Dubious wrote: ↑Mon May 02, 2022 10:39 amThose who don't subscribe to some transcendental infusion of meaning are certainly not likely to be crushed. They, in fact, are the ones far less vulnerable! Conversely, those who feel they would be crushed without such meaning will have no problem finding it. Imagination can be very prolific in planting the vast fields where meaning and purpose can be harvested to feed the spiritually hungry based on some anonymous transcendental source. There are obviously still many like yourself, Nick and IC who need the balm of some sweet fiction to feel fulfilled and satisfied.
A couple of preambular things:
The first is a repeat: in order to understand someone's position you have to know and understand their 'locality'. That means their general position, something core to them; existential. Their essential way of viewing things. No one here in this conversation seems willing to reveal themselves in this sense. That leads, as it will always lead, to somewhat vain and often unproductive conversations for which I use the term *bickering*. The way to get beyond this? When people reveal their positions, their locale, by being aware of what it
really is. RC uses the term *ignorance* in the sense of stupid, immature belief not appropriate for a grown-up modern person. But I use the term *ignorance* more in the Platonic sense of lack of knowledge about one's own self. So obviously, and perhaps unfairly (?) I see numerous players here as not having enough information about their own selves. That is, fundamental, unstated predicates. Essential orientation. Maybe this is fair, maybe this is unfair, I might be somewhat right but also somewhat wrong -- who can say? Only you-plural can settle the matter by revealing -- that is by knowing -- where you really & truly stand.
With that said I do not know enough about you. You do not reveal much of anything about *locality*. So I have to try to cobble together the sort of perception that would enable me to understand your position. Revealing *mere ideas* through a philosophical formatting does not fill out the sort of picture that is needed. In order to understand a person you have to know much more about their
situation. But do not think that I am asking anything of you or anyone. I am simply noting that without these vital pieces it is not possible to know. And if banter and *bickering* satisfies some need -- we all must have reasons why we participate here, right? -- I accept this.
So now I start with this:
Those who don't subscribe to some transcendental infusion of meaning are certainly not likely to be crushed.
Now, why did I say what I said? I have to
reveal that. But first I must acknowledge that when you say what you have said you are (I surmise) really speaking about yourself. "I do not subscribe to some transcendental infusion and I am not 'crushed' is how I take it. However, I am not talking about you! I am talking about people in general. And I only need bolster my argument by mentioning that one of Nietzsche's core predicates is that when our *horizons* are erased that it leads to a loss of sense of location and continuity. And though this is complex we can reduce it to saying that what results is 'nihilism'. And I cannot believe -- I must believe -- that you have a more sophisticated and replete sense about what nihilism does to a person and in a person. So let me introduce the term 'dark nihilism':
Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.
Now we are responsible, aware people are we not? We certainly would not identify ourselves as people who talk a great deal (chatter) but do not have much of a base for making true assertions. No. We must have some base. But what base? What is your base? On what do you base your assertions? I have to ask you such a question and I must ask that of everyone participating here. And I must also probe myself. If I don't I am being fundamentally dishonest.
Now do I really have to go back and lay out the degree to which people lose their sense of direction when they lose the 'compass'? Instead of doing that I will merely make references. Have you ever read CG Jung's worthy essays
Wotan and
After the Catastrophe? In brief I will line it out. Europe prior to about 1910 was, according to Robinson Jeffers, 'the jewel of the world'. And in about 30-35 years time 100,000,000 people were killed, the continent lay in smoking ruins, and was occupied by a foreign power. That is an event that demands to be looked at with just a wee bit of responsible care. And Jung, though riddled with imperfections, made a brilliant and probing effort to *see into the causes*. So now let us examine, again, not the possibility but the fact about what happens -- not alone to Mr Dubious -- but to a people when their horizons are erased, when they lose the sense of grounding under their feet, and fall victim to nihilistic forces. Jung would say, and in fact he did say, that they become susceptible to *possession*. And what did he mean? Well, he has a socio-psychological and *archetypal* way of seeing it and expressing it.
The point? Merely to illustrate what happens when -- but wait,
what has happened? We would have to stop here and 'linger' over this question, would we not? What happened in Europe? To what authority will we turn and appeal to be given a clear picture? GH Chesterton? CG Jung? Karl Marx? Who?
You? So we are left with an interpretive task. So I would ask you if you admit that people can lose their bearings. And are you aware of what happens to Mass Man when he no longer has bearings. And because I know that you are thoughtful and responsible you will not, as I guess that perhaps you have (?) avoid confronting that question and merely respond solipsistically with something like a declaration about yourself. ("I do not subscribe to some transcendental infusion and I am not 'crushed')
I get it! You are 'far less vulnerable'. And I also get that you likely feel that those inclined to be *crushed* are the weak and desperate ones who then -- and you say as much -- go lunging about for the vanished security blanket of their infant-life. I also get that you really & truly believe that when this desperation arises that they go "planting the vast fields where meaning and purpose can be harvested to feed the spiritually hungry based on some anonymous transcendental source". This is such basic stuff! It is slightly warmed-over Nietzscheanism, is it not? In my view all you are doing is revealing a sort of conundrum within your own perception and thinking.
And in order to understand you I have to try to see and isolate your *core predicates*. And for you what is 'transcendental' is synonymous with false, unreal, and effectively
meaningless because false & unreal. I suggest that the same mental manoeuvre is easily discerned in Iambiguous and RC. This is the *platform* from which you operate.
Did I say I have a problem with that? No! It is not my issue to be concerned with. But the issue that does concern me is a) obviously my own position in a very personal sense and b) the larger picture -- which in fact has to do with civilization to put it rather grandiosely. Thus, in fact, the real issue reduces to that which is the most important.
I regard this as a reduction. It reduces something, in fact, far more complex, important & relevant to a sort of cartoon image. But again when I make this statement I also make the effort to reveal my own *locality*.
So the way I am coming to see things -- the conversation here has been instrumental for me at the stage where I find myself -- is to assert a different countermanding predicate.
My view goes like this: We have come into a
world and in that
world what is transcendetal to our world is not an *invented thing*, not an imagined and thus a false or arbitrary thing, but in essence the most fundamental thing. It is not a thing that you or I simple decide *does not really exist* and thus do away with it, as if we are gods ourselves, but rather something that has to be seen, explored and more fully understood, not pushed aside, toppled, seen as unreal and ridiculed.
Do I imagine that with my *declaration* that I will (as is often said) 'reach you"? That is doubtful. Why? It has to do with the sort of idea-fortresses that are built. Through my assertion I am simply setting up a *game* where each opponent will with some glee for the battle bring out their heaviest argument-armaments!
But as I have said, and it is true,
I am here for my own purposes. I am definitely a product or an end-result of processes of nihilism and thus I am aware of what happens when the horizon is erased and the ground falls away.
What is 'transcendental' is, by definition, outside of the realm of explication. And life and existence (Being-Existence) is totally outside of any possibility of defining or encapsulating. It is not hubris really that holds a given awareness back from seeing that Existence and Being cannot be defined and hardly *understood* in the sense that we use the term. You will never have the *power* to understand existence and no one of us will or can. But it is this, essentially, that is referred to when the word 'transcendental' is brought up.
And similarly when it comes to spontaneous and perennial manifestations of divinity -- I take Dionysus to be our symbol-word for that -- in one way or another the fact of transcendental being will always show itself, it will always manifest, despite any sort of *lid* that gets placed on it.
And so what does this portend? (That for me is where the conversation
begins).
