Philosophy has failed to create a better world
One year into the pandemic, it's safe to say that science & technology have saved us. Saved us from doom scenarios like the Spanish Flu and the Bubonic Plague. Compared to those, the amounts of death and suffering have been minimal.
And this seems to have been the trend for quite awhile. Overall humans are living longer, healthier and happier lives. Leading to the inevitable problem of overpopulation.
With world leaders squabbling over CO2 quotas by 2050, it's safe to say we are in a global crisis.
Disillusioned? You should be. Because only then can we come up with ideas for a better world. And yes, I'd love to hear how philosophy could contribute to that.
And this seems to have been the trend for quite awhile. Overall humans are living longer, healthier and happier lives. Leading to the inevitable problem of overpopulation.
With world leaders squabbling over CO2 quotas by 2050, it's safe to say we are in a global crisis.
Disillusioned? You should be. Because only then can we come up with ideas for a better world. And yes, I'd love to hear how philosophy could contribute to that.
Comments (155)
Whether or not technology has saved us is open to debate, but we'll leave that for now. Science by itself doesn't help anyone. It has to be turned into technology by engineering. Engineering is applied science.
And science is applied philosophy.
I'd go into this at more length, by it's almost my time for the drive through window at McDonald's, and I need to order the Unibomber manifesto in hardcopy because my Kindle hurts my eyes and I've ground too much Cheeto dust into the screen.
Eh? What on earth makes you think this pandemic and its reverberations are over??
Life is like a boulder perched over the edge. Philosophy is kind of like gravity and science is like the person who pushes the rock over the edge and claims all the credit.
An....odd simile. By which I mean I don't know what you're trying to say.
It was a poor one, I agree. Still, two states of being, allegedly. The first I described (cavemen-esque days) and today (microchips, spaceships, and everything in between). Eventually.. the idea that someone didn't have to start thinking, and critically becomes essentially on par with anything else that today is a "commitable" offense ie. violence, threats of violence, etc.
The only counter-argument is that I'm incorrectly equating "basic thinking" with advanced philosophy. Which is defensible.
Within the next 4 weeks , 600,000 people will have died in the U.S. in the 12 month span since the pandemic began, which will tie the total estimated number of fatalities in the U.S from the Spanish Flu. It took two years to reach that milestone 110 years ago, but Covid accomplished that feat in half the time. To put that number in perspective, here are the leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2019:
Heart disease: 659,041
Cancer: 599,601
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 173,040
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 156,979
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 150,005
Alzheimer’s disease: 121,499
Diabetes: 87,647
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 51,565
Influenza and pneumonia: 49,783
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,511
Do you still think number of fatalities from Covid is 'minimal' compared to the Spanish Flu.?
Quoting TaySan
As a previous poster noted, you just heard it from your own mouth(keyboard), since all scientific theories are elaborations of philosophical systems.
If you're advocating for or against science, you're doing philosophy. If science is the right way to do something, philosophy can contribute by arguing successfully that science is the right way to do that.
And if there are other things that science isn't the right way to do, or that science isn't even in the business of doing -- e.g. a lot of our problems are social, essentially ethical ones, not questions of what is or how to do something, but of what should be or why to do something -- then philosophy can contribute in that respect by arguing successfully for whatever the right way to do that is.
Interesting. I have to get back to you on this one
How are the advances of the industrial revolution a direct outcome of advances in philosophy then?
This is gold. I don't know what to say. Touché
I do take covid more seriously, perhaps the approach in the EU is not the right one.
Quoting Joshs
I think they were minimal by comparison. The vast majority of mortalities from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 are from people with comorbidities, and the elderly, so the numbers are almost entirely unknown.
Invasive treatment from respirators is highly dangerous and would have compounded the fatalities.
Obesity and other factors come into play, which is far worse of a problem nowadays, further putting the numbers into disrepute. Respiratory illnesses are compounded by a poor diet with a lack of fresh raw vegetables to oxygenate the blood. Immune systems are generally weaker than in the 1920's due to unhealthy lifestyles.
Psychological effects of prolonged isolation, lack of care, lack of access to cancer treatments, increased suicides etc. further muddies the waters for true numbers.
Although there is the claim that technology nowadays would improve the situation, this does not appear to be the case. It was clear early on that zinc supplementation would have greatly reduced deaths, but because of modern day political interest from shareholder run bio tech companies, simple mitigation strategies like this were not implemented. A good diet was not promoted by health organizations.
Since the Spanish flu hit young people very hard, there would be far less comorbidities involved. In other words, the Spanish flu was the only culprit in most cases.
In 1920, there were far less people to infect. The global population was under 2 billion.
To my knowledge, the Spanish flu was less contagious, but don't quote me on that, not sure. If that is the case, then the overall fatality rate for the Spanish flu was surely vastly higher in that it would have infected less people for the given number of fatalities.
Also, there was far less contagion spread possible in 1920, given that the world was less open to mass transit and almost unfettered movement of goods and people.
You cannot really compare 1920 to 2020. Different world, political landscape, technology level etc.
If humans in 2021 cannot handle a virus like SARS-Cov19, they will have no chance with something the equivalent of the Spanish flu. It would crush what's left of an already weak and crumbling civilization. What would people eat if supply chains completely broke down from something like the Spanish flu? Most people are entirely dependent on supply chains, which was not the case in the 20's .
Nations and people were far more resilient in the 20's. The current state of affairs is best described as pitiful. And the response to it is even more worrying!
UV light increases your levels of vitamin D, and people are not encouraged to be outside.
In the 1920's I think people had the basic wisdom to know that people were already poor after World War I, and compounding these troubles on an economy with destruction of a way of life would not help. They were at least wise enough to understand what you don't do!
which is not to make a bad situation much much worse.
A Spanish here. Fun and interesting fact: it was the called the Spanish flu due to the neutrality of Spain in WWI. It was the only European country speaking about it in press without censure. Some people say it was so contagious that probably died around 20 - 40 million of humans. But as you said it was so difficult to record it back in 1918.
Don’t you think a pretty good indicator of how many died due to Covid , who would not otherwise have died , is by looking at the average overall number of deaths from all causes on a yearly basis ( say over the past 10 years) and comparing it to the number of deaths from all causes in the past 12 months? I recognize that the number of deaths from all causes fluctuates from year to year, but it does so within a range, and I’m betting that range is on the order of only 10’s of thousands. If in the U.S. there has been anywhere near 600,000 more deaths than would be expected in an average year , then it simply would not be true that “the numbers are almost entirely unknown.” In fact, the opposite would be the case. The numbers , give or take a certain percentage, are clearly demonstrable. The fact that these deaths are among a vulnerable population is irrelevant. Those people would not have died if not for Covid.
https://www.cbs19.tv/amp/article/news/health/coronavirus/verify-comparing-total-deaths-from-2020-to-2019-and-2018/501-355b857c-e7e9-40e4-b31d-11500cbcb103
Quoting TaySan
By definition, scientific theories are based on evidence. And what counts as evidence is based on a pre-existing framework defining what counts as evidence. And this paradigmatic framework is of the order of a philosophical system.
:grin:
I guess I would instead say philosophy has done what science has yet to do. That something being giving meaning, purpose, and direction into an otherwise meaningless, purposeless, and chaotic existence. I mean, sure science lets us better arrange and understand the chaos and create/discover new chaotic systems to reign in however the more we uncover and master the less human and in control we feel. Philosophy offers a modest yet effective solution for the human condition.
So the question is: Would you rather feel at home or live in a place you know is scientifically "better" than where you did last?
Philosophy is a way of looking at things and if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at, change,
Even though your cherished philosophy may differ from mine, it’s never been about whom is right or wrong, it’s always been and always will be about the true nature of things.
I was talking about a better world for all life on Earth.
It's interesting to see that the social sciences like sociology and psychology are still not entirely being taken seriously. But you've given very solid reasons pro philosophy and therefore I concede. You've won our debate. :)
No accusations were made...I was spewing nonsense.
Let's discuss "philosophy has failed to create a better world"
First off, science is a rather ungrateful child of philosophy. I just got a call from my mother and something clicked. If some scientists are to be believed philosophy is now either obsolete or if not has no business in scientific affairs. It appears that the child (science) would like nothing better than cut itself loose from its parent (philosophy) and take all the credit for stuff like being the mitigating force in the current global pandemic without mentioning, even in passing, its origins in philosophy. What do you make of that?
What I know from scientists I've spoken to is that they generally don't give any credit to anyone except for themselves. Unless they're forced to. Apparently it's a highly competitive business.
When it comes to the pandemic I feel that the philosophers are being left out of the debate. Simply because the politicians are making the rules and they have no interest in arguing with people more educated than them.
Another point worth mentioning is philosophy is left with the really difficult problems that other formal disciplines can't handle or won't touch with a barge pole in a manner of speaking and creating "...a better world..." features in the top 3 of world's currently unsolved problems. My suggestion, for what it's worth, is to announce a million dollar cash prize for anyone who can tackle this problem. I'm fairly confident that should get people's, philosophers' juices flowing. Why hasn't somebody already thought of this?
I am not sure if that is one of the mandates of Philosophy: to create a better world. There is a trend that subscribes to that, but I don't think philosophers do. The closest philosophers come to this, is moral philosophy, but that in and by itself tells you only (if at all successfully) how to behave morally, and not how to reduce carbon dioxide or how to reduce the accelerating population explosion.
So yes, the title is right, except philosophy never said it would do that.
there are tons of competitions and contests on the topics. The prize is not a million dollars, but something like $500, which at the current economic situation is about a fair price for saving the world.
Also, tons and tons of research money goes into the pockets of lame, impotent physicists and chemists who try to make a buck under the pretext of saving the world.
I have a plan, and I offered it for free to past participants of many international congresses that are held worldwide all over the place on global warming, for instance; and mostly I get no reply, and the ones I get treat my suggestion as if they never read it.
It is a common concept to disregard the opinion or the "solutions" of the dilettante. There is merit in that, but sometimes you throw out a diamond with the pig water.
Completely agree with you, Sir. What a solid statement. It remembered me when politicians of Athens asked to the Sophist why they do not have the rule of governance and then answered "we are not here to solve the problems. We debate and theorise about these. Without them we cannot develop philosophy itself"
Nevertheless there are people who criticise Sophists. lol
Technology is not science. Humans have had technology since they lived in caves. The Egyptians obviously had technology but they did not understand universal truths, such as a triangle has three sides on earth and every other planet in the universe. As far as we know, not until the Greeks did philosophers start working on proofs. That is technology, plus philosophy, equals science. We understand not only what works but why it works.
Religion is a stumbling stone for science. Even today, Christians oppose the science of evolution and the 2012 Texas Republican agenda was to prevent teaching the higher-order thinking skills and teachers had to take Texas to court to end forcing teaching creationism as equal to science. We are not as controlled by the church as we once were but for thousands of years it has been a stumbling block. Since 1958 we have had education for technology and that is not education for science.
Liberal education was well-rounded education for well-rounded individual growth and independent thinking. It was the basis of education in the US until 1958 and we made a lot of progress before the military and industry hi-jacked education.
The Sophists were equal to our education for technology. A totally changed purpose of education with a focus on being technologically correct, with the need to prepare men for bureaucratic positions resulting from Athens colonization of new territory and perhaps the natural result of focusing on proofs, a kind of word of God, and the evolution of democracy. A totally different way to perceive the value of a human being.
Sure. Sophist were one of those communities which focused more in the State and its democracy rather than individualism. But I guess they did not get involved enough into politics in general. Consider that back then slavery was legal but Epicurus was against the establishment, etc...
It is interesting the way you described it: Education for technology. Well this situation is due to Spinoza's enlightenment. He decided to divide the knowledge into two different branches: Science/humanists. We keep exactly the same perception of education. Can we change it? I guess No, like you said there are a lot of bureaucracy jobs out there which sustain the State.
I specifically made the distinction between science and technology.
Quoting Athena
I'll nitpick - Science doesn't tell us anything about why, only how.
Quoting Athena
I'm not a theist, but I don't see it that way.
You seem like a hardheaded, no nonsense type. That's a good thing. Fun to argue with. I am a softheaded, nonsense type.
Technology advancements made vocational training very important but in the US and England, but it was ignored in favor of a classical education, the humanities. When we mobilized for the first world war, the mistake of ignoring vocational training was obvious because not only did industry need people with vocational training but so did the military!
Industry tried to close schools in the US as Europe had closed its schools during the war. It argued the war caused a labor shortage and they were not getting their money's worth because they still had to train new employees. Only a few years earlier child labor laws kept children out of industry, and industry lost its supply of really cheap labor.
Teachers argued an institution good for making good citizens is good for making patriotic citizens. The book of all the speeches at the 1917 National Education Association, explains all this and how education was used to mobilize the US for war and sustain the war effort.
So education for vocational training was added, but education for citizenship remained the priority purpose of education until the military technology of WWII. Clearly, we can have both. What is not so obvious to those who have not read the books about war and education is the US adopted so much of German bureaucracy and education and philosophy, it is now what defended its democracy against. A new commission is now looking into returning to education for citizenship. Such an education is the first-line defense against social problems and we seriously need to get back to that. It is the only way to have liberty and avoid becoming an authoritarian police state.
More to the point of this thread, we need to return to Greek and Roman classics and might want to question if storming the Capital Building has something to do with German philosophy?
In my world, which is probably different from everyone else's :lol: a moral is a matter of cause and effect and that makes destroying our planet immoral. In the US, we had education for good moral judgment but religion retarded our sciences and we were not working with the sciences essential to preserving our planet and having a high standard of living. That education was for everyone, not just those who choose liberal education at the college level and while we needed to prepare for a high-tech society, we made a mistake by dropping the education that turned everyone into more or less philosophical creatures. Now we have the science we need, but preparing everyone for a technological society, has short-circuited their ability to think and they no longer associate morals with cause and effect, so we continue to destroy our planet and put profit today above the future and health of our planet.
Yes. I know about Spinoza because I read some of him some years ago when I was interested in enlightenment. As you said yes I do not agree either of how he divided the art of learning in schools. I even consider Spinoza as one of the worst thinkers ever of how he decided to destroy the concept of Roman/Greek learnings.
I guess you are from the United States because of the examples you are putting on the table. I am from Europe and somehow I am jealous of your education system. When education fails there is nothing to do in th State. But I guess your educational system works when the universities are the best worldwide and generally the incomes/development are good. Despite probably we forget about the basics back in ancient times. So it is a great dilemma of what is the right path inside education... Spinoza stupid division of branches or Roman/Greek education which wants the perfect goal: happiness
Interesting fact here: Russia (I guess they still doing this) teaches in their schools how to play chess. What a beautiful way of improve the knowledge of the students. Probably this is the main reason why they have discovered a vaccine for Covid sputnik. Nevertheless U.S. Also discovered vaccines for Covid.
Another interesting point of view that me, as a citizen from a neutral/nobody cares country like Spain, remembers as the 1960's fights between US and Soviet Unión of who can have the best educational system despite they are far from Greek/Roman ones.
That appears to be the only argument we could have. I see a few nuggets of wisdom in the Bible but Creationism is not one of them. I don't think Christianity has such a good history, and today, to me it appears one of the worst problems we have. Not because Christianity is so bad, but without education in the classics, it is really bad. How people interpret the Bible depends largely on how they were educated. How we understand God depends a lot on if we are concrete thinkers and abstract thinkers.
I hate the mythology that Christianity and God's blessing is what made us so good great. Our history and the treatment of Native Americans, immigrants from China, Japan, Ireland, Italy, people of color, and women in general, has not been that good. Our greatness has been very worldly and it was built on exploiting human beings and taking from them what was not ours to take. This failure of philosophy is a failure to see the whole picture and storytelling that excluded our wrongs. This is a new day and we need to value philosophy to move ahead without doing more damage.
Science and religion are just expressions of human nature projected onto a world where the don't, can't fit. Humanity doesn't have such a good history in the sense you mean.
Coming from the classics the pursuit of happiness means gaining knowledge because knowledge is power and power leads to having things go our way but this is not self-centered because of the morality of cause and effect. As Socrates pointed out, if we make life unpleasant for others, sooner or later they will be our problem, and boy oh boy, the practice of slavery has lead to a serious problem in the US. That is exactly what Socrates was talking about. Too bad Jefferson and his peers ignored Socrates. :grimace:
Wow, this is so on topic! We have both the good and the bad. :grin: Never before have so many people enjoyed so much security and so many pleasures, and developing technology holds out the hope that we can do even better than this.
Excuse me, I am a believer in the New Age and I get really excited about what is possible. I am sure this is the excitement many of the US founding fathers felt with their education in the classics. We have to acknowledge our past wrongs and the truth of what you said, but I think we also need to acknowledge our progress and the possibility that we can do better. I think we have created a better world.
Right now we might be in the Resurrection with archeologists, geologists and related sciences bring the past into the present. If reincarnation is a possibility, the human mass on earth today would be reincarnated souls, another possible form of Resurrection but not scientifically supported.
Now if we had not been thrown out of the Garden of Eden, the abundance of the Garden might have brought out the best in us, as abundance is bringing the best in us now. There are some pretty unpleasant things happening, but a lot of this is a demand that we do better. If we get education back on the enlightenment path we might come out of the present transition okay? But first, we have to do something about the nihilism we are dealing with now. Nihilism is probably part of the transition process.
Never? I think it has been a goal of philosophy and the Enlightenment. Good moral thinking depends on knowledge of science. Cicero, we do the right thing when we know what it is. Maybe if the Bible had advanced knowledge of science, we would be doing better? I feel frustrated by our apparent failure to understand what science has to do with good moral judgment and democracy. From the time the West refound science and began improving on it, we have made incredible progress.
At least we are replanting trees with we cut them down, instead of waiting for God to give us our forest back.
This forum is generally full of sour pusses and depressed introverts. I usually find myself one of the few rosy cheeked, bright eyed romantics. You make me look like Eeyore.
Quoting Athena
I'm not sure the capital E enlightenment path is the right one. It's certainly not the only one.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.....................................................
Do you believe that good moral behavior depends on good moral thinking?
What a complex question. I think happiness is just moments we live along our lives. I going to sound pretty pessimistic but life in general is full of sadness. Even when you are getting older. So I guess this is why we are so obsessed to pursue happiness because it is so ephemeral
you need to have connections. And a good opportunity. And philosophy isn't mainstream like you mentioned. When technology improves, hopefully there'll be more interactive platforms on the internet. But for now, I guess we'll have to with this one. Maybe one day a millionaire shows up :)
Hum, as I understand democracy it is constantly unfolding, preferably with the education the prepares each generation to resolve the problems of their time and that is not education for technology. Our most difficult problems today are human problems. The US had a Capitol Building that was open to the public because all citizens treated it like was almost sacred. It was not an armed fort. Bad actors have damaged our reality and the Spirit of America and if we do not resolve this problem with education, the democracy we were, will not be known to those born today.
So you think Cicero was wrong about us choosing the right thing when we know what that is? Science is very important to knowing the right thing. What is the difference between knowledge and knowing the right thing?
Lived, reflective, experience.
Well the US is about to experience a huge transfer of wealth. This is on top of feeding everyone, providing free medical care to many, subsidized housing, free education, affordable internet service, and instant communication with people around the world. How much more do people want?
My family has been very involved with the homeless, so it is not that I lack knowledge of less fortunate people, and am very thankful at this time I am not one of them. My granddaughter manages a camp for homeless people who have been given army tents, heat, and sanitation, and I am very proud of her. We are aware that what is being done is far short of what needs to be done, but compare to our past, what we are achieving today is pretty awesome. When I began advocating for the homeless, we had almost nothing for them and treated them like criminals. We have not been assuring people food until relatively recently. I see positive changes along with problems, but ignoring the good because of the bad, might be a mistake.
And is that different from having knowledge?
Philosophy is the foundational questioning that ideas are built upon. Much of moral philosophy and modern politics are based upon philosophical ideas, questions and solutions. Philosophy is playing the long game, it shapes society over time.
In terms of the short run, like during this pandemic, there are numerous moral philosophers who help hospitals with how to judge who's getting treatment when capacity is over the limit. These kinds of hard questions rarely work without any kind of moral philosophy groundwork.
The problem with science is that all areas are niched. It's a spearhead that is focused directly at a small area that is then applied to fit into a whole. But you cannot get a full picture, analysis of the consequences, putting together the pieces and how they relate to totally other areas of existence. Take for example the nuclear bomb. It was developed by scientists, scientists utilized the splitting to make power plants, but no scientists truly analyze the consequences of any of it, other than a small remark here and there. It's philosophers who analyzed the post-bomb state of the world, who informed about the consequences and guidelines that are pretty much in place today that prevent total annihilation.
Philosophy questions and informs, science examines, then philosophy once again questions and informs and the cycle continues. Anyone saying science has made philosophy irrelevant doesn't seem to understand what philosophy is or how it works in academia.
:lol: You all are reminding me of the years when I was lost in Hades. Hades is a place where we all must all go, from time to time, to get a sense of meaning. However, we should never go there without the help of the gods because it is so easy to get lost in Hades.
For a long time my life was so painful I really did not want to live and then I saw a cartoon of a man standing at the customer service desk in heaven saying, "I don't like life. Do you have something better to offer?".
I know suffering and maybe I am over-exuberant now because I can avoid it. Not that there is no pain in my life. But there is nothing I can do about the family problems. Everyone wants to make their own mistakes and they don't want to know what an old woman thinks. So instead of focusing on what can make me very unhappy, I focus on what can make me happy and that works. It is the benefit of no longer being responsible for family.
PS I would not know happiness if I had not stumbled onto philosophy! If it were not for philosophy I would still be one of the most miserable people on earth. I clawed my way out of Hades, thanks to philosophy and gaining a sense of purpose.
Knowledge (i.e. theoretical/practical capability) is acquired through learning or training. Experience (i.e. understanding-based competence), however, is developed through surviving and/or overcoming failure. The latter cannot be taught (or googled) as the former can.
Quoting Athena
Ataraxia & aponia (Epicurus) + scientia intuitiva (Spinoza) + amor fati / defiance / beatitude (Nietzsche / Camus / Rosset) ... in other words, momentary lapses in "boredom & pain" which (more often than not) accompany some daily form of play...
Same here. I remember philosophy was very important in my life when I was 18 years old in my last grade of high school before starting the university. I was alone in class because I was "freak" for just reading books. Everyone had girlfriend/boyfriend and big group of friends except me so I felt really alone because that period of time is completely awful. It looks like you have to show something to just join a group of friends.
Reading books not only philosophy but literature (Don Quixote and Ulysses) etc... Give another hope in life.
I also had that feeling of giving up and being frustrated asking myself: "why the hell my teens suck?" but I was making a mistake. I was looking more the life of others instead of mine.
I started accepting myself and then everything changed for better. I am happy of who I am and I do not need someone to love me or being friends with. I am not force to do it.
I feel the same way. I see that I am one of the most fortunate people in the history of the world, even though there have been some really unhappy parts of my life. But I don't think that's really what's going on. I think it's what's inside us, you and me, that makes us, I don't like the word, optimists. There are many other people who live in the same world who are cranky and unhappy and who blame this beautiful world.
:roll: That is a bit negative isn't it? And what does having an experience have to do with competence? Life is full of awesome experiences, like making love on the beach. Previous experience may make the present experience better but it is not required. :grin: And the experience can be a wonderful memory that lifts our spirits whenever we think of it.
Facts might be important, but perhaps even more important is the spirit of the moment. How we feel. Like if the wave hits at an intimate moment, the couple may think their experience was ruined, or they can grab their blanket and run from the wave laughing. Keeping in mind, this moment can be a long-term memory that again and again manifests feeling and that feeling will define the experience more so than facts.
Oh, good. I get to show off my erudition. This is from Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching:
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.
If I may interpret the interpretation. The Tao is the unspeakable oneness that comes before thought. Goodness, in this context, is Te, the expression of Tao in our lives. I think what Cicero and you are talking about is morality. Interpretation of the interpretation of the interpretation - What's right comes from inside us - our hearts.
And that is where philosophy is important! But also good parenting and security are important. We are learning, being disadvantaged as a child, or traumatized, can have a lifelong negative effect. Perhaps some learn to deal with adversity better than others, and some childhood adversity may be important in developing coping skills for adult adversity? The only thing I am really sure of is philosophy made a huge difference in my life and for me, it is everything the Bible is for a Christian.
I am fine with the word "optimist" because when we are optimistic we open doors for good things to happen and when we are pessimistic, we can have a death grip holding those doors closed. It seems to me, right now, most people are nihilistic or pessimistic. Maybe when the pandemic passes our spirit will improve?
Philosophy, in particular western philosophy, has always seemed like a stone wall to me. Hard, rigid, and overbuilt but fun to bounce balls, my ideas, off. The stoniest of the stones is Kant. There are some philosophers I like sometimes - e.g. Emerson and James.
On the other hand, I've met other people like you who were saved by philosophy. I must admit I don't get it, but I've come to respect it and accept that it works. For me, it's like jazz. It's not my music and I don't really get it, but enough people I respect value it that it would be silly and graceless to argue.
Now, this is heaven! What a delightful contemplation! :heart: :flower: I will have to ponder it before attempting a response. But my knee-jerk reaction is "morality" is finding the good and choosing it because of my experience with moral stories and asking the child, "what is the moral of the story."
However, you also make me think about the lecture on the Greek Legacy I am listening to. For a period of time, the philosophers of Athens thought it impossible for a bad person to do good things. I do not agree with that. I do not see people as good or bad, but I think we are both.
Perfect. It is like I don't get religion. Weird isn't it? Some people want only natural health foods and exercise, some want pot and some want beer or wine. "To each his own", my grandmother would say. I had no idea that there could be any reason for not liking Kant and Weber. After almost worshipping Cicero, I have found fault in him. I did not like Confucious because he is so sexist, but I did like his explanation of the importance of putting effort into being the kind of human being we want to be. I really want to be a happy and loving person who makes my grandchildren and their children feel good. I have a lot of work to get there for the same reason you find fault with Western logic being like a stone wall.
I don't know if you are familiar with Lao Tzu, who wrote the Tao Te Ching. He was the anti-Confucius. Here's my sales pitch for the Tao Te Ching - it is the founding book of a major school of philosophy and you can read it in an hour. You get just as much spiritual credit as you would for reading the Bible or Book of Mormon.
Quoting T Clark
:rofl: I think I rejected Confucius and the Book of Mormon at about the same time, both because of the sexism! :shade: I have since renewed my interest in Confucius, but I doubt if I will ever regain interest in the Book of Mormon. Believing some people have dark skin because "God" cursed them is a little too offensive for me. :rofl: At this time of my life, I have read enough to conclude not even great thinkers are right all the time so I have a renewed interest in some philosophers.
Now if by Tao Te Ching you mean I Ching, I had two I Ching books from different authors and fear I lost both of them in a move. Maybe that is something I should do today, buy another one. Oh dear, that means going to a book store and that is like an alcoholic going to the bar to get a glass of water. :worry: But heck, if that is what you are talking about, I have to have the book for the discussion, right? :grin:
Otherwise my observation it is less because people are inherently amoral, more it is of where we are in the reality we individually are able to conjure for ourselves. Some people live day-to-day because they must, others are part of some sub-culture that is given to certain attitudes, still others have time to consider larger topics- these are not always in sync.
You may have missed my point - the Tao Te Ching is short. It's a corollary to Occam's Razor - if you have two books which are otherwise the same, read the shorter one. It's not the same as the I Ching. The I Ching is much older. I've never read or used it. Here's a link to a whole bunch of different translations of the Tao Te Ching:
https://terebess.hu/english/tao/_index.html
I started with Stephen Mitchell's version. I like it a lot. I've learned since that it is very Americanized. Some of the nuance get's left out, but ancient Chinese nuance can be really obscure. Ellen Marie Chen. Addiss & Lombardo.
I was grabbed in the first verse. I've known others who took longer. First rule of book gifts or recommendations - never ask if the person has read the book. I won't.
1. Philosophers are not necessarily the world's most intelligent people.
2. If and when philosophers or anyone else came up with a world-saving idea, then they would also have to sell the idea to the world-- much harder an endeavour than finding a solution. Would need to tackle, fight and overcome prejudice, ingrained cultural norms, and personal preferences and beliefs... not possible.
3. The world operates currently on a financial or should I say fiscal model. Things that get done are things that generate profit. This is not possible to overcome, AND it may be in direct opposition to implementing solutions to save the world.
4. The feeling to improve the world does not necessarily produce something that does improve the world. There is a terribly large gap between the two.
5. Maybe, just maybe, you think it possible that the world does not need improving? Whenever mankind tinkered with improving it, the introduced improvements made it worse.
6. Most philosophers feel that evolution of the fittest will take care of necessary and required improvement, if your idea of improvement will include survival in a mutually pleasant scenario with nature's other forces.
7. Improvements have been taking place for a long time now. Steadily, surely and unstoppably. It is not philosophers who instigate these improvements, but technology, social change, and a modernization of superstitious prejudice.
8. The same thing that you raise your concern, that is, waste of intellect, has been brought up in many elitist groups. In Mensa, for instance.
9. Because, you are absolutely right: if you assume that philosophers are mandated to improve the world, then they don't fill their duties, and they are wasting their time and intellect. My response to that is what I first said in the beginning of this thread: nobody tells anyone what to do and what their mandate is or should be, unless the director offers compensation to get his will done. ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY US HEFTY AMOUNTS OF MONEY OR OTHER BENEFITS TO COMPEL US TO DO WHAT YOU SAY WE SHOULD BE DOING?
Well, philosophers did come up with science, so there's that.
I would stand another thread, but I don't want my thoughts separated from the change in our thinking.
I am blown away by all the covid assistance that has happened and will happen. I have been through a few recessions and nothing like this has happened. In the past, the auto industry was bailed out and the banks were bailed out, but not the people. I remember Reagan saying we did not have homeless people just bums, and I remember how the poor were scapegoated for our economic problems that were caused by OPEC embargoing oil and bad industrial judgment. During that economic crisis when families needed help, we cut public assistance by increasing the requirements for assistance, making it harder to get assistance. Please, doesn't anyone else remember what happened?
During the Reagan administration, there was a huge shift in wealth and power. Clinton tried to turn this around, but another economic crash took us down again, and nothing was done to help families save their homes, and the media did not present the reality as it is being presented today. How the media is reporting this crash puts the blame on the cause of the crash, not the victims of the crash. That is a hugely important difference. The housing crisis came up as people victimized by banks, but the banks were bailed out not the victims. I think that disaster set us up for a different consciousness this time around?
Over the years I have marveled at how much assistance has increased and all the criticism! Never has any society enjoyed the abundance we have today and we might be mismanaging it, but we are new at this. We never had the ability to do what we can today. We are having a learning experience and I am fascinated with what is happening now and how this will influence our ideas about what government can and should do and what it should not do. THIS IS WHERE THE PHILOSOPHY COMES IN. What do we want of government of the people, by the people, for the people?
Nightly, I am bombarded by the injustices committed against Native Americans, the Irish, Italians, Asians, people of color, and women. This never happened before! Like our delusion of greatness is being turned upside down, and we have a lot of anger raising. Some are angry because change can not happen fast enough. Some are angry because their delusion of the greatness of the US is being destroyed. THIS IS WHERE THE PHILOSOPHY COMES IN. Why, all of a sudden, are we so focused on injustices and the democratic goal of equality? What happened to HIS STORY and the belief that what we have, depends on a few great men?
That comment is vitally important to this discussion! Are all those people living below the poverty level born to be inferior people or can science detect other causes of poverty that a democracy should address? Up till now, people have functioned on a lot of false notions, and science is destroying them. Science is vital to our democracy. And here is the problem with Trump and his followers who have their lives rapped around a myth that is not supported by science. That myth has come to us through history and when we see it, we might be shocked by how long it has taken to be the ideal of democracy that came out of the Enlightenment, not the Bible. The Jews and Greeks had a war when Greeks attempted to rule over them, because the Greeks did not respect the line of inheritance that determined a person's position in life, but gave jobs to anyone who appeared to have the merit necessary to doing the job.
Mass education and merit hiring is changing our social order.
Very true! Because of the US war with Afghanistan and a huge investment, half of Afghanistan has been Americanized and brought into the modern world, and half has not. When we pull our troops out, other countries will likely do the same, and there will be a blood bathe as the more barbaric Aghanstanians fight to take back their country and the way of life people had when the Bible was written, complete with beheading some people and stoning others. The best fighters in this war are the women who want the equality they have gained. They are our sisters and we are about to turn our backs on them and their children.
I bought both the Tao Te Ching and another I Ching. I am so looking forward to comparing them.
The first thing in the Tao Te Ching book I read said,
Reminds me of some of the Bible and Amenhotep's prayer and the Native American creator.
:pray: :heart: in tune with Tao is much more than factual correctness and sometimes words just are not good enough to convey meaning. I think it is pretty Asian, in general, to think our brains chatter too much and that certainly distorts or completely blocks our experience of life.
You got a very flowery translation. You don't strike me as a huggy kissy kind of person. Take a look at the first verse in some of the other translations too. You can find them at the link I gave. Stephen Mitchell's is one good one. They are much more hard hitting. The Tao Te Ching is an engineering textbook to teach you how to build reality. Of course, I'm an engineer. It's that old hammer/nail thing.
Ah go on, just because I chose the translation with pictures doesn't mean it is too flowery. :lol: I am afraid you are right about me not being a huggy kissy person. That spreads disease, yuck. But in my private life, in solitude by the river, I am flooded with happiness, and I am good with the matter of my physical form dissimulating and becoming one with nature. While walking down the river path, I have no desire to hit anything or anyone with a hammer. :grin:
My father was an engineer. He worked on the Apollo that landed on the moon. He was in favor of language that was straight and to the point. That is fine for guys and women who want to be like them, but I enjoy being a girl. A bit dreamy. :grin:
I missed the role of the philosophers in this paragraph, making the world better than it is.
Interesting. Reading your posts, I always have envisioned you as a seven-headed serpent-monster, who has snakes coming out of the heads for hair, and poisonous ones, too; and that you spit fire and brimstone at the passersby in front of your cage.
JUST KIDDING!!!
No seriously, I'm just frustrated with the fact that we still have weapons of mass destruction on earth.
Creating a better world makes you happier, so that for me is reward enough in itself. Of course it's how you define it.
Perhaps the role of philosophy in the 21st century is not that obvious to me. Perhaps I am traumatized by the way it was forced upon me as a means of upbringing. But most of all I want people to engage in lively discussions.
asians have created different models of the energy system of the body. and they generally feel that that energy should not just go to the brain. they indeed call that energy blockage. when I see obese people who are exhausted, I think: these people don't understand energy at all.
Literally this is the main problem. Our educational system doesn't take seriously important things which come from philosophy as ethics, moralism, oratory, debate through good arguments, what do we want in life... the reach of happiness
As for now, the EU holds so many languages that maintaining EU law requires translators. In other words: severely dysfunctional. Ah well. At least we got covid to reduce stress :)
. But there are people who have the philosophic attitude. And if you are one of them, please drop it; otherwise you and your energy will be lost in a desert.
The obvious question is "Why are you here?"
There is a start for why I think my sisters in Afghanistan deserve our assistance. To me, if they want to live as we do enough to put their lives on the line then it is just human decency that we continue to defend them, instead of leaving them to be slaughtered by religious people who do not have very good human values and treat women very badly.
I think there is a serious problem with thinking democracy is a political thing that started in the US. Democracy is a philosophical thing that may have officially been manifested as a political thing in Athens but the set of values certainly was not exclusive to Athenians.
Excellent question.
That is an interesting thought worth pondering. I think education in the US could be improved with the benefit of improving mental and physical health for everyone.
It is sad in the West we are so sure of ourselves and appear to know so little. In general, we don't even know what science has to do with philosophy and what that has to do with health.
Those who think that have technology confused with science. Philosophy and science deal with universals, technology does not.
I think people know a lot in the West. Or anywhere on the planet for that matter. It's just that we sometimes don't apply that knowledge all too well. We're still human, after all.
And yes, the link between science and philosophy still seems obscure to me but I'm getting there
. I cannot show to a community that already despise it ... friend ...
Nicely put. I guess the real job of all of us is to consider ideas we are not necessarily drawn to and perhaps even repelled by (of course you wouldn't want to push this too far). This in itself probably requires a philosophical imagination.
I'm interested in your idea about philosophy being stony. Can you say more in concrete terms (no half-arsed pun intended) about why it doesn't work for you?
I guess you have to make the case that moral statements like this are justifiable epistemologically in whatever philosophical/spiritual system you settle on. Should be easy to do if you are a Christian (although it doesn't stop the prosperity gospel folks and neo-liberals of faith from looking past injustice and disadvantage).
It also interests me what the role of morality or social justice might be in a world where where matter isn't real and only consciousness is true.
This is my favorite philosophical quote. It's from Franz Kafka:
There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can’t do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you.
The world is simple and clear. It's right here in front of us. It's not hidden. We just need to pay more attention. Become more aware. The book of philosophy that has meant the most to me is the Tao Te Ching. It covers everything, all of existence, physical and moral, in 81 verses. You can read it in an hour.
Much western philosophy takes the simple world we live in and complicates it with convoluted explanations and arguments, self-deceptive explanations, jargon, nitpicky distinctions, dogmatic certainty. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of pages to describe some miniscule unimportant corner of reality. Example - justified true belief. I tripped over a blog post about this a few years ago. I couldn't believe people were arguing about it. Then I got to the Gettier problem and I had to stop.
I remember the first philosophy class I took 50 years ago. It was called the Mind Brain Identity Problem. It was about, well, the mind brain identity problem. I figured, well this should be interesting. There must be something deep and complicated about this. Getting to understand it will be fun. Nope - it turns out there are people who believe that the brain is the mind. The mind is the brain. What does that even mean?
No, I don't want to argue about the Gettier problem or whether or not the mind is the brain.
I wouldn't try too hard. If it doesn't grab you, it doesn't. I'm seems like it is the same for those who prefer western philosophy. It grabs them. They recognize it. It's something they didn't know they already knew.
I just had a quick scan on line. It certainly is striking - it reads like poetry and the reader needs to have a particular personality or imagination (I suspect) to get the most from it.
I'm not a big Western philosophy guy so I feel like I should resonate with other modes of expression. But I am a product of my culture and I can't see a way past most of my own presuppositions.
I think you're right. I'll will say one thing more - It may seem flowery, but it is every bit as down-home and hard-headed as any western philosophy. Its view of reality is poetic, but it's not romantic or dewy-eyed. No fluffy bunnies.
I do understand better what this means. In my understanding it is philosophy that paved the way for science by undermining fixed religious beliefs. Do you agree?
. Read with attention and meditatively what I said ...
. Thats the problem of the so-called philosophers ... They project their own prejudices on reality ... They're not simple, ordinary ... they pretend to know ... they don't have eyes to see ... what it is ...
. See what I said attentively ... don't think about it ... And you'll know that behind your so-called intellectuality hides loads of ignorance and borrowed knowledge ...
. One more time ...
. Read with attention and meditatively what I said ...
. Thats the problem of the so-called philosophers ... They project their own prejudices on reality ... They're not simple, ordinary ... they pretend to know ... they don't have eyes ... to see ... what it is ...
. See what I said attentively ... don't think about it ... And you'll know that behind your so-called intellectuality hides loads of ignorance and borrowed knowledge ...
. You did not understand what I said ...
Of course you'd always rather feel at home. Feelings or emotions are the determining factor for happiness.
. I answer you just if you answer me this ... my friend ...
. Why are you still asleep in Life ...
Quoting Anand-Haqq
The average statements of someone who don’t even understand what is typing in the internet. Just empty ideas.
. The average sleepy mediocre being ... dragging himself in Life ...
. Otherwise, why the comment ...
That so, we must conclude that neither capitalism nor over-population are the problem. The earth can support a large human population going forward given a rational application of technology. The population problem is a consequence of failing to apply the right technologies for the right reasons; which are a) the sum of scientific knowledge, and b) sustainability as a value; as might have ultimately transpired had the Church embraced Galileo, and embraced science as the means to decode the Creation.
That's not what happened. Science was deprived of recognition with accusations of heresy. Science has created a better world, nonetheless. We are surrounded by technological miracles. Technology is misapplied for the most part, but in its functionality there's a glimpse of a world that works - a world in which the truth value of scientific knowledge directs the application of technology to secure the greater good.
No, I don't see it that way. Religion, philosophy, and science are all ways of understanding the world. They developed out of each other and are all mixed up together. That's not a bad thing.
Quoting TaySan
Then you will indulge me to repeat this:
Quoting counterpunch
If you like my ideas, feel free to copy and share them.
I do not have so much faith in what the West knows. We have been specialized and our knowledge seems very limited to our specialty and our personal lives. In the US we are much more apt to be Christian and to know nothing of philosophy! So we know our specialty, our personal lives, and how our own particular church interprets the Bible. That is not knowing a lot. But instead leads to a lot of conflicts because individually, we know so little.
My thinking is based on Cicero and the notion that we choose the right thing when we know what that is. If you disagree, it would help me form an argument if you say why you do not agree.
Why bother with considering a world without matter? I don't think I would like a world without matter.
How do you know you know the right things?
Quoting Athena
The idea that we 'choose the right thing when we know what it is' strikes me as problematic. I don't understand why someone would say this unless there is a vast scaffolding of philosophy underpinning the phrase 'when we know what it is'.
My understanding of human behavior is that we consistently choose short term pleasures and strong tribal positions and junk food along with junk ideas when we know there are better options and even know most of the time what these better options are.
I've worked with former prisoners over the years - hard core criminals - almost all of them knew the right thing to do. The consistent theme is that they did what they did because something mysterious came over them or 'the knife just went in' or 'before I knew it my fists were hitting her' or 'I snapped'. Their more righteous self temporarily went 'off line'.
I am not big on making all encompassing conclusions from this, but I will say that the difference between choosing to do the right thing and choosing to do the wrong thing is often located in person's sense of self rather than the nature of the action.
polethics is a colexification I propose, one of politics and ethics taken as a single subject.
Yes, our sense of self and our emotions and addictions do become a complicating factor. We do not have to go to the extreme of convicts. Obese people and addicts feel compelled to do what they do. Shoplifting is associated with youthful "catch me if you can" thinking (monkey thinking) and with grief. How about speeding when we drive? :grin: It is hard to be good all the time.
Back to the convict example, I engaged with convicts and I would say at least some of them were confused. One young man was really looking forward to being in the correction system because he thought it meant real correction through education and he knew he was not prepared for life. It really upsets me when an abused woman finally kills her abuser and is put in prison. I don't think that is right.
Can philosophy help these people? I think it can but it has to be learned because this thinking does not come naturally and we all need support from others especially when we are trying to make a personal change. This is why the classics and philosophy or religion are important. Because we can learn to use our minds to live intentionally, to let go of the past and create ourselves as new people. In religion, this called born again. Religion has the benefit of a support group and not so much philosophy, but it is all about learning.
AA groups speak of our higher selves- that part of us that knows better. Well, it might not actually know what philosophy can teach us, but it has a desire to make the right choice. We may lack the strength at first. We may have really bad thinking habits that hold us down. But we all have a higher self that wants to get things right.
Philosophy can't help Co2 quotas but it can help understand the nonchalance surrounding it, it may even, when stretched, provide possible scenarios that could come out of the squable but a true solution can only be achieved through a collective effort.
Both in the sciences and in humanity in general.
To harp on the climate change theme-I know there are other problems but permit my narrow focus- climates always change, that's natural and has been dealt with by either changing cultural habits or removing humanity from the equation for as long as it takes for the climate to balance; the problem is that the climate is changing all over the world, a progressive nation can't stop this, a progressive continent can't stop it, only a progrressive humanity can. To solve a global problem you need global cooperation.
Not sure what that would look like but I would say that for many people it would not. Quality counselling might help.
Quoting Athena Not a big fan of AA based on what I have seen, but obviously social support groups do work and AA does work for some people. I prefer SMART Recovery. I am not crazy about hierarchical ideas like 'higher self' but some people find the frame useful.
Yep :up: I think the OP might could reflect on what kinds of philosophy are relevant here. For instance, as you so well pointed out, whether it's political philosophy, scientific philosophy, Christian philosophy (the golden rule) or any other kind of general philosophy, the important point is that philosophy lives in words. And we all use words to convey or communicate meaning, usually in order to advance the subject matter. Accordingly, we use reason and common sense (treating like cases likely and different cases differently) to discover and uncover new ways of Being.
Otherwise, conversely, I say, slay your Gilligan's; ask not what philosophy can do for you-ask what you can do for philosophy!
LOL Happy Friday!!!
In case you check in with us, I have enjoyed your post.
My thoughts of happiness come from Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Thomas Jefferson
When I was young and trying to figure life out, I realized my idea of happiness was temporary amusements that really were not satisfying and often left me dissatisfied and wanting more. Then I began gardening and realized accomplishments give us an enduring happiness. I stopped chasing after the temporary happiness and began seeking achievements that become enduring happiness.
I want to reply to here because of doubting how much philosophy can help rehabilitate convicts. My reply to him goes with my understanding of happiness and is the same as my belief that education and philosophy can redeem convicts or anyone struggling with life.
Without education in philosophy, I think most people misunderstand the US Declaration of Independence and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson based that statement on Plato and Aristotle's understanding of happiness. And those who don't know that, do think happiness is a temporary thing, like seeing a good movie, enjoying ice cream, getting drunk and other things that can lead to suffering. Until we understand happiness as these men did, we do have enduring happiness and good judgment.
Not crazy about the word 'redeem' for me it has some awkward religious/conversion overtones - but let's place that to one side. My point was just that some people know very well what they ought not to do and why - they lack the capacity to regulate their emotions based on a fractured sense of self. Many will need to acquire some basic interpersonal skills first just to be in a position to sit still respectfully to listen to anything else.
I hope you are aware that the Book of Mormon completely reverses its narrative on race by the end of the text. It sets things up to make you think it's going to side with 19th century white racialism early in the text, but then pulls the chair out from under that view by the end. It goes to the very core of that worldview and then brutally rips the guts out of it. Not as an outsider, but from a place of deeply understanding it, paying the narrative cost of doing that. And this wasn't an accident by any possible account either because Joseph Smith Jr and the early Latter Day Saints were vocally anti-slavery in a time and place where it was physically dangerous to be so. It is an explicitly liberal text (in the 19th century sense of the word liberal) and not what you'd assume if you go into it with a shallow reading, uninformed by historical context and then quit reading early on because of a stereotype.
Yes, it does say some things to set up the kind of world where white racialism makes sense: the kind of world which that worldview implicitly assumes must be how things work. But those statements do not stand unexamined by the end of the text.
Now I'm not saying everybody who gives it a fair reading does or should get convinced or converted to the Mormon church. I'm not with the Mormon church. I'm just saying, for the moment, that this particular charge of racism against the Book of Mormon can't be sustained given what was really going on both in the text and in the historical context of the 19th century.
Much ink has been spilled on the question of whether the Book of Mormon is true or false -- which is fair enough, because the text obnoxiously necessitates that kind of evaluation in its opening lines. But I think insufficient attention has been paid to the orthogonal question of whether the Book of Mormon is deep or shallow. My argument on this would be that no matter where you stand on its historicity, in fact, it is deep.
Sorry, I have to use AI to pull the rug out from under the argument you made. I did not single out Mormons when addressing racism, and I want to use an authority stronger than my own voice to be clear about this. Not only do I want to clear myself of the assumed wrong, but I want every single person to know the history of our racism. Christianity itself has always been a problem, and racism is not the only problem with Christianity.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Civil+war+who+believed+slaver+is+justified+by+god%27s+curse&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS990US990&oq=Civil+war+who+believed+slaver+is+justified+by+god%27s+curse&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAEyCQgDECEYChigATIJCAQQIRgKGKABMgcIBRAhGI8CMgcIBhAhGI8C0gEKNTEwNDNqMGoxNagCCLACAfEFif74NTwABCs&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Are you a powerless human being? If a wrong is being done, do you have any responsibility to resolve the problem? Sure, ignorance is bliss, but as human beings, perhaps we carry a responsibility to bring an end to what is wrong?
The suffix "ance" forms nouns denoting an action. The word ignore means "refuse to take notice of or acknowledge; disregard intentionally." To intentionally ignore something is failing to take responsibility. That might be a moral problem or a morale problem.
I believe philosophy has done far more to manifest a better world than religion achieved. I sure as blazes do not want to go back in time to when one church ruled and maintained ignorance and superstition. I do not believe a God takes care of us, or gives us kings to take care of us, or wants us to go around the world killing people. If there is evil out there, I am sure if there is a God he can take that evil without us killing people. We manifest our own reality, and that goes better when we accept the responsibility for what we manifest.
:lol: I came of age in the 60s. One of many chants was....If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
I watched a good youtube explanatiion of climate change, and true, our planet has experienced climate change but you should not stop there. Ice ages happen. Millions of people would die in an ice age, but they are essential, and right now, the CO2 in our atmosphere is preventing an overdue ice age. If we continue in the direction we are going, we could become extinct.
We should not stop at saying the world has always experienced climate change. We need to know the CO2 problem is man-made and it has disrupted the earth cycle. I can not think of any good ways to handle what is happening, but we need to take responsibility for what we have done and will have to do in the future.
The oil and economic problem is not just an Ice age or thousands of years of intense heat. An article in a 1920 newspaper warned, "Given our known oil supply and rate of consumption, we are headed for economic disaster and possible war." Two things changed. We opened oil wells around the world, and technology greatly increased the use we can get out of a barrel of oil. You might understand oil is finite and ignoring this problem is a problem.
At the end of WWII, the US was seen by many as a world savior. It was not long before the US's oil and economic needs made it a threat to countries around the world. If we paid at the gas pump for the cost of war, we couldn't afford gas. Our tax dollars subsidize the military costs of trying to control oil. We need to talk about this. We need to talk about oil and banking. We need more information, and we needed it yesterday. I am sure most of us feel helpless because we don't know enough to figure out the best way to deal with a very, very big problem. We should have started limiting our use of oil in the 1920's when the connection between oil, banking, and war was realized.
And philosophers need to pay attention to reality.
"story interpreted as explaining the origins of Canaanite servitude and used historically to justify oppression." Such stories make the Old Testament a terrible basis for human relationships. Don't you see them as very offensive? Those stories are about worshiping a God of war, leading to our very offensive culture in the US prepared for the Military-Industrial Complex and acts of war that violate international agreements.
The idea of linking Ham to Africans is a later addition, not from the original story at all. The original story was saying something completely different from that very modern spin by white racialists. But at the same time, the Bible does not assume or even permit your modern quasi-Marxist moral framework in which slavery and colonialism are the prime historical evil to which all other evils are lesser. Just like how the Bible doesn't support the white racialists modern moral framework, it doesn't support yours either. So while you're wrong to attribute this white racialist moral framework to the story of Ham in the Bible, you're not wrong to have gathered that the Bible in fact does have a different moral framework from yours. It just isn't the same one as the white racialists.
> "Those stories are about worshiping a God of war,"
Sometimes people need killing. I'm not a pacifist.
> "leading to our very offensive culture"
Sometimes people should be offended.
> "in the US prepared for the Military-Industrial Complex and acts of war that violate international agreements."
I'm not a globalist either.
What the Book of Mormon is doing to white racialism is far more devastating than what you're doing. What you're doing is an external attack: rejecting the basic premises and asserting your own alien moral framework to judge the position from outside. What the Book of Mormon is doing is accepting the basic premises and moral framework and then showing, from the inside, how completely unworkable the position is. (which emerges near the conclusion of the narrative) And that is far more powerful than an external attack could ever be.
But again, it also isn't compatible with your quasi-Marxism so that doesn't mean it's necessarily on your side, except for also by coincidence being very clearly against 19th century white racialism as you are.
Quoting BenMcLean
I don't know what you think separates you from the radicals who go on killing rampages, or the good Nazis who believed God is in favor of killing Jews. I no longer feel safe. Please, do not read or reply to my post.
If we're ever going to talk about Nazis then let's keep it historically grounded in who the actual Nazis were and why we fought them, not indulge in self-serving self-righteous current year political metaphor & revisionism.
Actually, it was China and the Soviet Union. The USA came in late and gave itself the credit.
But we are not supposed to point this out.
A bit different to now.
Also, I don't know how the Nazi came up as a subject in this thread. It is a subject I love, and I am more informed about what happened than most people in the US. I love talking about it, and if you know anything about the bureaucratic order that supported Hitler's power, I will be surprised. However, if you want to open a thread for that subject and keep your post respectful, I would gladly discuss it with you.
In this thread, Hegel and Nietzsche can be used as philosophies that led to failure, but their philosophy was not as much of a problem as Christianity, a religion strongly based on war.
War is a universal human default expierence. Your constant assumption that pacifism is somehow the norm is false. Pacifism is a luxury belief that grows up under air conditioned circumstances among people who have never dealt with real life.
Much better! :grin: Thank you.
Yes, humans can act badly because we are evolved from animals that have automatic reactions. However, this is where philosophy steps in. With a better understanding of ourselves as animals, we can respond rationally and learn impulse control. We can form ideas about what is a good life and base our decisions on the best way to achieve what we want.
Just because we are striving for an ideal world of peace and love, that doesn't mean everyone in the world will do the same. I do not understand the mentality of leaders who are aggressive and destructive. Thank heavens John Kennedy was our president when Cuba turned to the USSR for help, because if it had been for him, we would have been in a nuclear war with Russia.
It really matters if we believe we can not avoid war, or if we believe we can avoid war. Just about everyone was pushing Kennedy to enter wars he did not want to happen. And what happened when he was killed was a terrible war in Vietnam that the US should have stayed out of. Kennedy was right about that.
I look forward to your reply.
PS, Kennedy was dealing with real life. The bastards that pushed us into a war that should not have happened are real. I know those bastards are out there.
Wait a minute. Because some prisons have begun educating prisoners by using the classics, we know these novels can change lives. We know Kennedy faced a lot of pressure to involve the US in the Vietnam War and in a war with Cuba, and even a war with the USSR. He succeeded in standing against these war mongers until he was killed.
Every human being has a choice, and I think philosophy greatly improved our choices. I will choose philosophy over Christianity and the terrible belief that we can not avoid wars and other bad behavior. True, many of us behave badly, and I think that is most likely when we are ignorant. And it appears to me that religious people who read only their religious book are the biggest problem. The holy books come from a past that was not as good as the progress we have made.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/16341/war
Everything branched off from philosophy: physics, biology, chemistry, geology, etc. These fields have been extremely important in extending human life, in making some chores obsolete, in creating entertainment, in facilitating travel, etc., etc.
So "philosophy" has contributed plenty. Now there is the moral issue of inequality, war, nation-states, climate catastrophe etc. That is related to how systems of power propagate, not to science or philosophy. True, there is much that needs improvement and very urgently, but it does not follow this is the fault of philosophers or scientists.
However, there is no point of comparison. We don't know if the world without philosophy would be better or worse.