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Nessus posted:This is why we have to cultivate non-attachment and compassion. I can agree on the second. There is no point to this life if your not attached to it.
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Nov 23, 2022 19:20
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Josef bugman posted:I can agree on the second. There is no point to this life if your not attached to it. For instance compassion alone (though praiseworthy) might lead you to overlook bad actions by a beloved person. With compassion and non attachment both, you can love the person and still be capable of right action, for instance mindfully calling them out on bad actions.
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Nov 23, 2022 19:29
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OK but like if someone's human rights are taken away is the solution to just not be attached to your human rights or
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Nov 23, 2022 19:31
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Politics is basically hatred. There's no gratitude in politcs but plenty of spite and ressentiment. Lots of shouting and competeting and browbeating. I think I might be well and truly finished with it.
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Nov 23, 2022 19:35
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Killingyouguy! posted:OK but like if someone's human rights are taken away is the solution to just not be attached to your human rights or Like, there is a distinction between the emotional experience of outrage and the subsequent actions towards justice. You can still be motivated to act justly. Right action is also part of the eightfold path.
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Nov 23, 2022 19:36
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Prurient Squid posted:Politics is basically hatred. There's no gratitude in politcs but plenty of spite and ressentiment. Lots of shouting and competeting and browbeating. Me five minutes before I picked up The Gospel In Brief:
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Nov 23, 2022 19:36
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Prurient Squid posted:Politics is basically hatred. There's no gratitude in politcs but plenty of spite and ressentiment. Lots of shouting and competeting and browbeating. "we should make things better for people" isn't hatred....?
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Nov 23, 2022 19:38
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Prurient Squid posted:Politics is basically hatred. There's no gratitude in politcs but plenty of spite and ressentiment. Lots of shouting and competeting and browbeating. You really should read Carl Schmitt.
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Nov 23, 2022 19:48
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NikkolasKing posted:You really should read Carl Schmitt. Now that's a first line to a wiki article.
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Nov 23, 2022 19:51
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Ohtori Akio posted:Now that's a first line to a wiki article.
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Nov 23, 2022 19:56
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Ohtori Akio posted:Me five minutes before I picked up The Gospel In Brief: tolstoy posted:The source of Christian teaching is the Gospels, and in them I found the explanation of the spirit which guides the life of all who really live. But together with this source of the pure water of life I found, wrongfully united with it, mud and slime which had hidden its purity from me: by the side of and bound up with the lofty Christian teaching I found a Hebrew and a Church teaching alien to it. I was in the position of a man who receives a bag of stinking dirt, and only after long struggle and much labor finds that amid that dirt lie priceless pearls; and he understands that he was not to blame for disliking the stinking dirt, and that those who have collected and preserved these pearls together with the dirt are also not to blame but deserve love and respect. Wow tolstoy, tell us how you really feel!
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Nov 23, 2022 20:07
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NikkolasKing posted:You really should read Carl Schmitt. With the best will in the world, they should probably read a commentary on Carl Schmitt. EDIT: actually it's extremely funny that in a discussion on state power, a mod just recommended a Nazi theorist. how would you say his work has impacted your tenure in the Video Games forum? Freudian fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Nov 23, 2022 |
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Nov 23, 2022 20:16
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Freudian posted:With the best will in the world, they should probably read a commentary on Carl Schmitt. German Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: Lukács to Strauss There's a lot of writing on Schmitt and his thought but this is a fine introduction as it balances him out with other Left and Right Wing thinkers in Germany. It's by one of my favorite philosophy scholars too since this isn't just intellectual history but rather a study of how we might improve our own society by learning from the thinkers of the past. Freudian posted:EDIT: actually it's extremely funny that in a discussion on state power, a mod just recommended a Nazi theorist. how would you say his work has impacted your tenure in the Video Games forum? Part of what attracted me to SA was how free it was. You could say and do basically anything on here when I joined. Oh you would be ripped to shreds for it but you wouldn't be probed or banned. I've taken that philosophy to heart in my modship and barely interfere with anything unless it goes way, way off the deep-end. I've handed out less than 10 probes in my time as a mod I'm pretty sure. The anarchic atmosphere of SA would probably not appeal to the control freak that was Carl Schmitt. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Nov 23, 2022 |
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Nov 23, 2022 20:26
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Prurient Squid posted:Wow tolstoy, tell us how you really feel! Beat their rear end Leo. loving kill em!!!! e: Metaphorically.
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Nov 23, 2022 20:41
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Nessus posted:non attachment is more about being able to let go when necessary. To maintain peace even when poo poo is bad. You still have opinions and emotions and connections but they do not bring suffering in the same way. But this is the thing, "When neccesary" can cover a huge amount of different things. Also like, this is the thing about maintaining peace. I am unsure of it's efficacy or it's ethical nature as it were.
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Nov 23, 2022 23:11
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Josef bugman posted:But this is the thing, "When neccesary" can cover a huge amount of different things. Also like, this is the thing about maintaining peace. I am unsure of it's efficacy or it's ethical nature as it were.
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Nov 24, 2022 01:08
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NikkolasKing posted:German Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: Lukács to Strauss While we're learning from the past you should examine how this approach to moderation led us to the excesses of Helldump and consider that sometimes buttons work to protect the bad poster from the mob rather than vice-versa
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Nov 24, 2022 02:19
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Nessus posted:Quite fair to doubt its efficacy even if I think meditation has at least some objective track record; but ethical? Why is it not ethical to stop suffering? Would you tell someone freezing in the winter, "Sorry bro, you only get a tattered blanket because it's important your life still suck even if you don't literally freeze to death?" Oh no stopping suffering is fine. More just that I am unsure about "peace". It seems to have a lot of meanings beyond folks getting along.
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Nov 24, 2022 08:19
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I feel that if Tolstoy was alive today he'd run a tagging group called Jesus Didn't Say That.
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Nov 24, 2022 12:47
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There's a difference between me, a weary, burnt out activist saying "politics is hatred" as a rebuke and a cynical politician arguing "the ignorant masses need a scapegoat to blame". It was more a cry of the heart than an atempt at serious analysis. Politics less than ever is "my vibe". edit: A year or so ago I read a book called the Tories by Alan Clark, who was a junior minister in Thatcher's government. In the section covering the 1926 General Strike he wrote "nothing like Mussolini's march on Rome occured". I was astonished. He was using aesopian language. That was when I realised just how totally, soberly class concious these people are. edit: In fact I'd go so far as to say that probably the ruling clas are more convinced Marxists than anybody. I bet feeling the sword of damocles howering over their head probably gives them a certain awareness that outsiders who can only seem them in their apparent omnipotence don't possess. edit: Umineko had it right all along Gaius. Turn the chessboard around. Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Nov 24, 2022 |
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Nov 24, 2022 14:16
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A_Bluenoser posted:Yes, even if we consider being rich to be intrinsically sinful (not a position I necessarily hold but one that is certainly defensible) we from a Christian perspective are not allowed to hate the rich or hope for their pain and suffering. Two of the collects read in my church on various Sundays of the year say (in part): I mean I don't mean to be that kind of reply guy, but if rich people aren't more inclined to sin than others, what the hell is Matthew 19.24 about? For your ease, it goes like this in my bible: "And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." (own translation from Danish, but the meaning is preserved) Ohtori Akio posted:Citations have been provided; this is a mainstream position. The MLK sermon is one, a Christian minister, nonviolent activist, and democratic socialist outlining why the Marxist worldview is incompatible with the Christian worldview. No. It is mainstream only if the fascist right sects have entered the mainstream, but one could certainly argue they have. Tolstoy is more or less anathema to actual anarchists. Anarchism is a social revolutionary movement derived from social movements in the 1800s, focused on class struggle. Tolstoys writings may be relevant to christians, but they're not anarchistic in nature. Also, if your perception of anarchism is destruction, then anti-anarchist propaganda has certainly worked it's magic on you, but it doesn't mean you know what you're talking about. I heartily recommend Lucien Van Der Walt and Michael Smiths Black Flame: The Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism where they not only specifically handle the claims that Tolstoy was an anarchist, but also tackle the separation of statist and capitalist propaganda (primarily, that destruction of property or injury to investments are equal to violence against humans, a patently absurd notion) and the actual politics of anarchism, which is rejection of state and capital as well as direct action and general strikes to achieve that aim.
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Nov 24, 2022 14:16
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Tias posted:I mean Indeed, wealth and the concern for it normally distract us from The Kingdom of God which is why the rich man should get rid of all his wealth (and realy the means by which this is to be done is secondary although certainly Christ gives suggestions). However in theory it is possible that someone could be wealthy and yet be able not to have that wealth distract them from The Kingdom of God. I would guess it to be unlikely but it may be possible. Basically I draw a distinction between the material wealth (value- neutral in-and-of itself) and the effect it has on the person who holds it (often but not always negative and in most cases probably mixed with a lot of other things). I think maintaining such distinctions is very important but I understand if others don't which is why I say that the position that the rich are inherently sinful is very defensible even if I think it is an oversimplification of the issue. To consider it another way: I certainly agree with the statement that in our current state all people are inherently sinful (and that is basic doctrine for me). The rich are in a particularly dangerous state because they have so much treasure in the wrong place that it is almost (maybe completely?) impossible for them to get their treasure in the right place and thus are particularly likely to be living in certain types of sin. That is a statement I would agree with completely. And to be clear: I am not saying "oh those poor rich people, they are the true victims, we need to have particular sympathy for them" or any crap like that. I think I am more pointing out that from a Christian perspective sin may manifest differently in different situations but fundamentally the sin of the rich and the poor is still of the same nature: separation from The Kingdom of God. A_Bluenoser fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Nov 24, 2022 |
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Nov 24, 2022 14:46
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I just wonder. Do people when they leave politics forget the ideals that once inspired them and only remember the enemies and frenemies and slights and bellow-the-belt blows, the memory of which are lodged in their nervous system?
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Nov 24, 2022 15:34
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Prurient Squid posted:I just wonder. Do people when they leave politics forget the ideals that once inspired them and only remember the enemies and frenemies and slights and bellow-the-belt blows, the memory of which are lodged in their nervous system? I would guess that operating in a combative environment like that might cause some lasting damage. I would also hypothesize that over time the ideals and goals you have may become so personified in those who supported or opposed you that after a while the ideals and persons can no longer be psychologically separated.
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Nov 24, 2022 15:46
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Leo Tolstoy does NOT look like the kind of guy that I'd expect to be super anti establishment! edit: My idea of somone whose anti establishment is that they should have a can of spray paint and a slingshot and a skateboard or something. And he does not look like that. edit: So for Tolstoy, the success of Christianity is all thanks to the strength of the teaching of the historical Jesus Christ. For him everybody else is riding in the bandwagon. Jesus is Fred Flintsone with has feet powering the car and St Paul, the church etc are just living off the authority of Jesus. Jesus true teachings are incapable of inciting sectarianism and all feuding are entirely the fault of Jesus' self appointed "interpreters". edit: I think Tolstoy would have got alonge with Böhme. Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Nov 24, 2022 |
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Nov 24, 2022 16:17
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Tias posted:No. It is mainstream only if the fascist right sects have entered the mainstream, but one could certainly argue they have. The Catholic Church is mainstream. That's why I included some writing on this topic by an institution I have major differences with, who insult my personal dignity often: because this is a very normal, I think irresistible, conclusion of Christian faith. Nevertheless, the peace churches for example are not right wing sects. They are simply opposed to turning brother against brother. Not being a Marxist doesn't make you a fascist. I know what mainstream anarchism and socialism are, you don't have to explain them to me. I would be interested to meet an active anarchist who feels that violence against fellow man is absolutely inadmissible under all circumstances. The fact that Tolstoy can be said to have little-a anarchist and little-s socialist views, but nevertheless he is totally opposed to mainstream anarchist and socialist thought, is exactly why he is still interesting in this century.
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Nov 24, 2022 19:24
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I kind of agree that ultimately Marixsm and Christianity are incompatible. Jesus didn't say "take up arms and seize the big public buildings". The Bolshevik insurrection probably wouldn't have happened if the leadership were basing themselves on the Gospels. That doesn't prevent people of all faiths and none being allowed to participate in left organisations or to use the method of Marxism which has always been open to everybody. edit: I'm starting to feel that questions like "Does marxism divide people" and "can tolstoy be an anarchist" are not my vibe. So I'm going to say "maybe, maybe not" to all questions of this kind. What I will say thought is that St Augustine replaced the ancient Greek and oriental conception of history as an endless cycle with a purposive view of history in which has a beggining and an end which could be seen as a bridge idea to more liberal radicaly historical conceptions. Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Nov 24, 2022 |
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Nov 24, 2022 20:00
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Prurient Squid posted:I kind of agree that ultimately Marixsm and Christianity are incompatible. Jesus didn't say "take up arms and seize the big public buildings". Marx was a foreigner living in the capital of a massive colonial empire, i think it is generally uncontroversial to say that works published under his name were written directly by himself and in some cases his co-writers, who are credited as such. Jesus was a local living in a region under occupation of a massive colonial empire. he was oppressed and murdered by this empire, and then three centuries later that very same empire endorsed him as a messianic figure. there are no direct records of his words in the way we have with Marx, we only have a collection of texts that have been manipulated by various power structures over the centuries. as such, i dont think we really can say what exactly Jesus would have truly thought of the idea of "taking up arms and seizing the big public buildings", both because "public buildings" meant a rather different thing in his world vs. in Marx's world, and because there's the non-zero possibility that his words, or people's memories of his words, may have been manipulated by the very same sort of people who tend to inhabit and control those buildings. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Nov 24, 2022 |
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Nov 24, 2022 20:27
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Earwicker posted:Marx was a foreigner living in the capital of a massive colonial empire, i think it is generally uncontroversial to say that works published under his name were written directly by himself and in some cases his co-writers, who are credited as such. It is worth noting, however that from a Christian perspective we consider the Gospels to be an accurate representation (although certainly not in the fundamtalist-literal sense of American evangelical Christianity) of the teachings of Christ. That is of course not a historical-critical perspective but that is not the framework we necessarily use when developing doctrine and the truth of the Gospel message is a point of doctrine for most Churches that I am aware of.
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Nov 24, 2022 20:43
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Earwicker posted:Marx was a foreigner living in the capital of a massive colonial empire, i think it is generally uncontroversial to say that works published under his name were written directly by himself and in some cases his co-writers, who are credited as such. The Jesus that is portrayed in the Gospels is the only Jesus we know about. There are an infinite number of other Jesuses we could posit whose views would fit what we want, but there is no evidence to support those. The Jesus portrayed in the Gospels certainly opposed taking up arms and seizing big public buildings. That was what the people wanted and it would have been easy to slide into being a popular revolutionary leader. He chose a different path.
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Nov 24, 2022 20:49
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Eckhart Tolle just weighed in on What is God. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFsPIj6pmcY
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Nov 24, 2022 21:22
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Prurient Squid posted:I'm checking out the wikipedia page of St Augustine and it mentions Hannah Arendt coincidentally. Yeah evil as nothing / nothingness / nonbeing is quite old.
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Nov 24, 2022 21:54
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Deteriorata posted:The Jesus portrayed in the Gospels certainly opposed taking up arms and seizing big public buildings. That was what the people wanted and it would have been easy to slide into being a popular revolutionary leader. He chose a different path. the Gospels were written, at earliest, many decades after Jesus died. part of my point is that we don't know what Jesus actually chose or how he felt in the same we do with Marx, because we have Marx's actual words and we don't have Jesus's, and that the words and deeds of Jesus have gone through a lot more manipulation by various power structures - including the one that killed him - and over a longer period of time, compared with those of Marx.
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Nov 24, 2022 21:54
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Earwicker posted:the Gospels were written, at earliest, many decades after Jesus died. Yes, I know. That does not give us license to just make up anything we like out of whole cloth. We have to go with the evidence we have, not the evidence we would like to have. If you have valid sources of other or contrary things that Jesus said, I'd like to see them.
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Nov 24, 2022 21:58
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Not a theologian, but I've always found it interesting that the Romans crucified Jesus with "King of Jews" above him, which certainly seems to imply Jesus was making claims to temporal power, even if the later written Gospels try to distance the Roman authorities from responsibility. Not exactly surprising, given what the Romans did to Jerusalem that the Gospel authors wouldn't exactly be eager to take a run at Imperial authority. But it's all interpretation, of course.
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Nov 24, 2022 22:11
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Deteriorata posted:Yes, I know. That does not give us license to just make up anything we like out of whole cloth. We have to go with the evidence we have, not the evidence we would like to have. i'm not sure what you are referring to here, i'm referring to a claim that marxism and christianity are incompatible because of the idea that Jesus would not approve of "taking over of public buildings" or to violent revolutionarism in general. i'm simply pointing out that Jesus lived under the occupation of a foreign empire that later endorsed him as a messiah figure and used him and his words to keep on being a big oppressive empire, and that maybe that context should also be taken into account when thinking about the appropriateness of revolutionary activity. i have no idea what you think i'm "making up out of whole cloth"
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Nov 24, 2022 22:14
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Earwicker posted:i'm not sure what you are referring to here, i'm referring to a claim that marxism and christianity are incompatible because of the idea that Jesus would not approve of "taking over of public buildings" or to violent revolutionarism in general. As I said before, the Jesus of the Bible would certainly not approve of taking over public buildings or violent revolution. The Jesus of the Bible is not compatible with that aspect of Marxist ideology. You have to make up scenarios not in evidence to suggest he did. Is it possible he might have? Sure, but there isn't any suggestion that he did. You have to just postulate it - "Well, Jesus' words were distorted by the Imperial forces, so we'll just assume this is what he meant."
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Nov 24, 2022 22:19
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Deteriorata posted:As I said before, the Jesus of the Bible would certainly not approve of taking over public buildings or violent revolution. The Jesus of the Bible is not compatible with that aspect of Marxist ideology. I'm not suggesting he did, i'm simply saying that the Bible was manipulated by forces that opposed violent revolution, and very specifically violent revolution against the Roman Empire. this doesn't mean i'm claiming that Jesus was actually a violent revolutionary, i'm just saying there is a context outside the gospels to take into account, that context being the Roman occupation of Palestine as well as their continued subjugation of many others, combined with the fact that they began using Christianity as a tool in said subjugations - and that's not a "made up scenario". i do think it's interesting that there are many historical examples of self-identified Christians participating in violent revolution, or in violence in general. it's rare to see Christians engaging in violent revolution with the specific goals of Marxism, but seeing Christians engage in violently seizing power to advance other goals, historically speaking, is not exactly unheard of. like if there's a major difference between Christianity as it's practiced in the world, and Marxism as it's practiced in the world, that difference is not in willingness to do violence, it's the goals of said violence that tend to differ. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Nov 24, 2022 |
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Nov 24, 2022 22:30
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I don't think Christianity (or Buddhism or whatever) is incompatible with using Marx's ideas to analyze society and economic relations. The distinction here is between Marx, the theorist (who was a real big thinker, for sure) and "Marxism" the constellation of ideologies which, for instance, were popularly centered on the Soviet Union in Martin Luther King Jr.'s period. There are other thinkers who have had this same issue, Darwin coming to mind. I think it is especially bad for Marx due to the strong and explicit associations with the USSR and lately with mainland/PRC China, as well as other smaller nations. You get the secondary factor, localized to Internet Arguments, about the entire thing having rhetorical association with a bunch of other poo poo, and it does sometimes feel like if you say something that bumps negatively against one part of that rhetorical association, it is taken as taking a hot piss on the entire cluster, including the good parts (which MLK summarized better than I can.) As an aside in MLK's day, I remember hearing that the American Communist Party had actually put a lot of work and built a lot of inroads among African-Americans in the South, so he might have reasonably figured that yes, a lot of people might have had acquaintance with Communism, and indeed, might not have had a powerful negative opinion of it.
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Nov 24, 2022 22:44
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Yeah evil as nothing / nothingness / nonbeing is quite old. Also St Augustine seems to anticipate Descartes as well. If Tillich is to be believed.
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Nov 24, 2022 23:21
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