Unemployment: Best Indicator of Integrity

[Unidian]

Well, someone once told me that there is no "shaman" role in modern Western culture, but nature is still churning out people best suited to that task. It made a lot of sense to me, because almost all human cultures contained a role for people who interpreted "spiritual truths" for many thousands of years. Granted, these days we would probably do that in a way that wouldn't involve communing with ghosts, frenetic dancing, or superstition and the like. We would do it through more philosophical means, but the basic point is the same. There is still the priesthood of the various churches, but that has become so misguided that it is practically irrelevant. People who feel called to deal with reality directly on a non-academic and non-religious basis have no place in modern culture. Popular thinking holds that they should just forget such things and get jobs (or become phoney-baloney "gurus" who charge large fees).

[Shahrazad]

thank God Samadhim doesn't post here, I know what he'd say about this post!

It's been so long, I'm not sure I remember well. He'd say you're feeling sorry for yourself, and to stop making excuses for your unemployment. Also, don't make it society's problem.

[Dan Rowden]

That's looks about perfect to me.

[Shahrazad]

And what Sam would actually say is that I was whining.

Sorry, Dan. I hadn't read this post by the time I posted my last. I need to move faster.

[Unidian]

Why do we care what someone like Sam would say? He's a nice enough guy most of the time, but about as sharp as a bowl of Jello.

I guess it's just for humor value, though.

[Dan Rowden]

Partly for humour and partly because it reflects a certain attitude, which essentially consists of the notion that it is wrong to point out social failings or points of hypocrisy.

[Dave Toast]

Any philosopher worthy of the name would live in accordance with the golden rule as it is the most basic ethic. The golden rule and the principle of universality in the context of ethics dictates that everyone must pay their own way, for glaringly obvious reasons.

That's the end of it. There's no mitigation. Either one can honestly reconcile their actions with this conclusion and its corollaries or one can't.

You don't need to explain, justify or argue for or against how this applies to you to anyone but yourself.

[Jason]

Good philosophy isn't just thinking. It's not performed in a vacuum. A good philosopher lives according to their philosophical discoveries, otherwise it's just academic.

The most basic ethic - the minimum requirement of averting hypocrisy - is the golden rule.

One law for me and another law for everyone else avoids both the golden rule and hypocrisy.

As such, one would expect any philosopher worth the name to understand it and live according to it.

Yep, that's why I rape every hot female I see, cos I know I'd want them to do that to me. I also have long discussions about cosmology with severely retarded people and offer my mother for free sexual services to strangers.

[Shahrazad]

One law for me and another law for everyone else avoids both the golden rule and hypocrisy.

"One law for me and another law for everyone else" is hypocrisy.

[Jason]

One law for me and another law for everyone else avoids both the golden rule and hypocrisy.

"One law for me and another law for everyone else" is hypocrisy.

I don't think it necessarily is, not if it's one of your stated principles and you live by it.

[Shahrazad]

It would be mighty hard for your values to be consistent with that principle.

[Jason]

It would be mighty hard for your values to be consistent with that principle.

How so? Because I've got an army, I will never do any work, just sit in my palace enjoying worldly pleasures, while you ar forced to continously toil away as my servant all night and day with no compensation. We'll do exactly this for the rest of my, and your, life. Seems very consistent to me. One law for me, another law for you.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Jason: that you'd say that you obey different rules than everyone else out loud pretty much guarantees that you are not the person living in the palace with all the servants. Those at the top seldom -- if ever -- brag. Or else they don't stay at the top for long.

Notice that everyone from Lao Tzu to Machiavelli to Nietzsche who talked about the ruling class were not themselves part of it.

[Jason]

Jason: that you'd say that you obey different rules than everyone else out loud pretty much guarantees that you are not the person living in the palace with all the servants. Those at the top seldom -- if ever -- brag. Or else they don't stay at the top for long.

Notice that everyone from Lao Tzu to Machiavelli to Nietzsche who talked about the ruling class were not themselves part of it.

Ok, but you do realize that I'm not saying that I actually in real life obey different rules to everyone else, I'm just exploring the ideas presented here.

Candour and the pursuit of power have seemingly not been very compatible. Most, or all, people in power throughout history have been in a relatively precarious position, they rely on the populance to act and/or believe in certain ways. If someone were much more powerful, as a man is over an ant, they wouldn't need to be so careful to retain their power.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Jason,

Ok, but you do realize that I'm not saying that I actually in real life obey different rules to everyone else, I'm just exploring the ideas presented here.

Good. We've had delusional people in the past.

[Shahrazad]

Jason,

The view that you deserve to enjoy worldy pleasures, while everybody else (army, slaves, harem, etc.) deserves to toil away without remuneration, is a very self-serving view. Thus, I believe anyone who says he holds it is lying.

The trouble you'll run into is that it won't be easy to convince everybody else that this is true. You pretty much have to set yourself up as God.

[Dan Rowden]

Basically, it's a view that whilst fine in principle has little or no chance of gaining a foothold in practice.

[Jason]

Basically, it's a view that whilst fine in principle has little or no chance of gaining a foothold in practice.

What? The golden rule?

[Dan Rowden]

No, yours. The Golden Rule has a built in bullshit moral bias that most don't seem to recognise.

[Jason]

Jason,

The view that you deserve to enjoy worldy pleasures, while everybody else (army, slaves, harem, etc.) deserves to toil away without remuneration, is a very self-serving view.

People can be self-serving.

Thus, I believe anyone who says he holds it is lying.

They are lying because....? Because humans are social and empathetic creatures perhaps?

The trouble you'll run into is that it won't be easy to convince everybody else that this is true. You pretty much have to set yourself up as God.

Or you can set up the golden rule as God, sacred. Of course, that might only be necessary if you don't have a big enough stick to actually take the position yourself as ultimate dominator. If you can't dominate yourself, convince everyone else that they are can't either.

[Shahrazad]

Jason,

They are lying because....? Because humans are social and empathetic creatures perhaps?

If I told you I am God, would you believe me?

[Shahrazad]

Dan,

The Golden Rule has a built in bullshit moral bias that most don't seem to recognise.

The bias I recognize is that I (or you, or he/she) presume to know what others would like done unto them. The negative variant seems to be a lot less risky to me. (That may be why I have such a hard time disciplining children -- it violates my negative golden rule.)

How would you phrase a moral rule that didn't have this bias?

[vicdan]

LOL. Neil thinks philosophical integrity is about "blissful religious high."

Don't I wish. It's not, though. More like the opposite, actually.

Right. Telling people about how telling people stuff is hard work, is hard work!

Isn't cognitive dissonance a wonderful thing? Oh, the depths of self-deception you can plumb with it!

You aren't a philosopher, Nat. When it comes to philosophy, you would have trouble reasoning your way out of a dry paper bag (you could manage a wet paper bag, I will give you that much). You are a lazy intellectual loser who pretends to think in order to justify himself to himself and others -- because alternative forms of self-justification are more strenuous than sitting in front of the computer eating Cheetos.

PUH-LEEZE. Those who are driven to philosophy by suffering, are not philosophers. Love of wisdom is incompatible with fear of suffering. Real philosophy comes from wanting to understand the world and its truths, not as a reaction to pain. 'Philosophy from suffering' is to real philosophy like groveling is to poetry.

Take your fear and insecurity and resentment, wrap it up until it's all sharp corners, and stuff it where the sun don't shine.

Since this is obviously ludicrous, why do people believe it? The answer, of course, is the ego. People are naturally very resistant to the idea that anyone is better-equipped to think more effectively and skillfully than they can.

What an ironic statement, coming from you! You don't think, you rationalize. From the very beginning, when I pulled you from the brink of that monstrosity you called biopanentheism, your philosophical inquiry was all about justifying yourself, rationalizing away your problems, feeding your ego with faux ideologies to which you gave grandiloquent names and shriveled, corrupt contents.

You fear failure, fear change, fear growth -- which is why you hadn't moved on even when you really wanted to and the opportunity was there -- and you cover up all that fear with layers upon layers of transparently self-serving rationalizations and justifications. You treat philosophy as a narcotic, but it's not, and so you keep failing. Your ardent and childish defense of indolence is just more of the same. You refuse to hold a job because you think common jobs beneath you, and you are too weak and cowardly to do something to make more advanced, creative, intellectually stimulating and socially constructive jobs available to you.

You choose to believe that others owe you a living -- that if you were stuck in a forest with a good hunter, for example, he would be morally obligated to support you while you lazed about by the fire -- because you are too weak and cowardly even to accept and admit your own weakness and cowardice; and so you resort to a tried-and-true technique -- building grand rhetorical edifices to conceal your ethical corruption.

You are a sad, even pathetic, example of how not to approach philosophy.

[Dan Rowden]

Ok, so the question is: who told you this thread existed, Victor? Ok, let's skip that matter and go to: you're not gonna start another troll war with Nat here.

That wasn't a question, btw. I have no intention of allowing a long standing feud between the two of you, played out in this subject matter, to spill into this forum. If you can keep the debate on subject - exclusively, I'll tolerate it.

[vicdan]

The birds and creeping things of the land are my friends, dude. They tell me all sorts of wonderful things!

P.S. What feud? I am just addressing his ludicrous argument about unemployment being a philosophical virtue, hehehe.