/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4631864]

>some guy has a theory that the natural outcome of rapid industrialisation and an exploding urban worker class is corporate behaviour/self-conception of that class rising until it inevitably rebels against the wealthy owners of its wages and overthrows the traditional state form that supports them
>living in the heyday of these developments, witness to their seediest side
>necessarily overestimates them (an age-old tradition among intellectuals)
>guy is a historian/sociologist in era of scholarship whose biggest tendency is grandiose social/political theories drawn from history and "human nature"
>guy is explicitly inspired by a recent, massively talked-about philosopher, whose books consist of screaming TELEOLOGY!!!!!!!! for 45,000 pages
>guy is eventually partially right (social democracy, lots of unions, welfare state), partially wrong (class consciousness inevitably causing critical mass of class consciousness and workers wanting/taking the reins of state/production)
>smart dude all around, nobody's perfect
>fast forward a generation or two
>russians murdering aristocrats and mobilising rural peasantry with his theories
>morons everywhere trying to undermine states with terrorism/shitty coups
>stalinism: nazism 2, electric boogaloo, literally reusing nazi concentration camps, katyn massacre, etc.
>statist totalitarianism everywhere, orwellian nightmare imposed on billions of people via imperialism, actual dystopia on earth
>botched attempts at collectivisation everywhere
>mismanagement causes tens to hundreds of millions of deaths
>beautiful, ancient cultures being demolished for commieblocks and factories
>entire peoples dislocated from their heritages

Do you ever just feel bad for Marx?

[Anonymous No.4631871]

"Marxism exists in nineteenth-century thought like a fish in water: that is, it is unable to breathe anywhere else"

[Anonymous No.4631875]

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

[Anonymous No.4631893]

>1843
>believing society was deliberately designed by evil group X to oppress righteous group Y

[Anonymous No.4631901]

>>4631893
>deliberate
>design
>evil

ill give you the righteous part but the other stuff is grave misunderstanding

[Anonymous No.4631912]

>>4631893
Society doesn't exist. Only individuals do.

[Anonymous No.4631915]

>>4631864
>russians murdering aristocrats and mobilising rural peasantry with his theories
Leninism is very largely based on Lenin's work as a theoretician.

Keep in mind that Vladimir was a man who, when 300 000 peasants starved in central Imperial Russia, argued for not trying to help the peasants but rather sabotage state trying to do so in order to increase revolutionary tendencies.

Anyways since Marx and Engels both declined the idea of socialist Russia, Russian commies had to draw inspiration from Kroptokin and play it rough.

[Anonymous No.4631922]

>>4631864
>mismanagement causes tens to hundreds of millions of deaths
And yet during, say, Maos rule, Chinas total population grew by over three hundred million persons.

Don't try to understand Communism and its appeal only by waving its "errors", because obviously you will only learn to dislike it. Try to look the positive effect it had on nations.

[Anonymous No.4631954]

Marx knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted people to be murdered and enslaved, he was a demon possessed misanthrope.

[Anonymous No.4631966]

>>4631912
Individuals do not exist. Only atoms do.

[Anonymous No.4632101]

>>4631912
Max pls

[Anonymous No.4632772]

>>4631864
>>mismanagement causes tens to hundreds of millions of deaths
Back to /pol/ and University of Hawaii with you.

[Anonymous No.4632775]

>>4632772
Go to bed Hobsbawm, you can't prove Stalin was the second coming

[Anonymous No.4632795]

it was Hegel's fault or more generally Luther's but you should read more Heidegger on alienation of the human from community to make your foolish assertions more credible

[Anonymous No.4632802]

Hey guys. I came up with a belief system whose central premise is that a certain small group of people is responsible for everything bad about society and that the way to build heaven on earth is simply to liquidate this group as a class using violence if necessary. But don't blame me if it starts a genocide later OK? Lol

[Anonymous No.4632805]

>>4632775
I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing for death tolls rooted in something other than "Democide" studies coming out of a misqualified statistician with no capacity to argue for causation who was once coincidentally employed by Hawaii and is using their mark to give gravitas to his insane ramblings.

[Anonymous No.4632815]

>>4632802
Do you even know what "liquidate as a class" means? Explain with reference to the value form's expanded reproduction.

[Anonymous No.4632822]

>>4632815
Yes. No.

[Anonymous No.4632827]

>>4632815
Oh no it's a Marxist theologian

Remember everyone, he can only drown you in gibberish if you confront him on his own terms, i.e. by allowing him to constantly move the goalposts and talk about unsubstantiated theories

Just talk about actual history and he can't answer

[Anonymous No.4632828]

>>4632822
You obviously don't because you insinuated that liquidation as a class was the liquidation of the constituent members of that class.

[Anonymous No.4632832]

>>4632828
no he didn't, he said that's one possibility

[Anonymous No.4632836]

>>4632815
>and that the way to build heaven on earth is simply to liquidate this group as a class using violence if necessary. But don't blame me if it starts a genocide later OK?
>>4632832
No, he claimed direct cause: that the liquidation of a class is necessary the liquidation of its constituent members.

[Anonymous No.4632843]

>>4632836
Hey Marxists are the ones who keep lining up all the capitalists and shooting them.

[Anonymous No.4632848]

>>4632836
>liquidate this group as a class
>using violence if necessary
>i.e. it may not be necessary

O____O

[Anonymous No.4632852]

>>4632843
{{cn}}

[Anonymous No.4632857]

>>4632848
>But don't blame me if it starts a genocide later OK?
I know you're illiterate, but you really oughtn't flaunt it.

[Anonymous No.4632860]

>>4632852
For the revolution, comrade!

[Anonymous No.4632866]

>>4632857
>"Don't blame me if a genocide starts because I told you to do thing" = "Genocide is a logically necessary antecedent to thing"

Remind me to trust your logic when it's deducing how many women and children need to be shot and thrown in a hole for Poland's glorious Worker's Party to live in prosperity

[Anonymous No.4632867]

>>4632857
You're stupid.

[Anonymous No.4632876]

>>4632866
The destruction of a class (even part of a class) by any means is the definition of genocide.

Fun fact. When the UN was formulating the official definition of genocide, it would've made the Communist party a criminal organization, so Stalin got them to remove political groups from the listed group of intended victims.

[Anonymous No.4632880]

>>4632866
Marx advocated revolutionary violence. Most of the time he kept silent on the topic, so he wouldn't be branded a terrorist. He never said violence wasn't necessary.

[Anonymous No.4632882]

>>4631922
Is population explosion supposed to be a benefit? especially of communism?
Or do I misunderstand you?

[Anonymous No.4632894]

>writing a freaking text with le meme arrows
Please, don't.

[Anonymous No.4632901]

>>4632894
Oh I do. I do do.

[Anonymous No.4632948]

>>4631966

Atoms don't actually exist, they're just waves of probability determined by the mind of an individual.

[Anonymous No.4633251]

>>4632876
>The destruction of a class (even part of a class) by any means is the definition of genocide.
No it isn't mate. The international definition of genocide explicitly excludes class. Fuck off back to U Hawaii.

[Anonymous No.4633847]

>>4631871
Foucault was dead before he was even dead.

"Forget Foucault"
pic related

[Anonymous No.4633852]

>>4633847
Does he actually develop any ideas of his own, or does he just recycle Barthes?

[Anonymous No.4633861]

>>4631893
It isn't that they're righteous, it's that they're complacently simple, which is encouraged by the bourgeois. That is the crime they commit.

[Anonymous No.4633864]

>>4633861
"I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet."

[Anonymous No.4633877]

>>4633852
Who, Baurdrillard? I thought he was synthesizing Barthes with Marx. idk...

It's Foucault that couldn't come up with any ideas of his own, except adding to his mentor, Althusser's, idea of ISAs, and then dropping everyfuckingthing that made the theory coherent and gave it analytic grip, because hurr durr don wanna be marcksiss hurr durr imma homos

Fucking Foucault. The more I read, the more I despise that twit.

[Anonymous No.4633881]

>>4631915

>kropotkin

That one guy who had a genuinely benevolent interpretation of evolution and was an all-around scholar? Whatever happened to evolutionists like him?

I feel like contemporary evolutionists are always trying so hard to be edgy and shocking.

>"Alright, they've gotten over the fact that they're ape-men. Now, let's exlaim about how meaningless, random and grandiose everything is! If anyone calls us out for being sensationalistic and purely rhetorical, we'll accuse then of religious sympathies!"

[Anonymous No.4633899]

>>4631893
what? who said that?

oh, rite.... feminists!
The Patriarchy!!!

[Anonymous No.4633902]

>>4633877

>and then dropping everyfuckingthing that made the theory coherent and gave it analytic grip, because hurr durr don wanna be marcksiss hurr durr imma homos

I don't like Foucault either, but you can't be serious going about debate this way. Have a little dignity.

[Anonymous No.4633906]

>>4633881

The contemporary bourgeois evolutionist will not admit that the evolution of a social animal is through mutual aid. Then the natural sciences would be supervened by the social and political sciences.

As it stands, our modern evolutionists are more than happy to peddle evo-psych (modern theology) with such obvious bourgeois themes of sex and individualism. Meanwhile, the socialist academics of our day slumber or aid the bourgeois in their attacks on third-world Muslims and dying, working-class religious institutions. A shift of tactics against humanism and other such neo-theologies should have occurred long ago.

[Anonymous No.4633910]

>>4633902
ok, the hurr durr part went a little far. the rest is true.

but, you must admit, he was the academic version of a camwhore. he would just say shocking crap, causing anyone who was arguing with him to just look at him sideways, like, do you know what you're actually saying?

I mean, poor Habermas struggled and struggled to point out that his theories refuted themselves, and Foucault would just change the subject and be like, 'ur an oppressor'

[sigh]

[Anonymous No.4633911]

>>4633877
>Who, Baurdrillard? I thought he was synthesizing Barthes with Marx. idk...
Barthes is already overtly Marxism a lot of the time.

>It's Foucault that couldn't come up with any ideas of his own
http://foucault.info/documents/disciplineandpunish/foucault.disciplineandpunish.panopticism.html

And that's right, Foucault wasn't a Marxist because he was a postmodernist. Postmodernism is about transcending modernism, and Marxism is definitely modernist.

>"I belong to that generation who, as students, had before their eyes, and were limited by, a horizon consisting of Marxism, phenomenology, and existentialism," he said. "For me the break was first Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a breathtaking performance."

[Anonymous No.4633912]

>>4633910
>the academic version of a camwhore.
Not at all. He didn't like talking about his personal life at all, which he devoted to such intense activism that he had a rib broken by the police.

[Anonymous No.4633913]

>>4631864
Why? History is on his side. Lenin and company will be remembered the way the Jacobins are now, given a few hundred years or so.

[Anonymous No.4633916]

>>4633913
Lenin will be remembered like Robespierre.

[Anonymous No.4633920]

>>4633911
>Postmodernism is about transcending modernism
you mean coming up with fancy sounding excuses to be liberal and enjoy your wealth privilege - the socioeconomic background of postmodernists is highly revealing.

>modernist
Mmmmmm... maybe. define 'modernity'

>http://foucault.info/documents/disciplineandpunish/foucault.disciplineandpunish.panopticism.html
own it. read it. Nothing really new there. He expanded on Althusser's ISAs and pointed out, with his theories of disciplinary and biopolitical power, how the ideological apparatus(es) functioned not just to create subjectivity (interpellate), but 'through' subjectivity (we all participate). But, again, that's not really new either - maybe just a more in-depth description...

The more I read, the more I realize there's nothing really new in Foucault, except the language he uses...

pic related's subjectivity was freed by Foucault. the 'unmasking' worked!!!
oh, and the idea that you don't have to have any evidence whatsoever in order to do social science

[Anonymous No.4633924]

>tfw I read these threads beginning to end everytime they pop up
>tfw I only have a rudimentary understanding of all the dudes that get brought up
>tfw I barely follow the discussion
Alright nerds, give me the essential reading list to understand all of this. Obviously I'll hit up Marx's main works but from their I have no idea. I've read Discipline and Punish but other than that I have no idea what's going on.

Don't understand continental/marxist related philosophy but I want to learn.

[Anonymous No.4633928]

>>4633916
Exactly.

[Anonymous No.4633933]

>>4633928
By which I mean, no one today is arguing that the Reign of Terror invalidates republican democracy.

[Anonymous No.4633935]

>>4633920
>you mean coming up with fancy sounding excuses to be liberal and enjoy your wealth privilege - the socioeconomic background of postmodernists is highly revealing.

You come from a blue collar family?

Foucault did a lot more to foment revolution than other leftists, he participating in several riots. There was just a lot of butthurt because he hated the USSR

>Mmmmmm... maybe. define 'modernity'

Marxism
Structuralism
Nationalism
Phenomenology
Existentialism
Second-wave feminism
Vanguardism
Third-generation warfare
Metanarrative

And a whole bunch of other shit.
>own it. read it. Nothing really new there. He expanded on Althusser's ISAs and pointed out, with his theories of disciplinary and biopolitical power, how the ideological apparatus(es) functioned not just to create subjectivity (interpellate), but 'through' subjectivity (we all participate). But, again, that's not really new either - maybe just a more in-depth description...
Althusser never explained how the state uses the model of a prison to control people, or how surveillance is objectifying gaze on a mass scale.

[Anonymous No.4633938]

>>4633933
No is he really thought of as a hero, he's thought of as bloodthirsty are rather repulsive. He was also a lot more pro-democracy than Lenin was.

[Anonymous No.4633953]

>>4633924
Read Kołakowski's Main Currents in Marxism first. Then you'll know what you need to read. You can pretty much start with Volume 2.

[Anonymous No.4633958]

>>4633924

[Anonymous No.4633963]

>>4633953
>>4633958
Thanks homies. I know all the names but not where to start. These will hopefully help!

[Anonymous No.4633972]

>>4633935
>You come from a blue collar family?
Factory workers and farmers

>Foucault did a lot more to foment revolution than other leftists
I don't know that I would say 'more', but I will give him that he was out in the streets like Sartre leading protests, for sure.

>a lot of butthurt because he hated the USSR
Most academics had dropped their support, or at least seriously lost enthusiasm, for the USSR by the 50s. I know some of the French held on (Sartre, Althusser), but most everyone's hopes had moved toward Mao or, more commonly, toward Marxist humanism. (Hence, Althusser's 'anti-humanism)
I think the butthurt came from the fact that he stole all the great Marxist theories at the time, and dropped all the Marxist parts, making them incoherent and destroying their analytic grip. Not surprisingly, he became popular...

>Metanarrative
No offense, but this is the only one that comes close to a 'definition' - this is the reverse of Lyotard's definition of postmodernity (skepticism of metanarratives), which, I'm fairly sure, is not a terribly popular definition.

What's even more interesting is that most people associate postmodernity with Foucault's theory of the subject, which he lifted directly off of the Marxist, Althusser. weird, right....?

>model of a prison to control people
I just read about this in pre-Foucault Marxist theory (specifically 'the barracks' as the first form of bourgeois power), and by the time I realized that I should save it, I fucking lost it. I've been trying to retrace my steps... I know that's not 'proof' but I'm telling you its true.

>surveillance is objectifying gaze on a mass scale
nobody described it with the words 'surveillance' or 'objectifying gaze', but you look through Lukacs and Gramsci and others' explanations of how false consciousness or hegemony works, and you're going to see the exact same concepts.

As far as I can tell, Foucault just took Marxist theory, used different words, and stripped it of all its coherence by ripping away the (supposed) metanarrative, the grounding (at least in the last instance) in class, and (related to the supposed metanarrative) the explanation of how society moves from one regime to the next. (and re-added Hegel's theory of domination/recognition, which has since been reincorporated into marxist theory by people like axel honneth)

It's literally Marxism without any analytic grip whatsoever -- oh, and no actual evidence to boot.

[Anonymous No.4633969]

>>4633924
Start with the Greeks

[Anonymous No.4633996]

>>4633963
no offense to those guise, but kolakowski's books are a three volume polemic against marxism, attempting to prove that it was inevitably and inherently going to lead to totalitarianism, and kolakowski was a devout catholic.
fucking ironic

modern french philosophy sounds interesting, but marxism....

go to marxist.org and look into their reading lists. Althusser is one of the most definitive sources on how to read marx, so look at what he says.
they have reading lists and study guides on there.

What I would say is that you need to read up on Hegel. What was he doing etc etc. (like at stanford philosophy website) then, look into the 'young hegelians', noting specifically fueurbach's The essence of Christianity.
Marx breaks with these, so having some understanding of what they were saying will help you to understand what marx was saying (how he was trying to contrast himself) when he was writing.

[Anonymous No.4634012]

>>4633899
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.4634022]

>>4634012
I was defending Marx, retard. /pol/ won't have me, since, because of you, they think Marxism = feminism/gays/etc

pic related: 'the left' now.
I've never been so ashamed. At least she's not [puke]

[Anonymous No.4634023]

>>4633972
ur dumb

marxist theory was too busy fellating itself and making a mess of things, unions becoming corrupt, taking over a bunch of countries and killing people a la OP, and foucault had the guts to come in and say "maybe it's not all about class eh?" and proceeded to give marxism the long hard dicking it deserved. he started from similar starting points with marxism, sure, that's a given considering his background. and he does strip away what was holding marxism back -- that it was an inevitable outcome out of the forces of capitalism, because clearly capitalism by that point had become like a mutant cockroach, taking in marxism and using it to expand its own power rather than being killed by it. the left and its centralized power was what he was attacking, and politically he was more anarchist but with a twist. he didn't believe in any kind of freedom, not the least kind of freedom that is generally propounded as freedom, but in general he sought politically to keep sight of the power that bound us and made us humans with the capacity to think of freedom, so that we can attack it... not to free ourselves, but to innovate, change. he refused to succumb to the pressure of trying to invent some future society that was better, because he knew he would be bound by the unconscious rules of discourse, and he even understood that even this idea that he was bound by these rules will eventually be unbound, the rules that made it true under that regime changes.

so yeah, there is no metanarrative for him besides the non-metanarrative of it all, so basically fuck you

[Anonymous No.4634033]

>>4634023
>so yeah, there is no metanarrative for him besides the non-metanarrative of it all, so basically fuck you
tl;dr - no, there is no analytic grip or coherency for him. He just repackaged Marxist theory, but without everything that made it useful, both politically and theoretically.

Sartre: "Foucault is the last barricade of the bourgeoisie"
Baudrillard: "Forget Foucault"
Althusser: Student, I am disappoint

pic related: typical Foucaultians

[Anonymous No.4634037]

>>4634033
how does having an endgame mean it has analytic grip

do you mean like the death grip

is masturbation everything marxism is

[Anonymous No.4634088]

>>4634037
>how does having an endgame mean it has analytic grip
but that's not what I said you retard.

>is masturbation everything marxism is
that's precisely what I just said Foucault is doing, when I said he lacks any analytic grip

Foucault: "everything is everything because i say so and it just became that way for no reason and I have no idea what else will happen or why it happened and i have no real proof, but I stole lots of Marxist concepts and used neologisms to make them sound like original ideas. read me."

Hipsters and Foucault: "Wow, so I can be lazy, worthless, ignore the plight of the poor, live off my trust fund, but still be considered progressive? sign me up!"

[Anonymous No.4634089]

>>4633972
>Factory workers and farmers
Which parent was which?

>Most academics had dropped their support, or at least seriously lost enthusiasm, for the USSR by the 50s.

Care to name the major ones who spoke out against the USSR on a regular basis?

>No offense, but this is the only one that comes close to a 'definition' - this is the reverse of Lyotard's definition of postmodernity (skepticism of metanarratives), which, I'm fairly sure, is not a terribly popular definition

Modernism was a lot of things, it wasn't just one idea. All those ideas are modernist, they swam in the same ocean.

>What's even more interesting is that most people associate postmodernity with Foucault's theory of the subject, which he lifted directly off of the Marxist, Althusser. weird, right....?

I don't know. Are you referring to the theory of the subject as in subject of the state, or theory of transcending subjectivity as in the subject/object relation?

>I just read about this in pre-Foucault Marxist theory (specifically 'the barracks' as the first form of bourgeois power), and by the time I realized that I should save it, I fucking lost it. I've been trying to retrace my steps... I know that's not 'proof' but I'm telling you its true.

I don't doubt you, Foucault cites 1700's works proposing the idea, durr. What Foucault did was analyze and predict in more depth than anyone before him, just as Marx did with communism.

>nobody described it with the words 'surveillance' or 'objectifying gaze', but you look through Lukacs and Gramsci and others' explanations of how false consciousness or hegemony works, and you're going to see the exact same concepts.

I don't think either of them analyzed surveillance so completely as Foucault did, from confessionals to psychoanalysis to towers to cameras and how they all interconnected. Foucault was examining the trend of the state needing to know and politicize as much as possible about everything, and what the reasons for this were and where it started and where it's going.

>As far as I can tell, Foucault just took Marxist theory, used different words, and stripped it of all its coherence by ripping away the (supposed) metanarrative, the grounding (at least in the last instance) in class, and (related to the supposed metanarrative) the explanation of how society moves from one regime to the next. (and re-added Hegel's theory of domination/recognition, which has since been reincorporated into marxist theory by people like axel honneth)

He took a lot of ideas from Marx and developed them, and then dumped others such as materialism. He re-evaluated the production of and acquisition of capital as merely a sort of phenomenological approach to production of power; he puts information (such as was originally obtained in confessionals) as closer to raw power than capital is, and so dwells on that as a greater concern, which is pretty reasonable seeing as how exploitation through capital had already been exhaustively explored.

[Anonymous No.4634107]

>>4634089
this. power has vectors in the monied elite as much as it does in the nsa spies that are monitoring your internet traffic

[Anonymous No.4634128]

Please read this:

https://ia601506.us.archive.org/15/items/MarxAndSatan/MarxAndSatan.pdf

"Marx and Satan". It's written by a Christian pastor and he inserts his own theology a lot, but he did his research and there's a lot of interesting facts about Marx and his successors that aren't often talked about.
It's short (less than 150 pages), but very interesting. The pastor was jailed by Communists for years and began researching the book once he was finally released.

Anyhow, it paints a different picture of Marx than the one you usually got.
These are the two that you usually get:

- His promoters say that he was a genius who may have erred now and then, but on the whole contributed greatly to a just cause, and he made very made legitimate criticisms about society. His followers have often misinterpreted his essentially just message.
- His detractors say that, despite what intelligence the man had, he didn't really know what he was doing and he failed to foresee that his writings would inspire the most violent and oppressive regimes in history.

But this books paints a much different picture, a Marx that knew FULL WELL that his writings would cause slaughter and oppression, but who wanted nothing more than for this to happen. He comes across as a kind of antichrist who despises mankind and wants to lead them to destruction. You might think that it's just the writer's Christian hysteria but some of the facts in the book are quite startling.

[Anonymous No.4634143]

>>4634128
I don't know, that seems to be based on the misconception that Marx invented socialism or communism as ideologies. Yes. he said stuff that could be used to justify wicked things, but all-in-all that's not a central part of his theories and one can be a Marxist while completely rejecting it.

Personally, I hold Lenin more accountable than anyone, because he defined Marxism.

[Anonymous No.4634144]

>>4634089
>he puts information (such as was originally obtained in confessionals)

lol

Confessors (priests that heard confessions) were not allowed to repeat what they had heard from a penitent in confession. There may have been a few spies inserted into the priesthood to serve the King, I do not know; however, revealing what people had said in confession would have gotten you kicked out of the priesthood most of the time.
Furthermore, back in old Catholic Europe there weren't massive states that spied on everybody. Towns were run by mayors and landlords; there wasn't this massive centralization of power. The first time that spies became a big thing was in Protestant England under Queen Elizabeth I (John Dee is the most famous spy from that era; he was an occultist and a spy for Elizabeth I; his codename was 007); it was in Protestant England that the State became the most dominant force rather than things being split up into local parish churches, because Henry VIII, Elizabeth's predecessor, had instituted his own "Anglican Church" where the monarch essentially became the head of religion as well as the state.
The USA is largely an offshoot of Elizabethan England; in fact, Elizabethan England was the blueprint for the entire Modern world. Read Francis Bacon's "The New Atlantis", it is fascinating; it predicts the priesthood being taken over by scientists as the keepers of knowledge, and the rise of a technocratic society.

[Anonymous No.4634146]

>>4634143
>I don't know, that seems to be based on the misconception that Marx invented socialism or communism as ideologies.
Ah, yes, to finish this thought: the idea of abolishing property was overly expressed by Rousseau, so it was nothing new. Marx just aimed to turn it into a respectable science.

[Anonymous No.4634147]

>>4634089
>Which parent was which?
this is not about me

>Care to name the major ones who spoke out against the USSR
Everyone in the New Left, to my knowledge. (this question is borderline twat - don't be a douche)
In the US, Trotskyism was always the main strain of Marxism, to my knowledge. I don't know about Europe. Generally, in the US they were too busy speaking out against McCarthyism, the Korean War, and the Vietnam war to voice their opinion about Stalinism to empty rooms of people who already knew that it was bad... Are you really going stretch that far? let's be reasonable, here.

>All those ideas are modernist, they swam in the same ocean.
but you didn't define the ocean. please define modernism and postmodernism for me.

>Are you referring to the theory of the subject as in subject of the state, or theory of transcending subjectivity as in the subject/object relation
Clearly, his ontology - the philosophical subject. And, yes, he took it directly from Althusser. Jesus Christ, see below why this question makes you look really, really bad. **

>predict
Foucault predicted nothing. In fact, he had no pretension of prediction whatsoever.

>analyze
describe

>in more depth than anyone before him
hardly. but I can't fault him for synthesizing others' theories, so whatevs...

>>4634089
>Foucault was examining the trend of the state needing to know and politicize
>the state
excuse me? citation

>what the reasons for this were
nope! citation (one of the reasons he lacks analytic grip)

>where it started
but not why or how it got to where it is! (one of the reasons he lacks analytic grip)

>where it's going
wrong! citation. (one of the reasons he lacks analytic grip)

>power than capital is, and so dwells on that as a greater concern
________________________________________________________________________________
**I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last twenty years. It has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis... it is not power but the subject which is the general theme of my research.
--Michel Foucault, The Subject and Power (1982)
_________________________________________________________________________________

It always amazes me how little Foucaultians understand Foucault. Everything you like about Foucault
>examining the trend of the state needing to know and politicize as much as possible about everything, and what the reasons for this were and where it started and where it's going
is what ALTHUSSER did, not Foucault.
>Come back to Marxism, my friend. Don't let the bourgeoisie fool you.
Sartre: "Foucault is the last barricade of the bourgeoisie"
Baudrillard: "Forget Foucault"
Althusser: Student, I am disappoint

[Anonymous No.4634153]

>>4634143
>>4634128
prototypical reactionary jewbaiting. don't listen to this retard.

pic related: an actual real philosopher's book (also, a catholic, i think)

[Anonymous No.4634155]

>>4634144
>Confessors (priests that heard confessions) were not allowed to repeat what they had heard from a penitent in confession. There may have been a few spies inserted into the priesthood to serve the King, I do not know; however, revealing what people had said in confession would have gotten you kicked out of the priesthood most of the time.
He's not talking about confession right off the bat, he's talking about after new rules were written (in response to the crisis of Protestantism) for it which required the priests to get *details* such as graphic description of an entire sexual act. See History of Sexuality Volume I

>The USA is largely an offshoot of Elizabethan England; in fact, Elizabethan England was the blueprint for the entire Modern world. Read Francis Bacon's "The New Atlantis", it is fascinating; it predicts the priesthood being taken over by scientists as the keepers of knowledge, and the rise of a technocratic society.

Foucault positions psychoanalysis as the successor of confession, and far more efficient.

[Anonymous No.4634158]

>>4634144
Alice in Wonderland was written in Victorian times by Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll. This book reveals how absurd the Victorian times were spiritually. Alice is trapped in a fantasy land where nothing makes sense, and unable to make sense of anything she is consumed by negativity. That is a parable for life in the Modern World.
The Cheshire Cat could represent Satan and The Mad Hatter the Antichrist. There is the Caterpillar who is like a drugged poet-oracle á la Shelley or Byron or Keats. The "Queen of Hearts" represents Queen Elizabeth I. Alice in Wonderland is basically a reverberation of Elizabethan England, because Elizabethan England is when England (and subsequently the rest of the world) was taken over by weird occultism and bizarre philosophies that turned the world upside down and made life nonsensical. Before that the Catholic Church and Scholasticism provided a spiritual and philosophical rock which made sense of the world.
Surrealism in art essentially comes out of Elizabethan and then Victorian England. It represents how senseless the world has become. Mary Poppins is like an anti-Virgin Mary; she appears in people's lives and instead of making them make sense she throws them into la-la-land.
Shakespeare's plays are full of occultism, btw. All those "mystical marriages", witches, incantations, etc. They are a reflection of the times (Elizabethan England).

[Anonymous No.4634159]

>>4634147
>doesn't know his nietszche and the presence of genealogy in foucaults work

that's why you dont get him

[Anonymous No.4634160]

>>4634144
I'm the guy that guy is arguing against. Foucault's emphasis on the confessional, or the fact that we live in a 'confessing society', was not based upon concern for spying, but how the act of confession constructs us as subjects.

very, very different.

>>4634146
this.
Marx's originality, i think, was his applying dialectics to material conditions, and then trying to develop a 'science' of society based on that philosophy. most of his concerns were already being expressed by others for a long time.

Read, for instance, Engels "Socialism, Scientific and Utopian"

[Anonymous No.4634162]

>>4634155
>Foucault positions psychoanalysis as the successor of confession, and far more efficient.

Yes, the psychiatrists couch did fill in for confessionals, in a way. But remember that the Protestants got rid of the confessionals long before psychoanalysis arrived.
I've heard that some of the psychoanalysts, in fact, were adverse to to psychotherapy because they thought it resembled religion / Catholicism too much, which they hated: see this from Freud:

>Hannibal and Rome symbolized the opposition between the Jewish tenacity and the organizing spirit of the Catholic Church. The wish to go to Rome became at the delirious level the veil and symbol of many other ardent wishes, which need for their achievement persevering and steadfast hard work... and their fulfillment seems to be as less favored by destiny as was Hannibal's lifetime wish to enter Rome.

Carthage (Hannibal) was essentially a merchant society, which is where the analogy to the Jewish people comes in. Rome was based on tradition and virtues.

[Anonymous No.4634164]

>>4634159
>doesn't know geneology traces a path, but doesn't tell you 'why' anything happens.
>doesn't know it just describes.
>doesn't know that's like describing evolution without describing the 'environmental selection' part

this is why you don't get analytic grip

[Anonymous No.4634165]

>>4634147
>but you didn't define the ocean. please define modernism and postmodernism for me.
There is no ocean without the fish here, just like you can't define Greek philosophy without the ideas.

>Foucault predicted nothing. In fact, he had no pretension of prediction whatsoever.
He certainly did, just not in details. He predicted in the sense of trends of intensification; society will get more and more cut up into districts and gated communities.

>excuse me? citation
Have you read The History of Sexuality?

>**I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last twenty years. It has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis... it is not power but the subject which is the general theme of my research.
--Michel Foucault, The Subject and Power (1982)
Yes, I'm the one who linked that to you. In fact, almost all the information you've been giving about Foucault you got from this dumb bitch.

Foucault isn't analyzing power itself because power isn't material; he analyzes its exercise by subjects.

Truth is, Foucault strongly and overtly favored abolition of private property and he was sympathetic toward revolution almost on principle. Whether or not he was a "Marxist"--that you even care--is irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.4634166]

>>4634162

>>4634160
>I'm the guy that guy is arguing against. Foucault's emphasis on the confessional, or the fact that we live in a 'confessing society', was not based upon concern for spying, but how the act of confession constructs us as subjects.
>very, very different.

>>4634147
>I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last twenty years. It has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis... it is not power but the subject which is the general theme of my research.
>--Michel Foucault, The Subject and Power (1982)

[Anonymous No.4634169]

>>4634165

marxist bro is just piss mad that his religion isn't taken seriously anymore because of some phantom invasion by postmodernism in his leftist circlejerk

[Anonymous No.4634170]

>>4634162
And a major part of the psychoanalyst's mission was recording and sharing information, but especially about sinful thoughts and deeds.

[Anonymous No.4634172]

>>4634146
Rousseau's and Marx's and everybody else's desire to get rid of property is and has always been envy for the rich. The French Revolution was the Bourgeois' envy of the Aristocrats for having their land and riches. The subsequent revolutions have been directed at the Bourgeois that took the Aristocrats place.

We have not benefitted at all from these revolutions. We were much better off under an aristocracy that preserved virtues, and not these amoral Bourgeois who value nothing but money. The truth, however, is that the Proletariat that is to replace the Bourgeois (like the Bourgeois that replaced the Aristocrats) is to be EVEN MORE nihilistic than the Bourgeois themselves. These revolutions HAVE ALWAYS BEEN a further sinking into complete nihilism. Soviet Russia is the true face of the revolution, not "the revolution gone bad", no, the revolution is INTENDED to cause misery and death. Those people who are revolutionaries out of some idealistic desire to create a perfect society are called USEFUL IDIOTS because they unwittingly serve the nihilistic mastermind's destructive ends.

[Anonymous No.4634175]

>>4634166
>look at what foucault SAID guys, ignore the fact that power was much of the focus of every other thing he said, he basically said this ONE THING that proves my point so there

[Anonymous No.4634180]

>>4634169
>yfw Marxism was initially about abolishing ideology
>became as bad as religion with its owner churches and idea of heresy

>>4634172
Your idea of morality is probably stupid shit like wearing pants tho

[Anonymous No.4634181]

>>4634172
Oh, and "abolition of private property" is nothing less than abolition of the family, btw. Without private property there is no family.
"Abolition of private property" also includes your right to have a wife/husband and a child, btw. In Soviet Russia your children were owned by the State.

This is a farcry from old aristocratic Europe where family and family tradition was everything.
Revolutionaries are those nihilistic, deadbeat kids and criminal scum that come from awful families and that are jealous of those that have nice families with good traditions. Those are the true revolutionaries; then there are the revolutionaries that are from good families but are seduced by the true revolutionaries into serving their cause using idealistic bait ("look at how poor the underclasses are! Wouldn't it be better if we got rid of property altogether and shared it all!").
The truth is that it WOULD be better if we got rid of property and shared it all, but in order for that to work WE WOULD ALL HAVE TO BE SAINTS. The ONLY places that sharing property works is in places where the people were STRONGLY tied together; like the early Christians who lived in little communes with one and other, and monks who share their property throughout the monastery.

If you try and justify being a revolutionary by saying that you are concerned for the poor, then go out and clothe and feed the poor, O hypocrite.

[Anonymous No.4634185]

>>4634165
>There is no ocean without the fish here, just like you can't define Greek philosophy without the ideas
F - you just failed. You have to define what it is about those ideas that makes them different from postmodern ideas. Until you can do that, you need to STFU

>He certainly did, just not in details
citation

>Have you read The History of Sexuality?
yes. and he didn't say any of that. specific citation and page number please. as soon as I post, I'm going over to the book shelf to get my copy.
protip: you can't. this is literally one of the major critiques of Foucault. see: the habermas-foucault debates

>he analyzes its exercise by subjects
wrong. he analyzes *how it constructs you AS a subject* and how we all together participate in this process. (ripped directly from Althusser, I should point out) --- fuck, you don't know anything

>Foucault strongly and overtly favored abolition of private property
citation? not saying I don't believe you, but no Foucaultians that I knew in grad school favored this

>was sympathetic toward revolution almost on principle
yeah... definitely going to need a citation for that one.

i'll even take a legitimate wiki on any of these calls for a citation, but I'm going to need them -- look at it this way, when you realize you're wrong, it'll be a wonderful learning experience for you!

PS. here is a link so you can download Foucault and actually read him.
http://kickass.to/michel-foucault-selected-works-25-books-t7569114.html

[Anonymous No.4634188]

>>4634175
It's important because for Foucault power is an abstract that you exercise over someone (for instance, he explicitly says that physically forcing someone to do something isn't power in the sense he's using it---probably using a word that doesn't translate well into English), rather than a material that exists; so he's looking at non-materialist shaper of society, while at the same time not falling back on idealism. And he's right, he never really abstracts power from its application, he always speaks of it in a specific context of institutions employing it. Foucault's power is something hidden, something that can only be illustrated asking questions about everything it might be affecting.

[Anonymous No.4634190]

>>4634175
>claims that power was the subject of a Foucault's career
>Foucault says very specifically that he'd like to clear up the common misconception that it was power, not 'the subject' that was the topic of his career
>declares self right, not the philosopher
Did you ever consider that you just don't understand Foucault?
That's a helluva lot more likely than that Foucault doesn't understand himself, right?

mfw

[Anonymous No.4634194]

>>4634190
>>4634175
**not power, but 'the subject'
is how that should read.
jesus, I think your retardation is rubbing off

[Anonymous No.4634197]

>>4634190
nah bro you need to read some nietszche, some kant, seems like you got da hegel and da marx down so you good on that, some marx, some hella a lot of christianity, then maybe you'll start maybe stop bsing like you know what foucault talks about. come on, we all know you just jelly mad like a pro dick taker, just like foucault was xD

[Anonymous No.4634199]

>>4634197
hell that second marx was supposed to be freud lmao

you just goota chill man, you get all butthurt for no reason, you don't try to relax and open up your mind like you open up your anus????

[Anonymous No.4634201]

>>4634188
>power is an abstract that you exercise over someone
nope. power is what 'constructs you as a subject' -- you're using a liberal ontology with a post-structuralist thinker. there's no power - you dichotomy. You are a product of power whether you like it or not.

>same time not falling back on idealism
to hell he isn't

>he never really abstracts power from its application
because, in his theory, you can't!!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!! you are retarded!!!!!!!!!

>institutions employing it
uhhhhh.. maybe you should read again. you mean to say 'expert cultures' strategically compiling 'discourses' in order to create 'epistemes of truth'

>>4634197
nah bro, you need to actually read Foucault. XXXXDDDDDDDDD

[Anonymous No.4634204]

>>4634199
my jimmies remain unrustled.

[Anonymous No.4634205]

>>4634201
> XXXXDDDDDDDDD

:3 its like you dont want to be taken seriously

[Anonymous No.4634208]

>>4634190

When a book speaks, the author has to be silent.

[Anonymous No.4634209]

>>4634188
>>4634190
I'd like to interject in this conversation. I know that Marxists and Psychoanalysts like to look a people's selves to understand their theories, rather than examining the actual content of the theories. That being said, we should all step back and point out how Foucault's analysis of power is based upon his experience practising homosexual BDSM. Of course Foucault would think that power is this neurotic force, the Other, when he spent many a night being spanked by a butch transvestite in leathers.

The old conception of power is based on obedience to authority. The authority is said to be legitimate, and so the person beneath the authority has a duty to obey; a person that obeys legitimate authority is virtuous for doing so. When someone tries to illegitimately assert themselves as an authority they are called a tyrant, and it is not against virtue to disobey a tyrant.
Now, in the modern world where the concept of legitimate & absolute authority has disappeared in political theory (just as absolute morality has disappeared from ethics, absolute truth from epistemology, and absolute beauty from aesthetics, and absolute being from ontology, and absolute substance from metaphysics, and God from theology), Focualt & Pals see "Power" as this lawless force that asserts itself "just because", without rhyme or reason; it is neither virtuous nor is it not virtuous to assert power or obey power; power "just is". Machiavellian view of power. This is neuroticism.

[Anonymous No.4634210]

btw im gonna need some citations from marx/althusser to back up all the stuff ur saying cause i dont believe a word of it and i dont think you understand marx or althusser at all

[Anonymous No.4634211]

>>4634205
cool story bro

[Anonymous No.4634213]

>>4634185
>F - you just failed. You have to define what it is about those ideas that makes them different from postmodern ideas. Until you can do that, you need to STFU
Oh. Well existentialism, for instance, is about creating your own long-term meaning, whereas postmodernism prefers no THE meaning, and only employing purpose for short term consideration.

>yes. and he didn't say any of that. specific citation and page number please. as soon as I post, I'm going over to the book shelf to get my copy.

I don't have it, I read it from the library. I'm not going to through this for you.

>protip: you can't. this is literally one of the major critiques of Foucault. see: the habermas-foucault debates

specific citation and page number please

>yeah... definitely going to need a citation for that one.
http://primeraparadoja.wordpress.com/publicaciones/foucault-m-mayo-de-1979-useless-to-revolt/

[Anonymous No.4634219]

>>4634211

ya you should stop posting now lel

[Anonymous No.4634221]

>>4634209
cont.
Orwell understood this. He summed it up in 1984 when Winston says that freedom is being able to say that 2 + 2 = 4, in other words, freedom depends upon the existence of absolute truth. If there is no absolute truth then everything is lawless, there is no rhyme or reason, power just asserts itself amorally.
However, IF there is absolute truth and absolute moraity, then man DOES have a right to say, "no, this exercise of power is WRONG / illegitimate". If truth and morality is the absolute power that is above all human power, then humanity is saved. In other words, if God exists, man is saved. If God does not exist, if there is no absolute truth or morality, then we really are in this hellish place where power just asserts itself and there is no rhyme or reason to anything, no justice.

This Catholic Bishop goes over what I've just said in more detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5q23ezr8DE

[Anonymous No.4634223]

>>4634213
>I don't have it, I read it from the library. I'm not going to through this for you.
On this: please look over exactly what Foucault is saying sex is doing: the state was built on blood, the blood of families, the shedding of blood, the blood oath, etc. Foucault says that sex has replaced blood and so the state needs to analyze the shit out of it.

Just read the book. Sometime.

[Anonymous No.4634225]

>>4634209
>>4634208
'power' is just the dynamic through which the 'self' or 'subject' is constructed. the point is a critique of the liberal subject and an explanation of the post-structural subject.

you don't get it, because you've only gotten the 'here's how Foucault justifies our asinine activism' version of Foucault. You have, in fact, imbued Foucault with your own bourgeois ideology when you were reading him.
How do I know? Well, let's do a geneology of his ideas. First, his mentor, Althusser
anti-humanism
etc etc etc

>>4634213
>Well existentialism, for instance...
the main difference is that in existentialism you are able, as a subject, to create your own meaning, in Foucault you are unable to do so, because you are constructed AS A SUBJECT by society, as process called 'power'

>I'm not going to through this for you.
you lose
QED

but, I bet you're going to go to bed tonight, forget this whole conversation, and keep repeating that retarded shit you said like its true.

Try this. Take this conversation to a professor of Foucault, and ask him/her if I'm right. Not any professor - go to your nearest R1 university, to the philosophy department, and find someone who specializes in Foucault and ask them if I'm right.
Prediction: you won't

[Anonymous No.4634227]

>>4634225
70% of what you know about Foucault is from me. I know because I told you a lot of this shit the other day when you didn't know it, and now it's all being regurgitated. You're the one who needs to be better informed, not I. I believe you are either lying about having read any of Foucault's works, or that you simply read through them to read through them and have it done, rather than actually digest what he was saying.

[Anonymous No.4634229]

>>4634225
>the main difference is that in existentialism you are able, as a subject, to create your own meaning, in Foucault you are unable to do so, because you are constructed AS A SUBJECT by society, as process called 'power'
Foucault is against construction of meaning, he's altogether skeptical of necessity of identity.

[Anonymous No.4634230]

>>4634225
>'power' is just the dynamic through which the 'self' or 'subject' is constructed. the point is a critique of the liberal subject and an explanation of the post-structural subject.
>the main difference is that in existentialism you are able, as a subject, to create your own meaning, in Foucault you are unable to do so, because you are constructed AS A SUBJECT by society, as process called 'power'

citation plz

prediction: you'll call me a dumbass, that i don't know foucault like you do, etc etc.

[Anonymous No.4634233]

>>4634225
>'power' is just the dynamic through which the 'self' or 'subject' is constructed.

Except the subject is not constructed, it has an unchanging essence. The subject can be modified, but why call the various things that modify the subject "power"? Why not "virtue & vice"? Foucault would probably just say, "virtue and vice are just power; they are cultural construct enforced by power", so everything can be reduced to "power". Well, why not reduce everything to love? That's what Aquinas did. Love is the "dynamic through which the essential 'self' or 'subject' is modified", if you love virtue your self is modified in one way, if you love vice your self is modified in another.
The reason that Foucault would call this force "power" instead of "love" is EXACTLY because he was a degenerate homosexual who experience "love" through BDSM.

[Anonymous No.4634237]

>>4634233
forgot pic

MUH ESSENTIALISM

Things have essences, get over it. The "everything is constructed, there are no essences" philosophy is patently absurd.

[Anonymous No.4634240]

>>4634233
>individual subjectivity is essential
My wrestling match audience when.

[Anonymous No.4634245]

>>4634237
>Things have essences, get over it.

you can only believe that because greek philosophy having been so influential as it has been

fucking power/knowledge

[Anonymous No.4634247]

>>4634227
70% of what Foucault knows, I taught him, and all the stuff that is not right is the stuff I didn't teach him.

>>4634229
And...?

>>4634230
no. you explain to me the difference between modernism and postmodernism, and give me the citations I asked for, then I will.

>>4634233
are you retarded? GTFO

also, there is literally nothing wrong with BDSM

pic related: more disgusting Foucaultians

[Anonymous No.4634249]

>>4634240
Individual subjectivity certainly has an essence; if it did not have an essence we would never be able to understand one and other because we'd be so radically different from one and other, sharing no essence (coinicidentally, that's what they postmodernists say, they say that we cannot ever understand one and other because our language is all just symbols without any essence backing it up. They are essentially ripping off Daoism by saying that there are no essences and language says nothing. The East's invasion of the West is troubling to me). We are not individual subjects that exist in vacuum and are causa sui (self-caused), no, we are HUMAN individual subjects, and our human essence is PRIOR to the existence of our "subjectivity".

>mfw God created the essential human form and atheists are deluded into thinking there are no forms/essences and reality is just this vague semblance or bundle of appearances

[Anonymous No.4634250]

>>4634249
>if it did not have an essence we would never be able to understand
linguistically created intersubjectivity
QED
GTFO

[Anonymous No.4634256]

>>4634250
Intersubjectivity? Why not say "collective consciousness", it's more vivid an image.
What you essentially mean by "intersubjectivity" is that there is this large, oversoul or overmind or oversubject that exists and that we are all individual subjects experiencing certain aspects of said oversoul/overmind/oversubject, the collective consciousness.

Sounds like esoteric/hermetic BS to me m8.

[Anonymous No.4634257]

>>4634247
>no. you explain to me the difference between modernism and postmodernism, and give me the citations I asked for, then I will.

citations that you asked me for citations, plz

oh thats right, you can't because its an anonymous board

also, you can't cite anything because there's nothing to cite, because you're just a contrarian

[Anonymous No.4634259]

>>4634256
cont.

In other words, "intersubjectivity" is more Eastern pantheism. I hate pantheism so much.

I am paranoid that the world is being taken over by pantheists, but of course, the pantheists don't see it that way; they think that the world is just "evolving" or "progressing" or w/e.

[Anonymous No.4634260]

>>4634247
dude >>4634233
knows more about foucault then you do

[Anonymous No.4634262]

>>4634249
>Individual subjectivity certainly has an essence
Assertion isn't proof, cunt.

[Anonymous No.4634267]

>>4634262
If he could do more than make assertions I'd be a professional philosopher or blogger; but I am just a lowly /lit/ poster without any philosophical training and who knows what he knows by intuition and conviction.

[Anonymous No.4634269]

>>4634267
>If he could

If I could*

[Anonymous No.4634272]

>>4634267
So what you're saying is that nothing you've said is worth heeding.

Thanks for conceding.

[Anonymous No.4634273]

>>4634272
>So what you're saying is that nothing you've said is worth heeding.

No, everything I've said is true, I just don't know how to demonstrate it.

[Anonymous No.4634276]

ITT:
Serious version of pic related.

Also to those detractors of Foucault, read this three books:
>Society must be defended
>Security, population, territory
>Birth of Bio-politics.

If there's a thing that Foucault is good at, it's history. Or rather uncovering forgotten, history and making it work within the modern society.

[Anonymous No.4634279]

>>4634259
wow way to be a bigoted orientalist totally discrediting you?

anyway,, there's no oversoul or any shit you are talking about. basically we can't even describe essences without all presuming that essences exist, because it's kind of predicated in our language that it has to exist, so we'd have to go to some pre-linguistic state to even theorize what an essence-less like state would be like, but since that is technically impossible, we can only sort of stab at the dark. foucault got close to trying to break free from our these constraints, but even he knew he was still operating within something that would basically make it impossible, and he realized early on that could never be a goal or anything of the sort, he just had to operate within power and so made it a goal to mine as much information about power to put us on equal footing with the state apparatus that was working so hard to know (and therefore hold power) over people

[Anonymous No.4634281]

>>4631864
>critical mass of class consciousness and workers wanting/taking the reins of state/production

Marx didn't count on the invention of better opiates for the masses.

[Anonymous No.4634283]

>>4634279
> basically we can't even describe essences without all presuming that essences exist, because it's kind of predicated in our language that it has to exist

yes m8, that's precisely it; which is why I can't understand why the likes of Derrida wrote so fucking much. He ought to have kept his mouth shut like the Daoist he was.

I swear Foucault and Derrida and the likes are just really, really, really amateur and 10th rate oriental mystics. They belong in a monastery in China, not a Western University.

[Anonymous No.4634285]

>>4634281
He totally should. Capitalism in it self was always spectacular.
The society of spectacle was always bound to happen.

[Anonymous No.4634287]

>>4634283
cont. basically, Derrida, etc., were complete hypocrites, because if there are no essences then you have no right to speak about anything, except to speak about how futile it is to speak (which is what the Tao De Ching is; the Tao De Ching precedes Derrida by thousands of years, he ought to be EMBARRASSED).

[Anonymous No.4634290]

>>4634285
>Capitalism in it self was always spectacular.

This is the first I've heard that. Can you tell me where I can read an expansion on this idea?

[Anonymous No.4634296]

>>4634287
cont. basically, if you believe there are no essences, you should be practising the virtue of silence and of staring into space and experiencing nothingness.
If you believe there are no essences then what is your justification for being here? It can't possibly be a Socratic desire to discover truth through dialectics, because you don't believe in truth! It can't be a desire to instruct a person through language, because you don't think language has the power to instruct! Why are you here?

[Anonymous No.4634298]

>>4634279
honestly he was better at doing some kind of political-philosophical-historical hybrid

>>4634281
what marx didn't account for was extreme cynicism and apathy

he always thought capitai would piss on us for so long we'd want to stop drowning at some point

>>4634287
idk derrida. i always thought derrida was a hack but then again i barely read anything by him. just a distaste for him i guess. the tao says nothing about power structures, regimes of truth, surveillance societies, biopolitics, or anything else like that, so tao doesn't really explain foucault... i'd rather think foucault would hate being a monk

[Anonymous No.4634299]

>>4634283
You clearly don't understand either Derrida or Foucault, if you actually believe this.

At least with Foucault, there's nothing "mystical". It's all just a simple history.

While I get how you'd think Derrida is mystical with his deconstruction, but he's the most wittgensteinian of the continentals, as he deas the philosophy as a language game the best.

>>4634290
Oh, I just extrapolated that from Society of Spectacle. I'm not sure if that is in it, or if this something I just came up with.
But think about it. To succeed on a free market, you need to get attention of the buyers. What better way to achieve that, than through images (of either product or promotion of product)
Even as early as 1780's there were "commercials" in newspapers informing the public where they can get their stuff.

[Anonymous No.4634300]

>>4634296
>cont. basically, if you believe there are no essences, you should be practising the virtue of silence and of staring into space and experiencing nothingness.

There is no law of nature which states that ideas must be reducible to some arbitrary "essence".

In other words: O <-- if that letter has no centre, you should stop posting

[Anonymous No.4634302]

>>4634299
*deas
I obviously meant does.

[Anonymous No.4634304]

>>4634296
>language has no power

yeah.... you don't get it...

[Anonymous No.4634305]

>>4634299
Yeah, and Wittgenstein was another Daoist, pseudo-mystic.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"; what a beautiful summation of Daoism!
The Daoists also thought language was a game that revealed no truth.

[Anonymous No.4634307]

>>4634299
>through images (of either product or promotion of product)

An emotional appeal perhaps, which makes sense for products without inherent value (like Coke).

Plenty of high-end products work off of word of mouth, where the product itself speaks more than the advertiser.

[Anonymous No.4634309]

>>4634287
Are you really suggesting that people who don't understand the concept of essence have no right to speak and nothing valuable to say? You should be careful with that. I haven't really read much Derrida so perhaps you or someone else can inform me how he rejects essence.

[Anonymous No.4634310]

>>4634300
>There is no law of nature which states that ideas must be reducible to some arbitrary "essence".

Yes there is. "Law" and "nature" both presuppose the existence of essences. If there are no essences there are no laws and there is no nature.

[Anonymous No.4634312]

>>4634310
>Yes there is. "Law" and "nature" both presuppose the existence of essences. If there are no essences there are no laws and there is no nature.

The only thing being "presupposed" here is your circular argument.

Words clearly do have meaning, yet those meanings do not reduce to "essences".

Read up on Lakoff's graded set theory ("Women, Fire and Dangerous Things") for a good overview of some ways in which language could actually work.

[Anonymous No.4634313]

>>4634309
>Are you really suggesting that people who don't understand the concept of essence have no right to speak and nothing valuable to say?

No, but people who deny essences/essentialism have no right to speak; they would be hypocrites if they spoke, because they do not believe that language teaches truth. The only truth they believe in is the absence of truth and falsehood, the only beauty they believe in is the absence of beauty and ugliness, the only essence they believe in is nothingness, etc.
10th rate Daoists who know the theory but don't know how to practice it. If they really took what they were saying seriously (that there are no essences and that language is just a game of constructs) they would abandon language altogether and become silent sages like Lao Tzu.

[Anonymous No.4634316]

>>4634256
>>4634259
Because I'm not quoting Jung, but Habermas? Inter-subjective means we basically come to an agreement about the ideas, definitions, frames of reference, etc. The linguistic part is that we do this through communication.
This has nothing to do with an overmind or oversoul or any of that.

>>4634276
that pic. lol

[Anonymous No.4634317]

>>4634307
name one product like that.
I'm interesting.
I mean all products can be also promoted by word of mouth. I mean if someone tells you that the fridge you're planning on buying sucks, you'll rethink the purchase.
But product being sold only by word of mouth, just can't succeed, at least if it's mass-produced, which is the basis of the capitalism.

>>4634305
So who's a non-daoist philosopher then??

[Anonymous No.4634318]

>>4634312
>Words clearly do have meaning, yet those meanings do not reduce to "essences".

No, if words do not have an essence they do not have a meaning either. Meaning presupposes essences just as law and nature does. EVERYTHING, every "THING", presupposes essences. This is why you either say that essences are real or you become a Daoist who says that nothing "is", there is no "being", there is no "real", etc.

[Anonymous No.4634320]

>>4634317
>So who's a non-daoist philosopher then??
Plato and Aristotle are the ultimate non-daoists. The Stoics aren't daoists. The Scholastics aren't daoists.

[Anonymous No.4634321]

>>4634317
>name one product like that.

My custom tailor does not advertise that I know of, so "my shirts".

I found out about him through a friend of my brother.

[Anonymous No.4634322]

>>4634320
>The Scholastics aren't daoists.
Scholastic intellectual masturbation is the closest thing the West has to daoist sex.

[Anonymous No.4634325]

>>4634318
some weird ass false dichotomies itt

also this guy is the same as marx bro, calling it now

[Anonymous No.4634326]

>>4634313
That doesn't answer whether Derrida rejects essence. Simply because concepts like différance don't rely on essence doesn't mean Derrida rejects it.

[Anonymous No.4634327]

>>4634322
Scholasticism is the pinnacle of philosophy. The Scholastics knew how to think properly, they were virtuosi thinkers. Ultimately, there are only two ideals: the Scholastics ideal that there is a right way to think, or the Daoist ideal that there is no right way to think.

[Anonymous No.4634328]

>>4634320
>Plato
>non daoist
Have you even read Cratylus

>>4634321
That's not capitalism, though, that's pre-capitalist home manufacturing.

[Anonymous No.4634329]

>>4634327
what does in sensu diviso/in sensu composito mean

[Anonymous No.4634332]

>>4634327
>Daoist ideal that there is no right way to think.
I've read several translations of the Tao Te Ching and that's not a philosophy I'd associate with Taoism.

Could you cite some passages to back up this assertion?

[Anonymous No.4634334]

>>4634329
Man, I don't know, I am not a Scholastic; I am just a fan and root for them over the Daoists.
"Western thought > East thought", says I.
"There is no West or East", says the Daoist.

[Anonymous No.4634336]

>>4634328
>That's not capitalism, though, that's pre-capitalist home manufacturing.

I'm pretty sure his Hong Kong sweatshop isn't in his home.

[Anonymous No.4634337]

>>4634332
Chapter 2

When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises
When it knows good as good, evil arises
Thus being and non-being produce each other
Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other
Therefore the sages:
Manage the work of detached actions
Conduct the teaching of no words
They work with myriad things but do not control
They create but do not possess
They act but do not presume
They succeed but do not dwell on success
It is because they do not dwell on success
That it never goes away

[Anonymous No.4634338]

>>4634334
pretty sure the daoist is right at this point in our history

[Anonymous No.4634341]

>>4634334
if you don't know how to think, why not be a Daoist?

[Anonymous No.4634347]

>>4634336
lel
I though he was an actual tailor.
And I'm sure that his Hong Kong sweatshop also does stuff for big corporations, and the custom tailoring is just a side-job.
It's like saying that foxconn isn't part of this, because they don't advertise. Well yeah, but iPhones they made are advertised. Not every part of the capitalism is spectacular, but the finished product is.
You might get a shirt directly from a manufacturer, but they don't earn their money through that, because, there's no way they could survive.

[Anonymous No.4634353]

>>4634337
I'd read that more as saying that the world can be too much with you, and if you get caught up in defining yourself in terms of your past successes then you will fuck up your present and future.

It is certainly anti-essentialist and anti-reductionist but that passage is pretty clearly telling you the right way to think.

[Anonymous No.4634361]

You know, I've being saying that it's West vs East, but here's what I think a better summary of it is:

It's God vs. Godlessness, Theism vs. Atheism, Being vs. Non-being, Law vs. Lawlessness, Morality vs. Amorality, etc.

When you meet evil in the world there are ultimately too responses to that evil.

You either acknowledge it's existence, but that results in a desire for justice, a hope for redemption from evil; ultimately, this leads to God and the need for a Saviour, the Abrahamic tradition.

OR

You see the evil and deny that it exists, and say that there is no evil except in the mind ("There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so".) This leads to the absence of everything, you flush away all of existence. You do not need hope, you do not desire justice, you do not need a Saviour or a God. This is why the Greeks in their myth of Pandora say that when she opened the box that let out all the evils in the world, she found hope at the bottom of the box. Evil inspires hope, the want for justice. The only other way is to deny that evil exists.

It's Christ vs. Buddha; Redeemer of Evil vs. Absence of Evil and No Need for a Redeemer. Either we need a redeemer or we don't; either evil exists or it doesn't.

[Anonymous No.4634363]

>>4634347
>I though he was an actual tailor.
He is also a tailor. But he is able to harness labor, thanks to his capital outlay.

He takes my measurements and is responsible for end-to-end customer satisfaction.

B2B players like Foxcon do advertise at trade events. They don't bother advertising to consumers, which I'm guessing is your only perspective?

[Anonymous No.4634369]

>>4634361

redeemer or authority?

[Anonymous No.4634374]

>>4634361
>It's Christ vs. Buddha; Redeemer of Evil vs. Absence of Evil and No Need for a Redeemer. Either we need a redeemer or we don't; either evil exists or it doesn't.

Buddha is a redeemer.

[Anonymous No.4634375]

>>4634369
They presuppose one and other. Redeemer presupposes evil, and evil presupposes an authority that is disobeyed or flouted. If I rape somebody, the only way we can say that my rape is "evil" is if I have broken some moral law / authority.

[Anonymous No.4634378]

>>4634374
I may have misnamed him then. Is Buddha a redeemer in the sense that he redeems evils, or is he a redeemer in the sense that he denies the existence of evil?
Maybe I should have said it is Christ vs. The Tao.

[Anonymous No.4634379]

>>4634375
>They presuppose one and other. Redeemer presupposes evil, and evil presupposes an authority that is disobeyed or flouted. If I rape somebody, the only way we can say that my rape is "evil" is if I have broken some moral law / authority.

That's a rather childish definition of "evil".

Please do read up on some existentialism.

[Anonymous No.4634381]

>>4634375
or, you know, we can look at the effects it has it on a person. just saying

[Anonymous No.4634382]

>>4634363
>They don't bother advertising to consumers, which I'm guessing is your only perspective?
Nah not really. Advertising to costumers is just the most apparent part of society of spectacle.
As you said, Foxconn does advertise at trade events.

Now I don't know about your tailor. Maybe he does survive on just positive word of mouth, but I really doubt it. I mean the fact he's able to man a sweatshop, even though the labour force in those is cheap, it's still not that cheap. Tells me, that there has to be some other way he earns money, as I said, probably making clothes for big clothes companies, or something.

[Anonymous No.4634384]

>>4634379
If you don't believe in the existence of authority you have no right to tell me to do anything. If you are an existentialist you have no right to prescribe anything to me; you just have to respect my subjectivity and be quiet.

[Anonymous No.4634385]

>>4634381
OK, if I rape somebody and it makes them an incorrigible mess, we would still need an authority to say that it is better for human beings to be functional than to be a mess. If I bombed the entire earth, we would not be able to say that was evil unless we had an authority that said human life and life in general is good, and death is an evil.

[Anonymous No.4634388]

>>4634384
>>4634379
you said rape without saying 'trigger warning'

I'm reporting you

[Anonymous No.4634395]

>>4634384
cont. this is what I'm talking about when I say modern philosophers are hypocrites. They know the theory of their philosophies but they don't actually practice them.
If you say that you are an existentialist then you have no reason to tell people to read your favourite existentialist books, because you don't believe in any absolute value that says that one book is better than another. If you come across a rapist you have no reason to tell him to stop, you just have to sit back and admire the subjectivity of both the rapist and the rapee (I know I keep using rape as an example, sorry for that I suppose). If you are existentialist, you can never really tell anybody anything, you just have to be quiet. More Daoistic quietism.

[Anonymous No.4634396]

>>4634382
So far as I know, all he does is custom tailoring for a bunch of people. Maybe he did advertise long before I heard of him, I have no real way to know about that.

This is not really on topic for /lit/ anymore though.

>>4634384
>If you don't believe in the existence of authority you have no right to tell me to do anything.
Actually the opposite is true: if you believe in authority, then you ought to listen to your betters. My belief one way or the other has no bearing on your mental state.

[Anonymous No.4634397]

>>4634385
you don't need an authority to have an emotional response to something. if someone is raped, if you're a normal person you'd feel bad because that's a terrible thing to happen. you just kind of know that it is, because you can imagine how it would feel like. there's nothing telling me its bad for me to know its bad. it just is bad.

[Anonymous No.4634399]

>>4634396
> if you believe in authority, then you ought to listen to your betters.

Exactly, so if you say that authority doesn't exist then you are saying that you are not my better, and so I don't have to listen to you.
If you demand that I listen to you then you are saying that you are my better, which means you are asserting the existence of an authority (your authority over me).

[Anonymous No.4634400]

>>4634397
This. Empathy is real, and we can model the likely outcomes of some actions pretty well.

You don't need some shitty sky-beard to tell you "STOP MAKING YOUR SISTER CRY". You can just, you know, notice that she's crying and be less of a dick.

[Anonymous No.4634403]

>>4634399
Within your hermeneutic, I am your better.

Within my hermeneutic, you are not my better.

[Anonymous No.4634404]

>>4634397
>>4634400
But now you are just saying that emotions are authority, that emotions are God. Hume's emotionalist ethics.
How do you know that emotions like joy and lightheartedness are better than pain and solemnity?

[Anonymous No.4634407]

>>4634395
>everything bad philosophically is exactly like this one thing that i hate

a good way to have arguments. a great way to philosophize

[Anonymous No.4634408]

>>4634403
>Within your hermeneutic, I am your better.

No, in my hermeneutic you are a hypocrite because you are asserting authority while preaching that authority doesnt exist; a hypocrite is nobody's better, because a hypocrite is the lowest of the low.

[Anonymous No.4634416]

>>4634404
cont.
It's really hard to say that there is right and wrong, good and evil, if you don't believe in God. The best you can do is to say that there is something called "nature", and that is good to live "according to nature" - this is what the Stoics did, they made "nature" God, pantheists. However, how you define nature is arbitrary. One person could say that it is unnatural to rape (I keep using this example because I think it is vivid imagery, sorry), saying that rape causes harm to your fellow man and it is natural to promote the good of your follow men; but another naturalist could, citing Darwin, say that rape is natural and therefore good, and can be seen everywhere in the animal kingdom, and that it promotes the spreading of the genes of the strong male.
So, how you are you going to arrive at a really consistent belief in right and wrong without God? Appealing to nature is very shaky, because nature is ambiguous morally.

[Anonymous No.4634421]

>>4634404
because experience? and don't even go down the path of "well why dont you just take heroin" because obviously emotions are more complex then "feeling good is a good thing all the time"

emotions aren't god, they just are helpful pointers towards what are the possible good ideas and actions are. life's a complicated mess, and some authority saying this is the right thing to do isn't really helpful, and at times even degrading and unethical. case in point: the military

[Anonymous No.4634425]

>>4634421
>emotions aren't god, they just are helpful pointers towards what are the possible good ideas and actions are.

How do you know? If our emotions promote our survival, then how do you know that our survival is good? The antinatalists assert that human existence is an evil; how are you going to refute them, by saying that your emotions and experiences tend to make you like humanity and want to keep it alive? Well they will just turn around and say that their emotions and their experience of humanity makes them want to wish it is dead. Then what? Are you going to say that, "well, most people FEEL that human survival and flourishing is a good thing", but now you are just saying that truth is whatever the majority believes to be the truth.

[Anonymous No.4634428]

>>4634416
>how you are you going to arrive at a really consistent belief in right and wrong without God?

Same long thinky road as anyone else would need to go down, but less rocky because there are no externally imposed impediments.

[Anonymous No.4634431]

>>4634416
cont. when I figured this out, btw, my first reaction was despair because I didn't believe in God and thought belief in God was a stupidity. I realized I was thinking hypocritically however; on the one hand I wanted to believe in truth and beauty and morals and I knew that the existence of truth and beauty and morals depended upon the existence of God; and on the other hand I was saying that believing in the existence of God was stupid. That's when I realized that the only reason I thought belief in God was stupid was because I was a bigot who associated belief in God with backwards people.
Then I came round to religion, and that's what I exhort everybody to do. Moral and intellectual sanity depends upon belief in God; I know it might not seem that way, but when it comes down to it it really does.

[Anonymous No.4634433]

>>4634431
Why did your god create a world in which humans suffer?

[Anonymous No.4634436]

>>4634416
so you use rape, and then you use some weird pseudo-biological explanation of why in some utterly insincere metaphor of nature that i didn't use to create a possible context with which rape could be seen as a good thing, so that's really not what i'm going to respond to

first, let's change metaphors. let's say you have a lying cunt trying to have a fake philosophical argument on the internet to try to rile people up, (hypothetically obviously), and they try to use some fake ass argument about God being the giver of morality. is he a dick by being insincere about it? sure. is it immoral? well, not really, because its the internet and there's really minimal investment in to whether or not he's right. but say he's a politician governing the laws of the land, and this God person says masturbation, or you know, some other weird sexual habit, is a sin and therefore we should out law it. this would undoubtably affect a lot of people -- chronic masturbators would be thrown in jail to make a point, large numbers of minorities for some reason being thrown into prison for a crime that isnt specific to one race or another, etc. did some authority say that was the right thing to do? yes. and how do we know that this authority is really the proper moral authority to listen to? well there's a book that says its true. so how do we know the writers aren't liars? well the book says they aren't liars.

and that's basically the problem with authority.

[Anonymous No.4634437]

>>4634433
He didn't.

>[13] For God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. [14] For he created all things that they might be: and he made the nations of the earth for health: and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor kingdom of hell upon the earth. [15] For justice is perpetual and immortal.

>[16] But the wicked with works and words have called it to them: and esteeming it a friend have fallen away, and have made a covenant with it: because they are worthy to be of the part thereof.

Book of Wisdom, chapter i, verses 13-16.

[Anonymous No.4634441]

>>4634436
>and that's basically the problem with authority.

Nope, that's the problem with the ABUSE of authority, not with authority itself.
Saying that there isn't a God because hypocrites exist who use God's name to serve their own ends is childish m8, but it is also very common today (Hitchens made a career of it).

[Anonymous No.4634442]

>>4634437
If your god didn't make this world of suffering, who did make it?
And why can your god not stop the suffering from happening?
Your god is either a douche or a pansy.

[Anonymous No.4634444]

>>4634185
>went to grad school
>brandishes authority in the form of a piece of paper and asks other people to shut up while should be, for all intents and purposes, totally aware of "the lack of meaning", the falsehood of authority, the folly of analytics, etc.
>knows exactly how much money they spent to get that piece of paper and are to some degree conscious that all they've done is become aware to an unhelpful degree of transactions between human beings and have decided to get lost in words rather than start a new conversation and get lost in the distraction
>posts a torrent of Foucault

I'm willing to give you half-credit on this assignment, because everybody's a fascist and I fucking said so.

[Anonymous No.4634450]

>>4634437
cont. I'm a Creatonist btw. I don't think God created death and I don't think that humanity came about through millions of years of trial and death via so-called evolution. God did not create man or the animals with death; death was brought into the world by the original sin.
I didn't used to be a Creatonist. My first instinct was to try and reconcile my newly founded belief in God with modern scientific theories, but I eventually realized that Darwinism just cannot be reconciled with Christianity. So I got rid of Darwinism, rather than God.

[Anonymous No.4634453]

>>4634395
>existentialist then you have no reason to tell people to read your favourite existentialist books, because you don't believe in any absolute value that says that one book is better than another
except that existentialists value independent subjectivity over everything else, in which case, they do have an 'absolute value', as you call it, which is why they can suggest to you books that foster the understanding or help you to unleash the inner independent subjectivity within you.
So yeah.. not really.

Now, post-modernists.... that may be a different story... maybe

[Anonymous No.4634459]

>>4634374
Buddha's not anything, bro.

[Anonymous No.4634460]

>>4634442
I honestly have come to a Leibinizian optimism; I believe that this is the best of all possible worlds. This principle is based on St. Augustine's saying, that the only reason God permits evil to exist is so that he can bring greater good out of it.
I know all of the suffering seems pointless, but it's not. Everybody ultimately gets what they deserve; if they have been good in life, they will be rewarded in Heaven, if they have been bad in life they will be punished in Hell. There is no injustice except in part; when you take everything as a whole (taking it account that Christ redeemed our evils and that the evil are to be punished) the world is completely just.

> Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

[Anonymous No.4634464]

>>4634425
>How do you know

because if i followed my emotions all the time, i think i'd be a terrible person, so i try to mediate my emotional content with some of my awesome human brain power and try to self-analyze my emotions. sometimes i can see that my emotions are just something instinctual and not really based on anything worthy, so instead of acting on them or deciding right and wrong through them i think "oh, im just being emotional".

>If our emotions promote our survival, then how do you know that our survival is good?

emotions are just emotions, they have no agenda. we can use our knowledge of biology and evolution to try to discern a sort of non-human rationale in them, but taken at face value, they have no "reason" to be, they just are.

>The antinatalists assert that human existence is an evil; how are you going to refute them, by saying that your emotions and experiences tend to make you like humanity and want to keep it alive?

i dont refute them, they kind of have a point. humanity is fucking up the world, can we really justify our continued existence in a biological sense? maybe we deserve to die. but maybe we can also "redeem" ourselves in a non-religious sense, by being stewards of the earth again and taking care of it instead of exploiting it for power. i only want us alive because of an aesthetic desire, i see beauty in humanity and it might be amazing what it can create in the future.

[Anonymous No.4634466]

>>4634459
Buddha is a dude who taught a method of personal redemption.

>>4634460
>God permits evil to exist is so that he can bring greater good out of it.
Why is your god so powerless?

[Anonymous No.4634471]

>>4634441
jeez it was only hypothetical. way to be so defensive. you miss the philosophical point that authority is recursive, which you can either be ok with and become (essentially) the daoist that you loathe, or you can accept that authority is not where morality comes from

[Anonymous No.4634475]

>>4634466
He isn't, he is omnipotent.
This is why
> "Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil."
Must be true. Why this must be the best of all possible worlds. If God is omnipotent and supremely good then if something was evil he would just cast it into oblivion, not allow it to exist. See, in Catholic theology there is no war between absolute Good vs. absolute Evil; no, there is no such thing as absolute Evil, because something absolutely Evil would cease to exist, because existence is a good. Evil is the lack of Good. People do evil when they choose a temporal good over an eternal good, e.g. a person sins when he chooses to do something like rape (the pleasure he derives from the rape is a relative good) instead of preserve the sanctity of his soul (an absolute good). The person that is being raped is experiencing pain and humiliation, but it is better for that person to exist and to experience pain and humiliation and have the hope of God and of Heaven than to just not exist at all in order to not experience the pain and humiliation.

[Anonymous No.4634476]

>>4634471
>you miss the philosophical point that authority is recursive

No. All authority is not recursive EXCEPT for God's authority.

God's authority is self-caused, he endows himself with authority. ALL other authority comes from God, it is not recursive.

[Anonymous No.4634477]

>>4634475
man you sure do think about the moral implications of rape a lot

[Anonymous No.4634480]

>>4634477
I think it's because rape is really shocking to me because I perceive it as a loss of innocence, which I value.

[Anonymous No.4634484]

>>4634476
So you're saying that there is evil, but evil is okay because it's god's evil and god must mean it in a good because god is by definition good, thus evil is by definition for your own good.

Your description of your god's authority is circular, which is worse than "recursive".

[Anonymous No.4634486]

>>4634476
>ALL other authority comes from God

Christ alludes to this here:

>Pilate therefore says to him, Speakest thou not to *me*? Dost thou not know that I have authority to release thee and have authority to crucify thee? Jesus answered, Thou hadst no authority whatever against me if it were not given to thee from above.

[Anonymous No.4634487]

>>4634476
thats.... the definition of recursive m8

theres not even a second term in the series, its just a full on circle, no ambiguity about it.

in any case, where does God speak to you? through the bible? how do you know the bible doesn't lie? because the bible says its true? and who wrote the bible? god sure didn't.

>>4634480
if it was shocking to you you wouldnt be casually using it as a philosophical exercise every single time. it just makes it look like you think it trivial.

[Anonymous No.4634488]

>>4634480
nah it's because you're a young teen

[Anonymous No.4634490]

>>4634466
That's you making more of the painting. Not the painting being more than the paint.

[Anonymous No.4634492]

>>4634484
>but evil is okay

Evil is absolutely not okay.

>because it's god's evil

God has no evil. Humans choose evil. Read that quote from the Book of Wisdom above:

>[16] But the wicked with works and words have called it [evil] to them: and esteeming it [evil] a friend have fallen away, and have made a covenant with it [evil]: because they are worthy to be of the part thereof.

> and god must mean it in a good

God does not mean evil to happen, he simply allows it to happen in order to bring a greater good out of it.

> evil is by definition for your own good.

Evil is nobody's good.

>>4634487
>theres not even a second term in the series, its just a full on circle, no ambiguity about it.

Kind of. God is the First Principle, the Axiom, the Unmoved Mover. Without this Principle we can form no other principles. God is necessary for us to even think. Yes, we ASSERT the axiom and do not "prove it", but that's only because the axiom is necessary for any further discussion.

>>4634488
>>4634487

Well, would you rather me use murder or theft or what?

[Anonymous No.4634495]

>>4634492
>God does not mean evil to happen, he simply allows it to happen in order to bring a greater good out of it.
Why did your god create a world where evil and suffering and shitty internet trolling is blatantly possible?
Your god is bad at his job.
A committee could do a better job.

Maybe we should replace god with a people's revolution. Seize the means of metaphysical production and all that.

Then we'd be the AUTHORITY which this sad teen rapist needs in his life.

[Anonymous No.4634504]

>>4634492
>Yes, we ASSERT the axiom and do not "prove it", but that's only because the axiom is necessary for any further discussion.

you say you need it, but really, there's no difference in saying god exists and saying he doesnt. the morals come from either no place or an imaginary place (since you have never met god, seen him, touched him, etc.) so just remove the necessary term

also sure just use murder

[Anonymous No.4634505]

>>4634492
All I'm seeing here is an appeal to authority without conscious acknowledgment that authority is a myth.

God's a construct of the individual. You know that, right? That whatever God is or means is wholly up to you? And that by appealing to authority, you're just avoiding your own culpability (rather than responsibility) for any actions of your own or of others?

Read up on
>narrative theory
>bicameralism

[Anonymous No.4634506]

>>4634495
>Maybe we should replace god with a people's revolution. Seize the means of metaphysical production and all that.

I've been through this:

>>4634128 (I know in this post I sort of pretend like I'm not a Christian. I did this because I thought it was expedient, that it would get you avowed atheists to consider reading the book.)
>>4634144
>>4634158
>>4634162
>>4634172
>>4634181


It's good that you see that the revolution is meant to replace God though, because that's the exact reason for its existence (revolution is satanic; all revolution comes originally from Satan's refusal to obey, "non serviam")

[Anonymous No.4634507]

>>4634492
>Without this Principle we can form no other principles.

Heh. It's rare to see someone objectively wrong.

[Anonymous No.4634509]

>>4634504
If God does not exist then nothing exists, because all existence and all being depends upon this First Cause, this Unmoved Mover, from which everything takes its existence/being. Every thing that has being, takes its being from God. This is why God is necessary.

[Anonymous No.4634510]

>>4634509
and yes, that includes Satan; Satan could not exist if God didn't want him to exist. Satan serves God's cause in the end, despite his desire to rebel.

[Anonymous No.4634512]

>>4634506
>the revolution is meant to replace God

All governments must claim authority over those they govern. Whether that authority derives from the consent of the governed or their fear is where I'd draw the line between "good" and "evil" governments.

Ironically, every theocracy is on the side of rule by fear, and is thus on the side of evil.

[Anonymous No.4634513]

>>4634509
>If God does not exist then nothing exists

see this one of my previous posts >>4634361

[Anonymous No.4634518]

>>4634512
Every government is ultimately a theocracy. Stalin didn't really deny God, he just set himself up as God. The USA is based on the idea that Reason / Liberty is God, it's the tyranny of Lady of Liberty (it's satanic, during the French Revolution they dressed up women as "the goddess of reason" and worshipped her; this is abominable idolatry, and worship of Reason instead of God is idolatry (in truth, however, Reason comes from God, and there is no contradiction between God and Reason); Benjamin Franklin took part in these ceremonies.)

[Anonymous No.4634523]

>>4634518
Here is a popular satanic painting.

[Anonymous No.4634526]

>>4634523
Look at all those dark, satanic mills.
0/10 would not Jerusalem builded there.

[Anonymous No.4634529]

>>4634523
Here is another satanic painting by the same painter. Sardanapalus is the psychopathic king of Assyria, in the manner of Nero, the tyrant that has lost all sense of reality and doesn't understand empathy or human suffering. He kills his concubines and then sets himself on fire. He represents Satan, and this is a depiction of Hell; in the last painting, Marianne (lady liberty) represents the Whore of Babylon leading the nation to her sin/fornication.

[Anonymous No.4634532]

>>4634518
>Stalin didn't really deny God, he just set himself up as God.

And this is Lucifer/Satan defined:

>How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations?

Stalin was possessed, as were most of the men surrounding him.
Engels when he first met Marx said he was a man possessed by a 1000 demons (Engels was a Christian, as was Marx. Read "Marx and Satan" above).

[Anonymous No.4634536]

>>4634532
Here is an extended version of the quote:


>How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations?

>And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north.

>I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High.

>But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit.

The desire to be equal to God, the Most High, is what the serpent tempted Eve with originally.

[Anonymous No.4634552]

>>4634523
the bourgeoisie leading the peasants in the overthrow of the ancien regime is satanic.

according to who, apostolic kings and the pope?

fuck you

[Anonymous No.4634567]

>>4634552


if they had the mandate of heaven why did it go so wrong?

checkmate atheists.

[Anonymous No.4635635]

>>4634233
>Well, why not reduce everything to love?
Love is a form of power, power is not a form of love.