Vote for The Party!

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Dachshund
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Dachshund »

Nick_A wrote: Tue Nov 26, 2019 10:15 pm
"When a man joins a political party, he submissively adopts a mental attitude which he will express later on with words such as, ‘As a monarchist, as a Socialist, I think that …’ It is so comfortable! It amounts to having no thoughts at all. Nothing is more comfortable than not having to think." Simone Weil
This thread supports Simone's observation. Long live the party and its ability to enable its members to be free from the need to think.
Simone (aka "The Red Virgin") is obviously speaking from personal experience, having been a member of various Marxist political organisations for half her life, and a shit-stirring activist at many Union/workers street demonstrations in Paris !!


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)
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henry quirk
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by henry quirk »

HA ! That was awesome, Henry..." Don't mess with my truck or I'm gunna fuck you up bad, Fuckhead !!" :D :D :D ...Love it!!

Dachshund

Oh, that antifa numbnuts screwed up royally: he, without justification, interfered with the driver's freedom of movement on the roads, then he proceeded to damage the driver's property.

He earned every lick.

Really: get the fuck out of the road, and, don't mess with other people's shit.
Nick_A
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Nick_A »

Dachshund wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 12:38 am
Nick_A wrote: Tue Nov 26, 2019 10:15 pm
"When a man joins a political party, he submissively adopts a mental attitude which he will express later on with words such as, ‘As a monarchist, as a Socialist, I think that …’ It is so comfortable! It amounts to having no thoughts at all. Nothing is more comfortable than not having to think." Simone Weil
This thread supports Simone's observation. Long live the party and its ability to enable its members to be free from the need to think.
Simone (aka "The Red Virgin") is obviously speaking from personal experience, having been a member of various Marxist political organisations for half her life, and a shit-stirring activist at many Union/workers street demonstrations in Paris !!


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)
Quite true. Simone was a social activist who would put today's social activists to shame. But her dedication to truth allowed her to witness and consciously experience the futility of marxism. It is valuable for any seeker of truth to open to what she was able to learn and finally to die a Christian mystic.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Skepdick wrote: Mon Nov 25, 2019 1:53 pm Vote for The Party.
...
...
Otherwise things will be bad. Really bad.
Yeah I'll pass, because it's pretty much a bullshit party. It fails miserably when considering the absolute truth of things. No party originators could ever be more ignorant of the facts of the universe thus life on planet earth.

The Spheres must Balance!

Signed,

Spheres of Balance (the idea of the ideal, as informed by reality)
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Skepdick wrote: Mon Nov 25, 2019 6:29 pm
Dachshund wrote: Mon Nov 25, 2019 5:49 pm If anyone criticises or abuses me I tell them that they are bad, evil and stupid, soft-cock socialists, and if they don't fuck off fast they will cop a punch in the nose !
Isn't that an Antifa strategy? Maybe mass-deportation of nose-punchers is in order...

On second thought - we could also exercise those 2A rights on gratuitous nose-punchers.

There are many ways to MAGA. Getting rid of assholes is one way.
Nope, vaporize the entirety of humanity with strategically placed hydrogen bombs, as it's a failed experiment. The resulting cockroaches that may survive shall do a much better job.

The Spheres must Balance for life to exist!

Nuclear annihilation, It'll teach 'em a lesson!
Dachshund
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Dachshund »

Nick_A wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 1:27 am
Dachshund wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 12:38 am
Nick_A wrote: Tue Nov 26, 2019 10:15 pm

This thread supports Simone's observation. Long live the party and its ability to enable its members to be free from the need to think.
Simone (aka "The Red Virgin") is obviously speaking from personal experience, having been a member of various Marxist political organisations for half her life, and a shit-stirring activist at many Union/workers street demonstrations in Paris !!


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)
Quite true. Simone was a social activist who would put today's social activists to shame. But her dedication to truth allowed her to witness and consciously experience the futility of marxism. It is valuable for any seeker of truth to open to what she was able to learn and finally to die a Christian mystic.

Dear Nick,

I must qualify the observation that Simone Weil was an anarchist, radical (unorthodox) Marxist and Left-wing political activist in the French trade union (syndicalyst) movement by pointing out that this was only the case in her youth, i.e. up to 1935. For example, when she was a student at the ENS university in Paris and when she worked as a teacher after graduating and then famously took up a job as a piece-work labourer in the Pergeot car factory, she was definitely a card-carrying, passionate supporter of socialist party politics in France.

Interestingly Simone Weil, although she still admired Marx by 1936 had become a trenchant critic of Marxism; and eventually she disavowed all political parties. in the years that followed 1936 her social- political philosophy took a very different turn. If we "fast-forward" now to 1942 we find Simone Weil in London where she was desperate to to contribute to the cause of the free French. In 9 months she would be dead. In London she was put to work analysing political documents sent there from resistance committees in France, many of which concerned the reconstruction of France after the hoped for allied victory.

Part of her contribution to this literature was a book (never completed) entitled: "The Need for Roots: Prelude towards a Declaration of Duties toward Mankind", this document is judged to be the most powerful expression of her social - philosophical politics.

As I read through the main themes in this book, I felt at times as though I were reading Edmund Burke (the great Father of Conservatism), or, at least, what he would have sounded like had he lived in the mid-20th century. Although Simone Weil would vehemently deny that she was ever a traditional, social Conservative, like Burke "The Need for Roots" articulates in much of its content the Conservative political doctrine in its purest form. In fact there are many section's of this text by SW that bear an absolutely uncanny resemblance to Burke''s exposition of core tenets of Conservative faith: the need for social order, hierarchy, the virtue of patriotism, communitarianism, the idea of "organic society" deference to legitimate authority and the need to know and accept one's "station in life", the notion that true free is always conditioned by duty and obligation, the need to preserve the inherited treasures of the past and to only ever attempt cautious and prudent reform of the status quo, and so on.

The greatest living Conservative philosopher today is England's Sir Roger Scruton. That's an incontrovertible fact. In a recent book Sir Roger has published on the "Great Tradition of Conservation" he includes Simone Weil as a foremost 20th century Conservative (he also, if I recall devoted to chapter to her writing in an "Anthology of Conservative Texts" that came out back in 1991. T.S Eliot is another Conservative who counts Simone Weil as one of political Conservatism's great thinkers.

Well, I don't know about you Nick, but being an old-style social Conservative myself I find all of this very interesting and reassuring, as Simone Weil was a brilliant and very disciplined thinker. She wasn't perfect, there are some contradictions and paradoxes in her work, but no one is perfect are they ? And,generally speaking, she lays down some pretty tight and impressive philosophy, IMO. So, if she's a Conservative, my own political thinking must be reasonably clear and correct. I think it may have been a blessing that SW passed away in 1943, because if she were with us today to see what the postmodern/progressive/socialist US Democratic Party are doing to America; today she'd be hopping mad and who knows what she'd do ( Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Shifty Schiff, Joe Biden, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc; would all be on her "hit-list."


Kindest Regards


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner) WOOF !! WOOF !!.....................(Beware the dog)
Nick_A
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Nick_A »

Dachshund wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 5:03 pm
Nick_A wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 1:27 am
Dachshund wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 12:38 am

Simone (aka "The Red Virgin") is obviously speaking from personal experience, having been a member of various Marxist political organisations for half her life, and a shit-stirring activist at many Union/workers street demonstrations in Paris !!


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)
Quite true. Simone was a social activist who would put today's social activists to shame. But her dedication to truth allowed her to witness and consciously experience the futility of marxism. It is valuable for any seeker of truth to open to what she was able to learn and finally to die a Christian mystic.

Dear Nick,

I must qualify the observation that Simone Weil was an anarchist, radical (unorthodox) Marxist and Left-wing political activist in the French trade union (syndicalyst) movement by pointing out that this was only the case in her youth, i.e. up to 1935. For example, when she was a student at the ENS university in Paris and when she worked as a teacher after graduating and then famously took up a job as a piece-work labourer in the Pergeot car factory, she was definitely a card-carrying, passionate supporter of socialist party politics in France.

Interestingly Simone Weil, although she still admired Marx by 1936 had become a trenchant critic of Marxism; and eventually she disavowed all political parties. in the years that followed 1936 her social- political philosophy took a very different turn. If we "fast-forward" now to 1942 we find Simone Weil in London where she was desperate to to contribute to the cause of the free French. In 9 months she would be dead. In London she was put to work analysing political documents sent there from resistance committees in France, many of which concerned the reconstruction of France after the hoped for allied victory.

Part of her contribution to this literature was a book (never completed) entitled: "The Need for Roots: Prelude towards a Declaration of Duties toward Mankind", this document is judged to be the most powerful expression of her social - philosophical politics.

As I read through the main themes in this book, I felt at times as though I were reading Edmund Burke (the great Father of Conservatism), or, at least, what he would have sounded like had he lived in the mid-20th century. Although Simone Weil would vehemently deny that she was ever a traditional, social Conservative, like Burke "The Need for Roots" articulates in much of its content the Conservative political doctrine in its purest form. In fact there are many section's of this text by SW that bear an absolutely uncanny resemblance to Burke''s exposition of core tenets of Conservative faith: the need for social order, hierarchy, the virtue of patriotism, communitarianism, the idea of "organic society" deference to legitimate authority and the need to know and accept one's "station in life", the notion that true free is always conditioned by duty and obligation, the need to preserve the inherited treasures of the past and to only ever attempt cautious and prudent reform of the status quo, and so on.

The greatest living Conservative philosopher today is England's Sir Roger Scruton. That's an incontrovertible fact. In a recent book Sir Roger has published on the "Great Tradition of Conservation" he includes Simone Weil as a foremost 20th century Conservative (he also, if I recall devoted to chapter to her writing in an "Anthology of Conservative Texts" that came out back in 1991. T.S Eliot is another Conservative who counts Simone Weil as one of political Conservatism's great thinkers.

Well, I don't know about you Nick, but being an old-style social Conservative myself I find all of this very interesting and reassuring, as Simone Weil was a brilliant and very disciplined thinker. She wasn't perfect, there are some contradictions and paradoxes in her work, but no one is perfect are they ? And,generally speaking, she lays down some pretty tight and impressive philosophy, IMO. So, if she's a Conservative, my own political thinking must be reasonably clear and correct. I think it may have been a blessing that SW passed away in 1943, because if she were with us today to see what the postmodern/progressive/socialist US Democratic Party are doing to America; today she'd be hopping mad and who knows what she'd do ( Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Shifty Schiff, Joe Biden, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc; would all be on her "hit-list."


Kindest Regards


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner) WOOF !! WOOF !!.....................(Beware the dog)
Simone Weil is one of these rare people who cannot be classified. How do you classify someone who was a brilliant marxist admired by Leon Trotsky and died Christian mystic and intellectual influence on Pope Paul V1? She was a rare combination of intellectual brilliance with the emotional awareness of a saint. Such people are priceless as an awakening influence in a culture. Even though she is no longer with us her influence is growing if for no other reason than she lived her ideas. People read sincere brilliance which is extremely rare.

Would you be open to an in depth discussion on her essay "profession of Faith"written while she was very ill? Anyone who appreciates what she means by the relationship between obligations and rights will understand what is essential for a free society to sustain itself.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html

Some lurkers reading a deep and polite discussion on ideas they find new may be inspired to join the AWS and be part of the yearly colloquy which includes PhDs students and interested people all knowing that Simone was something special
Dear Friends and Members of the American Weil Society,

I hope this finds you well. First, a friendly reminder that the 40th Annual Colloquy of the American Weil Society (organized by Prof. Tomeu Estelrich) will be held at Boston College on April 23, 24th and 25th 2020. The topic of the colloquy will be: “Simone Weil on spirituality, beauty and justice”. Professor Elaine Scarry (Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value, Department of English, Harvard University) will give the inaugural address to our conference on Thursday April 23, 2020 at 5:00pm. Following her keynote speech, there will be a reception.............................
I always enjoy submitting something even if not on an academic level but as an artist and be able to get the opinions of people well read on Simone and Plato.

If you are open to a discussion on her profession of faith we could try it
Dachshund
Posts: 324
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Dachshund »

Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 am


Dear Nick,



.

Would you be open to an in depth discussion on her essay "profession of Faith"written while she was very ill? Anyone who appreciates what she means by the relationship between obligations and rights will understand what is essential for a free society to sustain itself.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html
Dear Nick


Yes, certainly I would be open to discuss this essay by Simone Weil. You will need to give me some time to go through it carefully, though. This is because ometimes, her prose is quite demanding intellectually and, given I am no genius, I have to take Simone slowly - "one step at a time" - in order to properly grasp what she is saying. Having said this, one of the things I like about her work is that, generally speaking, she has that rare ability to philosophise using clear, simple language that is accessible to the ordinary man. I mean, the work of the seminal Postmodernist philosophers like Derrida (deconstructionism) or Foucault's (poststructuralism) is, by way of contrast simply not accessible to the public. Their writing is far too dense, complex and jargonistic for all but academic specialists to decipher (and even they complain about how difficult the texts are to master !)



With Simone Weil,I find her prose style is typically simple, concrete and lucid -"elegant" - but what she writes has a powerful poetic quality (like many of the simple verses in the Gospel, say) that has the capacity to strike the "heart" (our affective emotional/moral/ aesthetic consciousness) and simultaneously the prefrontal cortex ( where our highest/cognitive faculties are located) simultaneously.



Nietzsche, I think, was the same. His books are still very accessible for a wide audience. Many young people in the West (18-25 year - olds) go through a phase where they are infatuated with Nietzsche; they read "Zarathustra" and think he is "cool" and a "rebel" and thus he becomes their "guru"; at least for a while. I have noticed that a number of world authorities on Nietzsche, start whatever book they are writing about him by pointing out that Nietzsche is best understood as a brilliant poet, as opposed to a standard Western philosopher per se (say, like Hegel or Kant or Locke) I would say the same thing of Simone Weil. When she is "flying" - when she is truly "on song"- her writing is magnificent, untouchable; and the first two stanzas of Percy Shelley's famous "Ode to a Skylark" come to mind...

I

Hail to thee blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In strains of unpremeditated art

II

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire
The deep blue thou wingest
And singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest.




So, thank you for the essay by SW, I will start reading it right now !



Regards


Dachshund
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Age »

Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 am
Dachshund wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 5:03 pm
Nick_A wrote: Wed Nov 27, 2019 1:27 am

Quite true. Simone was a social activist who would put today's social activists to shame. But her dedication to truth allowed her to witness and consciously experience the futility of marxism. It is valuable for any seeker of truth to open to what she was able to learn and finally to die a Christian mystic.

Dear Nick,

I must qualify the observation that Simone Weil was an anarchist, radical (unorthodox) Marxist and Left-wing political activist in the French trade union (syndicalyst) movement by pointing out that this was only the case in her youth, i.e. up to 1935. For example, when she was a student at the ENS university in Paris and when she worked as a teacher after graduating and then famously took up a job as a piece-work labourer in the Pergeot car factory, she was definitely a card-carrying, passionate supporter of socialist party politics in France.

Interestingly Simone Weil, although she still admired Marx by 1936 had become a trenchant critic of Marxism; and eventually she disavowed all political parties. in the years that followed 1936 her social- political philosophy took a very different turn. If we "fast-forward" now to 1942 we find Simone Weil in London where she was desperate to to contribute to the cause of the free French. In 9 months she would be dead. In London she was put to work analysing political documents sent there from resistance committees in France, many of which concerned the reconstruction of France after the hoped for allied victory.

Part of her contribution to this literature was a book (never completed) entitled: "The Need for Roots: Prelude towards a Declaration of Duties toward Mankind", this document is judged to be the most powerful expression of her social - philosophical politics.

As I read through the main themes in this book, I felt at times as though I were reading Edmund Burke (the great Father of Conservatism), or, at least, what he would have sounded like had he lived in the mid-20th century. Although Simone Weil would vehemently deny that she was ever a traditional, social Conservative, like Burke "The Need for Roots" articulates in much of its content the Conservative political doctrine in its purest form. In fact there are many section's of this text by SW that bear an absolutely uncanny resemblance to Burke''s exposition of core tenets of Conservative faith: the need for social order, hierarchy, the virtue of patriotism, communitarianism, the idea of "organic society" deference to legitimate authority and the need to know and accept one's "station in life", the notion that true free is always conditioned by duty and obligation, the need to preserve the inherited treasures of the past and to only ever attempt cautious and prudent reform of the status quo, and so on.

The greatest living Conservative philosopher today is England's Sir Roger Scruton. That's an incontrovertible fact. In a recent book Sir Roger has published on the "Great Tradition of Conservation" he includes Simone Weil as a foremost 20th century Conservative (he also, if I recall devoted to chapter to her writing in an "Anthology of Conservative Texts" that came out back in 1991. T.S Eliot is another Conservative who counts Simone Weil as one of political Conservatism's great thinkers.

Well, I don't know about you Nick, but being an old-style social Conservative myself I find all of this very interesting and reassuring, as Simone Weil was a brilliant and very disciplined thinker. She wasn't perfect, there are some contradictions and paradoxes in her work, but no one is perfect are they ? And,generally speaking, she lays down some pretty tight and impressive philosophy, IMO. So, if she's a Conservative, my own political thinking must be reasonably clear and correct. I think it may have been a blessing that SW passed away in 1943, because if she were with us today to see what the postmodern/progressive/socialist US Democratic Party are doing to America; today she'd be hopping mad and who knows what she'd do ( Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Shifty Schiff, Joe Biden, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc; would all be on her "hit-list."


Kindest Regards


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner) WOOF !! WOOF !!.....................(Beware the dog)
Simone Weil is one of these rare people who cannot be classified. How do you classify someone who was a brilliant marxist admired by Leon Trotsky and died Christian mystic and intellectual influence on Pope Paul V1?
VERY EASILY, 'just "another" human being'.

No greater and no lesser than "another". No better and no worse than "another" also.

That is how I would class that human being, as well as EVERY "other" human being.

How do 'you' class that human being, with the label "simone weil"?
Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 am She was a rare combination of intellectual brilliance with the emotional awareness of a saint.
The human being labeled here as "nick_a" seems to have placed this "other" human being up VERY HIGH.

WHY do 'you', human beings, do this to one "another"?

Do 'you' NOT YET KNOW WHY 'you' are ALL the way 'you' ARE?
Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 amSuch people are priceless as an awakening influence in a culture.
What has that human being actually awakened 'you' to?

Are you NOT able to be awakened by your OWN Self?

Do 'you' NEED some one "else" to wake 'you' UP?

Even though she is no longer with us her influence is growing if for no other reason than she lived her ideas. People read sincere brilliance which is extremely rare.
Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 amWould you be open to an in depth discussion on her essay "profession of Faith"written while she was very ill?
YES.
Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 amAnyone who appreciates what she means by the relationship between obligations and rights will understand what is essential for a free society to sustain itself.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html
But UNDERSTANDING what is ESSENTIAL for a FREE society to sustain itself is ALREADY KNOWN.
Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 amSome lurkers reading a deep and polite discussion on ideas they find new may be inspired to join the AWS and be part of the yearly colloquy which includes PhDs students and interested people all knowing that Simone was something special
Some human beings do NOT need to follow or be inspired by "another", nor do these ones need to "belong" to some selective group in order to just KNOW what is essentially RIGHT and WRONG, anyway, which is just what that human being was just 'trying to' express and explain.

Thee KNOWLEDGE of RIGHT and WRONG is within ALL, ALREADY.

Just listen to AND follow thy True Self, and NOT some "other", that is; If you REALLY want to KNOW the Truth of things.
Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 am
Dear Friends and Members of the American Weil Society,

I hope this finds you well. First, a friendly reminder that the 40th Annual Colloquy of the American Weil Society (organized by Prof. Tomeu Estelrich) will be held at Boston College on April 23, 24th and 25th 2020. The topic of the colloquy will be: “Simone Weil on spirituality, beauty and justice”. Professor Elaine Scarry (Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value, Department of English, Harvard University) will give the inaugural address to our conference on Thursday April 23, 2020 at 5:00pm. Following her keynote speech, there will be a reception.............................
Sounds like and appears to be just ANOTHER of the thousands of 'religions', which ALREADY exist.


I always enjoy submitting something even if not on an academic level but as an artist and be able to get the opinions of people well read on Simone and Plato.
Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 amIf you are open to a discussion on her profession of faith we could try it
I am OPEN to discussion ANY thing regarding this.
Dachshund
Posts: 324
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:40 pm

Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Dachshund »

Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 am


Dear Nick,



.

Would you be open to an in depth discussion on her essay "profession of Faith"written while she was very ill? Anyone who appreciates what she means by the relationship between obligations and rights will understand what is essential for a free society to sustain itself.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html

Yes, certainly I would be open to discuss this essay by Simone Weil. You will need to give me some time to go through it carefully, though. This is because sometimes, her prose is quite demanding intellectually and, given I am no genius, I have to take Simone slowly - "one step at a time" - in order to properly grasp what she is saying. Having said this, one of the things I like about her work is that, generally speaking, she has that rare ability to philosophise using clear, simple language that is accessible to the ordinary man. I mean, the work of the seminal Postmodernist philosophers like Derrida (deconstructionism) or Foucault's (post-structuralism) is, by way of contrast simply not accessible to the public. Their writing is far too dense, complex and jargonistic for all but academic specialists to decipher (and even they complain about how difficult the texts are to master !)

With Simone Weil, I find her prose style is, at its best, - typically simple, concrete and lucid -"elegant" - What she writes in this mode often has a powerful poetic quality (like many of the basic verses in the Gospel, say) which has the capacity to strike the "heart" (our affective emotional/moral/ aesthetic consciousness) and simultaneously the prefrontal cortex ( where our highest/cognitive faculties are located) simultaneously.

Nietzsche, I think, was the same. His books are still very accessible for a wide audience. Many young people in the West (18-25 year-olds) go through a phase where they are infatuated with Nietzsche; they think he is "cool" and a "rebel" and thus he becomes their "guru"; at least for a while. Many world authorities on Nietzsche, start whatever book they are writing about him by pointing out in their preface that Nietzsche is best understood as a brilliant poet, as opposed to a Western philosopher per se I would say the same thing of Simone Weil. When she is "flying" - when she is "on song"- her writing is magnificent...she is like Percy Shelley's skylark

So, thank you for the essay by SW, I will start reading it right now !


Regards


Dachshund
Last edited by Dachshund on Fri Nov 29, 2019 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dachshund
Posts: 324
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:40 pm

Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Dachshund »

Nick_A wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:41 am

Dachshund



Would you be open to an in depth discussion on her essay "profession of Faith"written while she was very ill? Anyone who appreciates what she means by the relationship between obligations and rights will understand what is essential for a free society to sustain itself.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/wei

Simone Weil makes many interesting points in "Profession of Faith" and I do not think we could discuss them all "in depth" in the space of one or two posts, though I would be happy to work through them over time if you like, as I find her views in this essay bear a very strong resemblance to the late 18th century Conservative political philosopher, Edmund Burke, one of my heroes. Burke's thinking still exerts a strong influence on Conservative politics in the West today. Like Simone Weil, Edmund Burke was a pious Christian, and it was his faith that always from the very start of his career in the world of Letters and Politics, provided the central foundation upon which he developed and articulated all of his political principles. Burke, who lived during the "Age Reason has over the past century acquired a reputation as "gravedigger of the Enlightenment". Interestingly Simone Weil was equally very leery of the "limitless power" the French philosphes - (and their modern, liberal-progressive counterparts)- attributed to human reason. As far as her own mature work was concerned, She had little time for the abstract, esoteric, rationalist "metaphysical" concepts cooked up by academics and other intellectuals.


You did specifically mention Simon's discussion of the relationship between rights and obligations, so I will devote this post to that topic. Before I do, I would like to quickly reiterate a point I made to you in a recent post regarding the US Constitution's First Amendment defence of the "Freedom of Speech" and compare it with Simone Weil's views on the issue.



I have always been interested in US politics, so when Trump shocked the world by winning the 2016 Presidential election I began to follow his political fortunes very closely by watching as much of the US political news as I could access. For three or so years I have been watching the big American New Media's coverage of Trump, mainly: MSNBC; CNN; ABC; CBS; FOX and the like, as well as reading newspaper/magazines like "The Washington Post" "Politico" and " The New York Times" online.



What I have witnessed is a very strong, consistent bias against Trump among the main Liberal Media outlets. Let me use CNN as an example. CNN might as well be an official organ of the Democratic Party; while it is supposed to report the objective truth of national political events, it simply does not. In fact, it has no qualms about lying through its teeth or deceitfully misrepresenting facts, not covering important political events that reflect poorly on high-ranking Democrat politics, participating in what are clearly political smear campaigns against the President, and so on. Last week, for example I watched Anderson Cooper, the primary anchor of the CNN news show, start a televised interview with his guest by saying "I'd like to talk to you about the FALSE allegations of corruption that have been unfairly levelled at Vice President Joe Biden (Democrat 2020 Presidential candidate. The guest, of course, is a DNC lickspittal ,who has no doubt been well paid to lie, and proceeds to share his faux moral outrage at this dastardly attack against Biden for the cameras. He is shocked how there is absolutely no evidence of corruption on Biden's part, and how we are merely witnessing the Republican Party disgraceful attempt to smear Biden and force him out of the running for the 2020 election. The fact is that there IS hard, objective evidence linking Biden directly to serious criminal activities in the Ukraine and China. End of Story.


I still watch the Liberal news media in the US, but only to keep abreast of what outrageous lies/mischievous propaganda they will broadcast next. If I want to find out the TRUTH about what is going on in the world of American politics, I watch "FOX" news, because although they are critical of the political Left in America, at least they do not lie; at least they give the American people the facts about what is going on. FOX report that Congressman (Democrat) Adam Schiff- who presided over the recent CIRCUS that was the Trump Impeachment Inquiry - a congenital liar, a coward and a profoundly corrupt politician. And he IS, the evidence is rock solid. The American public need to know facts like this.



I think that the behaviour of the Liberal Mass media in the US over the past 3 years to date has been criminal and ought be punished. The right to freedom of speech/expression should not include a right for large and very powerful organisations to intentionally disseminate lies and political propaganda to countless hundreds of thousands of citizens in a nation who trust them to broadcast the truth. I think Simone Weil would agree. In "Profession of Faith" she write...


"The human soul has a need for truth and freedom of expression...It (the need for truth) requires that in the domain of thought there should never be any physical or moral pressure exerted for any purpose other than exclusive concern for the truth, which implies an ABSOLUTE ban on all PROPAGANDA without exception. It calls for protection against error and lies; which means that every avoidable falsehood publicly asserted becomes a PUNISHABLE OFFENCE. It call for public health measures against poisons in the domain of though/intellectual culture."


Wow, this post is already too long. So I'll get back to you about SW thoughts on" Equality; Hierarchy; and the relationship between rights and obligations/duties tomorrow.

PS: I find SW understanding of the notion of universal human equal (i.e; all human beings are owed a duty of respect by all other human being) and her understanding of the natural nature of human hierarchies (social, power,competence, aesthetic) very interesting. Again, her thinking on this question echoes Burke's and I believe reconciling the moral equality of all people in the context of their necessary existence in hierarchical social structure of is one of paramount important in the West today.


Regards



Dachshund
Nick_A
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Nick_A »

Dachshund

I agree that there is far too much in the essay for a few posts. What I would like to do is follow her logic and see if her conclusions are valid. I've seen that most discussions of this type quickly start focusing on details and lose the big picture. But with Simone, everything is big picture. Details are never taken out of context That is why she is called Plato's spiritual child.

I'll begin a thread on the essay and provide my understanding of what she means. I'll ask if you understand it the same or differently. Everything she writes is based on the beginning so rather than argue details, I'd like to see if we can begin by agreeing on her basic premise. The thread will begin with:
There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.

Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.

Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.

That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.

"At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world."
Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men.

Although it is beyond the reach of any human faculties, man has the power of turning his attention and love towards it.

Nothing can ever justify the assumption that any man, whoever he may be, has been deprived of this power.

It is a power which is only real in this world in so far as it is exercised. The sole condition for exercising it is consent.

This act of consent may be expressed, or it may not be, even tacitly; it may not be clearly conscious, although it has really taken place in the soul. Very often it is verbally expressed although it has not in fact taken place. But whether expressed or not, the one condition suffices: that it shall in fact have taken place.

To anyone who does actually consent to directing his attention and love beyond the world, towards the reality that exists outside the reach of all human faculties, it is given to succeed in doing so. In that case, sooner or later, there descends upon him a part of the good, which shines through him upon all that surrounds him................................
As you can see she begins with a connection between the being of Man and a source for creation. Right away people are tempted to start arguing about personal gods but I would like us to digest what she has written and see if it makes sense to us. We don't have to believe it but can we discuss if we have experienced it. If she is right it becomes clear why freedom is only possible for people who have the common appreciation for an ineffable source greater than themselves.

I think it would be worthwhile to follow the line of reasoning of her essay both to appreciate what is possible for ourselves as well as society along with what is lost by being oblivious of it.

So are you open to following her line of thought within the essay so we can appreciate the value of what she has written? If we allow it to degenerate into arguing God concepts, then it will become meaningless

There is a quality very rare in Simone. Her words stimulate depth of contemplation. Julia Haslett was experiencing a dark time in her life when she discovered Simone. A simple sentence touched her so much that she spent six years on a documentary trying to understand why she was touched. If you do feel something valuable in what she has written IMO you are indeed ahead of the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOCE_d2R5lw
Walker
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by Walker »

The Democratic front runner.

Surreal.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/20 ... _vote.html
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SpheresOfBalance
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Location: On a Star Dust Metamorphosis

Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Walker wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2019 12:39 am The Democratic front runner.

Surreal.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/20 ... _vote.html
You're an idiot!

Biden is sadly currently showing signs of senility.

But then of course it's just like republicans to beat up infants and alzheimer's patients. Let's face it, it's all they can muster!
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henry quirk
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Re: Vote for The Party!

Post by henry quirk »

"Biden is sadly currently showing signs of senility."

Indeed. How pitiful, then, that he's the guy the Dems are probably put up against my employee. They, the Dems, have no one else.

:us:TRUMP '20:us:
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