Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

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Nick_A
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Nick_A »

-1-
I think you are a type, Nick_A. You are the Nick_A type. Although I admit that "the Greta types" rolls off the tongue easier than "the Nick_A types".
Yes, I am an individual, the one true representative of the Nick_
A type. You’ve given me an idea. In the spring I’ll make tee shirts for girls with “I Follow Nick_A” written on them. They will become fashionable and of course no one will know who Nick_A is. There will be a demand to know and I will be forced to appear before reporters and settle the issue. My name will be on nationwide TV and I’ll be asked to give a speech. Greta will hate it and refuse to wear her official "I Follow Nick_A" tee shirt just for spite.
It's the underscore that keeps throwing me off. There is an undercurrent of under-handedness with that underscore.
What could possibly be underhanded about Simone Weil: the ultimate individual?
Maybe you are a Nickel-Cadmium Type A battery, Nick_A. The same type that drives the Energizing Bunny type.
*Sigh*, if only it were that way. Then my cadmium special could drive all those cute female energizers. But mother nature, female by definition, doesn’t make such matters easy
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Sir-Sister-of-Suck
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Sir-Sister-of-Suck »

uwot wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:32 amDo you mean as high as yours?
Yes. There’s also Nick’s teleological outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from youtube conservative commentary, for instance. His fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of his observations.
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Sir-Sister-of-Suck
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Sir-Sister-of-Suck »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:01 am
Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 9:46 am To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Nick_A. His incentives are extremely subtle, and without at least a solid grasp of secular progressivism, most of his remarks will go over a typical reader's head.
Is this a joke?
I just like to test how old the people on this forum are. Usually, it really just shows me how immature I am.
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Greta
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Greta »

Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 5:30 am
uwot wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:32 amDo you mean as high as yours?
Yes. There’s also Nick’s teleological outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from youtube conservative commentary, for instance. His fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of his observations.
What nonsense :lol:. His posting was nothing but shallow bigotry any brain dead young conservative might concoct.

I completely understand the less shallow aspects of Nick's ideas. His problem, again, is shallowness and lack of appreciation of, not only history but, prehistory.

In Sydney we call this unfinished approach "getting off at Redfern". Philosophy interruptus - where one follows a track but cannot pursue it. Such people decide that they know all they need to know, and then start preaching on forums, while maintaining complete rigidity and a refusal to consider anyone else's ideas even for a moment. It's a type, and a regular one.

Further, what decent ideas he had (even if socially or economically impossible) are increasingly being swamped by his shallow alt right tribalism, and the best he can now offer is seemingly just misinterpreted right wing slants being attached to the very left wing views of Simone Weil. Any challenge to his regular mistakes is just dismissed as service to the Great Beast. If you think his childish guff is genius then good luck to you :lol:

If you think, like Nick, that revolution and total destruction of society will improve it, opening it up for his much hoped for world theocracy, you are also not thinking through. Destruction of your society will simply result in it being non competitive and bought out by more cohesive societies. The "luxury" of revolution is not feasible in this modern world, especially if it drags on for years. Are ideas so great if they are as impractical and ultimately pointlessly destructive and self-defeating as Nick's?
Nick_A
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Nick_A »

Greta wrote:
What nonsense . His posting was nothing but shallow bigotry any brain dead young conservative might concoct.
Notice that this is a meaningless attack against a collective called “young conservatives.” My "shallow bigotry" supposedly appeals to this collective. As with most meaningless attacks she doesn’t specify what I am bigoted against. Perhaps I have a grudge against turtles. Who knows. The bottom line is that you are witnessing nothing but a mindless expression of negative emotion.
In Sydney we call this unfinished approach "getting off at Redfern". Philosophy interruptus - where one follows a track but cannot pursue it. Such people decide that they know all they need to know, and then start preaching on forums, while maintaining complete rigidity and a refusal to consider anyone else's ideas even for a moment. It's a type, and a regular one.

Further, what decent ideas he had (even if socially or economically impossible) are increasingly being swamped by his shallow alt right tribalism, and the best he can now offer is seemingly just misinterpreted right wing slants being attached to the very left wing views of Simone Weil. Any challenge to his regular mistakes is just dismissed as service to the Great Beast. If you think his childish guff is genius then good luck to you.
Philosophy is the love of wisdom. For me it begins with the recognition that we live as Plato described, as if in a cave. I discuss from this premise. You are one of those who just likes to argue opinions without any recognition of the potential for knowledge which is the source of all opinions or that which reconciles them as ONE. The Great Beast reconciles them for you while for me they are reconciled at a higher level and the knowledge Plato wrote of.
If you think, like Nick, that revolution and total destruction of society will improve it, opening it up for his much hoped for world theocracy, you are also not thinking through. Destruction of your society will simply result in it being non competitive and bought out by more cohesive societies. The "luxury" of revolution is not feasible in this modern world, especially if it drags on for years. Are ideas so great if they are as impractical and ultimately pointlessly destructive and self-defeating as Nick's?
This is the best yet. How many times have I written that “since we are as we are, everything is as it is.” The world cannot change. It rejects the collective quality of consciousness necessary for beneficial change. The great cycles just continue to repeat. Since the world rejects this quality of consciousness, change is only possible for individuals.

Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses. Simone Weil countered with “revolution is the opiate of the masses.” Revolutions are just lawful repetitions of natural cycles. Minimizing the adverse effects of the downward path of a cycle is only possible with the influence of those individuals who have already acquired this quality of consciousness making change possible.

Is striving for consciousness impractical? No. What is impractical about conscious humanity? What is so practical about the belief in cave life for the individual as the source of human meaning and purpose? When secular humanism reveals its futility, it will invite the tyrant.

Greta is a classic collectivist as described in the previous link and openly declares her scapegoats. I am an individualist as described in the same link. Is it any wonder why the individualist must be hated by the collectivist? They disturb their dreams and feelings of superiority.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ~ John Adams
The secular progressive philosophy and its attack on scapegoats if successful assures the loss of the Constitution and the freedoms it protects. The secular progressives look forward to that day. I shudder at the thought.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

You, an individualist? That's pretty funny. Aren't you the religious nut? The word is an oxymoron for a start. By putting an 'ist' on the end of 'individual' you are immediately putting yourself in a collective.
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Greta
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Greta »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 9:41 pm You, an individualist? That's pretty funny. Aren't you the religious nut? The word is an oxymoron for a start. By putting an 'ist' on the end of 'individual' you are immediately putting yourself in a collective.
Exactly. He is 100% orthodox Republican, in lockstep with their every policy stance. His individuality only lies in his role models, Simone and Jacob, whom I admit are commendably eccentric :D

Nick's lack of judgement is is quite amazing. If he is an individualist and I am a collectivist then we need to redefine the words:

Collectivist n. (NickA lexicon)
- a typically introverted and autistic philosophy forum attendee who holds many unpopular views and believes strongly in personal freedoms.

Individualist n. (NickA lexicon)
- one who strictly follows in all of the Republican Party's touchstone policies and believes that personal freedoms must be controlled by a theocratic state.
Nick_A
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Nick_A »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 9:41 pm You, an individualist? That's pretty funny. Aren't you the religious nut? The word is an oxymoron for a start. By putting an 'ist' on the end of 'individual' you are immediately putting yourself in a collective.
Simone Weil was a young brilliant Marxist and atheist respected by Leon Trotsky who died a Christian mystic. She was the ultimate individualist. You would call her a religious nut. Results of the secular progressive mind.
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Greta
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Greta »

[about Nick] His individuality only lies in his role models, Simone [Weil] and Jacob, whom I admit are commendably eccentric
The very next post to Veg:
Nick_A wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 11:19 pmYou would call her [Simone Weil] a religious nut. Results of the secular progressive mind.
If Veg and I both have secular minds, and I approvingly noted SW's eccentricity beforehand, then you simply do not read - the result of a blinkered theistic mind. Nick, you are all output and no input, and thus your program is stagnant.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Nick_A wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 11:19 pm
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 9:41 pm You, an individualist? That's pretty funny. Aren't you the religious nut? The word is an oxymoron for a start. By putting an 'ist' on the end of 'individual' you are immediately putting yourself in a collective.
Simone Weil was a young brilliant Marxist and atheist respected by Leon Trotsky who died a Christian mystic. She was the ultimate individualist. You would call her a religious nut. Results of the secular progressive mind.
An 'individualist' who was a Marxist. You keep on giving :D
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Greta
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Greta »

You are all individuals.

We are all individuals!
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Actually very few humans are genuine individuals. Practically everyone seems to have a need to belong to some group or other--just look at the labels we give ourselves and others.
We resemble ants more than anything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIv-FUarVWU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om4f1QrjcZA

Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television.
--Lewis Thomas
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Greta
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Greta »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Fri Jan 05, 2018 1:33 am Actually very few humans are genuine individuals. Practically everyone seems to have a need to belong to some group or other--just look at the labels we give ourselves and others.
We resemble ants more than anything else.

Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television.
--Lewis Thomas
I like it. Ants are basically authoritarians and xenophobes that inspect each passer-by and they immediately attack if they detect an ant from anther colony.

Google was a reality check for me. I used to come up with ideas that I'd imagined were original and innovative. Then a search on the topic would reveal that about 10,000 people beat me to it, many explaining the ideas with more eloquence, clarity and depth that I could have even imagined, let alone achieved.

So I now appreciate that pretty well everything I've done or thought has been done, and is being done, by others. I am less an individual than I am a kind of expression of middle class Sydneysiders, Australians, westerners, humans, mammals, chordates, life, stuff.

If we were raised by wolves or monkeys, without human socialisation and education, we wouldn't even be remotely the same person as we are today. This makes clear that we are largely a product of our cultures and subcultures, no matter how solitary, cussed or purportedly original we may be.
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Arising_uk
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Arising_uk »

Nick_A wrote:...
Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses. ...
I really dislike how often this is quoted without the context, that it is misquoted and usually quoted by those who haven't read any Marx. So here's the full quote and in context;

"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. "
Simone Weil countered with “revolution is the opiate of the masses.”
I think she's wrong here, it's the opium of the disaffected bourgeois - her in fact.
...
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ~ John Adams
The secular progressive philosophy and its attack on scapegoats if successful assures the loss of the Constitution and the freedoms it protects. The secular progressives look forward to that day. I shudder at the thought.
Will it be any worse than the killing of black people for driving and owning a car under the current system?
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Arising_uk
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Re: Scapegoats for Secular Progressives

Post by Arising_uk »

Nick_A wrote:Simone Weil was a young brilliant Marxist and atheist respected by Leon Trotsky who died a Christian mystic. ...
You missed out " ... who died a Christian mystic and self-absorbed anorexic suicide." Hardly a role-model for the young female.
She was the ultimate individualist. ...
You're right, so self-obsessed she starved herself to death.
You would call her a religious nut. ...
I'd call her mentally ill.
Results of the secular progressive mind.
If that means saying it as it is then so be it.
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