The Epistemology of Intimidation by Hatred

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Yes. And about 70 mil dead overall. All because France and Great Britain just had to kick Germany and Germans in the balls right after WWI.

--Brant

and then didn't have the balls to get rid of Hitler in the mid-1930s

Most of the blame is on Woodrow Wilson.  If he had put his foot down  a more just settlement could have been worked out for Germany.  But France and Britain determined that Wilson would have to back them if they backed the League of Nations.  So Wilson,  with his League of Nations madness is one of the main reasons Germany was screwed, which set in motion the machinery that produced Nazi Germany.  Wilson was really very bad news for the U.S. and the world. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 8/16/2017 at 10:52 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

You cannot reason someone out of a hatred they never reasoned themselves into. But you can reject hatred as a form of cognition.

And I do.

I reject hatred as a form of cognition, as a tool of cognition.

On looking over the division in America, that is, beyond the divide of the elitist jerks versus the rest of us, I keep wondering, how do the elitists keep getting away with their smokescreen?

The smokescreen is to keep two sides of the masses fighting over a smaller issue (abortion, racism, gun control, PC language crap, etc.), while the main issue keeps the same--that is the government grows and the elitist crony corporatists--now globalists--keep getting richer and more powerful.

Notice that if the liberals have power, the government grows and the elitists get richer. If the conservatives have power, the government grows and the elitists get richer.

Yet the conservatives and liberals on the edges are in such a white heat of hatred right now, they won't even talk to each other. (And neither side on the fringe will talk to President Trump supporters because he represents a disruption of the smokescreen.)

This leads me to believe the following. Regardless of whether people say they are atheist or not, the USA is, for the most, a deeply religious country and we are in the middle of a religious war. That is on top of dealing with, and reversing, the damage of the globalists. I include most atheists as among the most fundamentalist religious people of all.

When they hate, they hate with an intensity, tribalism and irrationality that would do the medieval Inquisition folks proud.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

[....]

The smokescreen you speak of is operative - behind the scenes groups that fund both sides of an issue to keep dissension active (with the exception of the climate issue, where the alarm side is very significant to globalist agendas and there's an attempt to prevent awareness of any challenge to alarmism).

Agreed, too, about the religious fundamentalist intensity of the hatred displayed by many atheists.  Don't know about "most," since I think that there are atheists who aren't crusading about it and who don't get noticed.  But the liberal educated academic sort can be very vicious in their antipathy to belief in God (unless the believer is Islamist).

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

12 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Don't know about "most," since I think that there are atheists who aren't crusading about it and who don't get noticed.

Ellen,

I should have qualified that better. I meant most atheists who speak about it in public or join promote-atheism groups. (I know few others simply because my social life is not active right now. )

Also,  I have see a good contingent of the kind of atheist I mean in RandLand.  

Michael

[anthony]

On 8/27/2017 at 3:14 AM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Puzzles the heck out of me. My parents had five children, all boys. They devoted themselves, gave their lives, suffered for it. Not how romances begin. You can say they weren't omniscient, couldn't reasonably predict an unwanted outcome, or perhaps their shared "highest value" was a life of progressive deterioration, as their youth failed and burdens multiplied. Or maybe they just weren't good enough to pull it off and The Greatest Generation was, in fact, The Stupidest. Some millions of them came home from war beaten and broken, other millions didn't come back at all. Were the lives and loves of Germans and Russians and Britons nothing? -- cultures rich with music, literature, science -- caught in a history not of their making or choosing.

It's good that Ayn Rand wrote stories and shared ideas. Her personal life was something else.

Ah, the oppression and oppressiveness of the past. Do you think it is rational to carry the weight of the past? Let alone, is it selfish? Always I feel you are ambivalent and partly admiring of "sacrifice", which means ambivalent about individual "values", as the two are inseparable.

To pre-empt being placed on the horns of a false dichotomy, I am all for acknowledgment and appreciation of the acts and thinking of many unknown and known dead others(again, from being true to their hard-won values).

Historical events "happened", some for the best of reasons which had poor outcomes, and some with wrong premises that worked out reasonably well.

But ~always~ in the history of man, accompanying the events were mass sacrifices and individual self-sacrifices. This factor - undoubtedly - distorted the causes, moral motives and consequences - e.g - of wars.

Nobody knows another person's mind. And far distant from it, when we're talking about the long gone. 

I don't have a clue what went on in my parents deepest thoughts and emotions. I could only see what they did and hear what they said. (They did their best, and I remember them well, despite any failings). Of course compared to them, that goes much less for the legends and figures of history whom none of us knew personally. Potted accounts and biographies can't tell us the true individual.  We owe to their memory respect for their stated ideas and excellent acts (according to their highest values, you must deduce), not an altruistic homage.

Sure as apples, their best output was never motivated by self-sacrifice - or for other people, primarily. I believe that if one came to life again, he would tell one: My life and work was not about "you", bud, get over yourself; it was about following my own ideas and values to the truth.

(I think Rand, in the total of her professional and her personal life was about as excellent as anyone's life may be, unless you take a standard of rationalist 'perfection'. She aimed higher than most anyone could and achieved that much more as well).

[Wolf DeVoon]

On 8/27/2017 at 6:37 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

 religious fundamentalist intensity of the hatred displayed by many atheists.

I didn't understand this. What does reason have to do with "hatred" (I continue to disbelieve there is such a thing).

[Wolf DeVoon]

11 hours ago, anthony said:

Nobody knows another person's mind. And far distant from it, when we're talking about the long gone... Potted accounts and biographies can't tell us the true individual.  We owe to their memory respect for their stated ideas and excellent acts (according to their highest values, you must deduce)...

Baffled again. I'll omit *you must deduce* because it contradicts *nobody knows* -- neither of which makes any sense to me. I'm a great believer in legal evidence, documents, scholarship, objective assessment, dismissal of the fantastic and improbable, no matter who claimed what was done or attempted for what cockamamie purpose, seldom better than a human dust mote blown by magic thinking, flattering propaganda, or conventional wisdom.

I don't doubt that there are many, many individuals whose achievements and courage are greater than mine, for instance, and I seldom fail to acknowledge the situation as true, factual, and objectively measurable. I can also understand a difference of opinion. That doesn't justify tall tales.

[BaalChatzaf]

7 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Baffled again. I'll omit *you must deduce* because it contradicts *nobody knows* -- neither of which makes any sense to me. I'm a great believer in legal evidence, documents, scholarship, objective assessment, dismissal of the fantastic and improbable, no matter who claimed what was done or attempted for what cockamamie purpose, seldom better than a human dust mote blown by magic thinking, flattering propaganda, or conventional wisdom.

I don't doubt that there are many, many individuals whose achievements and courage are greater than mine, for instance, and I seldom fail to acknowledge the situation as true, factual, and objectively measurable. I can also understand a difference of opinion. That doesn't justify tall tales.

Bravo!  Good Sense  triumphs.  

[Ellen Stuttle]

On August 28, 2017 at 8:01 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

On August 27, 2017 at 7:37 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

Don't know about "most," since I think that there are atheists who aren't crusading about it and who don't get noticed.

Ellen,

I should have qualified that better. I meant most atheists who speak about it in public or join promote-atheism groups. (I know few others simply because my social life is not active right now. )

Also,  I have see a good contingent of the kind of atheist I mean in RandLand.  

Michael

I just realized that my sentence could be taken to imply that I'm not an atheist.  I am, have been since I was twelve and concluded that the idea of "God" is superfluous.  However, far from crusading about atheism, I rarely mention my disbelief in God to believers, unless in circumstances where I think I should to prevent misunderstanding.  I think that there are plenty of other people who, like me (and my husband), are quiet atheists.

The crusading type you speak of, Michael, can be obnoxious even to quiet disbelievers.  I speak from experience of some anti-God crusaders by whom I've been berated more excoriatingly for my live-and-let-live attitude than I've ever been berated by any believer I've known for my disbelief.

Agreed about there being a contingent of the sort you mean in RandLand.

Ellen

[anthony]

18 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Baffled again. I'll omit *you must deduce* because it contradicts *nobody knows* -- neither of which makes any sense to me. I'm a great believer in legal evidence, documents, scholarship, objective assessment, dismissal of the fantastic and improbable, no matter who claimed what was done or attempted for what cockamamie purpose, seldom better than a human dust mote blown by magic thinking, flattering propaganda, or conventional wisdom.

I don't doubt that there are many, many individuals whose achievements and courage are greater than mine, for instance, and I seldom fail to acknowledge the situation as true, factual, and objectively measurable. I can also understand a difference of opinion. That doesn't justify tall tales.

if one doesn't know someone personally, one could go on their known work and what they produce(d). This tells you nothing more about him, than likely what he/she valued. So, "you must deduce" their values from their actions - from there, quite often their reasoning or world-view too. We read a superficial, "potted history" approach many places online, towards scientists, writers, actors, etc., and which gives less incisive readers the belief they have intimate knowledge of someone when they haven't the slightest idea of anyone else's consciousness. (I think sometimes, not even their own). Could be, the simplistic analysis can be a pathetic ruse to reduce a person to the 'known', and ordinary and mundane (maybe, which also irritated Rand about "psychologizing"). Probably, seeking instant knowledge is a sign of people's short attention span.

A little differently - for anyone personally accessible to one, it's rational to go, inductively, by a. what he says and b. what he does (and produces). Then, to compare his deeds with his words to gain an idea of his character strength, morals, knowledge - to do him justice - and not to delve into possibly hidden motives, past, psychology, and so on. I think this is the individually objective way. With him, as for the unknown others, one can never know his inner thoughts, processes, experiences and the battles to achieve his character, virtues (etc.). The final resort of an individual, specially in such public - "let it all hang out" - times, is his private mind, and it should command respect, I think.

I repeat: "nobody knows" the depths of another mind  - which I don't contradict by making deductions from anyone's excellent, explicit acts ("according to his values").  The '"what" of a mind is only partially available to us, assuming an effort to observe and listen, the whys and hows that someone arrived at this point of knowledge, unknowable.  I'm surprised you'd think it contradictory, but I wasn't very clear..

 

 

[Wolf DeVoon]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

I'm surprised you'd think it contradictory, but I wasn't very clear.

You are always clear, no problem understanding you. We simply disagree. Meeting someone in person, on film or tape, in photos, literature, recordings, or properly researched biography reveals everything about that person as an individual -- not a hell of a lot different from others of that time, ethnicity, and career path.