Hey, we want to be part of the hate!
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 02:14
VIEWED: 18566
PAGE 17 of 23
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FREM
that concept and discussion needs it's own thread.
Of course
I just watched the first two episodes of elvenlied. It's quite good, and very Japanese. I like it. Parasols and sakura, takes me back.
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My own beliefs have eastern leanings, but closer to the Black Zen rooted in much misunderstood cults of earlier generations, maltheistic in nature and with a view of the deisms as forces inevitably inimical to humanity because of their very nature.
The forces are.
My favorite taoist line on that is "The forces flow, older and deeper than the world."
Humanity is its own special kettle of fish. the collective unconscious connection, and each of us alone, a construct within ourselves. Yes, most people see just the shadows on the wall. Oh look, people chasing shadows, I appear to have started my own private little war.
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Whether those deisms are a natural force or an artificial one, either created by those who seek to create the force of their worship (gestalt theory) or a force existing outside the realm of human perception (foreigner theory) is much debated, but their detriment to humanity is not.
I think it goes further than this
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Anyhow, this really needs it's own thread, and even then expect to be nitpicked by conventionalists.
Oh, I don't think they've noticed that we're even here. You see how easy it is? This is how Vaclav Havel overthrew the communist empire, in the broad light of day.
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Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:Quote:If it is the same thing, then that’s true.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I'm not sure I understand. If it is the same thing, it is merely a synonym.
Well, then I'm glad we agree.
Quote:Quote:Or it is political correctness.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I think this is a miscommunication issue. If you are politely disagreeing with their strategies - not their goal - then you shouldn't be criticised. This would only be an example of misunderstood or exaggerated political correctness, not of political correctness itself.
Either it is exaggerated, or it is not. You cannot treat both as equal. Either you agree that political correctness is nothing but the expectation of common courtesy OR you insist that it is always an expectation of conformism in opinion. If it is the latter, I will have to disagree with you, but at least you would have stated a definite opinion.
Quote:Quote:But I have a bias. I’m biased against the use to “in your face” tactics.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
As I said, the ulterior motive - or not ulterior, but obvious - of political correctness/common courtesy is to manipulate discourse through language. To make it neutral and less biased.
Unless it is an irrational dismissal of their strategies, it's not bias, but an opinion.
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Political correctness does not stop at common courtesy and tolerance it continues to shape point of view and opinion. But why should I be called intolerant or discourteous for not accepting a certain view point or having a certain view point myself?
Are you willing to allow that the people who criticised you may have simply not been examples of political correctness but of intolerance, or do you insist on them being perfect ambassadors for the concept of political correctness/common courtesy because it fits your opinion that political correctness itself is synonymous with intolerance?
You can be called discourteous if you use impolite language. If you were not, they were wrong to call you that.
You can be called intolerant if you are unwilling to tolerate something. I am perfectly willing to be called intolerant with regards to corporal punishment of children, for example. If you were not being intolerant, they were wrong you call you that.
Mind, it was politically incorrect of them to call you those things.
Quote:Quote:According to whose definition of political correctness?
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Unless you were violating common courtesy in your criticism or actually exhibited narrow-mindedness, the people who attacked you were not arguing for political correctness but out of intolerance themselves.
Mine.
I think there is true that some people use political correctness as a front for their own intolerance, but that doesn't make political correctness wrong. It only makes their abuse of it, and their intolerance wrong.
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If we accept that political correctness is indeed just a synonym for courtesy and tolerance, then it is redundant.
Not redundant, just a synonym. Do you think all synonyms are redundant?
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However, not everyone believes that’s all political correctness is. I’m not interested in entertaining the intolerant ulterior motives of political correctness so getting rid of it doesn’t hurt anything.
I think you are being too defensive and ascribe the criticism of unskilled debaters to political correctness when it had nothing to do with it.
Why can't you shrug off their unfounded criticism and consider the idea that you were perfectly politically correct and they weren't?
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Quote:OR it is not what you think it is. Just because you have a definition of political correctness doesn’t mean everyone else will agree. And a lot of people think political correctness is a tool to impose their point of view.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Either it is exaggerated, or it is not. You cannot treat both as equal. Either you agree that political correctness is nothing but the expectation of common courtesy OR you insist that it is always an expectation of conformism in opinion. If it is the latter, I will have to disagree with you, but at least you would have stated a definite opinion.
Quote:It was certainly intolerance of my point of view. Intolerance motivated by a certain view of political correctness – perhaps not the view you hold but a common nonetheless.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Are you willing to allow that the people who criticised you may have simply not been examples of political correctness but of intolerance, or do you insist on them being perfect ambassadors for the concept of political correctness/common courtesy because it fits your opinion that political correctness itself is synonymous with intolerance?
Quote:Well that’s one way to look at it.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I think there is true that some people use political correctness as a front for their own intolerance, but that doesn't make political correctness wrong. It only makes their abuse of it, and their intolerance wrong.
Quote:Do you know what a synonym is?
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Not redundant, just a synonym. Do you think all synonyms are redundant?
Quote:Because I don’t need to. Why can’t you accept that we can be courteous and tolerant without this philosophical ruse that is often used to promote intolerance?
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Why can't you shrug off their unfounded criticism and consider the idea that you were perfectly politically correct and they weren't?
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
OR it is not what you think it is. Just because you have a definition of political correctness doesn’t mean everyone else will agree. And a lot of people think political correctness is a tool to impose their point of view.
So what opinions do you feel are protected by political correctness and which are not? Who uses this tool? If it is supposedly used to impose uniform thought, what uniform thought is supposed to be imposed?
My personal theory is that people who feel defensive about having an unpopular opinion tend to be opposed to the idea of political correctness, not because it demands uniform thought but because it's a good excuse not to have to defend their opinion because all challenges to it must be a form of intolerance against them. And that's how political correctness got the reputation of being what you say it is, a conformism tool.
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It was certainly intolerance of my point of view. Intolerance motivated by a certain view of political correctness – perhaps not the view you hold but a common nonetheless.
Or maybe it was just intolerance motivated by their own opinions on the matter.
Did they say they were criticising you out of political correctness or is that just your opinion because they critised you unjustly?
Quote:Quote:Do you know what a synonym is?
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Not redundant, just a synonym. Do you think all synonyms are redundant?
Yes. I do not think they are redundant because they enrich our language. Do you think they are redundant?
Quote:Quote:Because I don’t need to. Why can’t you accept that we can be courteous and tolerant without this philosophical ruse that is often used to promote intolerance?
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Why can't you shrug off their unfounded criticism and consider the idea that you were perfectly politically correct and they weren't?
Because to me it simply is a synonym for "common courtesy and tolerance". It's not a philosophical ruse.
ETA: If you, like me, are asking yourself why we are arguing about something so inconsequential, I'm perfectly willing to just agree to disagree and call it quits. It really doesn't mean as much to me as my talkative nature might imply.
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Quote:Could you explain it again? Maybe it's buried in previous posts but I can't find it.
The point is: what does the definition of "evil" get us?- Signy
I’ve already explained that.-Finn
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Let's party like its 1929.
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Somewhere up above, Finn commented to AgentRouka, correct me if I'm wrong, "you accept the symptoms, but not the diagnosis" of evil. I find his terminology very telling. It implies that "evil" can exist within an individual person. Like all diagnoses it also cries out for a treatment and the treatment, if I'm not mistaken, in the world view of a man like Finn is something like murder. "Evil" in Finn Land is that characteristic that forfeits a person his or her right to life.
This seems to be why it is so very important for Finn to separate the Ted Bundy's of the world from the rank and file of the merely insane. The question his definition begs is, "Where's the cut-off?" If Bundy is "evil" for raping and murdering 35 women, what about raping and murdering only a few, or just one? Or raping and nearly murdering one. Or raping several. Etc. What level of violence can a person commit and still remain merely insane and not evil, not forfeit his or her right to life?
To me, what Finn calls "evil," serial killers and fascist dictators and the like, are really nature's way of trying to reintroduce some balance into our out-of-control, post-environmental human population. What's a Mother Earth to do? So our deep psyches start to call out for it: death, oblivion, one way or another.
It's very interesting to me that people like Bundy are referred to as "sexual predators," suggesting that they are just a part of our natural environment, an efficient tool attacking human reproduction: if the sexual predator doesn't kill the female outright, or damage her reproductive organs, he will likely render her at least psychologically unable to raise children, or if she does manage to have kids, they will likely grow up aggressive, violent contributors to nature's cause.
There are books written on how modern wars tend to gravitate to those areas of the planet where human life is least sustainable.
In such a context, individual evil is meaningless. Evil is systemic. In fact, murdering the Bundy's and the Hitler's of the world, only serves Nature's "evil" purpose in another way. To combat such evils, we humans instead need to find root causes of violent disturbance, clean up our environments and choose not to live in the wrong places.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Interesting debate going on here. Mind if I chip in? It's a dead duck over at the serenity board. Personally, I'd prefer a discussion with a bit of hate flying around, to where everyone was so polite that nothing ends up being said. But there are degrees that one can put up with.
On good and evil: somehow pagans were so much less black and white. the gods could be capricious, warmongering, drunken, lustful, incestuous, into bestiality and so on, but not strictly speaking 'evil'. Judaism and its offshoots, Islam and Christianity were really into polarisation. God was all good, the devil all bad. That sort of thinking permeates our culture, and in terms of world conflict, its not so very useful, in my view.
Leaving aside serial killers, heinous acts get committed across the political spectrum. War itself is heinous, don't you think? When I think of people who design weapons, it seems to me that's heinous. Sitting down and coldly thinking strategically about how best to kill and maim humans, the more humans the better. eg landmines, so favoured by US forces over the past decades, designed to maim (not even kill) whoever comes in contact with them, soldiers, farmers, children.
When we define the enemy as evil, it means they lose their humanity. In other words, we can do what we like to them because the bastards are less than human. I think that was Hitler's mentality as well, which made him what he was.
Paradoxical, isn't it?
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MasonsDaughter
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On good and evil: somehow pagans were so much less black and white. the gods could be capricious, warmongering, drunken, lustful, incestuous, into bestiality and so on, but not strictly speaking 'evil'. Judaism and its offshoots, Islam and Christianity were really into polarisation. God was all good, the devil all bad. That sort of thinking permeates our culture, and in terms of world conflict, its not so very useful, in my view.
This is spot on.
But the concept is dangerous by itself. If it had not existed elsewhere, it would never have become an issue in China in the 6th c. BC. Surely it was not Judaism they were talking about.
Actually, this notion comes up throughout primal cultures, even pagan ones. It's been widespread in subsaharan Africa for as long as we know, and appears in early texts of Mezoamerica, as well as early Europaganism. But it's not the only viewpoint that appears. It's a very destructive idea.
Typically, good defines itself, and then evil, as that which opposes it (The US or Israel vs. radical Islam, or, if you prefer, the other way around.) Once evil has been identified, stopping it is all important. If anything becomes ever all important, than any means can be considered acceptable to that ends, which is the concept that Machiavelli, who would have hated to be remembered for it, has become synonymous.
The self defined good, as the great destroyer of that which opposes it, can become an all consuming force for destruction of diversity, and life. It's very dangerous indeed, and very infectious. Machiavelli wrote the prince because he was threatened by the prince, who promised to bury him and his work. So he wrote it to appease the prince. This is the unwilling, but self-defensive act, which itself, can prepetuate the destructive force that it seeks to end.
A present day example of the same phenomenon is the film "Hero" which was commissioned by the communist govt. Zhang Yimou hated communism, and the fascist imperialism it stood for, and so subversively through historical films had angered the Communists to the point that they gave him the same option. Forced, he capitulated, and made the film, which itself, is a historical film to uphold the fantasy that Totalitarian Collectivism, the sacrifice of self for the glory of the state, is the natural outgrowth of Chinese history, and culture, a fantasy that the Communists cling to and perpetuate, cherrypicking and editing a they see fit until the illusion appears that this was always so, and the present regime is the only logical end result of traditional chinese values, which is the epitome of well designed propaganda. The Nazis were also very good at this sort of thing.
The US tries, but it has little history to draw on, and it seldom looks back further than WWII to find its examples. But we have the good an evil thing down.
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HK, there is no spoon.
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
MasonsDaughter
This is spot on.
But the concept is dangerous by itself. If it had not existed elsewhere, it would never have become an issue in China in the 6th c. BC. Surely it was not Judaism they were talking about.
[snip]
The US tries, but it has little history to draw on, and it seldom looks back further than WWII to find its examples. But we have the good an evil thing down.
Oh I didn't mean to suggest that it wasn't in evidence elsewhere, its just that our tradition of good vs evil comes from Judeo/Christian roots.
Good vs evil is how small children make sense of the world. As they mature, they see that sometimes Mum and Dad are not all good, and that sometimes the bully down the road can be fun after all (ie when s/he's picking on someone else).
Cultures who view the world as good and evil lack maturity, and are very dangerous if they hold a lot of power in the world.
It's about time we all grew up a little. First step might be to stop seeing WW2 as an example of good vs evil.
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