Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 7:16 am
There is no such thing as a decision with no consequences. Only Leftists seem to think there ought to be.
I find this statement interesting. Partly because of the relationship between *ideas* and *consequences* that Richard Weaver focused on in his work
Ideas Have Consequences.
The terms we are compelled to use (left, progressive, liberal in the negative sense) are terribly inadequate when applied to the progressive-egalitarian trends that have come to dominate our thinking, our vision, our believing. To say that Leftists believe that there are no consequences to decisions (meaning, specific decisiveness in regard to social issues, established hierarchies, power relations, etc.) is simply absurd. What has to be understood is that they are influenced by
different sets of idealism. When one examines such thinkers as Weaver -- an arch-conservative -- one discovers that these types tend to favor the older hierarchical systems that dominated our cultures but are now being supplanted and overturned. They define *all that* as a good and they put all their weight on the side of overturning established orders. They see the older systems as being repressive and therefore consequential insofar as they believe in liberating people from prior (arbitrary) restraints.
It is really a question of the Vision one has about what social life is supposed to be and what sort of life is ideal and best.
It is therefore unfair to say that "Leftists" believe that ideas do not have consequences. So we are left with the sticky and difficult task of defining better what 'wokism' refers to. It must be a sort of
perversion of Left-idealism, no? But then 'perversion' must then become the topic of conversations since, certainly, the political Right in our own day and time is just as susceptible to perverse influences.
It seems to me at times that when we examine the bitter conflicts of the present we are seeing the results of the loss of the capacity to think and reason well by all or most parties. Then, everything turns into emotional battles by bickering people who show themselves incapable of understanding any other perspective that is not their own.
This explains the endless bickering that goes on in this forum BTW. The absolute lack of a will to find common ground. The reign of absolute disagreement.
But you are still not a Christian. So clearly, nobody's forcing you or compelling you. And mention of eternal damnation itself fails to move you. So for now, you're just fine...as free as a bird...nothing is compelling you to anything.
Note that you do an excellent job of driving people away from even considering Christian philosophy as worthy and emulatable. If you are such a Christian --
God help us all!
My sense about your sort of statement is that
it also encapsulates a type of perversion. It is true beyond any doubt that genuine and original Christian dogma is grounded in absolutism and a thorough intolerance. As we discussed at length in the Christianity thread this intolerant absolutism arose within the Hebrew context. Once one understands the human, not the divine, origin of this absolutism, one sees more clearly that Christian absolutism has far more to do with social control (some of which is quite valid) more than it has to do with any sort of 'beyond'.
But this, in respect to Iambiguous, is tendentious and unfair: "So for now, you're just fine...as free as a bird...nothing is compelling you to anything". You use it, obviously, as just one more psychological tactic in an effort to influence him to your absolutist decisions, and this reveals how deeply you are enmeshed in all of that. But to say that Iambiguous is not concerned about 'consequences' would be unfair.
He is concerned about
different aspects of what is consequential!
But every decision comes with consequences. And I guess we'll both see if that's true or not.
There it is again! You know what I have said, right? That this is really the sum total of your argumentation! This sums it up.
True it is: all decisions have consequences, so you got that right. So we had all better pay attention to
the consequential. But to assert that those who do not accept your specific absolutist tenets will, as a result, end their existence in an eternal hell-realm is where you show yourself engaged, and deeply so, with a vicious psycho-metaphysical manipulation tool. And as I say your argument begins, and ends, with that.