the examples of "another level" that you did provide are wrong. For example, you refer to his animosity with the MSM, but such animosity is not illegal, uncalled for or inappropriate to my mind for reasons already stated.

Trump is leading a large populist movement, which means that he possesses a serious source of political power that previous administrations did not have.

Granted, but he is also opposed by a large number of people. Even Obama had a large populist movement behind him. The difference is that his populist movement wasn't called that by the MSM and eventually fused with the mainstream. The latter is actually happening - unsurprisingly - to Trump's movement right now.

Most of the Republican party has been utterly cowed by it, and Trump is currently trying to nobble the media and the intelligence services in the same way.

Can you provide specific instances of such cowing and nobbling?

[Dan Rowden]

I was only following the "logic" and "evidence" you and David (and other liberals) use when piling shit on Trump/the alt right

There we go.

[Dan Rowden]

Btw, outside of the self indulgent safety of this forum, what do you, Jupivivity, and you, Diebert, do to promote wisdom?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Dan Rowden demonstrated this perfectly with his wall of text containing names of previous forum members!

What do you imagine was my purpose for posting those names, btw? I suspect you are misunderstanding it completely.

Well enlighten us. What had that list to do with anything being discussed at this moment? Looks to me like an enormous red herring.

They may have the luxury of not being thus concerned, but therein maybe lies the point here - does politics and socio-economic issues, in a broad sense, mean anything? How many are free, given the politics of their nation, to pursue philosophy to its end?

Every functioning human mind is as "free" as the next one, to unwind and unbind from its delusional existence.

doesn't mean that politics doesn't matter and that people interested in enlightenment shouldn't be concerned about it.

Which nobody claimed. Be all concerned about it as you seem fit! The discussion was about how to link such "interest in enlightenment" with vocally distancing oneself radically from the politics and views of people named by that very same list you posted. What it seems to do is turning relative truth, ideas on what is good or bad for society, families, unemployed people or the economy, into something absolute or at least trying to make it into some measurement of rationality and with that the capacity to comprehend absolute truth or live philosophically. And that goes against the very essence of the matter. Living philosophically has only meaning on the individual, contextual level. There's simply little or no link with the ten thousand aspects of activism or political views. To claim it does is just a common religious trap, the same curse which turned many good philosophies in dumb, womanly or "late" decadent religions over ages, when it got "old"...

So there's a good reason why there's some push back against the various claims in this thread. And they are extremely rational and consistent so far.

[Dan Rowden]

Dan Rowden demonstrated this perfectly with his wall of text containing names of previous forum members!

What do you imagine was my purpose for posting those names, btw? I suspect you are misunderstanding it completely.

Well enlighten us. What had that list to do with anything being discussed at this moment? Looks to me like an enormous red herring.

What the fuck happened to you people? Go back and look at the context. Did you never notice the practical realities of the lives of these people? Were you so self involved you never noticed their day to day reality and how that impacted their capacity to engage themselves fully in unbridled introspection?

Have you not considered those that are dead because of us, combined with that inability to be free? Have you no sense of this at all? Have you no sense of the waste of that?

I showed that list for a reason and if you don't get it you're being obtuse.

[Santiago Odo]

My impression so far runs like this: I do not think either David or Dan have enough information to be able to understand the movement, which it does seem to be, that over the next cycle of time will turn against (to use the general and insufficient term) 'liberalism'. I use the term 'hyper-liberalism' to distinguish it from what I understand as sane European Liberalism of the older school which, now, is beginning to look more like a conservative form.

It seems to me fair to say that Dan and David are repeating standard story-lines about the present forms of social liberalism, globalization, open markets and open borders. I must say that I find this odd and not very defensible from a philosophical perspective. And certainly if one considers what an open and far-ranging philosophical conversation *should* be in relation to what is a radical philosophy (as is, or was, the defined stance which gave rise to this forum and the assertions that arise from it). I would go so far as to say that Dan and David seem to me to be repeating the story-line that is pumped through the standard media-systems which have framed everything about Trump, his policy positions, the people he has attracted to his project, the American conservative movement which has been purged from what is today described as 'Conservative' (including its neo-con perversion), and then of course the various right-tending political philosophers and political actors that are now asserting themselves in Europe (and Australia) and gaining ground. My impression so far is that Dan and David really have made no contribution at all to a conversation of substance and the reason is because, I guess, they are not really interested enough in the topic. The reason for this would require a certain amount of time to fill out. But in David's case it seems to hinge on the question, and the problem, of 'identification'. David's position then, if reduced, might be stated like this:

• "The only thing in manifest reality worthy of identification (as in 'to identify with') is the Infinite. All other identifications are false. The liberal world economic model, including globalization policies, and also the ideology of racial and cultural blending, is necessary because inevitable. Therefor 'good' and 'acceptable'. Trump seems to represent turbulance and disruption of that project and therefor an articulated definition of Trump and his policies and the agenda of those around him needs to be stated."

And David has explained his views and his interpretation over the course of his posts.

As I have said, more or less, I think that radicalism of the Genius Philosophical Position is in many senses where its strength lies. Obviously, I take issue with its over-emphasis on abstrations and I think such abstraction is pathological. But there is no sense in repeating all that. Yet the radicalism of the position can be stretched, expanded, corrected, re-directed and focussed into other areas. My basic statement is that we need, and it is required, to seek out concrete identities and to strengthen them. Not to dissolve them. I think that if we engage in a project of dissolving identity, and I think that David demonstrates this, we in fact end up in the circumstances of the present (The Present) and we must needs support those processes. I think, David, you have clearly articulated this and you have given it your philosophical imprimatur.

Yet the positive aspect of the former radical articulations, in my own case at least, has been to push me toward hard and articulated definitions, as I think should be the case in any encounter with any defined and radical position.

Along those lines --- and it is unfortunate to some degree that this could not have become a philosophical debate which would include Kevin's ideas, whatever they are --- and yet I have to guess as to Kevin's positions and the evolution of his ideas, I have come to see that the articulated positions of the Nouvelle Droite and the American Alt-Right are highly worthy political/philosophical positions. In short, there is beginning a rather massive (civilizational?) turn against the hyper-modern trends of the Postwar epoch. The 'turn toward the conservative right' has much in common (and this is distressing in certain ays that must be expressed) with the Interwar conservative and also fascistic movements of Europe in the 1930s. I suppose one might say that the Now is an echo or an octave of the 1930s Interwar period. Well, the 'progressives' sure harp on that, don't they? Yet it is a fact. But this fact is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. Simply because there must arise an ideological movement (of many ideological strains) that counters the movement and motion of The Present. That is, the machine-like, shallow, charging-forward, decimating liberal-economical market-extention flattening & levelling Present in which we live. Is this 'futile' activity, this resistance? I think you would have to ask: Is your own philosophical ideological position and movement futile?

This brings me to the question I asked that you did not answer: You referred to End Times (though you did not capitalize it). What did you mean? It really would seem to be an axial aspect of your position. You would not have made the statement if it did not have relevance. But then, from time to time, you interject into a sort of modified Buddhism rather unusual strains which, I might gather, come from your own Christian background (Catholicism). Yet if we start to envision *our world* in these sorts of terms we are bound to carry forward the articulation. I have no idea what you mean then. But I do understand that these ideas are part-and-parcel of a cultural mythology. And when crisis is upon us it will happen that people will respond along lines that, in one way or another, through the *lenses* that such a view, deeply psychological and metaphysical at the same time, follow the logic of that understanding.

Putting all that aside I would like to suggest that the background of philosophy and idea of the Alt-Right and the Nouvele Droite do not reduce to Milo and Breitbart News! You are making a very serious mistake if you do not seek to expand your understanding of the depth of the Alternative Right and the Nouvelle Droite positions. If Kevin is linked in any degree to the actual philosophy of the Nouvelle Droite then I would say that your encapsulation of his 'turn' is false and even deceptive. Yet I do not blame you since, obviously, you are merely repeating some (it is fair to use this term here) henid-like images of this terrible Alt-Right. There is a vast amount of background to the Nouvelle Droite and much exceedinly interesting idea there.

I did attempt, with limited success I should say, a detailed conversation about the Alt-Right and the Nouvelle Droite here.

I was astounded, I must say, by the general closed-mindedness to some of the ideas of the Nouvelle Droite. I don't think I said anything radical at all, and I must say nothing unethical. I think the ethical aspect is paramount. Yet I am aware that as it pertains to ethics we (that is the Occident) are a little bit confused. Nevertheless if a radical conservatism or a renewed Liberalism (in the old school sense) are to be revivified it will have to occur through clear articulations of ideology and policy which can be defended according to ethical principles. And in my view it can, it very certainly can.

If you read any of this, you will notice the efforts to thwart the conversation at many turns. The 'thwarting' is instructive. I should also say that the Moderator of this forum, who never intervenes in anything, definitely took issue with my writing. It is the sources and the names that I mention (Guillaume Faye, Alain de Benoit, Houston Chamberlain, Madison Grant, Lothrop Stoddard, etc.) which are relevant to my points. These people can all be investigated and their ideas better known.

---GB (AJ)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

. Did you never notice the practical realities of the lives of these people? Were you so self involved you never noticed their day to day reality and how that impacted their capacity to engage themselves fully in unbridled introspection?

The names mean generally little to me. What are they doing exactly in the political or activist sense?

Have you not considered those that are dead because of us, combined with that inability to be free? Have you no sense of this at all? Have you no sense of the waste of that?

Who killed who exactly ? You need to supply some context. Was it a list of religious martyrs? Saints? Do you want to save all the dead souls? Really, that's how it comes across right now. But I consider you a rational person, despite some weird sentimentalism here and there, so I keep asking.

I showed that list for a reason and if you don't get it you're being obtuse.

And I think you are unable to explain what appears more like some emotional outburst with little internal coherence, for the "unwashed" at least.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

As I have said, more or less, I think that radicalism of the Genius Philosophical Position is in many senses where its strength lies. .... Yet the radicalism of the position can be stretched, expanded, corrected, re-directed and focussed into other areas. My basic statement is that we need, and it is required, to seek out concrete identities and to strengthen them. Not to dissolve them. I think that if we engage in a project of dissolving identity, and I think that David demonstrates this, we in fact end up in the circumstances of the present (The Present) and we must needs support those processes. I think, David, you have clearly articulated this and you have given it your philosophical imprimatur.

AJ, what do you think of the idea that, through the back door, identity is here still being sought after, perhaps through this surprisingly firm oppositional stance taken against the new right, alternative news and team Trump in the broadest sense, including all who dares to contemplate partial support or positive interest in that movement (happening, event, reaction, shift, whatever).

If I'd go with your analysis on the effects of "dissolving identity", doesn't it stand to reason some kind of "instinctual" counter-reaction would develop in such "diminished being" (a word you might have used, not sure), to then seek opposition, including isolation, as to strengthen itself, as to survive a little bit longer? Of course all in mental space first and foremost, the head space we moderns tend to live in. But it can happen in daily, physical surroundings just the same, as the spaces are not really separated. And I'm also not applying this to only one or two participants, but I try to get to a more general behavioural principle which then could be mapped to various developments.

In other words, I'm trying to explain this thread as a psychological reaction, as a discussion which is simultaneously countering one identity based politics while strengthening another identity by doing so. Meaning that any concept of any global identity domain would be a phantasm by definition.

[Santiago Odo]

Clearly, that must be the case, mustn't it? I am making all efforts to take David's statements as factual and relevant and to validate that in his view one must establish an identity that identifies with whatever it is he means when he speaks about The Absolute and The Infinite. Therefor, it stands to reason, and seems obvious, that yes, he and they are involved in an identity project. It is that of 'the Sage' according to their definitions. And they represent that identity: What it is, what it should be, what it stands for, et cetera.

What surprises me, and I gather that to some extent it surprises you, is that it would seem to me that a Sage of this sort would dis-involve himself absolutely in political conversations. I am thinking of images of the Taoist Sages in ancient artwork: men who sit in stillness and seem to combine into the environment of nature, the phenomenal world. I am unable to see and understand how this radical posture could become a political posture and one that would allow even opinions to be offered on the present --- mad --- state of the world.

I can follow, completely, the prescription for retirement from active life and to work within the concepts and the theory of an absolute neo-Buddhism. I can follow the requirements of taking a personal stand against feminization-of-self, appetite, desire, and the inevitable tendency of these attitudes to suck one into inprisonment, if I will be permitted to put it like this, within illusory 'realities'. So far so good. What I cannot understand is how such a stance can have any relationship at all with support for liberalism, economic, social or interpersonal.

As you pointed out: We tend here to express and to reexpress the positions which we have held to. I think you said as much to Dan when you commented on his basic 'liberalism'. He is in this sense a 'progressive' on the social scale and he understands the motives of the social justice advocates (I refrain from using the term 'warrior' because, like him, I think to pursue justice is not such a bad object). My impression is that David is much the same, and his stated positions here now seem to back this up.

To answer your question more directly. I do not think it possible to dissolve identity. As you seem to imply the dissolution of identity, as a project, is bound up with the creation of another identity, or another aspect of identity. Therefor the question is more one of purifying identity or perhaps *sorting it out*. At the same time personality is certainly an identity, is it not? And you and I and Dan and David and everyone else certainly have personalities. Thus, identity is inevitable.

I find that in my own case I continue to work with the ideas and the assertions I more or less came with. The core of it is that I think that, yes, one could define an Absolute being, or the Infinite, and speak about releasing identity to those (so to speak). One can imagine a meditation in which one relinquishes identity to the Supreme Being or Existence and, no doubt, many levels of realization will come from that. But always, in the human world --- always! --- the sages and the religiously-oriented people turn their attention to the world of men and, inevitably, offer them simplified symbols to which they can relate and operate in relation to. You cannot remove this, you cannot take it away without replacing it. In this sense then the realizations of men in the upper echelons of ideation create encapsulations, symbol-systems, which become then the mythological structure of man's awareness. This is entirely evident when one studies the origins of the Christian concept-world. Every element of Christian doctrine, every symbol, is an encapsulation of certain concepts which are really quite abstract.

I suggest --- I have certainly said as much --- that if Europe and European man is to recover itself, if this is even possible, it will occur by recovering and revivifying all that which makes the European a European. That is why, and I hope not tiresomely, I have put up the piece by Waldo Frank more than once. In order to understand what we are, we have to actually come to understand what we are; but not in shadow-realizations (and I'd say that most people, in an age that has attacked identity, do not really know who they are and live in 'shadows').

What I find very interesting is not the argument and the non-agreement that arises here, but rather what the foundation of agreement is or can be. Additionally, though I must say it surprises me too, I do not find it at all strange that one would develop an 'identitarian' posture as a result of the radicalsim of the position articulated on these pages. If it is so that this is what has occurred in Kevin's development, I would be very interested to understand that platform better.

The whole thing that is happening here --- this thread, this shift, this evolution, and all the people who are involved here --- cannot but be exceedingly interesting to me. What happens now? Does it all shatter and break apart? Or do understandings coalesce productively into doctrines that can actually take shape and mould the world!

[jupiviv]

Btw, outside of the self indulgent safety of this forum, what do you, Jupivivity, and you, Diebert, do to promote wisdom?

Nothing apart from trying to live wisely myself. I don't know about you, but I haven't had many opportunities to "promote wisdom". That sort of promotion - if it can even be called that - requires a desire to seek it out to be already present. It's *fundamentally* different from promoting a business, a lifestyle or a political viewpoint/policy.

Introspection requires time and an uncluttered mind, but to what extent? Slaves, married men and marketing professionals can't do it, but others can. There's no reason why those others must necessarily be welfare recipients under prosperous western governments, or must necessarily engage in a "national pastime" as David called it of deriding an entire nation for their political views.

Welfare, free speech and liberal governments are all byproducts of a hedonistic age fueled by *incredible* surplus and waste, and they won't survive it. Regardless of the merits of any/all of the above, considering them to be crucial conditions for wisdom to arise and flourish indicates a deep-seated attachment to dolce far niente.

I'm all for living on welfare if it's available or economically sustainable for an indefinite period of time (which it isn't). But it's a bridge too far when attachment to a means of income becomes a philosophical or even a political position. It's one thing to describe, like Kierkegaard, the suffering and quiet hours of contemplation that every sage's life must be comprised of; quite another to establish a very specific, very rare set of conditions as the optimal environment to experience those things.

Does the "suffering servant" get to customise his suffering? Does he get to choose the degree or type of suffering he undergoes, perhaps based on how well it can stimulate and sustain contemplation about spiritual matters? Does he need a suitable environment where he can suffer without getting distracted by *unwanted* suffering? The petty bourgeoisie Trump supporters want to suffer in order to be happy, but Dan and David - whose bohemian lifestyles seem to orbit mainstream, white-collar, liberal-progressive socio-political narratives - want to be happy in order to suffer! Since I've invoked Kierkegaard's name, here's a quote from what I consider to be his best work - "Practice in Christianity" - also posted earlier in this thread by myself:

"Come here, come here, all, all you who labor and are burdened, come here, see, he is inviting you, he is opening his arms!" When an elegant man dressed in silk says this in such a pleasant, melodious voice that it gives a lovely echo in the beautiful vaulted ceiling, a silken man who spreads honor and esteem upon listening to him; when a king in purple and velvet says this against the background of a Christmas tree hung with the glorious gifts he is about to distribute well, then there is some sense to it, isn’t there? But whatever sense it has for you, this much is certain—it is not Christianity; it is the very opposite, as diametrically opposite to Christianity as possible—remember the inviter!

To any young men out there who wish to emulate the words and deeds of these antipodean apostles - remember the inviter!

[Santiago Odo]

Given the reality of how deluded and evil people are, democracy is normally the safest bet as it decentralizes power and spreads it across many different sections of society. It works as a kind of harm minimization strategy - although, admittedly, it is not working too well at the moment.

This is like saying that time-sharing methodologies allowed computers to become exponentially faster. Putting the horse before the cart, in other words. Harm minimising democracy functions only when harm minimising conditions exist. It's not some magic ideal that works as long we believe it does, to quote your words from earlier. A wise man's focus should be on the common origin of *all* beliefs in magic instead of concurrent salubrity.

It is not that I do not understand why David favors this aspect or the present and the opportunities it offers, but rather that I cannot figure why, particularly, he should favor it.

As I have understood the Absolute position, it is intended to be thoroughly radical and completely uncompromising. To carry his position forward, I could imagine the Sage as hoping not for complacent occidental fields of plenty but rather terrifying events and a landscape that shatters the continuities of illusion.

In respect to this, I should say, some Nouvelle Droite philosophers take issue with liberalism and also 'democracy' precisely because it leads to weakening, feminization, and the bland non-tonic of perpetual entertainment culture.

Just this morning, I wanted to say, I was able to listen to some of Jupiviv's musings on various subjects and as it happened, by hearing the tone of voice and such, I gained a better sense of 'who he is'. It would seem to me, though these are rather old recordings, that Jupiviv is attempting to take the absolutist position to its farthest point (a certain use of logic, so-called) and, in relation to this, David's recent sidling-up with liberal cultural and 'Our Modernity' (that is, the peculiarly Occidental variety) must clang in his ears.

It must be something like going to see the Sage and finding him in the hot tub with a hot chick. It just doesn't quite fit.

I am curious to know, Jupiviv, and I sincerely hope that you don't mind me asking, but do you see yourself as having a connection to the 'philosophical schools of India'? Do you see yourself, philosophically, as carrying forward a tradition of India, or a branch of Indian non-dualism? Or, do you eschew any label at all?

[jupiviv]

Alex, no matter how hard you try you will never fit the "absolutist position" into Alexfried's imaginary world where it will presumably function as a zoo exhibit for your own amusement. It will always be an amateurish attempt at cloning, a living slab of meat and bones with an eye sticking out of the privates. The desire to make it resemble the original will keep you coming back to this forum and the same exhausted old "stories" or whatever you call them until...one of you dies, I guess.

On its face, the condensed variety of opinions currently on display is ideal for your performances, as Diebert has observed. Yet, on the whole, it seems to have made you irrelevant because the conflicts and tensions you imagined existed have been replaced by actual ones which you never detected. It's all gone a bit J.G. Ballard both here and, well, everywhere else. We are in Schismatic springtime. The teen mothers are twerking to Twitler while their babies get ironically raped by dangerous faggots in brown face; the birds have been robotised and the bumblebees are going extinct. The loquacious prophet in ass' skin clad is, in the millenial parlance, *so* not random.

I am curious to know, Jupiviv, and I sincerely hope that you don't mind me asking, but do you see yourself as having a connection to the 'philosophical schools of India'?

That's what you would do if you were me I suppose. To answer your question, I have never felt, nor tried to feel, especially connected to Indian philosophy because I'm Indian.

[Russell Parr]

Btw, outside of the self indulgent safety of this forum, what do you, Jupivivity, and you, Diebert, do to promote wisdom?

I've wanted to start a topic on this for some time.

Personally, I find it quite hard to relate wisdom to others around me other than with close friends and family. For me the stark contrast of true wisdom and the lack thereof in most people is overwhelming.

In my heart of hearts I would like to, and eventually will, do something like start a youtube channel or blog to further promote wisdom publically. As of now, I do not feel quite settled enough in life. After a failed single attempt at getting on welfare, and a long break from work, I've decided to start a small business in ecommerce. To gain financial independence has always been a desire of mine since youth. Nothing to do with wisdom, I know, but at least practical. I will admit that I feel as though this is an excuse and that my resolve is not great enough. Any encouragement or hazing by others is welcomed.

___

On Trump, I don't think that he is as bad as he ignorantly makes himself out to be. I do believe the government as-is is thoroughly corrupt (even besides my proclaimed child raping Satanists aspect), and Trump, despite his self-serving, loud mouth, outlandish aspects, was the best choice we had out of the whole sorry lot just for being an outsider/non-politician. Also, the left is a bit too feminized for my liking, and the country (especially the media) has been trending towards an unbearable degree of femininity and PCism. I think one of the significant reasons that Trump got elected is that he represents an outcry of masculinity that a large chunk of the population (particular rural males) senses is being snuffed out.

I would agree with David that Trump is trying to initiate some sort of coup by the look of his elected officials, and as of now, I am ok with it. I also like his ideas on jobs and taxes to some degree.

To be plain, I do not like Trump. I probably would've picked Sanders over him (on second thought, probably not. Bernie is too much a part of the corrupt establishment). But I like the Clintons even less. The last decent candidate was Ron Paul, for his views on the federal reserve, the war on drugs, war itself, and adherence to the constitution.

As I see it, David and Dan are unshakable in their assessment of Trump as the reincarnation of all things bad and view Kevin, Jup, and Diebert's lack of total disdainment towards him to be nothing less than appalling.

On a grander perspective, I think all the disarray and schisms we are witnessing are mere symptoms of a dominant empire in decline. People can sense this decline and are desperately looking for someone to blame. The physical wars, currency wars, and espionage are all just part of what is a natural phase of a large cycle, the reallocation of global powers.

Besides all that, I'll reiterate what others have stated in that this thread largely misses the point of wisdom and doesn't belong on this side of the forum. But it does make for an entertaining interlude of sorts.

[Santiago Odo]

Yet, on the whole, it seems to have made you irrelevant because the conflicts and tensions you imagined existed have been replaced by actual ones which you never detected.

What do you mean by this? How would you describe the 'actual conflicts'?

That's what you would do if you were me I suppose.

No and yes, I'd say. Yet it is more that a person arises out of their context. No one pops out of nothing. Your mind in fact (I pick this up from the way you speak and what you say) is quite Indian. Do you think not?

[Pam Seeback]

Eleven pages of squabbling 'sagacity'...as the world of 'masculinity' turns...

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Eleven pages of squabbling 'sagacity'...as the world of 'masculinity' turns...

I think you are the one squabbling here Pam, with a pointless, whiny one-liner like that. Nobody forced you to turn the pages.

[Santiago Odo]

Nothing apart from trying to live wisely myself. I don't know about you, but I haven't had many opportunities to "promote wisdom". That sort of promotion - if it can even be called that - requires a desire to seek it out to be already present. It's *fundamentally* different from promoting a business, a lifestyle or a political viewpoint/policy.

I think there is a bit of a flaw here. I will make an effort to explain.

First, and reading the post this came from --- a nicely expressed post I thought --- I get the sense from you that, as you seem from time to time to be an 'argument in search of a topic', and many topics will do, similarly and with these references to Kierkegaard and his shadowy depressiveness, you may well also be a 'sufferer in search of a pain'. I guess I just do not sense that in you there can really be that much genuine pain or suffering. It is almost as if suffering, of some sort, has to be sought out in order to justify the sufferer's inner composition. This is a relevant comment in the larger topic (as I understand it) of this thread. As it goes forward I will make efforts to make my meanings as clear as I can. (One other smallish comment: your sardonic humor evokes in my mind the image of a man murdering cockroaches with an ice-pick. That by the by).

No one, and no one of you, has yet offered a convincing definition of 'wisdom'. I do understand that this term circulates among ye and that you-plural must ascribe it, if not to yourself then to the endeavor that you recognize as ur-important. Honestly, I do not want to open up that Pandora's box or, if I do, it will be in a limited form. But there is something to be said about the wisdom of creating out of chaos, in this realm of transient existence, the circumstances in which family, society, culture --- in brief, 'life' --- can flourish. Conversely, those who create suffering or augment it, are not in my view very *wise*.

I listened to your exposition (of 7 years ago) on the theme of sex and have been thinking about it as I have been reviewing some Schopenhauer. Surely this must represent a 'core' of your ideology whatever it is. Though I can understand a certain queasiness in the face of the greasy, sloppy chaos of sexuality, I am simply unable to understand the 'sense' of an ideological platform that is, so essentially, 'anti-life'. That is to say, so adamantly opposed to Eros which, as all the ancients recognized, underpins life in all its aspects. To take a stand against Eros, it might be said, is pure futility since Eros is the juice that stands behind all will and thus existence itself. So the question arises: How could it be seen and asserted as 'wisdom' such a contrived mental attitude that takes such a radical stand against a fundamental reality of life? And call it (Eros) 'irrationality'? And see it as folly and error? And live in accord with that as if it is a higher value? It makes little sense to me.

Therefor, and I suppose *once again*, the entire thrust of a philosophy that situates itself in this pursuit, this negation, really has no business at all assuming that it can offer any guidance to 'the world' and the men in it. And yet it very much attempts this, and resents, it seems, expositions of opposition. This is not however my point.

What is the 'promotion of wisdom'? It is a great question it seems to me. This conversation, this one that has developed over the last month, seems to represent a sort of juncture. It seems to me that it could be fairly said that the so-called 'wisdom path' has developed a crack. The crack between what is identified as good and worthy, and some other, more fundamental and constant, and alive and continuing manifestation of 'life' itself (in the sense of abiding and animating Will). What, then, is the 'promotion of wisdom'?

So, in this sense, it can be seen as very wise indeed the establishment of circumstances that allow people to simply come into life and to live it unencumbered. So then, the creation of 'prosperous' conditions, and I make reference to the Australian welfare state as you, Jupi, did too, really does represent a form of wisdom. It is certainly an Occidental form which, and I do note this, you seem to show a bit of resentment toward. I do not see going on welfare as a very good choice for the individual if it is a life-choice, but the prosperity and the general circumstances that allows it seems to me uniquely Occidental and also very worthy.

In my own view, it is not this 'wisdom' that must be resisted. It is not that culture has allowed so much freedom and prosperity (within limits, as is always the case), but rather that --- in the Schopenhauerian sense, satiated man becomes a man of ennui and ... seeks suffering.

As I understand the topic here it is a suggestion, an accusation really, that someone's choices are seen as non-wise and for that reason the question surges again to the forefront: what is wise? Why?

[jimhaz]

Besides all that, I'll reiterate what others have stated in that this thread largely misses the point of wisdom and doesn't belong on this side of the forum. But it does make for an entertaining interlude of sorts.

I don’t really get why anyone would care about that nowadays. In fact it is a stupid idea to concentrate only on philosophical wisdom when the number of contributors is so low. They need to allow more ‘ordinary’ people a bit of space – they actually need to be looser and less academic, thus allowing newbies to participate and thus create attachment. They still need a clear speaking teacher type though - like David was.

I also like his ideas on jobs and taxes to some degree

On taxes I most definitely disagree. Personally I would tax the over 500k earners at a rate of 80% minimum. Partly that is because the huge public debt, but I’d do it anyway to limit their power and to provide the funds for massive renewable energy installations. The bulk of stupidity in the decision making political world at present stems from their increase in power via mountains of disposable income.

On jobs, I agree with limited protectionism using tariffs – the aim being to create an adequate range of jobs so that those not geared towards service type jobs are doing something useful and gaining a modicum of self-discipline or maturity. The protectionism would be geared towards creating small businesses like furniture and shoe/clothing manufacturers for example.

[I will admit that I feel as though this is an excuse and that my resolve is not great enough. Any encouragement or hazing by others is welcomed]

I don’t personally believe there is any rainbow at the end, so don’t feel any guilt.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I don’t really get why anyone would care about that nowadays. In fact it is a stupid idea to concentrate only on philosophical wisdom when the number of contributors is so low. They need to allow more ‘ordinary’ people a bit of space – they actually need to be looser and less academic, thus allowing newbies to participate and thus create attachment. They still need a clear speaking teacher type though - like David was.

And the Lord Jim said, “It is not good for the forum to be so dry and singular, lets suggest new interesting members for them". But no suitable new membership was found. So the Lord Jim envisioned the forum falling into a deep sleep; and during that sleep, taking one male member and closing up the place with crap. Then the Lord Jim would make Woman from him and introduce her to the forum as more ordinary, looser and less concentrated versions of the same. And Jim saw that it was good and felt no shame.

[David Quinn]

Russell,

As I see it, David and Dan are unshakable in their assessment of Trump as the reincarnation of all things bad and view Kevin, Jup, and Diebert's lack of total disdainment towards him to be nothing less than appalling.

Yes, that’s not a bad way of putting it. There is an ethical dimension to the whole matter which is being suppressed in this discussion. To my way of thinking, the unethical nature of Trump as a man should be enough to alienate and repulse anyone who values virtuous behaviour. Nothing else is required.

This is not to mention the religious nature of the personality cult which has emerged around Trump - this, by rights, should also be a deal-breaker. Nor do I need to mention the folly, from a practical standpoint, of allowing a man who cannot think rationally and habitually avoids facts to make decisions affecting the whole planet. For me at least, all of these things come together to make the rejection of Trump and his movement a no-brainer.

But clearly I am out of step with the times here. Up until a year ago, I was a philosopher standing up for the values of truth, structured thought and rationality. Now suddenly, without changing my values or behaviour in any way, I’m a patsy for the liberal establishment. Just this alone, just the fact that I have to nowadays mount a justification for defending the old-fashioned values of truth and rationality - on Genius Forum no less - shows how much the times have changed, and explains why I think Trump and his cohorts loom in this ethical vacuum as a very real danger to civilization.

I would agree with David that Trump is trying to initiate some sort of coup by the look of his elected officials, and as of now, I am ok with it.

Ok, finally a bit of honesty from the pro-Trumpers. So if I may ask: What are you hoping for Trump to achieve? How far do you want him to go? How much of the liberal establishment do you want him to dismantle? What would trigger in your mind that he has gone too far?

[David Quinn]

As I have said, more or less, I think that radicalism of the Genius Philosophical Position is in many senses where its strength lies. .... Yet the radicalism of the position can be stretched, expanded, corrected, re-directed and focussed into other areas. My basic statement is that we need, and it is required, to seek out concrete identities and to strengthen them. Not to dissolve them. I think that if we engage in a project of dissolving identity, and I think that David demonstrates this, we in fact end up in the circumstances of the present (The Present) and we must needs support those processes. I think, David, you have clearly articulated this and you have given it your philosophical imprimatur.

I agree that it is important to be strong in one's thinking about the Infinite and to clearly understand the need to cease identifying with finite forms. This is an example of serious, masculine thinking, as opposed to the feminine lark of putting on racial dresses and playing fantasy games with others.

AJ, what do you think of the idea that, through the back door, identity is here still being sought after, perhaps through this surprisingly firm oppositional stance taken against the new right, alternative news and team Trump in the broadest sense, including all who dares to contemplate partial support or positive interest in that movement (happening, event, reaction, shift, whatever).

I'd go with your analysis on the effects of "dissolving identity", doesn't it stand to reason some kind of "instinctual" counter-reaction would develop in such "diminished being" (a word you might have used, not sure), to then seek opposition, including isolation, as to strengthen itself, as to survive a little bit longer? Of course all in mental space first and foremost, the head space we moderns tend to live in. But it can happen in daily, physical surroundings just the same, as the spaces are not really separated. And I'm also not applying this to only one or two participants, but I try to get to a more general behavioural principle which then could be mapped to various developments.

In other words, I'm trying to explain this thread as a psychological reaction, as a discussion which is simultaneously countering one identity based politics while strengthening another identity by doing so. Meaning that any concept of any global identity domain would be a phantasm by definition.

That’s how a drug-addict justifies his addiction to a particular drug. He convinces himself that it is impossible to lead a drug-free existence and that even those who adopt a drug-free lifestyle are still in the grip of addiction. He thinks drug-addiction is all there is. He doesn't see that the horizons of his mind are being limited by his addictions.

Even the most cursory understanding of cause and effect brings one to the reality that all life and all things are interconnected, which is the basis of a globalist perspective.

[jupiviv]

First, and reading the post this came from --- a nicely expressed post I thought --- I get the sense from you that, as you seem from time to time to be an 'argument in search of a topic', and many topics will do, similarly and with these references to Kierkegaard and his shadowy depressiveness, you may well also be a 'sufferer in search of a pain'. I guess I just do not sense that in you there can really be that much genuine pain or suffering. It is almost as if suffering, of some sort, has to be sought out in order to justify the sufferer's inner composition. This is a relevant comment in the larger topic (as I understand it) of this thread. As it goes forward I will make efforts to make my meanings as clear as I can. (One other smallish comment: your sardonic humor evokes in my mind the image of a man murdering cockroaches with an ice-pick. That by the by).

The irony of it is that this time you do have a - somewhat - legitimate basis for doing this kind of pseudo-psychoanalysis on David and Dan. One would think you would have jumped at the opportunity and started digging for the elusive QRSian "story". Instead, as usual, you are conjuring up flawed mannequins of anti-Occidental badness to be held up in stark contrast against your assburgers-induced fantasies about western Judeo-Christian (now also "ancient" apparently) culture. This bears out my observation about your irrelevance.

In my own view, it is not this 'wisdom' that must be resisted. It is not that culture has allowed so much freedom and prosperity (within limits, as is always the case), but rather that --- in the Schopenhauerian sense, satiated man becomes a man of ennui and ... seeks suffering.

If a man is fully satiated then he won't suffer. Seeking implies an absence, and suffering likewise involves absence. One can't replace absence with absence. What you should have said is that satiated man regains his appetite in order to satiate it again. Just like heat or cold, the pleasure derived from the fulfilment of desire is a differential of contact with the object/s of desire. dS=dQ/T, i.e. entropy.

Anyway, how is any of that relevant to what I said about suffering, prosperity and welfare? It isn't, and you're having a debate with your own imagination as usual. The rest of your points are either idiotic or have been debunked many times over in the past.

[Santiago Odo]

I agree that it is important to be strong in one's thinking about the Infinite and to clearly understand the need to cease identifying with finite forms. This is an example of serious, masculine thinking, as opposed to the feminine lark of putting on racial dresses and playing fantasy games with others.

Well of course you think that, it is a restatement of your position! But what I am talking about, though similar, is also different. Since the only thing that can hold to a concept such as 'the infinite' (or the 'absolute') is man's mind and consciousness, which is 'metaphysical' to the manifest, shifting and temporal world, this obviously places a great deal of focus on *consciousness* and what hones it and purifies it. In this way one can understand the image of consciousness being the light within the temple of the body, et cetera et cetera. To be able to hold to such a thing, to be able to become aware of it, is evidence of *it* feeding *it* as it were and, in my transcription, I would say that this is certainly what masculinity, as distinguished from chaotic femininity and non-conscious matter, is all about. So, a man becomes a man when he undertakes to hone his consciousness. So far so good.

But it is a fact that when 'man works on man', when Self works on self, and when this occurs over time, this masculine activity, in many different areas and through many processes, *creates our world*. Culture is in obvious senses a masculine project. But still, or I should say in the best case, it is imperative that a man hold to the intansient image of being. That is, Being vs Becoming.

Now 'identity' with oneself in the sense I mean is different from identification with a transient body or the skin's color, hair color, etc. The identity that I focus on is both that which is a product of consciousness, and what consciousness has produced in its cultuvation of the 'self' in the expanded sense that I mean. What is self? It is one's body, which is also subject over time to moulding by conscious choices; one's mind in the sense of the fields of knowledge that one has assembled (library to give it an image); and also one's 'cultural vehicle'.

When one looks at one's body (in this exalted sense) one is forced to recognize that: What I see, what is manifest before me, is nothing more and nothing less than what ancestral consciousness, as previously defined, had been able to create by its activity of cultivation within the manifest world; i.e. 'the body'.

Where I think you make a mistake, and it is clear to me it is a very serious one, is that you do not seem to grasp, enough, that though 'what we have' and 'what we are' and 'what is manifest' is necessarily occurring within transience and perishibility, it is all exceedingly worthy of preseservation. It requires to be preserved. And preserved means: defended; understood, articulated. And just as it is masculine consciousness that created out of *feminine chaos* The World, so too it is masculine consciousness that must defend what has been created. I stand on the side which seeks to defend what has been created.

Now, when I refer to the Alt-Right and the Nouvelle Droite as movements in philosophy, which is also to say a manifestation of *religion* if religion is taken to mean the sum-total of a man's existential praxis; that is, his basic grasp of what it means to have life and to be manifest in this reality as a conscious entity, and if I also suggest that an aspect of the present turn to the right in Europe is part of a movement that resists something undermining to 'self' as I have defined it ('acids' and all that), then I suggest that if you, David, interrogate Kevin a bit more (I am guessing here because I have no idea what he thinks!), you will find that he is noticing that a movement in ideas is coming forward with the intention of correcting excess, renovating more conservative values (though embryonic) and in strengthening the *consciousness* that I have defined as the most important element within masculinity.

Trump is all the things that you say he is and Trump is, beyond any doubt, a dangerous manifestation. One cannot be at all sure what he is up to. But his manifestation is just as confused and confusing as all political manifestation since, in truth, it is all pretty polluted. Yet something different is manifest there. I am chary of making any too-optimistic statement but let me say this. There are a number of right-leaning and conservative movements now gaining ground in Europe who share a commonality of vision. They look to Trump, though they are likely appalled by his crudeness and his gaffes as everyone is, yet they look to him as an ally in the manifestation of a social movement which, may, thrwart some of the mindlessness which is rampant. And I do think that one must look to others for a better articulation of what Trump's 'agenda' is.

But clearly I am out of step with the times here. Up until a year ago, I was a philosopher standing up for the values of truth, structured thought and rationality. Now suddenly, without changing my values or behaviour in any way, I’m a patsy for the liberal establishment. Just this alone, just the fact that I have to nowadays mount a justification for defending the old-fashioned values of truth and rationality - on Genius Forum no less - shows how much the times have changed, and explains why I think Trump and his cohorts loom in this ethical vacuum as a very real danger to civilization.

You are out of step but for reasons different than you imagine. You seem to be viewing certain things from a certain angle of view and to be viewing shallowly. You are failing to take into consideration that some people are not so much talking issue with your assessment of the man Trump, but are notivcing things which you are not noticing. You are repeating, more or less, the tropes that have been spun by media-systems and by progressive activists who see in any right-leaning manifestation the hand, and tail, of the Diablo.

True, you have not changed the self-definition of your activity as 'mission', but you paint a false picture of your understanding of the present because there is a range of different things that you have not been paying attention to.