The often maligned bourgeoisie, stand around me in ignorant bliss.
Their preoccupation with the pursuits of social ascension and material inebriation makes them oblivious to my stare of bemusement and exasperation, and my smirk of cynical disgust is mistaken for a friendly smile.
But I have come to revise my original absolute loathing for them, when I discovered how much I depend on their misplaced vitality and hypocritical politeness.

Hatred is the product of fear, and as such it is always focused towards those that threaten us in some way.
The seemingly harmless middle-class is certainly a force to be reckoned with, in a world of small spaces and large dreams. In their total submission to social and cultural conventions they become a steamrolling power of conformity that erases all spontaneous occurrences of diversity and ensures an environment of peace and stability.
What is frequently ignored is how, this environment, the very product of social conformity, is also ironically the source of this spontaneity of divergence and how the unique become reliant on the very system they condemn and criticize as restricting.

In ancient Greece the ‘miracle’ of the Hellenic phenomenon was undoubtedly based on a dependable, disciplined and unaware agrarian populace toiling in the fields, unconcerned with metaphysical issues and totally committed to their adopted moral and social norms.
Without them, no philosophy would be possible and no intellectual contemplation would be feasible, even though those most benefiting from their single-mindedness failed to acknowledge this and only managed to look down at them from the heights, those they mocked, provided for them.

Similarly, in the west, the very existence of a leisure class and all occurrences of rebelliousness and divergence are reliant on a vast majority of thoughtless toilers aspiring to material wealth and peer acceptance.
These very bourgeoisie, that reach for moral and social perfection- that reach for that elusive paragon of happiness- that reach for self-validation in others- that reach for positions of power defined by institutional characteristics rather than personal ones, are responsible for the efficient and smooth running of a civilization that rewards us with sanitation systems, easy access to nutrition, access to information and knowledge, relative safety and prolonged life-spans.
Yet, the sport of mediocrity bashing persists amongst those that are advantaged by it and something I myself have been guilty of.
(Of course the concept of ‘mediocrity’ itself is but a matter of perspective; a superior mind in one group can be a mediocre one on another and vice versa.)

The reason why this is so, is because this vast majority of humanity, given the current ideals concerning democratic values, Christian ehtics and political equalitarianism, are direct participants in individual choices and an imposition upon personal directions and desires.
Something very unattractive to the strong-willed and independent minded.
In fact, the social character of mankind and the majority’s total reliance on popular opinion to find personal ones makes the existence of pop-culture a necessity.

This imposition becomes sensed by everyone, most forcefully, during the teen years when previous childhood indoctrinating practices are tested and remnants of resistance and defiance are eradicated. It is during this time that the mediocre mind is established and shaped in the form that it will take for the remainder of its life and many of the exceptional are enticed or forced into capitulation and conformity to pre-established limitations.
The few that manage to escape this period intact, due to an excess of character strength and manage to remain unaffected, become bruised outcasts from a system they cannot ignore or escape but are forced to discipline themselves to, if for no other reason than simple survival.
They then go through the motions of social and cultural conformity, feeling ashamed for having to pretend or for having to compromise their own ideals and consequently feeling bitter towards the system, the institutions and individuals that maintain it.
This is where hatred for the middle-class takes root in the mind of the free-spirited.
What else can the sense of helplessness turn into, when one is urged to subjugate his will to the requirements of a social and cultural environment, he is in total disagreement with or with which he cannot relate to?
This sense of helplessness turns quickly into hatred and then to anger, when it is exasperated by the realization that the rules of the system are enforced and regulated by the very individuals possessing the obligatory weaknesses of mind and spirit required to become representatives and beneficiaries of it; the consequences of this, being that these outcasts are then controlled and dependant on individuals of lesser mental quality and character, the very types the system depends on.

This first reaction against those we immediately perceive as responsible for our indignity and indignation usually diminishes in time, if we utilize it precisely and effectively.
If un-attaching ourselves from the system that restricts us is our goal and becoming indifferent to the masses that comprise it is our aim, then a period of sacrifice is compulsory.
There are no wildernesses to escape into or to wander through like hermits of days gone by and complete solitude can be hard to find in a world of billions and borders.
The only solutions are either: surrender, death or a social parasitism.

Decalogue of Social Parasitism.

1- Let the many believe whatever stupidity they like.
2- Enjoy the benefits of the environment without being taken by its values.
3- Avoid becoming addicted to the luxuries the environment offers.
4- Live lightly.
5- Do not fight the conformity of the masses; ensure it.
6- Hypocrisy.
7- Only share your real opinions with those you consider your equals and then only if there will be no personal ramifications because of it.
8- Work towards social and economic disentanglement.
9- Manipulate mediocrity towards your own ends.
10- Remain flexible but strong.

Number 5.
Mediocrity has a tendency to be a self-reinforcing entity. How and why should one ensure it? You should look further into the comments you made above regarding fear and indifference. Ensuring mediocrity would only come as a result of fear, or perhaps some predatory instinct, but there are some who do come very close to indifference, if not completely so. Indifference precludes the desire to either fight or ensure mediocrity.

Number 7
Needs some work. To risk nothing for a supposed equal stinks of cowardice. If one finds something of value, then that thing should be seized, loved, even at the risk of self. Would you sacrifice self knowledge in order to retain an illusion of self?

The Marquis
Wearing your old masks, I see.

Number 5.
Mediocrity has a tendency to be a self-reinforcing entity. How and why should one ensure it? You should look further into the comments you made above regarding fear and indifference. Ensuring mediocrity would only come as a result of fear, or perhaps some predatory instinct, but there are some who do come very close to indifference, if not completely so. Indifference precludes the desire to either fight or ensure mediocrity.
Since none of us can be completely indifferent to a system that encompasses us and affects us, in so many ways, some fear is necessary to ensure survival.

I would say that mediocrity is self-replicating indeed but to enlighten the few that might be raised above it with external intervention as opposed to personal effort, is to decrease your effectiveness.
Minutely, perhaps, but why risk it?

Number 7
Needs some work. To risk nothing for a supposed equal stinks of cowardice. If one finds something of value, then that thing should be seized, loved, even at the risk of self. Would you sacrifice self knowledge in order to retain an illusion of self?
True, I considered adding clarifications to each but chose to keep it short so as to provoke responses.

A lot have changed since ancient Greek times. The most important change is productivity explosion. As a result, only a small fraction of population is engaged in providing the essential goods and services. What does the rest do? Well, the rest is peddling their unessential/extravagant/fraudulent/stupid services to the productive folks and their masters. “Peddlers” include variety of folks: from a pet shit scooper to “renown” scientists selling their worthless, over-hyped shit to every funding hole they can find.

Modern society consists of :

1. Masters/owners/investor leeches and their chain dogs
2. Producers of essential goods
3. Providers of essential services
4. 70% and up of the societary ballast vying for $ of the above 3 groups

Productivity continues to grow, so will the number of folks in group #4. If groups #1-3 will be less willing to separate with their $ to purchase shit they do not really need, such a society is doomed.

I believe, ancient Greece was somewhat different.

Okay, you asked for it:

Wanderer:
But I have come to revise my original absolute loathing for them, when I discovered how much I depend on their misplaced vitality and hypocritical politeness.

Are you claiming to have loathed them in the first place?

What you describe is simple common sense. I am sure that the malcontents will complain about their lack of personal choice in our society - Jake can't rape Shiela, Sheila can't kill her annoying neighbour, Xev has to take the stupid fucking ACTs, etc. But that complaint is the mere evasion of personal responsibility. The world is the way the world is. I find university entrance requirements illogical - I can go to college or not. My choice. The bourgouise are annoying? I can live outside them or not. My choice. I will eventually become limited by my choices - this is no-one's responsibility but my own.

Anyone who does not realize this, and the absolute freedom with which they act, is a damned fool who hardly deserves an essay.

The limitations of the world, the relentless striving and desiring, and the need for adventure are not confined to a bourgouise age. They are human nature, and exist to be unfulfilled. To blame these unfulfilled dreams upon the middle class, the feminization of man, domestication or the narrowmindedness of modern life is a weakling's refuge.

And anyone who does not realize this, and the absolute freedom with which they act, is a damned fool who hardly deserves an essay.

Those who disparage mediocrity secretly thank their Gods for it. The mediocre, bourgouise world gives a perfect alibi for their personal cowardice.
There are always new frontiers to cross, frontiers of the mind and spirit as well as of the body. The only thing needed is the ability to live off the land and trust the uncontrollable.

And anyone who does not realize this, and the absolute freedom with which they act, is a damned fool who hardly deserves an essay.

But you've written a good essay. It is overly civil towards an idea that deserves only contempt, but it is a good essay.

They then go through the motions of social and cultural conformity, feeling ashamed for having to pretend or for having to compromise their own ideals and consequently feeling bitter towards the system, the institutions and individuals that maintain it.

Feeling ashamed?
Please.
Thanks to the democratic ideals you sneer at, one does not have to go through the motions of social and cultural conformity. But this involves a price. It means that you won't have little doggies to follow you around or people to be charmed by your seeming-adoption of their values. It means that, quite possibly, some people that you care about will see you as an antisocial freak. And all of that will be your responsibility.

Those "bitter at the system" are simply weaklings who cannot stomach the fact that control was never handed to their shabby egos.

There is one - only one sense of bitterness that nobility will allow. That is the consciousness of unfreedom, the hatred of limitation and the need to destroy. Hate it, destroy it, rebuild it in a better image. But to be worthy of this - and even this ressentiment will end - one must be willing to destroy even what one most loves in order to earn transcendance.

In closing, your essay coddles the very thing it should be attacking. Instead of saying "you are a weak minded trifle if you are resentful towards the 'system' after adolescence" you give the weak minded resentful trifles all manner of victimized justifications - like "they feel ashamed to pretend a love of 'Friends', but damn it, they just have to". This serves no good. Your essay lacks the rigid honesty and cruelty necessary to transcend victimized feelings of being "trapped". Nor do you realize what really traps a person - far more than the structures of modern society or adherence to bourgouise values, it is the need for other people that traps and limits one.

You do not go this far, nor do the whiny misanthropes even dare. The only way to be free of people is to not need them emotionally, to be cold, resolute and self-sufficiant. Man is born with certain receptors, as it were, needy for the drugs that human society supplies. The only way to transcend this limitation is to learn to supply them yourself.

Until then, no amount of social parasitism will redeem you from your nature: a simple slave to the needs of the body.

The only solutions are either: surrender, death or a social parasitism.

No. "Social parasitism" is the thing between surrender and death. That "social parasitism" is the lukewarm option for those who do not have the courage or determination to kill themselves (even though they often contemplate it), yet are unwilling to "conform to the masses" (as the "masses" don't seem good enough for them).

Game Theory offers you a view on what the inter-relations in a strategic environment, such as human society, are: 1. The reward for each agent depends on the reward for all agents, through envy, altruism, ... 2. The reward for each agent depends on the acting of all agents, through general social causality. 3. The acting of each agent depends on the acting of all agents, because of strategic thinking. 4. The wishes of each agent depend on the acting of all agents.

Knowing this, at least to me, it seems easy to understand the "limitations" of the "bourgeois", and also what the actions and thoughts are to surpass those "limitations".

You've listed 3 options, I add another, the 4th: happy trickstery (although it can have other names and variations too).

XEV
Okay, you asked for it:
I did?
Oh, oh!

Are you claiming to have loathed them in the first place?
Uhhhhhhhh....yes?
But I do offer them the courtesy of not showing it to them directly, especially when they’ve done nothing towards me to deserve my wrath.
I also dislike cats, but I don’t go around kicking them, when they stay out of my way

What you describe is simple common sense. I am sure that the malcontents will complain about their lack of personal choice in our society - Jake can't rape Shiela, Sheila can't kill her annoying neighbour, Xev has to take the stupid fucking ACTs, etc. But that complaint is the mere evasion of personal responsibility. The world is the way the world is. I find university entrance requirements illogical - I can go to college or not. My choice. The bourgouise are annoying? I can live outside them or not. My choice. I will eventually become limited by my choices - this is no-one's responsibility but my own.

Anyone who does not realize this, and the absolute freedom with which they act, is a damned fool who hardly deserves an essay.It is your responsibility.

The limitations of the world, the relentless striving and desiring, and the need for adventure are not confined to a bourgouise age. They are human nature, and exist to be unfulfilled. To blame these unfulfilled dreams upon the middle class, the feminization of man, domestication or the narrowmindedness of modern life is a weakling's refuge.

And anyone who does not realize this, and the absolute freedom with which they act, is a damned fool who hardly deserves an essay.I thought I was indirectly complaining about having to pay the rent and to go to work. :confused:

Those who disparage mediocrity secretly thank their Gods for it. The mediocre, bourgouise world gives a perfect alibi for their personal cowardice.
There are always new frontiers to cross, frontiers of the mind and spirit as well as of the body. The only thing needed is the ability to live off the land and trust the uncontrollable.

And anyone who does not realize this, and the absolute freedom with which they act, is a damned fool who hardly deserves an essay.The only “frontiers” left are personal.
All other frontiers are fenced in.
They have an entrance fee.

But you've written a good essay. It is overly civil towards an idea that deserves only contempt, but it is a good essay. It is?! :eek:

Feeling ashamed?
Please.
Thanks to the democratic ideals you sneer at, one does not have to go through the motions of social and cultural conformity. But this involves a price. It means that you won't have little doggies to follow you around or people to be charmed by your seeming-adoption of their values. It means that, quite possibly, some people that you care about will see you as an antisocial freak. And all of that will be your responsibility.Then you underestimate your dependence on others and their good-will.
The price isn’t only one of vanity.
There are actually real consequences to not ‘playing the game’.

Those "bitter at the system" are simply weaklings who cannot stomach the fact that control was never handed to their shabby egos.Spoken like someone still not suffering from the weariness of struggle.
It will come.
Control is always taken and then only in pieces.

There is one - only one sense of bitterness that nobility will allow. That is the consciousness of unfreedom, the hatred of limitation and the need to destroy. Hate it, destroy it, rebuild it in a better image. But to be worthy of this - and even this ressentiment will end - one must be willing to destroy even what one most loves in order to earn transcendance. Incarceration is a terrible thing.

In closing, your essay coddles the very thing it should be attacking. Instead of saying "you are a weak minded trifle if you are resentful towards the 'system' after adolescence" you give the weak minded resentful trifles all manner of victimized justifications - like "they feel ashamed to pretend a love of 'Friends', but damn it, they just have to". This serves no good. Your essay lacks the rigid honesty and cruelty necessary to transcend victimized feelings of being "trapped". Nor do you realize what really traps a person - far more than the structures of modern society or adherence to bourgouise values, it is the need for other people that traps and limits one. I was focused more on practical entrapments than emotional ones.
I can deny my feelings, I cannot deny the rent.

You do not go this far, nor do the whiny misanthropes even dare. The only way to be free of people is to not need them emotionally, to be cold, resolute and self-sufficiant. Man is born with certain receptors, as it were, needy for the drugs that human society supplies. The only way to transcend this limitation is to learn to supply them yourself.So you propose evolving beyond human nature?
Perhaps in a million years, but by next week?!

Until then, no amount of social parasitism will redeem you from your nature: a simple slave to the needs of the body.Deny the “needs of the body” XEV and you certainly will be free.
You’ll be enjoying the carefree emancipation of the... dead. :bugeye:

RosaMagika
No. "Social parasitism" is the thing between surrender and death. That "social parasitism" is the lukewarm option for those who do not have the courage or determination to kill themselves (even though they often contemplate it), yet are unwilling to "conform to the masses" (as the "masses" don't seem good enough for them).
Uh huh.
Life is too precious and interesting to squander away because of others.
In both cases: killing yourself and adapting to the rules, there is an element of squandering life.

You've listed 3 options, I add another, the 4th: happy trickstery (although it can have other names and variations too).You mean ‘hypocrisy’ which is part of the list.

Wanderer:
You mean ‘hypocrisy’ which is part of the list.

No, tricksterism is distinguished from hypocrisy in that the trickster remains conscious of how silly everything - his rebellion and what he rebels against - is.
The hypocrite simply lies.

Uhhhhhhhh....yes?
But I do offer them the courtesy of not showing it to them directly, especially when they’ve done nothing towards me to deserve my wrath.


Why the essay if they've done nothing to incur your wrath?

The only “frontiers” left are personal.
All other frontiers are fenced in.
They have an entrance fee.

Everything does. Don't be a victim.

Then you underestimate your dependence on others and their good-will.
The price isn’t only one of vanity.
There are actually real consequences to not ‘playing the game’.

I know that. It could make me bitter.
I also know that there would be very real consequences to failing to adapt to any environment.
At the end of the day, how far I choose to submit to the judgements of others is my choice and only my responsibility. I've carved myself a very comfortable niche without acting in a manner I find vile or playing the game overmuch.

Spoken like someone still not suffering from the weariness of struggle.
It will come.

I cannot help that, I love struggle and combat.

Control is always taken and then only in pieces.

What is the value of control - itself a silly thing - if it is not fought for?
Life acquires its value through the struggle against death, control through the struggle against helplessness, freedom through the struggle against incarceration?

I was focused more on practical entrapments than emotional ones.
I can deny my feelings, I cannot deny the rent.

Emotional entrapments lead to practical ones. One who succumbs to his animal needs for others is thereby obligated to them, his freedom confined by his duties.
Freedom is limited more by our social actions than by our purely physical needs - the body itself is a spartan.

Deny the “needs of the body” XEV and you certainly will be free.
You’ll be enjoying the carefree emancipation of the... dead.

If you want to be absolutist about it.

The Marquis
Wearing your old masks, I see.
An old one, yes. But one which has perhaps lost meaning recently. Each mask has its own characteristics, and as time goes on those characteristics take on value.
I felt, yesterday, that that one had more value. Today, I'm thinking that both do, and each one is a part of me. We'll call it a period of reevaluation, then.

Since none of us can be completely indifferent to a system that encompasses us and affects us, in so many ways, some fear is necessary to ensure survival.
None can be completely indifferent, true. But that degree of indifference takes on an importance, does it not? In light of all you said in your openeing post, the degree of indifference becomes all the more significant.

I would say that mediocrity is self-replicating indeed but to enlighten the few that might be raised above it with external intervention as opposed to personal effort, is to decrease your effectiveness.
Minutely, perhaps, but why risk it?
If all you wish is sycophants and toadies, then I'd agree.

True, I considered adding clarifications to each but chose to keep it short so as to provoke responses.
As you have always done. Why do you think so many take exception?
In targetting those who will take exception, you miss those who might not, or at least antagonise them. Do you think sticking your hand in a wasps' nest will do anything other than make them bite? What you've sought in the past is confirmation. A wasp will attack that which it sees as an intruder - it does not gain any understanding of why it thinks the intruder is one. Yes?
With your posts, you have a tendency to combine the flies with those who are not. Consider it carefully - but do not lose your passion in doing so. I've said before I like what you write. Now focus it on those who understand, not those who never will. Tell me - do you not feel a kind of sickness in those who listen, learn, and then become followers?

I asked someone I consider my equal once - Why do you concentrate so much on them? What will they ever offer you? Comfort in your superiority? True superiority does not require comfort. It engenders indifference. What does submission bring you? Do you think I do not know the pain you feel in submission from another? Ah, but there is a conflict, isn't there. Pain, in their submission. Joy, in that they did submit. Here is where the word "dichotomy" is used truthfully.

The strongest of us are all masochists at heart. Something I've been considering lately.

Fenris Wolf
None can be completely indifferent, true. But that degree of indifference takes on an importance, does it not? In light of all you said in your openeing post, the degree of indifference becomes all the more significant.Indifference, like everything else, is dependant on character and environemntal conditions.
It is, therefore, not completely within our control.

As you have always done. Why do you think so many take exception?People take exception to me provoking conversation?
Let it be.

In targetting those who will take exception, you miss those who might not, or at least antagonise them. Do you think sticking your hand in a wasps' nest will do anything other than make them bite?It’s how I test my immune system and….it’s fun.
There’s also a part of me, because of personal and family pasts, which loves getting the nests all excited so that I can swat them away.
Besides, most of the insects I’ve encountered had little stingers and were more akin to flies than wasps.
Flies are disgusting, but they’re harmless.
They are evidence of decay and malodorous seepage.

What you've sought in the past is confirmation. A wasp will attack that which it sees as an intruder - it does not gain any understanding of why it thinks the intruder is one. Yes?But recognition from bugs is not what I want.
It’s how I gain an excuse to take vengeance on their stupidity.

Tell me - do you not feel a kind of sickness in those who listen, learn, and then become followers?Not sickness, but a loss of respect.
I feel the need there, and I empathize with them, but I also perceived the inadequacy, and I pity them.

I feel the same towards dogs.
Their loyalty, affection and devotion, make me fond of them, but I do not respect them as beings like I do the wolf.

Why do you concentrate so much on them?I find amusement is manipulating them.

What will they ever offer you?One never knows what can be gained from even the lowliest creature.
When the price for my attentions is infinitesimal the cost/benefit ration is acceptable.

Comfort in your superiority?Maybe, access to a certain re-evaluation of it and a reaffirmation of it, from time to time.
I am still human.

What does submission bring you?Empirical evidence of what I think of myself.
Simply believing with no test, is a sure way to exaggerate.
It enables me to measure my place in the world around me.

Absolute indifference is a good way to remain blind to what may be right in front of you.

But you misinterpret caring with interest.
I’m interested in ants, in bees, in wasps and in flies; this does not mean I care about them.

I once wrote that to need nothing and to fear nothing was a description of absolute liberty.
Unfortunately absolute liberty is not accessible by conscious creatures like us.
All we can hope for is a degree of freedom, superior to the one we have.
We are, as individuals, dependant on the environment around us and, for that reason, some attention must be paid to it

Do you think I do not know the pain you feel in submission from another? You mean the pain of knowing that it is never enough?
The pain of knowing that solitude is part of consciousness and the human condition?

Ah, but there is a conflict, isn't there. Pain, in their submission. Joy, in that they did submit. Here is where the word "dichotomy" is used truthfully. Pain and suffering are an inseparable part of consciousness; the stronger the consciousness, the more severe the pain.
For this reason I am convinced that, if there is a God, he must be a miserable bastard.

The strongest of us are all masochists at heart. Something I've been considering lately.I’ve always been attracted to physical discomfort, within reason. It’s the mental suffering I’ve had to learn to endure.

Xev
No, tricksterism is distinguished from hypocrisy in that the trickster remains conscious of how silly everything - his rebellion and what he rebels against - is.
The hypocrite simply lies.I can see the distinction, but for me hypocrisy always entailed an element of acting and a conscious realization of the ridiculousness of it.
I differentiate between hypocrisy towards self, an ailment of the species, and hypocrisy towards others.
In the first case the acting is ‘genuine’ since the actor has become convinced of his own act; in the second the actor remains aware of the proceedings.
This is why the former are always more convincing and effective than the latter.

Why the essay if they've done nothing to incur your wrath?Weren’t you the one complaining about this Forums, recent, degradation?

Everything does. Don't be a victim. I think I’m hearing the echoes of my own words now.

At the end of the day, how far I choose to submit to the judgements of others is my choice and only my responsibility. I've carved myself a very comfortable niche without acting in a manner I find vile or playing the game overmuch. I’ve said this before, playing the game and being played by it, are two different things.
There is no submission when you pretend you care about what others think, when it will accomplish what you desire.

Limiting this, is a prudent strategy; completely avoiding it, an impossibility in this world.
Hey, I don’t like it either.
Why do you think I’m so vengeful towards the unsuspecting?

Emotional entrapments lead to practical ones. One who succumbs to his animal needs for others is thereby obligated to them, his freedom confined by his duties.
Freedom is limited more by our social actions than by our purely physical needs - the body itself is a spartan. Is it not the body itself that demands social interaction?
We are primates.

Life is too precious and interesting to squander away because of others.
In both cases: killing yourself and adapting to the rules, there is an element of squandering life.

Your point being? You have listed those options, and I see "social parasitism" as the lukewarm between the two extremes.

As for "squandering away because of others":

1. Nobody fell from the Moon. Considering oneself so extraspecial and oh so above the "crowd" is an act of inconsistency. The inter-relations posited by Game Theory apply to you very well, just as they apply to everyone else.

2. The fear of squandering life: Who could he be, that is afraid of squandering life? One who is already squandering it?

Diem perdidi should be a mementum to everybody, indeed -- as a warning to never have to say it.


You mean ‘hypocrisy’ which is part of the list.

Maybe it is due to you being a man, that you don't see the beauty of being a superb trickster. Women seem to have it in their genes, but it unfortunately isn't tended to very well.
It is no meanness, no hypocrisy, no lying. It takes creativity though.


The strongest of us are all masochists at heart.

This is such a martyrizing statement.
Do you believe in planning one's character?

Wanderer:
In the first case the acting is ‘genuine’ since the actor has become convinced of his own act; in the second the actor remains aware of the proceedings.

The best of actors are those who act from their own experiences.

Weren’t you the one complaining about this Forums, recent, degradation?

I don't get the connection.

I think I’m hearing the echoes of my own words now.

Which fail to convince with every further exchange of martyrdom between you and the Fenris Wolf.
Which already failed to convince when used in conjunction with:

"The few that manage to escape this period intact, due to an excess of character strength and manage to remain unaffected, become bruised outcasts from a system they cannot ignore or escape but are forced to discipline themselves to, if for no other reason than simple survival."

Christ, please. There's enough self-pity dripping from that to drown a small rodent.

Fact is, while you've transcended your ressentiment on paper, you fail to do so truely in your mind.

Is it not the body itself that demands social interaction?
We are primates.

That is my point. Emotion, as I have explained to you, is the interface between body and mind.
But the body can be taught, its needs can be pruned and it can be tortured to the point where those needs disappear. So can the emotions be taught, pruned and the mind tortured until the emotional needs disappear. Celibacy eventually kills the need for romantic relationships, honesty eventually kills the need for intimacy, and understanding eventually makes the desire for the impossible go away.
One does not become unemotional, that was Spinoza's error, but the emotional is now rooted in the mind and not the vulgar reaches of the body.

We are primates. The question is whether one wants to continue to be a mere primate.

The strongest of us are all masochists at heart. Something I've been considering lately.
I’ve always been attracted to physical discomfort, within reason. It’s the mental suffering I’ve had to learn to endure.

Masochism is the true and radical negation of intimacy. As long as dithering about who is alpha male engages your attention, to speak of such a nihilistic solution is ludicrious.

Xev

Which fail to convince with every further exchange of martyrdom between you and the Fenris Wolf.
Which already failed to convince when used in conjunction with:

"The few that manage to escape this period intact, due to an excess of character strength and manage to remain unaffected, become bruised outcasts from a system they cannot ignore or escape but are forced to discipline themselves to, if for no other reason than simple survival."

Christ, please. There's enough self-pity dripping from that to drown a small rodent.You misconstrue a statement of fact, for a complaint.

But even if we are to agree that there is a grievance insinuated, acknowledgment of circumstances only makes their overcoming a possibility.

There is no human being that does not pity self, to some degree; if for no other reason than to grieve over the inevitable loss of self.

Fact is, while you've transcended your ressentiment on paper, you fail to do so truely in your mind. You are such an absolutist.
The levels of perfection, you search for, may inspire but they are also unrealistic
There is only increase or decrease; there is never complete negation or absolution.
The struggle persists.

That is my point. Emotion, as I have explained to you, is the interface between body and mind.
But the body can be taught, its needs can be pruned and it can be tortured to the point where those needs disappear. So can the emotions be taught, pruned and the mind tortured until the emotional needs disappear. Celibacy eventually kills the need for romantic relationships, honesty eventually kills the need for intimacy, and understanding eventually makes the desire for the impossible go away.
One does not become unemotional, that was Spinoza's error, but the emotional is now rooted in the mind and not the vulgar reaches of the body. So by “pruning” this interface you are separating the mind from the body?
Which will you choose to call your own?

Be careful pieces of both do not peel away along with the emotions you so despise
Are you attempting to become a machine?

I, for one, have no problems with my emotions. When controlled they can enhance pleasure and understanding.

We are primates. The question is whether one wants to continue to be a mere primate. As an individual I am forced to exist in the evolutionary timeframe I find myself in.
Do I aspire to become more? Yes.
Will I succeed in overcoming these primitive parts enough to call myself another species?
Unlikely.

RosaMagika

1. Nobody fell from the Moon. Considering oneself so extraspecial and oh so above the "crowd" is an act of inconsistency. The inter-relations posited by Game Theory apply to you very well, just as they apply to everyone else. Considering ones self as part of the crowd, is an act of hypocritical humility.

2. The fear of squandering life: Who could he be, that is afraid of squandering life? One who is already squandering it?One who is mortal and has squandered enough of it already.

Maybe it is due to you being a man, that you don't see the beauty of being a superb trickster. Women seem to have it in their genes, but it unfortunately isn't tended to very well.
It is no meanness, no hypocrisy, no lying. It takes creativity though.I love how women can take something dress it up in lace and perfume and then label it with more palatable semantics.

Wanderer:
You misconstrue a statement of fact, for a complaint.

I'm sure I do. That incredibly sad statement of fact wasn't a complaint at all. It was just an expression of how hard the world is on a free mind.

There is no human being that does not pity self, to some degree; if for no other reason than to grieve over the inevitable loss of self.

What inevitable loss of self?

You are such an absolutist.

I'm sorry I'm not conceptually muddled enough for you.

The levels of perfection, you search for, may inspire but they are also unrealistic

Who said I am seeking perfection? I simply note that the ressentiment you criticize drips through your essay and your conversation with Fenris Wolf.

So by “pruning” this interface you are separating the mind from the body?

No, dualism is not in my tradition.

Be careful pieces of both do not peel away along with the emotions you so despise
Are you attempting to become a machine?

That, was Spinoza's error. The point is not to become an omni-rational machine, but to root the emotions in the higher mind.

I, for one, have no problems with my emotions. When controlled they can enhance pleasure and understanding.

Of course you don't. You're Greek, your ancestors practically invented the rational enjoyment of the emotions.
I do not follow such a prescription. I have no wish to transform my emotions into a homeopathic brew.
For colder races with stronger emotions, there are few treatments but to force those emotions onto the plane of mind. In my ancestral climates, the need of people and emotions was strong. Our passions correspond to this extreme environment, but not to a modern environment and not to modern people. The moderns are the heirs of the Greeks, to those whose emotions are not powerful enough to be threatening.
What does one do when one's self threatens one's self? Synthesis. One organizes the interface between the mind and body, and cleanses it of emotion. Emotion, uprooted from the body, must take it's place as part of the mind.
In doing so one does not simply think with the intensity of feeling, but feel as one thinks. I seek to regain my ancester's syncretic unity of thought, emotion and intuition.

But that is off-topic. My point remains - it is not physical, but emotional necessity that enslaves one.

Considering ones self as part of the crowd, is an act of hypocritical humility.

One who is mortal and has squandered enough of it already.

Get off of your bloody god complex!


I love how women can take something dress it up in lace and perfume and then label it with more palatable semantics.

No, you just don't understand it, as it is foreign to you. You wish to see things in a negativistic perspective -- so there you go, negativism is what you get. Your glasses are grey-tinted.

Xev

What inevitable loss of self?Death

I'm sorry I'm not conceptually muddled enough for you. I forgive you.

Of course you don't. You're Greek, your ancestors practically invented the rational enjoyment of the emotions.
I do not follow such a prescription. I have no wish to transform my emotions into a homeopathic brew.
For colder races with stronger emotions, there are few treatments but to force those emotions onto the plane of mind. In my ancestral climates, the need of people and emotions was strong. Our passions correspond to this extreme environment, but not to a modern environment and not to modern people. The moderns are the heirs of the Greeks, to those whose emotions are not powerful enough to be threatening. Control is measured by the degree of power it manipulates.

To say that “colder races” have stronger emotions is a hypothesis, not a fact.
Emotions are not culturally determined, but the expression of them is.

One in control of his/her emotions would appear aloof and cold to another, while underneath strong forces churn.

RosaMagika

No, you just don't understand it, as it is foreign to you. You wish to see things in a negativistic perspective -- so there you go, negativism is what you get. Your glasses are grey-tinted.
I could say that your glasses are tainted blue.

Besides I didn’t think my essay was particularly ‘negative’ or ‘positive’.
Perhaps your appreciation of it was.

Wanderer:
Death

Why mourn the return to nothingness?
What is self, anyway? An abstraction, a being that we create around our own nothingness. In death we lose the ability to create this self, but the self never was and never ceases to be.
Around you, hundreds create selves resembling your own, and when you are dead they will continue to do so. The components of your self will exist as long as sentient minds exist.
Only the arrangement changes. But has it not always changed?
Are you the same man as you were at twenty?

Control is measured by the degree of power it manipulates.

Control is the stupid, stupid attempt to evade death by arbitrarily fixing limits. Control is the stupid, stupid attempt to root the self outside itself, as if that ephemeral thing could consume the universe in itself!
One does not ever have or manipulate power, as death waits to devour the pitiful being which imagined his omnipotence.
Having "power" is a drug, deceptive in its promise of freedom from death, deceptive in its promise that the will can be eternally inscribed, anywhere!

"As children in blank darkness tremble and start at everything, so we in broad daylight are oppressed at times by fears as baseless as those horrors which children imagine coming upon them in the dark. The dread and darkness of the mind cannot be dispelled by the sunbeams, the shining shafts of day, but only by an understanding of the outward form and inner workings of nature"
-Lucretius

To say that “colder races” have stronger emotions is a hypothesis, not a fact.

It is a theory, not a hypothesis or fact.

Emotions are not culturally determined, but the expression of them is.

I did not say culturally, I said racially. Of course every person has the same emotional range, but not every person has the same emotional intensity. And this emotional intensity has racial correlations.

One in control of his/her emotions would appear aloof and cold to another, while underneath strong forces churn.

Who said that being aloof and cold made one unemotional?
Did I?
Your supposed objection goes some way to proving my point.

Considering ones self as part of the crowd, is an act of hypocritical humility.

I should wonder what else you are. You may be more at this or that than the average, you might even be more than the average, but you are still part of the crowd.

"Dass du ein Mensch mit Menschen bist" (You are human amoung humans) as Goethe puts it.

Your ancestors were social parasites. They rotted from within because their intellectual class became too effete to defend themselves or their civilization.
The French and Russian aristocracys were social parasites. They too degenerated and were destroyed by a virile and angry underclass. The Habsburg dynasty collapsed. In part because they were unable to adapt to a nationalistic age, but also because they rotted from luxury.

A human must work. However he earns his sustenance, he must work not only to survive, but in order not to become degenerate. He must bear his own burdens fully and with resolution, in order that his connection with nature and with other humans - his most elemental connection with other humans, that of need - be strong. Otherwise he will be listless, frivilous, discontent and weak.

A human must work. However he earns his sustenance, he must work not only to survive, but in order not to become degenerate. He must bear his own burdens fully and with resolution, in order that his connection with nature and with other humans - his most elemental connection with other humans, that of need - be strong. Otherwise he will be listless, frivilous, discontent and weak.

There is a wonderful passage in Thomas Mann's novella "Der Bajazzo":

Scheint es nicht, dass die inneren Erlebnisse eines Menschen desto stärker und angreifender sind, je degradierter, weltfremder und ruhiger er äusserlich lebt? Es hilft nichts: man muss leben; und wenn du dich wehrst, ein Mensch der Aktion zu sein, und dich in die friedliche Einöde zurückziehst, so werden die Wechselfälle des Daseins dich innerlich überfallen, und du wirst deinen Charakter in ihnen zu bewähren haben, seiest du nun ein Held oder ein Narr.


My translation:
Does it not seem that a man's internal experiences are the more strong and the more attacking, the more degraded, foreign to the world and peaceful he lives externally? Nothing helps: one must live; and if you refuse to be a man of action, and draw yourself back into a peaceful dullness -- the turmoils of existence will come over you internally, and in these turmoils, you will have to prove your character, regardless whether you are a hero or a fool.

Suffer.

Hatred as a product of a weak mind is a fear for what threatens or intimidates it.
Hatred as a product of a higher mind is one alloyed with a cruel need to destroy.
Xev brings up Spinoza- he too was mistaken on what most emotions are since he composed them with an ideal in mind- God.
So if we're going to sit here and talk about fear- rooted- hate, keep it with idealists who find the ideal, or for that matter, reality, intimidating. What's more, social power is only an echo of submission: the master, or rebel, or 'parasite' is dependent on subordination in order to exist which means he needs them more than them him.
So:
Hatred is the product of fear
Rrrright.

Conclusion: a fearful hate is only possible among the weak and leperous.


Marquis:

Mediocrity has a tendency to be a self-reinforcing entity. How and why should one ensure it? You should look further into the comments you made above regarding fear and indifference. Ensuring mediocrity would only come as a result of fear, or perhaps some predatory instinct, but there are some who do come very close to indifference, if not completely so. Indifference precludes the desire to either fight or ensure mediocrity.


I'll agree with the predatory instinct- I doubt there are few not guilty of having this.
But indifference is a symptom of being unable to deal with things
The neatest way to ignore an elephant is sweeping it under the rug isn’t' it?


Xev:
That, was Spinoza's error. The point is not to become an omni-rational machine, but to root the emotions in the higher mind.

And by knowing each component analytically- there lies the control.
Not saying we're only chemicals and what we ate for breakfast, but there is no reason to think one can't master these mammal distractions.
The point being to domesticate them down to serfs and slaves.

Rosa:
Does it not seem that a man's internal experiences are the more strong and the more attacking, the more degraded, foreign to the world and peaceful he lives externally? Nothing helps: one must live; and if you refuse to be a man of action, and draw yourself back into a peaceful dullness -- the turmoils of existence will come over you internally, and in these turmoils, you will have to prove your character, regardless whether you are a hero or a fool.
Fits like a glove.

gendanken:
What's more, social power is only an echo of submission: the master, or rebel, or 'parasite' is dependent on subordination in order to exist which means he needs them more then them him.

Leggo my Hegel.

The point being to domesticate them down to serfs and slaves.

No. I don't want to domesticate them, that's what housewives and yuppies do. I want my emotions to be powerful, I want to risk their control over me, I want to be judged as irrational by the languid standards of the emotionally epicene, I want the dullard heirs of Aristotle to question my grip on sanity.
But I want this emotional intensity to be rooted in my mind, and only my mind.

Have you ever been lonely? Analyze the feeling. It's always just a desire for sex transmuting itself into a need to be around men. Ever emotionally needy? Again, another trick nature uses to get you wanting sex. Seeking intimacy with others is just a trick of the body, driving you towards the security of the group.

These, lower, emotions are simply the body harassing the mind so that the meat will be satisfied.

Yet emotion is not just an interpretation of physical need, it can also be a product of mental activity. Thinking is an act which quite resembles feeling. Love, for example, is generally a transmutation of libido onto an "appropriate" object, but it can also be the emotion which describes a state of mental communion.

I recognize two forms of emotion: that which is mammilian and based on physical urges, and that which is based on the activity of the mind - not just the analytical properties of mind, but the whole mind.

My ideal is to purge myself of the first sort of emotions and accept the second sort completely.

Rosa:
Nice quote.

Have you ever been lonely? Analyze the feeling. It's always just a desire for sex transmuting itself into a need to be around men. Ever emotionally needy? Again, another trick nature uses to get you wanting sex. Seeking intimacy with others is just a trick of the body, driving you towards the security of the group.

garbage.
the homeless, in their isolatedness, eventually start talking to themselves. not because of a need for sex but rather for companionship.

sexual gratification does not require a multitude. functioning upper limbs would suffice

zayev
garbage.
the homeless, in their isolatedness, eventually start talking to themselves. not because of a need for sex but rather for companionship.Perhaps, but you will find sex lurking under that shadow, as well.
I’m not one to end with the supposition that sex is the primary motivator of man. I believe before sex, is that first of all concerns: survival.
Sex is just a strategy towards that end.

Xev
Why mourn the return to nothingness?
What is self, anyway? An abstraction, a being that we create around our own nothingness. In death we lose the ability to create this self, but the self never was and never ceases to be.
Around you, hundreds create selves resembling your own, and when you are dead they will continue to do so. The components of your self will exist as long as sentient minds exist.
Only the arrangement changes. But has it not always changed?
Are you the same man as you were at twenty?Beautiful sentiment but I still mourn the loss of consciousness. It’s all I know, it's all I'll ever know.
You saying you don't, is not honest.


Having "power" is a drug, deceptive in its promise of freedom from death, deceptive in its promise that the will can be eternally inscribed, anywhere! Are you preaching surrender or is it suicide?

A human must work. However he earns his sustenance, he must work not only to survive, but in order not to become degenerate. He must bear his own burdens fully and with resolution, in order that his connection with nature and with other humans - his most elemental connection with other humans, that of need - be strong. Otherwise he will be listless, frivilous, discontent and weak.Ironic, coming from you.

Your ancestors were social parasites. They rotted from within because their intellectual class became too effete to defend themselves or their civilization.
The French and Russian aristocracys were social parasites. They too degenerated and were destroyed by a virile and angry underclass. The Habsburg dynasty collapsed. In part because they were unable to adapt to a nationalistic age, but also because they rotted from luxury. It’s what happens to all the offspring of greatness.

RosaMagika
My translation:
Does it not seem that a man's internal experiences are the more strong and the more attacking, the more degraded, foreign to the world and peaceful he lives externally? Nothing helps: one must live; and if you refuse to be a man of action, and draw yourself back into a peaceful dullness -- the turmoils of existence will come over you internally, and in these turmoils, you will have to prove your character, regardless whether you are a hero or a fool.Where have I spoken about retreating into “peaceful dullness”?

You misunderstand parasitism.
It’s an action, not inertia.

Oh joy, time to ban you again spooky.

the homeless, in their isolatedness, eventually start talking to themselves. not because of a need for sex but rather for companionship.

How dense can you be?
Where do you think the need for companionship comes from?
The fact that an isolated human is more vulnerable than a human in a group.

sexual gratification does not require a multitude. functioning upper limbs would suffice

Physically, yes. But the drive is to have sex with another. The psychology is there.
Why do you think most people chase sex, even when that sex serves no reproductive purpose? Ask them and they'll say it's for pleasure, which is absolute bullshit as masturbation is incredibly more pleasurable than sex.
Because the physical need gets translated into emotional garbage.

Rather like you - needy, emotional garbage.

Wanderer:
Beautiful sentiment but I still mourn the loss of consciousness. It’s all I know, it's all I'll ever know.
You saying you don't, is not honest.

It might be dishonest, if I'd ever said that I don't.
But I didn't, and since you're trying to ascribe words to me that I never authored, the dishonesty is on your part.

Are you preaching surrender or is it suicide?

I don't preach at all.

Ironic, coming from you.

It might indeed be ironic, if it contradicted the substance or words I have put down on this thread. Since it does not, it really isn't.

It’s what happens to all the offspring of greatness.

It has nothing to do with the offspring of greatness, and not all those empires were "great" in the first place. They were balless manlings surviving on the labor of slaves.
Or can you name an achievement of the Romanovs?

Xev:
Leggo my Hegel
Sweeet.


No. I don't want to domesticate them, that's what housewives and yuppies do. I want my emotions to be powerful, I want to risk their control over me, I want to be judged as irrational by the languid standards of the emotionally epicene, I want the dullard heirs of Aristotle to question my grip on sanity.
But I want this emotional intensity to be rooted in my mind, and only my mind.
I thought you said you were Bateman.

This captures my platform quite nicely:

"“Emotions are automatic consequences of a mind's past conclusions, however that mind has been used or misused in the process of reaching them”"

The yuppy and the housewife lead a kind of mongrel lifestyle of contradiction simply because all that is useful has been misused.
They are perceptual animals- and so are the roaches in the cupboard.
A human being is a conceptual animal- and its this what I exploit, that I'm a conceptual mammal.
I know that feelings are obedient with no power to question, so I want to force the question and in doing so define motive. In this I control it, not enhance it.
You want to enhance it.

Pause.
Don't think I'm talking asceticism or strict solitute- that’s a lazy mixture of suspicion and panic.

Have you ever been lonely? Analyze the feeling.
More like alone, yes.
Many times.

It's always just a desire for sex transmuting itself into a need to be around men. Ever emotionally needy? Again, another trick nature uses to get you wanting sex. Seeking intimacy with others is just a trick of the body, driving you towards the security of the group.

These, lower, emotions are simply the body harassing the mind so that the meat will be satisfied.

I see what you are saying, but to root all dynamics back to sex has always come off Freudian and Romantic.
He labeled communal love as sexual desire "aim-inhibited"
Or some such- anyway, I want to disassemble everything in the body and then stick it as a tiny kingdom in the mind since the body is only cheap thrills.
A kingdom filled with serfs...kidding.
This is why I feel man is not primarily motivated by power or sex - he is different in that he's tormented by psychology.


Yet emotion is not just an interpretation of physical need, it can also be a product of mental activity. Thinking is an act which quite resembles feeling. Love, for example, is generally a transmutation of libido onto an "appropriate" object, but it can also be the emotion which describes a state of mental communion.
Yes, we can say that.
But in mental communion you’re still attached to the body- which is why you only mention men.
I get what you are saying- I'm saying that by analyzing every last emotion and making a working vocabulary from the things in there, I've mastered a new language. In this way, if I’m going to get horny its going to be because I want a man and not because he wants me.
This would heighten sexuality.

gendanken:
I thought you said you were Bateman.

To others, yes.
But emotions aren't about always other people.

"“Emotions are automatic consequences of a mind's past conclusions, however that mind has been used or misused in the process of reaching them”"

Elaborate.

I know that feelings are obedient with no power to question, so I want to force the question and in doing so define motive. In this I control it, not enhance it.

Isn't the end result what Spinoza desired, dissection until the emotions lose their potency?
Now - I doubt a dissected thing really loses its potency. The un-understandable is not pleasurable.

You want to enhance it.

No, I just don't want to fight it.

Pause.
Don't think I'm talking asceticism or strict solitute- that’s a lazy mixture of suspicion and panic.

*Shrugs*
Solitude is a matter of luxury, not self-discipline.

I see what you are saying, but to root all dynamics back to sex has always come off Freudian and Romantic.

Yes, it does. I don't root them all back to sex, but a lot go into that category. I can't say anything but - Freud was still a cocksucker.
On the other hand, many dynamics do go right back to sex.

Or some such- anyway, I want to disassemble everything in the body and then stick it as a tiny kingdom in the mind since the body is only cheap thrills.

Basically.

This is why I feel man is not primarily motivated by power or sex - he is different in that he's tormented by psychology.

"Will to power" still works as an explanatory concept. The problem is, one muddles the concept of power overmuch - and truely I am tired of it.

I should say most people are simple in that their psychology is completely rooted in the body. Territoriality, aggression, sex, social need, emotional bonding, pleasure-seeking and dominence sum the motivations up.

Right? Seeing it as sex is simplistic.

But the mind is emergent from this bundle of desires. The body is a meat puppet - the mind is something Other.
And yet plauged by those older needs.

My solution is not to "embrace my animal nature" but to transcend those needs.

I get what you are saying- I'm saying that by analyzing every last emotion and making a working vocabulary from the things in there, I've mastered a new language.

Which is a good technique.

In this way, if I’m going to get horny its going to be because I want a man and not because he wants me.

Is any other way possible?

xev

Oh joy, time to ban you again spooky.

heh, your little world is full of these unexpected little pleasures ja?

How dense can you be?

depends, make me a fucking offer

Where do you think the need for companionship comes from?

hehe. i imagine...fear and anxiety before the need to rut
see here, maggot..

Because even a castaway needs companionship, Chuck tries to satisfy the instinctual human longing for connection with others, the third level of Maslow’s hierarchy

Chuck creates "Wilson," a companion of sorts, from another of the cargo's treasures--a basketball bearing the Wilson logo. Using blood from one of his wounds, Chuck draws a face on the ball. Wilson becomes his constant companion, his friend in distress, even his alter-ego. When Chuck sets off from the island, he tethers Wilson to the raft. Along the perilous voyage, Chuck constantly "communicates" with Wilson, responding to Wilson's encouragement and admonishments that no doubt represent Chuck's inner voice. When Wilson is lost in a violent storm, Chuck mourns him as if he had lost a dear friend.

now, while chuck appears to have kinda lost it, i trust you get the picture. (no, do not rent the movie you dope)

hey! according to you...chuck drills hole in wilson and fucks him. haha

The fact that an isolated human is more vulnerable than a human in a group.

non sequiter aka misfired neuron
i dare you to make a connection
let me try....hmm..i feel vulnerable so i must fuck

Physically, yes. But the drive is to have sex with another. The psychology is there.
Why do you think most people chase sex, even when that sex serves no reproductive purpose? Ask them and they'll say it's for pleasure, which is absolute bullshit as masturbation is incredibly more pleasurable than sex.

you are not making any real distinction. even if i were to accept the last point, it would in no way preclude me from asserting that i fuck for pleasure. being second best can also translate into explosive orgasms

Rather like you - needy, emotional garbage.

really? am i that unfathomable lil' xev? i have my achilles heel yet it is a testament to your stupidity that you cannot figure it out. quite unlike you however. you practically bleed your repressions and desires into your postings. its ok tho. it is a general condition of being a clueless teen

* i dig that the greek replied. no aura sniffing for him i guess

But indifference is a symptom of being unable to deal with things

A while back, in the Being Direct thread, we've postulated the difference between "to not care" and "to be indifferent", Fenris and Invert participated in that.
(http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=37689&page=18&pp=20 , last post on this page)


I want my emotions to be powerful, I want to risk their control over me, I want to be judged as irrational by the languid standards of the emotionally epicene, I want the dullard heirs of Aristotle to question my grip on sanity.
But I want this emotional intensity to be rooted in my mind, and only my mind.

I'm not sure it is possible to *want* one's emotions to be like that.
I doubt that one can be like Patrick Bateman to other people, while not feeling like Patrick Bateman on the inside as well.


Where have I spoken about retreating into “peaceful dullness”?

You misunderstand parasitism.
It’s an action, not inertia.

I posted that passage in repsonse to Xev's postulate that a human must work.



Gendanken, Xev,

Where do you draw the line between the "mind" and the "body"? I know, the question seems absurdly simple; but I have always thought that the distinction is rather artificial. Considering psychosomatics, the placebo and the nocebo effect, I find it hard to make clear distinctions between the mind and the body. As I see it, this distinction was brought up for distinguishing "more desirable human characteristics" from those "less desireable characteristics" -- and somehow, the "less desireable" became understood to be rooted in the "body", and those "more desireable" became understood to be rooted in the "mind". The distinction was once pragmatic and useful (religious purposes), but nonetheless artificial.

Rosa:
I'm not sure it is possible to *want* one's emotions to be like that.
I doubt that one can be like Patrick Bateman to other people, while not feeling like Patrick Bateman on the inside as well.

Not what I meant. It's a reference to an old conversation between gendanken and myself:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=35176&page=2&pp=20&highlight=Bateman

To the point - after reflection the whole idea seems somewhat adolescent. Trying to define yourself - whether through exaggerated self-awareness and Nietzsche or self-pity and Linkin Park cds - generally sounds mawkish.

On the other hand, I cannot help myself - I'm wired to try for understanding.

Where do you draw the line between the "mind" and the "body"? I know, the question seems absurdly simple; but I have always thought that the distinction is rather artificial.

A poor way of explaining my theory that doesn't quite work.
I don't mean that the instinctive emotions are actually and truely caused by the mechanics of the body, but it seemed a decent way of explaining what I meant - that they are based on the mind's interpretation of physical/instinctive needs.

There's one thing I don't understand (sorry to butt in).

How is the 'source of this spontaneity of divergence' due to the 'mediocre' as you put it? And are they really the stabilising factor - or is it just coincedence because there are more of them? Surely there are many rebellious people in positions of influence and design?

Xev:
Elaborate.


I thought I did.
Its objective methodology- the difference between getting carried way by the intoxicants of Bach or Diabolic and knowing its only black notes on paper that produce it.
I want to keep those notes in mind when it comes to emotion.

No, I just don't want to fight it
Then why say you desired them to be more powerful?
No matter- discussing what we've already discussed is smelling like a beat horse.

Isn't the end result what Spinoza desired, dissection until the emotions lose their potency?
Now - I doubt a dissected thing really loses its potency. The un-understandable is not pleasurable.

Exactly- he was wrong on many things as you find yourself reading him with suspicion. Frankly, I found him distasteful.
Religious propaganda has its place and it should not be philosophy.
Neither does sexual propaganda- Fraud can go flush himself.
And that wasn't a slip, I intended the misspell.

Rosa:
A while back, in the Being Direct thread, we've postulated the difference between "to not care" and "to be indifferent", Fenris and Invert participated in that.
(http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...9&page=18&pp=20 , last post on this page)

Yes, but I still say indifference is generally feigned.
The image- a fat pig standing at a pancake house pretending others are not staring at his body aghast.
A hateful fixation with the "bourgeoisie" is also a mark of this feigned indifference- its a symptom of an incredible fixation on people.

Where do you draw the line between the "mind" and the "body"? I know, the question seems absurdly simple; but I have always thought that the distinction is rather artificial. Considering psychosomatics, the placebo and the nocebo effect, I find it hard to make clear distinctions between the mind and the body. As I see it, this distinction was brought up for distinguishing "more desirable human characteristics" from those "less desireable characteristics" -- and somehow, the "less desireable" became understood to be rooted in the "body", and those "more desireable" became understood to be rooted in the "mind". The distinction was once pragmatic and useful (religious purposes), but nonetheless artificial.
I don’t' know how else to put it, other than a self-administration so powerful that it transcends the body and I can only think of it encapsulated in the mind.
One so in tune with itself it scares myself, not others


Anyway- seems we've derailed the topic with emotional deconstruction, again, - so for the sake of topic: it seems resentment and rebellion can only thrive in a state of theoretical equality- like a democratic system.
The idea is that we are all equally endowed and that the lowliest cripple can aspire to be an Olympian- when he clearly can't.
So they coddle him with "special'- "Special Olympics" and "education", problem fixed.
Resentment is illegitimate and quite pointless in a system that does not advertise what it does not have- thereby no longer being a theory but a reality.
The Hindu caste system would have trouble finding a rebel in their midst, everything is given with no pretty packaging making it more than it is.
Therefore, its only Western mentality with its petty ideals that can breed a creature of resentment- its sets up standards achievable by all, men become lazy and no longer feel a need for perfection since now even a cripple can do what he does.
And the resentful, in love with perfection, become needy of them for contrast and impetus.

Gendanken:
I thought I did.
Its objective methodology- the difference between getting carried way by the intoxicants of Bach or Diabolic and knowing its only black notes on paper that produce it.
I want to keep those notes in mind when it comes to emotion.

Got it. The emotion thing is dead.
I think my point remains that being an emotionally needy creature is more destructive than being a physically needy creature, which was the only reason I brought up the subject.

Exactly- he was wrong on many things as you find yourself reading him with suspicion. Frankly, I found him distasteful.
Religious propaganda has its place and it should not be philosophy.

*Shrugs*
I didn't see him as particularly religious. I think he just throws God around a lot - not necessarily with feeling.
Whatever.

Freud was a hack with one or two good ideas, he's only accepted as a great thinker by those who haven't read him. The feminists have hatchet-jobbed the man's work, so I don't see a point to discussing how stupid a jump from "little boys wonder why their sisters don't have penises" to "every male wants to kill his father and sexually possess his mother".

Moving on:

A hateful fixation with the "bourgeoisie" is also a mark of this feigned indifference- its a symptom of an incredible fixation on people.

True, but haven't you yourself made more than a few comments about those bourgouise? More than a few comments about the invalidity of the social structure?

The Hindu caste system would have trouble finding a rebel in their midst, everything is given with no pretty packaging making it more than it is.

Well actually, it is given with religious soporifics to keep the lower castes content. That's some hell of packaging, I'd say.
There's no substantial difference between the Indian system and our own.

Therefore, its only Western mentality with its petty ideals that can breed a creature of resentment- its sets up standards achievable by all, men become lazy and no longer feel a need for perfection since now even a cripple can do what he does.

That doesn't follow, surely the special olympian is being coddled, but that would not give any lucid reason to no longer need perfection.

For that matter, I don't see much difference between any criticism of our lifestyle and Wanderer's morbid fixation on how it "emasculates" him.

Back on topic....

Blue_UK
How is the 'source of this spontaneity of divergence' due to the 'mediocre' as you put it? A safe and stable environment enables the mind to turn to analysis and internal exploration.
If the system is too challenging, it demands full concentration with no time to question self or to turn the eye to the impractical or towards that which does not have immediate ramifications.
When the choice is between survival and introspection, survival takes precedence.

The masses of the mediocre, expending the full force of their mental capabilities, become completely engrossed with the moral and social challenges of their surroundings, never having the excess intellect to question them or to notice if others do so.
In such a world, it is easy to pass unnoticed if you make the requisite gestures of conformity.
The average mind can’t fathom anyone confronting the values and standards of its world and so even half-hearted and imperfect stage acting goes unseen.
When it is seen, it is ignored, mocked or blamed on mental instability, if it is harmless.
If it becomes harmful, it is destroyed or quarantined.
The bourgeoisie can only perceive one method of living because they acquire their beliefs from others.

And are they really the stabilising factor - or is it just coincedence because there are more of them?
No, there are more of them because they are a stabilizing factor.

What can be more stabilizing than a multitude of obedient, unquestioning, unaware, blank pages that simply adopt whatever values they find in their environment?
Give these masses a political voice, equate them to one another and to those that may posses a higher awareness, feed them dreams, tell them they are worthy and capable of anything, offer them institutional power and privilege as a reward for their discipline, convince them that consumerism and luxury is ‘happiness’ and you have a population of content robots, slaving away and unthinking.

Surely there are many rebellious people in positions of influence and design?
Name one.
Most are filtered out before they make it that far.
What do you think promotions are?
Who is promoted but the one mirroring the values and morals of his superior?

The safety mechanism of every institution, from the government to the media, is the process of punishments and rewards.

Those that slip-up some where along the way, never make it to any place of power. They get passed over by the one that has performed perfectly and has reflected the institutions ideals with precision.

Look how in every presidential election the process enables the masses to test and analyze how closely each candidate reflects their beliefs and desires.
If a slight divergence is noticed, they never make it to the presidential seat.
But besides the electoral process itself, there are a slew of internal checks and measures, where those in power evaluate the one that will lead them before he is allowed to run for office.

In today’s world, the position of power has characteristics the individual must live up to.

*Cough*

"In such a world, it is easy to pass unnoticed if you make the requisite gestures of conformity."

It has something else to do with the constitutional guarentees of the democracy you so malign.

Wanderer,

I'm afraid I don't fully accept what you say. This world fully allows for innovation, even if the perpetrator is considered eccentric.

Also, being middle class (me?) does not require conformity. Just so we're on solid (consistant) ground, I assume you mean people who are: reasonably well off; social climbers; not stupid but no genius?

The only people who 'the masses' might reject would be people who have major idealistic differences like fascism/communism etc. (Which they probably don't understand, anyway:))

xev:
Freud was a hack with one or two good ideas, he's only accepted as a great thinker by those who haven't read him. The feminists have hatchet-jobbed the man's work, so I don't see a point to discussing how stupid a jump from "little boys wonder why their sisters don't have penises" to "every male wants to kill his father and sexually possess his mother".

Ha.
Never forget this is the man that attributed our taming of fire to the juvenile need of the male to extinguish flames with his urine.

True, but haven't you yourself made more than a few comments about those bourgouise? More than a few comments about the invalidity of the social structure?

I'll say it for you: Can't you see yourself, Gendanken?

Everyone here has criticized infrastructure- it doesn't come from being an intellect, it comes with being human.
However- the very few that know me here know that if anything I'm in love with humanity- sky? I see a Boeing.
Oceans? I see Titanics. Mountains and quarries, Hannibal and sculpture.
We're in incredible species - I see man's highest potential and, however poorly, attempt to actualize it. Every last vein on these hands say I can achieve the powerful- its so easy to be confident, what's not is competence:

"But we must always remember the difference between competence and confidence, people.
Any idiot can strike up an indifferent Bohemian pose and look intelligently confident.
Any idiot can be in love with themselves.
Any idiot can put on airs.
Some pride themselves on being able to look down or above other people’s heads, yet any idiot on stilts, a horse, or wearing stilettos can do the same thing.

It doesn't take much to appear confident because it does not require acumen or intelligence - what is hard is competence.
Something the haughty don't have.
And it shows in their language and thought processes."- Gendanken

Humanity has always, always been competent. Its petty men that get in the way with their confidence.
That said, I'm way too joyful - more like a trickster than a resentful misanthrope if anything.


Well actually, it is given with religious soporifics to keep the lower castes content. That's some hell of packaging, I'd say.
There's no substantial difference between the Indian system and our own.

I certainly don't think so.
A caste system says one cannot. An untouchable dies an untouchable.
A democratic system says that not only you can but that everyone can- and in doing so its flattened value.

If a man looks up and sees a cripple socially promoted- as in affirmative action- then you've denied man any concept of greatness or excellence. If you smear values down to the mediocre than you kill any incentive for improvement or effort a man wishes to put in his work. They like it half baked, they’ll get it half baked.
Therefore, those not mediocre are either ridiculed or outcast because they can no longer recognize him as great, but as something to vilify.
This is what happens in any system built up on theoretical equality- which is not a caste system.

gendanken:
Ha.
Never forget this is the man that attributed our taming of fire to the juvenile need of the male to extinguish flames with his urine.

Another goodie.

Everyone here has criticized infrastructure- it doesn't come from being an intellect, it comes with being human.

I doubt that. The ordinary human does not really think things like "what is the nature of the social order?"

I certainly don't think so.
A caste system says one cannot. An untouchable dies an untouchable.
A democratic system says that not only you can but that everyone can- and in doing so its flattened value.

And a caste system says that if you are a good untouchable, you may be reincarnated as something better.
An egalitarian system has simular myths, only they are in the realm of physical possibility.
The difference is of degree and belief, not really of content.

Besides, most egalitarian myths posit something personally difficult and achievable - hard work, self-discipline, playing by the rules or what have you. It does not simply say "you, crack baby, can be a millionaire" but that "you, crack baby, can be a millionaire if..."

If anything, a hereditary aristocracy where "value" is treated as innate is more likely to flatten "value" than a system where "value" is treated as something that can be achieved even by the lowly.

If a man looks up and sees a cripple socially promoted- as in affirmative action- then you've denied man any concept of greatness or excellence.

I daresay it's not that stark.
Again, the myth is not "the wretched are deserving" but that "the human spirit is so great, that even the wretched can overcome their wretchedness"

If you smear values down to the mediocre than you kill any incentive for improvement or effort a man wishes to put in his work. They like it half baked, they’ll get it half baked.

Perfection is incentive enough, don't you think? As for getting it half-baked - good, then I do not have to put in much effort.

Therefore, those not mediocre are either ridiculed or outcast because they can no longer recognize him as great, but as something to vilify.

I have my own thoughts on that, I ought to post them some time. I do agree for the most part.

This is what happens in any system built up on theoretical equality- which is not a caste system.

I think that remains to be shown.

xev:
The ordinary human does not really think things like "what is the nature of the social order?"

Fucker named elightened_philosopher6969 posting a snivelling critique on Best TV shows and plutocracies thinks he's fucking extraordinary.
I'm talking wannabes.

And a caste system says that if you are a good untouchable, you may be reincarnated as something better.
An egalitarian system has simular myths, only they are in the realm of physical possibility.
The difference is of degree and belief, not really of content.

Gotcha.
But I'm not concerned with the noumenal- what's the point?
Untouchable here, untouchable always.

It does not simply say "you, crack baby, can be a millionaire" but that "you, crack baby, can be a millionaire if..."

..........you sell your Self and do like everyone else.
My point.
No thanks.

gendanken:
Fucker named elightened_philosopher6969 posting a snivelling critique on Best TV shows and plutocracies thinks he's fucking extraordinary.
I'm talking wannabes.

Right, type in "Baudrillaird nihilism" in google and you get a movie page. Any idiot will tell you how deep and meaningful the "Matrix" trilogy was, limp-wristed baristas can waste a good hour talking about the evolution of the penitentiary, some forlorn Gothic retard can give you his personal take on "transgression" and of course, you can't forget the Jack Keruac-drop out to fight the system- hippie 'tards.
Sorry, was that whining? Philosophy wasn't meant for Starbucks patrons and it's always embarassing to see them get their hands on someone meaningful. There should be some consequence - like public mutilation - for dismembering a decent philosopher's ideas. Let them have Plato and Bataille, Descartes and Zizak, but god, somebody do something to make them stop before I bludgeon a stringy-haired postfeminist with her copy of "Sexual Personae"

Gotcha.
But I'm not concerned with the noumenal- what's the point?
Untouchable here, untouchable always.

In their minds....
But fuck it, point's made, thread's dead.

::groan:::

Couldn't resist:

Right, type in "Baudrillaird nihilism" in google and you get a movie page. Any idiot will tell you how deep and meaningful the "Matrix" trilogy was, limp-wristed baristas can waste a good hour talking about the evolution of the penitentiary, some forlorn Gothic retard can give you his personal take on "transgression" and of course, you can't forget the Jack Keruac-drop out to fight the system- hippie 'tards.
Sorry, was that whining? Philosophy wasn't meant for Starbucks patrons and it's always embarassing to see them get their hands on someone meaningful. There should be some consequence - like public mutilation - for dismembering a decent philosopher's ideas. Let them have Plato and Bataille, Descartes and Zizak, but god, somebody do something to make them stop before I bludgeon a stringy-haired postfeminist with her copy of "Sexual Personae"


MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HHA.
Or break a fucking spine everytime a smarmy gothboy pollutes Neitszche or some turtle neck wearing piece of shit, usually a professor, comes at you with Khunian bullshit.
"The fact of the matter" he says with this look on his face I'd love to tear apart with my bare hands "...is that we're looking at paradigms here. Think bigger"

FUCK YOU.

*Zizak?

But fuck it, point's made, thread's dead.
I know, but stuck here on a Saturday so......blah.

gendanken:

Zizak:

Slovenian postmodernist. Haven't read him - actually he doesn't look that bad - but too many fucking retards talk about him like he's some sort of Marxist demigod come out of the wilderness to save us with Lacanian psychoanalysis.

*Pukes*

http://www.uno.edu/~asoble/pages/LACAN.HTM
http://www.ntticc.or.jp/pub/ic_mag/ic014/zizek/zizek_e.html

Or break a fucking spine everytime a smarmy gothboy pollutes Neitszche

Or has to yammer on about Georges Bataille, or absinthe, or vampires or transgression or the Marquis of Sade or Christianity or what a tormented, wretched existence he lives because his dad won't drive him to the mall for some more cake paint. God someone should disembowel these people with their own damn Bauhaus cds!

or some turtle neck wearing piece of shit, usually a professor, comes at you with Khunian bullshit.
"The fact of the matter" he says with this look on his face I'd love to tear apart with my bare hands "...is that we're looking at paradigms here. Think bigger"

Para-digims!
Kuhn had some good work, I'm reading the Structure of Scientific Revolutions now. Still tiresome to see an idiot battening on it.

Wait -

“To choose the wrong strategy is a serious matter. All the movements that only play on liberation, emancipation, on the resurrection of a subject of history, of the group, of the word based on “consciousness raising” indeed a “raising of the unconscious” of subjects and of the masses, do not see that they are going in the direction of the system, whose imperative today is precisely the overproduction and regeneration of meaning and of speech”
-Jean Baudillaird, “The implosion of meaning in the media”

Which is ironic, because so fucking much of postmodernism is the production and reproduction of what other postmodernists say. La la la, let's talk about Freud and barriers and schitzophrenia until our jaws pleasantly rot away.
So much of "philosophy" nowadays is simply chatting.

Of course there are gems in the current climate - Deleuze is interesting, Baudrillaird has some good essays and this cute, semi-articulate metalhead-philosopher I work with recommends Lyotard.

But simply - it's like music. Content is eventually devoured by the scene. It doesn't really matter if your imput is particularly origional, provoking or valuable, one simply has to keep discussing the range of topics modern philosophy provides.

I know, but stuck here on a Saturday so......blah.

Yeah, well my flakejob friends are in need of another round of calling to see if they actually want to do something.

Khhh, I didn't think this would happen -- someone referring to Slavoj Žižek! How on earth did you find him?!

Well, since Zizek was brought up. ;)

He said in "Welcome to the Desert of the Real":
It is not emphatically true of our ‘post-modern’ time, with its freedom to deconstruct, doubt distantiate oneself? We should not forget that Chesterton makes exactly the same claim as Kant in his “What is Enlightenment?”: ‘Think as much as you like, and as freely as you like, just obey!’ The only difference is that Chesterton is more specific, and spells out the implicit paradox beneath Kantian reasoning: not only does freedom of thought not undermine actual social servitude, it positively sustains it. The old motto ‘Don’t think, obey!’ to which reacts is counterproductive: it effectively breeds rebellion; the only way to secure social servitude is through freedom of thought.
Chesterton is also logical enough to assert the obverse of Kant’s motto: the struggle for freedom needs a reference to some unquestionable dogma.
The main reason being that freedom itself is so terrifying to the mind, that it will grasp onto anything that is close at hand when it is left in the void of self-reliance.

The mind needs a ground to stand on before it ventures off to discover, even the illusions of its own certainty.
Without it, without the a priori, consciousness becomes fragmented and schizophrenic.

But where higher minds separate themselves from lower ones is in that the latter, not only want rules for their sensual interpretations and synthesis of concepts, but want rules for the righteousness of their interpretations and synthesis- the approval of the Other-, whereas the former feel this to be a constraint on their evaluations.

Morality, can be seen, as the rule of approval, by the Other, in the application of reason.

But let us not forget that this difference between individuals is one of degree not of substance, again.

The consent of the Other, stands in social species, as a necessary consequence of socialization but it also serves as a testing ground for thought and a means to acquire a multiplicity of perspectives through sharing.

The size of the group, from which we seek support, determines our overall value and individuality.
Larger groups, more commonly, demand a higher loss of self and a higher degree of discipline to their dictums, because through quantities, qualities become dispensable.

Boothby is right to emphasize the Janus-like structure of a fantasy: a fantasy is simultaneously pacifying, disarming (providing an imaginary scenario which enables us to endure the abyss of the Other’s desire) and shattering , disturbing, inassimilable into our reality.
The connection points of dissimilar manifolds can only exist in the murky, ambiguity of a fantasy.

RosaMagika:
Khhh, I didn't think this would happen -- someone referring to Slavoj Žižek! How on earth did you find him?!

In a bookstore.
I didn't buy the book, so I can't claim familiarity with him, but more with the way people talk about him.

[Embarrassing language interference]
In Slovene, z and a z with a ˇon top mark two different sounds. That philsopher's last name has two of those z's with ˇ. Without the ˇ, his last name is the Slovene equivalent to "boobie"; with the ˇ, his last name is the word for a kind of worm that lives in beans. I just never thought to see my native language (highly unpopular) on a forum, ever. So I'm laughing my guts out here ... Yes, it's embarrassing, I know.
[/Embarrassing language interference]

Xev:
Zizak:

Slovenian postmodernist. Haven't read him - actually he doesn't look that bad - but too many fucking retards talk about him like he's some sort of Marxist demigod come out of the wilderness to save us with Lacanian psychoanalysis.

*Pukes*

http://www.uno.edu/~asoble/pages/LACAN.HTM
http://www.ntticc.or.jp/pub/ic_mag/...ek/zizek_e.html

Ick.
The Lacan in the link is deterrent enough.
Googled and got this smarm:

http://www.oeaw.ac.at/esi/english/institute/alumni/zizak.html

Anyway, going from this small glance I'm immediately put off by the Kant sprinkled throughout. Right.
And anyway, its been said much clearer- Mead or Cooley's assertion to our being products of the 'eyes of others' or for that matter Lewin's field theory.
All done sans archaic references to Cunt oops Kant.

Para-digims!
You misspelled paradigms.
"Think bigger."
::gnashing teeth::

Which is ironic, because so fucking much of postmodernism is the production and reproduction of what other postmodernists say. La la la, let's talk about Freud and barriers and schitzophrenia until our jaws pleasantly rot away.
So much of "philosophy" nowadays is simply chatting.

Of course there are gems in the current climate - Deleuze is interesting, Baudrillaird has some good essays and this cute, semi-articulate metalhead-philosopher I work with recommends Lyotard.

But simply - it's like music. Content is eventually devoured by the scene. It doesn't really matter if your imput is particularly origional, provoking or valuable, one simply has to keep discussing the range of topics modern philosophy provides.



No fair- you actually have a human, in the flesh, and at work of all places that talks back about interesting things?
And Lyotard of all people?????!
Bag him and tie him up in your basement, not fair.

That aside- you say music, I say war. Imagine a world finally at peace, you're left with bored continents. Where war or conflict gives mankind the contrast it thrives in, philosophy gives the hungry thinker something to do by making a problem of no problem at all. Enter Wittgenstein.

This fits nicely:
"In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labor of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and refilling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them.
But this would provide the economic and not the emotional (need)"- 1984

So I picture our postmodernits, or bored continents, with surplus labor on their hands now that everything’s pastiche and those like Derrida- even Popper- busy themsleves by going to war with each other to keep busy.
The wars and chatting provides the emotional need and so the theories just keep going, and going, and going, and going, and going..............

gendanken:
Googled and got this smarm:

That Ivo Zizak guy looks like he's recovering from a hell of a party.

And anyway, its been said much clearer- Mead or Cooley's assertion to our being products of the 'eyes of others' or for that matter Lewin's field theory.
All done sans archaic references to Cunt oops Kant.

*Blinks*
Something like Sartre's 'gaze'? Dunno the references.

No fair- you actually have a human, in the flesh, and at work of all places that talks back about interesting things?
And Lyotard of all people?????!
Bag him and tie him up in your basement, not fair.

SHHHH! What are you trying to do, alert the cops?!

That aside- you say music, I say war. Imagine a world finally at peace, you're left with bored continents. Where war or conflict gives mankind the contrast it thrives in, philosophy gives the hungry thinker something to do by making a problem of no problem at all. Enter Wittgenstein.

First - the value of warfare is grossly exaggerated by those who do not have to live with it.

"I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."
-David Grossman

To idealize warfare, (I am guilty of that) but to idealize warfare is to take a blind veiw of history. War is not about battle or strategy, it is about surviving scurvy, typhus, privation, the intrusion of enemy forces into one's village, the inevitable and senseless massacre of thousands to gain an ephemeral advantage, hunger, filth, rape, lice, insanity, cold and malnutrition. There is no value to warfare. If the stronger of the wretched survive - what of nobility is in that?

After that, I agree. Sartre remarked that life in occupied Paris was incredibly more authentic than normal life was. Every Parisian had to make the constant decision not to become a collaborater, not to support the Nazis, not to betray his neighbors and had to choose exactly what the value of his life was.

The second world war was probably the last major war in which such choices could be made. To-day the technology of warfare does not permit something as trivial as an individual choice to be made. By chance or insanity, we may destroy half the world. By chance or insanity, we do not. Nuclear power in the western nations keeps an inauthentic peace, in which no major nation may fight another but by proxy. Human effort is nothing, even on the level of the individual soldier.

Because war is impossible on traditional terms, the value of the individual increases beyond all natural bounds. He is a completely superfluous existence who attempts to justify himself by working upon the labors of others. He is not justified in his life, but by the terms of our peace, he cannot be either destroyed.

We are all guilty. I have honestly benefitted from the boundlessness of institutional power, I am therefore complicit. In being denied arms, I am rendered vulnerable -- yet my vulnerability has been also imposed upon others who may have sought to harm me. They, as me, fear not me in their restraint but fear the State as a power greater than the both of us. As I have benefitted, I am denied the possibility of honest opposition to this hell of a Leviathan.

We are all guilty. I have honestly benefitted from the boundlessness of institutional power, I am therefore complicit. In being denied arms, I am rendered vulnerable -- yet my vulnerability has been also imposed upon others who may have sought to harm me. They, as me, fear not me in their restraint but fear the State as a power greater than the both of us. As I have benefitted, I am denied the possibility of honest opposition to this hell of a Leviathan.

Yet at the same time, since the individual is eventually insignificant when it comes to the great machinery of the State, the State doesn't have that much interest to protect the individual.
If you have been wronged: prove it, prove that it wasn't your fault that you have been robbed or assaulted. The laws are on the side of the transgressors; the individual's judgement matters not.

We are denied of honest opposition twice: first by the State whom we have entrusted our defense, and second by being toyed with by the State which is not keen on defending an individual.

(In my country, taking fingerprints or footprints at a crime scene is not allowed; the police must have a special court order for that. It is about protecting personal information ...)


***
Have you seen "In the bedroom" (with Sissy Spacek)? There, an ex-husband kills his ex-wife's young lover. The parents of the killed seek justice -- and don't find it, as there is not enough evidence that it was murder, ti could be an accident. The justice system doesn't care, it's all bureaocracy. So the killer is out and free, living in the same town as the parents, even smiling at them. They can't take it anymore, and take justice into their own hands: and kill him.

RosaMagika:
Yet at the same time, since the individual is eventually insignificant when it comes to the great machinery of the State, the State doesn't have that much interest to protect the individual.
If you have been wronged: prove it, prove that it wasn't your fault that you have been robbed or assaulted. The laws are on the side of the transgressors; the individual's judgement matters not.

True.
In the US, if I kill or harm a person in self-defense, I can expect prosecution and will be forced to prove that my defense was warrented and not excessive. Depending on the state I live in, I can expect prosecution or a civil lawsuit if a man robbing my homestead is injured by myself or my dog. It was and still is common for the victim of a rape to be forced to prove her overall respectability and that she did not "ask for it". It would be quite worse to be killed, but the sentence a murderer recieves is often far less than that a drug dealer does.

Have you seen "In the bedroom" (with Sissy Spacek)? There, an ex-husband kills his ex-wife's young lover. The parents of the killed seek justice -- and don't find it, as there is not enough evidence that it was murder, ti could be an accident. The justice system doesn't care, it's all bureaocracy. So the killer is out and free, living in the same town as the parents, even smiling at them. They can't take it anymore, and take justice into their own hands: and kill him.

No I haven't, but it sounds like a lot of movies (not to disparage the plotline). That plot is common because of what you said -- we are denied honest opposition.

"In the bedroom" is interesting because it's not just black and white as so many films with such content are.

You know, the course of this discussion, coupled with past Forum events and guided by a book I am currently reading called ‘The Natural history of the Rich’, in which the habits of the wealthy are presented within the context of evolutionary behaviourism, has made me think…

Rare, I know. :D

I have been chastised, in the past as an attention seeker - a peacock as XEV put it – prancing about is distasteful displays, which exposes, I’m sure according to her and many others, inner needs and weaknesses.

A baffling statement when one considers the natural tendencies of mankind, in general, and the intrinsic sexual nature of all displays of dominance or self-worth.
Also, ironic when one considers participation in any forum and in any social grouping, on the whole, besides the simplistic secondary motivations about boredom alleviation and thought exchanges which are used to hide the real motives behind any social interaction.

But the book gives me an insight into the underlying mechanics of the attempted insult, as perceived by the author Richard Conniff.

I quote from the book:
“In 1981 I bought a rolls-Royce. I wanted the world to know I was successful,” entertainment lawyer Alan Grubman recently remarked. “Then in 1990 my dear friend David Geffen said, ‘You know, Alan, it is not necessary for you to drive in a Rolls-Royce anymore. Will you please get rid of that car?’ It was like I had a blinking neon sign on my forehead: NOUVEAU RICHE. The NOU went on, then the VEAU went off.” Even Grubman himself now understands that the Rolls was a déclassé embellishment.
He goes on later:
The problem with the rolls-Royce wasn’t merely that it represented such a naked attempt to show wealth, but that Grubman, by his own admission, “wanted the world to know”. And wanting the world to know is something a rich person ought not to do; it is an affront to other rich people. According to the peculiar code of the pseudo-species, proper display behaviour for a rich person should be aimed principally, if not exclusively, at other rich people. Discussing the custom of decorating out of the attic, for instance, Nelson Aldrich put it nicely: “The whole point of inculcating the peculiar aesthetic of the class is to lift its habitat above the quick and nasty transactions of the cash nexus to the exalted plane of disinterested delight.”
It’s not that other people don’t count. They count negatively. A display may actually lose status to the degree that it is comprehensible by the untutored masses.
Something reminiscent not only of the Forum Queens comments towards me, in the past, but XEV’s peacock comment as well and this bit from Fenris Wolf, earlier on in this thread:
If all you wish is sycophants and toadies, then I'd agree.
He goes on:
As you have always done. Why do you think so many take exception?
In targeting those who will take exception, you miss those who might not, or at least antagonize them. Do you think sticking your hand in a wasps' nest will do anything other than make them bite? What you've sought in the past is confirmation. A wasp will attack that which it sees as an intruder - it does not gain any understanding of why it thinks the intruder is one. Yes?
With your posts, you have a tendency to combine the flies with those who are not. Consider it carefully - but do not lose your passion in doing so. I've said before I like what you write. Now focus it on those who understand, not those who never will. Tell me - do you not feel a kind of sickness in those who listen, learn, and then become followers?
Here he degrades any untactful displays towards the rabble as beneath him, as they should be for me if I wish to belong to his group.
Kind of like Geffen did to Grundman.
He goes on still:
I asked someone I consider my equal once - Why do you concentrate so much on them? What will they ever offer you? Comfort in your superiority? True superiority does not require comfort. It engenders indifference. What does submission bring you?
Of course, here the insinuation is made that we are one-and-the-same-kind, with no accompanying evidence required on his part, since he, unlike I, is above this type of display.
His mere self-proclaimed indifference proof of his quality of mind and his association with specific member’s evidence of it, I’m sure.

But let’s pass this one over and get to the point.

It is evident that within any large group of individuals a fragmentation occurs along multiple lines of differentiation.
Sometimes its wealth, at other times its fame, popularity, aesthetics, race, looks, social status, intelligence or a myriad of other standards humans use to measure themselves by.
This fragmentation results in cliques or sub-groupings or, what the author refers to as a pseudo-species, within which the natural desire to display, and through it to acquire status, continues unhindered.
Those that are deemed different or unworthy of the subgroups attentions or are denied access to the club are considered undeserving of display behavior and so anyone indulging in such déclassé actions may be made outcasts or their membership may be revoked or, at the very least, they will be reprimanded and punished.

We can see this practice of social fragmentation into sub-groupings in any social gathering.
Even this forum holds evidence of this natural phenomenon.
Within this context, Fenris Wolf’s comments and XEV’s chastising about my sexual motivations in every thing I post towards other female members, as well as the Forum Queens ritualized display of addressing me in the third person or through surrogate indirect methods and never directly, kind of like I just did, can be more fully appreciated.

They uncover a social dynamic and an underlying display/competitive/sexual motivation, most obvious in those that most refuse it.
Here we can find a slew of natural behavioral displays, which remain inconspicuous, as in the case of the rich.
Here we can also witness the difference between female and male dominance and display behavior.
Whereas males tend to be more direct and obvious, sometimes becoming childish and brutish in their garishness, females tend to be more subtle, sedate and insiduous in their artificial civility and cooperative, friendly dispositions.

It’s interesting to note that many animal display methods are, like the much maligned peacocks, a detriment to the survival of the individual exhibiting them, in contradiction to many evolutionary natural selection theories. One would think that a peacocks extravagant tail would be an impossibility when it is such a detriment to survivability and it would have been ‘naturally selected’ out of the species a long time ago.
A possible answer is a controversial theory called ‘The Handicap Theory’, offered up by Zahavi.

Again from the book:
Zahavi’s handicap theory holds that animals and humans a like prosper not in spite of our riskiest and most extravagant behaviors, but because of them. These behaviors are the way we advertise how prosperous, how fit, how fearless we are. And because the world is a jaded, cynical place, we have to incorporate a significant cost, or handicap, in our advertising to make it persuasive. Thus antelopes really are indulging in a dangerous waste of energy when they stot in front of a cheetah, but their willingness to risk it is how they tell the cheetah, Don’t even bother trying, … When Zahavi first proposed his handicap principle in the 1970’s, the biological establishment reacted as if something bad had gotten stuck down its throat.
And here is another instance of competitions of dominance within a subgroup, in this case the scientific community:
It didn’t help that Zahavi’s, a prominent conservationist who’d switched to biology midlife, was himself maddeningly contrary. The standard scientific practice of testing ideas with mathematical models was alien to him. He hatched his ideas based on observation and intuition alone, and he questioned the intelligence of those who failed to embrace his conclusions, often including prominent scientists who had risen by more traditional routesSomething I’ve experienced first hand from those obsessed and totally dependant on the modern religious code of scientific establishment that neglects the human factor.
I was once asked for accompanying statisti