Alex Jacob wrote:Dan Rowden wrote:
"Your concern for how Rich comes across and the psychology from which he formulates his views doesn't seem to have any practical content, Alex. In what ways are his attitudes and statements bad or potentially harmful to anyone?"
This is what my thinking is on the matter.
No, it's actually your
feeling on the matter. There's no thinking in it that I can discern; it's purely an emotional outpouring.
I have noted that at least a fair portion of the philosophical material you-plural refer to on this site, for example Nietzsche, Weininger, comes from a critical and axial period in the modern era---the 1880s to about the 1920s. I see this period as the theshold to what we know as modernity, and there were all sorts of ideas floating around as people were assembling their vision of what the world was asnd what it could be, should be. Very very intense time. So many of the important thinkers who have had and continue to have a profound effect on our modernity were working intensly, and out of that period came the psychological, physiological, social, scientific foundations that define our world. Interwoven in all of that are also some dark trends, not the least of which is an articulation of fascistic and totalitarian ideals, and we are still so very much in the midst of dealing with all of that. We stand on the threshold of that, and will likely go very much more strongly toward that (globally).
What has any of that got to do with us or Nietzsche or Weininger? And exactly what era of human history didn't have to deal with fascistic trends? I'm not aware of any.
The Nazi theorists were very much involved in articulating a 'science', a group of ideas, an ordering of perception, with which to mold the world, define it, structure it, dominate it and control it.
Yes, and there is exactly nothing new or unique in that.
With their formulations you can see how important and relevant are ideas---and these modern ideas---are in constructing ideological systems through which their power could be expressed, and these ideas are pushed, foisted, highlighted, privelaged, so to bring as many people under the control of a mass movement operating with those ideas as a conceptual base.
Nice speech, but I'm still waiting for the part that has even the remotest relevance to us and our observations about Woman.
They were very big on articulating definitions of geneder and race, as everyone knows, and I think it is pretty evident that there is still a very strong attraction on the part of many to 'fall into' and come under the influence of groups of ideas that do little more than articulate an essentially regressive position. Here on this list we note certain persons whose idea structures are...well...neo-fascistic for want of a better word.
That's a pretty big claim. Can you give examples?
They have fallen into the use of reductive ideas and (as I see things) backward ideas, but they are couched as being 'paradigm shifting ideas', 'true' ideas, the ideas of real men, ideas that appear in focus when different sorts of mind control have been defeated, and it is very obvious that 'feminism' is a chief bogey, but feminism mystified, a mystical, metaphysical feminism, and so it is railed against.
That is so much empty rhetoric. I can't find an argument in there anywhere. The only metaphysical and mystified feminism that exists is the one in your brain. It has nothing to do with me. There's nothing at all mysterious about the feminine to me. It's only mysterious to you because you don't understand it, yet.
It is not only a 'rational' position but a deeply emotional one, and you fool yourselves if you think it isn't emotiional and deeply psychological (IMO).
Without an argument to back it up this is a meaningless assertion; little more than a political stunt.
If you cannot see what a dangerous position you-all are working, in this very dangerous territory, with generally inadequate preparation, and if you are not truly responsible and honest with yourselves, you could very easily do a great deal of harm.
You haven't done anything to show how and why it's dangerous. The only thing it presents a danger to is your attachments to falsities and fables. I don't have any interest in protecting or preserving such things.
So you ask me what practical content my criticisms have, but to me this is self-evident.
The only thing self-evident is your lack of understanding of the issue. It your point was self-evident I wouldn't have asked you to express it.
I will draw a small analogy to give some indicator of the danger. Neil, bless his heart, just read Nietzsche, and it comes into his little head that maybe this cat Hitler was just not so bad, maybe he is a Great Man in fact, and what does it matter in the grand scheme if a million or 2 million or many million die. It is just 'will-to-power' and Nietzsche has blessed it, so we really don't have to judge Hitler at all harshly, and sieg heil.
Neil it totally wrong about Nietzsche, but Hitler wasn't as bad as he is made out to be. He was no worse than any number of previous and subsequent world leaders. That's makes him bad but not unique in any way. Neil is but one man, btw, and one, I might add, who not only has no real understanding as yet of our philosophy of Woman, but who appears to not agree with that part of it he has encountered. So, basically, your example totally fails.
This opens a road to entertaining some fairly dangeorous ideas that in or world can have, have had, are having profound destructive impact.
Non sequiter. What's the connection between our Woman perspective and Neil's ideas about Hitler?
In some of the forumlations about women and femininity, you are clearly engaging in profound generalizations,
Yes, indeed! Agreed! Many of our ideas are generalisations and they are most certainly profound.
but more than that they are fantastic prejudices,
Prove it. Just asserting this is weak as piss.
harsh judgments,
You find the truth harsh?
and you conflate all that is lowly and destructive with the feminine.
No, we conflate all that is unconscious with the feminine. You don't seem to understand that our only real interest in this lies in its relationship to consciousness and wisdom. The political, psychological and sexual observations are merely tools to demonstrate practical manifestations of these things. The actual politics of feminism, for example, is of only passing interest to me. If there weren't deeper philosophical connotations to it I would care about it at all.
You actually write these things out and you are not even cognizant of the danger inherant in these sorts of formulations?
The dangers you see spring from your own delusions. The only danger in our formulations is to your precious attachments, which is why you sound so fearful. This entire post has been fear driven hysteria. There's not a single argument to be found in it.
It is kind of incredible that you aren't aware of the danger in reductive, racist, anti-feminine thinking (thinking that follows this tempting paradigm).
Excuse me, where the fuck do you get "racist" from? Why say that? It's disgusting to employ such methods. You should go into politics.
I shouldn't even have to write this out (it is only a skeleton of what could be expressed), you-all should know all this.
What I know is that you suffer from the same ailment that most people do: hatred of reality.
In the most contentious and dangerous areas one has to be very, very careful, that is not sloppy, not impetuous, not driven by hidden psychological factors, misogynist anger, etc.
I agree with that. Now that you're done moralising, perhaps you could bother to make an actual argument about the falsity of our ideas. You do realise you haven't done that, right?