unenlightened

Are you suggesting - you seem to be suggesting - that I have made any kind of argument that any such issue should not be debated, or that anyone shoul...

I would be quite happy to agree with you about that and plead guilty to participation, if only you were as resolute in your criticism of Scrotum's lan...

That is a rule. The problem of the whole thread is that to define creativity is to negate it. As a rule, rules are derived from the known, which is th...

What does it mean to tell a couple that their lovemaking is an obscene affront and not a real union? Honestly, it just makes no sense for you to be at...

I'm immensely grateful for your liberality. But as has been pointed out his opinions do only apply to women because they cannot be performed by men as...

Ridiculous argument of the day. Property and money are social constructs. Therefore to be a capitalist is to be a socialist.

I tried it in a rather desultory way many years ago with no noticeable effect. Eyes are complicated and can be affected by many things - stress is one...

But no one's telling him that. They're telling the government not to listen to his idiotic views. and in my case I'm also telling the universities and...

To be fair, I think I would not sack a distinguished professor from a post as advisor over one controversial remark. But when you add the many questio...

So that's what S stands for.

I won't. 'Malevolent' springs to mind. My views imply a more restricted role for Roger Scruton. He affronts me with an obscene display of sexism, raci...

What makes a political position illegitimate? Is it legitimate to propose 'a restricted role' for any group - blacks, Jews, women, homosexuals, whatev...

And this little piggy went 'we we we', all the way home. (I think he lived in a shoe with an old woman...) It's always all about identification. Philo...

God does all the work, so you don't have to.

You might imagine that this is a modern cult. But the Greeks as usual got there first, with Procrustes, the deity of the modern jobsworth.

In people, yes, in philosophy, less so. The difficulty is that deduction is wholly inadequate to life. To reason about the future involves induction; ...

These are not opposed. Evil is banal because it is destruction, and broken people or broken objects are dull useless lifeless and commonplace. And it ...

Exactly, so why is a political scientist using it as the descriptor of someone who he is defining as guilty of 'identity politics'?

I think we probably do agree, you and I, but I'm not so sure about Corey Robin. "The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a European, North Ame...

Well I'm sorry, but that has the same ring of hypocrisy to me. I craft coalitions of interest and ideology, but when anti-racists and feminists do it....

Oh right, so my beliefs and philosophy are not part of my identity? Can you just draw that line a little more sharply for me, because it always tend t...

Re identity politics, can someone enlighten as to what other kind of politics there is?

No wonder you cannot understand anything. I eat off a clean plate, and afterwards I clean the same plate and next day I eat again off the same clean p...

You have told us some stuff about yourself, that you yourself consider significant. A. A childhood sexual experience. B. A debilitating mental health ...

Have I not made fairly clear what I approve of and disapprove of? I not going to endorse "what happened in China" in some absolute sense. Good things ...

Yes you can; it's called cleaning.

Expansion of wealth, economic growth, rapid progress. Are these all the same thing? Are they the thing that matters? I wonder if we could talk about t...

Well Szaz would be your true absurdist. We do stigmatise murderers do we not? And sometimes we call them mad, and sometimes we don't. And what is the ...

A fate worse than birth.

It would be helpful if you could put a clarification as to what for you distinguishes self from identity. The distinction is not fixed, and can be not...

I've said some stuff. You say some stuff, and then we'll compare. But try not to create a straw man argument based on the virtue of the poor. People w...

Talking of paradox, Soros, Poland, Zionism, and stuff, here are some more dots from opposing universes seeming to join up. https://azvsas.blogspot.com...

Never, ever, ever complain. Feedback is just a place to volunteer to be banned. A really good thread is one that is sufficiently vague that two or mor...

Day 1. Think. Day 2. Post thread of polished pearls. Day 3. Reply to comments or add an elucidation as necessary. Day 4. Watch your pearls sink down t...

One o' the best bits as it goes; N Wales, by the seaside. And today is bright sunshine and no wind, and the world and his brother are here for Easter,...

Guilty.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/20/jordan-peterson-slavoj-zizek-happiness-capitalism-marxism Here is the secret to happiness. Juvenile huma...

These things are relative, and I'm a miserable old whinger. But it depends where you come from. It's very hard to get away from the drone of traffic, ...

The UK, where I live, is a relatively crowded place, and relatively wealthy place. But it is not an entirely pleasant place to live. The man-made envi...

Greengrocery >banana wholesale purchase> "About how many hands to a box?"> how big are the bananas? Philosophy>realism demonstration> "Here is a hand,...

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/anthropocene-capitalism-climate-change/?fbclid=IwAR1FJ9VcytY5vs0hgjC1EzqObkOZlBvKdCbQD6sdbVI0CilvwAIIm415iNc Too mu...

It's God, isn't it? At last, I thought you'd never come back. No wait, I'm smart, I've got all the best words - It's the real DT.

Yeah, but don't hold back, dude, let me know when I'm wrong. It's good to know that someone out there is rational and measured.

Sorry, it was probably me that brought that in as something of a fudge between 'language game' and 'form of life'. I wonder if you might say a word ab...

First, thank you for sharing your story with strangers so eloquently, and in defiance of your paranoia. It shows both strength of character and provid...

Why ironic? We replaced The Good Book with The Book of Nature; we didn't stop reading, (or writing). Of course the authority of physics replaced the a...

I don't. Fiction exists in the usual way, but "fictional" is rather a kind of nonexistence. Sheila Potter, Harry's older sister, has no existence what...

The concept works the same way as usual - the brick thrown causes the broken window - not the other way round, except indirectly - break my window and...

Fictional characters may be said to to think, as they may be said to commit murders or wear pyjamas. But they don't wear pyjamas, nobody dies, and the...