nihilism

[promethean75]

Btw, that 'pros and cons' blog you linked to is crap. That guy's almost as ignorant of Marxism as these knuckleheads are.

[iambiguous]

Btw, that 'pros and cons' blog you linked to is crap. That guy's almost as ignorant of Marxism as these knuckleheads are.

It was just the first one that came up: https://www.google.com/search?q=marxist ... nt=gws-wiz

My main point was to note that pros and cons do exist in which arguments can be made starting from very different sets of assumptions. Then the part where dasein comes in. In other words, after someone [like me] comes to the conclusion that resolving it is not something that philosophy is really equipped to do.

[promethean75]

Unfortunately we'd have to wait until we witnessed a fully functioning and properly established Marxist state before we'd be able to identify any cons about it. I mean if you don't want to sound like an ignorant arse, that is.

On the other hand, knock yourself out identifying any cons you might see in a capitalist state.

And for extra credit, demonstrate how much worse it would be without socialist policies to hold its hand, bail it out, and keep it alive.

And for extra-extra credit, write a brilliant thesis no less than five hundred words about Irony.

[Immanuel Can]

That guy's almost as ignorant of Marxism as these knuckleheads are.

I find that's the remarkable thing about Marxism...

According to Marxists themselves, it seems, nobody ever "understands real Marxism."

They'll tell you that everybody in Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Albania...and every other country that was at least nominally Marxist in the history of the world "didn't get" real Marxism. If they had, they'd never have done what they did, or have collapsed all their economies, or have killed 140 million people in the last century alone. They were naughty, bad, confused Marxists, apparently.

Strangely, the people who say this they think that they do "get" it.

That which is so easy for them, was, they insist, impossible to the many millions of specimens who so far have professed Marxism on the Earth. And they want you to believe them, rather than those millions, and even though they don't even agree with each other...or Marx, in many cases.

So let me ask: who is the Pope of the Marxists, inerrant in all he affirms ex cathedra from the Red Throne? Where is this ultimate authority to which we may apply to discover the "real" Marxism that all the other fools in the world have so sadly missed?

If you can tell me, I'll speak to him. Because I want to know. But you must forgive me if I remain a little bit skeptical that he is you.

[promethean75]

"According to Marxists themselves, it seems, nobody ever "understands real Marxism."

It's incredibly easy to understand (as a series of propositions), a little more difficult to imagine a way to make those propositions happen, but entirely impossible to say they ever have; to point at a country and shout 'look... there's a Marxism!'

You don't take the country's leader's word for it, and you don't take opponent's of marxism word for it. Rather you look at the country and how it is organized and governed, and see if those propositions have been put into practice.

"or have killed 140 million"

Lol that number gets bigger everytime you mention it. A month ago it was only a 80 million if I remember correctly.

I think somehow that the number of deaths attributed to Marxism retroactively changes in proportion to the degree to which a critic from the future decides he hates it. Must be some kind of quantum time fluctuation or sumthin.

[Immanuel Can]

"According to Marxists themselves, it seems, nobody ever "understands real Marxism."

It's incredibly easy to understand (as a series of propositions), a little more difficult to imagine a way to make those propositions happen, but entirely impossible to say they ever have; to point at a country and shout 'look... there's a Marxism!'

So...

You think it's easy ("incredibly") for YOU to understand, and "more difficult" to make it happen, but (for some reason you need to explain to me) not all the people in China, Russia, North Korea, Vietnam, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. have been able to make any "Marxism" actually happen.

"or have killed 140 million"

Lol that number gets bigger everytime you mention it. A month ago it was only a 80 million if I remember correctly.

You "remember" wrongly.

But let's "play ball" anyway.

Even if we take the most conservative estimates, the Marxists death totals are well over 100 million, and that makes Marxism by orders of magnitude, by far the most homicidal creed in human history, no matter what else you imagine.

So take the most generous statistics for your side, and you won't come close to any other conclusion: Marxist regimes kill lots and lots of people, and crash economies. But presumably, whatever you think "Marxism" is, you also think would not?

Let's hear that story. You could maybe begin by explaining why Marxism has gone so horribly wrong historically, and how your new Marxism would avoid those pitfalls.

That would be a nice thing to do...unless you don't mind all the dead bodies Marxism has caused, and aren't worried that the next batch of Marxist ideologues with also "get it wrong" without your help.

[promethean75]

Jesus Manny can we PLEASE not do this AGAIN?

"Even if we take the most conservative estimates, the Marxists death totals are well over 100 million"

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-c ... _to_mweb=1

"that makes Marxism by orders of magnitude, by far the most homicidal creed in human history"

http://guerrillaontologies.com/2014/05/ ... eath-toll/

[Immanuel Can]

Jesus Manny can we PLEASE not do this AGAIN?

We need to do it again, because Marxist are desperate...absolutely desperate...to forget their history. And we can't afford to make that mistake.

But hey, I'll tell you what.

I'll drop it down to one case. One. And I'll even use a thoroughly Leftie source to provide the statistics. And Marxism will still turn out to be the most homicidal creed in history. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vol ... r-his-due/

But now, after that, don't forget Stalin, and don't forget Pol Pot. Don't forget Castro. Remember Ceaucescu, and Hoxha, and Tito...that number starts rising really, really fast...and Mugabe, and the Kim Jongs, and Ho Chi Mihn...and, oh yes...all the other Chinese leaders since Mao...of course there was Brezhnev, and Khrushchev...Gee, that list gets long fast...and then the people who weren't the leaders, but who also killed folks in the name of Marxism...

[iambiguous]

THE STONE
Navigating Past Nihilism
BY SEAN D. KELLY at the NYT
Kelly is chair of the department of philosophy at Harvard University

“God is dead,” Nietzsche wrote in a famous passage from “The Gay Science.” “God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

There is much debate about the meaning of Nietzsche’s famous claim, and I will not attempt to settle that scholarly dispute here.

Scholarly dispute. Scholarly debate. I'll pass on that myself. Instead, I am far more interested in exploring how mere mortals go about finding meaning and purpose in their life once [for whatever personal reason] they reject God and religion.

In particular, the part where, once you accept that death almost certainly equals oblivion, you come to accept in turn that anything you think, feel, say and do will ultimately become subsumed in this oblivion.

Camus is famous for posing the question of suicide. But we need not go that far. Still, how far will each of us go in living a life that revolves around what Milan Kundera encompassed in "the unbearable lightness of being"?

Everything ultimately comes to naught. So, in light of that, how then to live? Why then to live?

But at least one of the things that Nietzsche could have meant is that the social role that the Judeo-Christian God plays in our culture is radically different from the one he has traditionally played in prior epochs of the West. For it used to be the case in the European Middle Ages for example ─ that the mainstream of society was grounded so firmly in its Christian beliefs that someone who did not share those beliefs could therefore not be taken seriously as living an even potentially admirable life. Indeed, a life outside the Church was not only execrable but condemnable, and in certain periods of European history it invited a close encounter with a burning pyre.

That's how it works. A God, the God, your God. But ever and always situated out in a particular world historically and culturally. Indeed, just imagine Nietzsche being around today pondering the meaning of the "death of God". Or, for that matter, the Übermensch.

Or the Last Man?

In regard to meaning and purpose in our lives, things change "radically" for individuals as well. What I call the Song Be Syndrome but for others it might revolve around any number of very different contexts. For the nihilist, however, it can reach the point where change itself is subsumed in an essentially meaningless and purposeless existence. Why not choose, say, hedonism over one or another rendition of the master class. The Übermensch himself is eventually swallowed whole by the brute facticity embedded in the staggering vastness of "all there is".

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195600

[RCSaunders]

I am far more interested in exploring how mere mortals go about finding meaning and purpose in their life once [for whatever personal reason] they reject God and religion.

I'm always curious about why some think just because someone does not have some belief in some supernatural being that they have "rejected," anything. That assumes that everyone has learned or heard about some particular, "great father in the sky," or what someone calls their God and has decided it doesn't make sense. The fact as, that whatever, "God," you think someone has, "rejected," they probably never heard of, or perhaps any other God. They haven't rejected anything.

In the end, if one's own life has not their purpose, there are no purposes at all, and there is no meaning in this universe except that which has meaning to individual human beings. If there were no human beings there would be no meaning and nothing would have a purpose.

[iambiguous]

I am far more interested in exploring how mere mortals go about finding meaning and purpose in their life once [for whatever personal reason] they reject God and religion.

I'm always curious about why some think just because someone does not have some belief in some supernatural being that they have "rejected," anything. That assumes that everyone has learned or heard about some particular, "great father in the sky," or what someone calls their God and has decided it doesn't make sense. The fact as, that whatever, "God," you think someone has, "rejected," they probably never heard of, or perhaps any other God. They haven't rejected anything.

Yes, I explored this in a film I reviewed over at ILP: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p ... d#p2441474

"Imagine hypothetically three Christian missionaries set out to save the souls of three different native tribes. The first one is successful. The folks in the first tribe accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior and are baptized in the faith. The second is not successful. The folks in the second tribe refuse to accept Christ as their personal savior and instead continue to embrace their own god...their own religion. The third missionary is not even able to find the tribe he was sent out to save.

"Now imagine one member of each tribe dying on the same day a week later. What will be the fate of their souls? Will the man from the first tribe ascend to Heaven having embraced the Christian faith? Will the man from the second tribe burn in Hell for having rejected the Christian faith? And what of the man from the third tribe---he will have died never having even been made aware of the Christian faith. Where does his soul end up?"

In the end, if one's own life has not their purpose, there are no purposes at all, and there is no meaning in this universe except that which has meaning to individual human beings. If there were no human beings there would be no meaning and nothing would have a purpose.

From my frame of mind, meaning and purpose in our individual lives are derived existentially from the lives that we lived. Lives lived out in a particular world understood [subjectively] in a particular manner. At least in regard to moral, political and spiritual values.

Then that mind-boggling conjecture revolving around the "big one" striking planet Earth and wiping out all human life. Then imagining further that human beings are the only conscious life form in the universe. What then of...reality?

[Immanuel Can]

And what of the man from the third tribe---he will have died never having even been made aware of the Christian faith. Where does his soul end up?"

This is, of course, a very old question, not a new discovery at all. And, of course, it's also one of the first things a Christian would have to think about. So it won't surprise you to know that a great deal of thought has been put into it, and some time ago, there were already good answers to it. It might also surprise you to know that the Bible itself has dealt with this problem, so a lot of those answers don't even need to be guesses.

Short answer: God holds men responsible for what they know, not what they do not, and could not know. But there are things that every person can know, and these are listed in Romans 1. Furthermore, the Bible says that a more developed knowledge of the issues isn't, itself, always an advantage; if you know more, you're responsible for more. So in some ways, there would be an advantage in being the third tribesman; you would only be held responsible for what you could -- and should -- have known.

But now let's get practical: you are not a tribesman. The fact that you're on the internet, here, says you're a rich Westerner, with every advantage and every chance to know what God says. In fact, the only way, today, you can NOT know something is by deciding, willfully, not to know it. Willful refusal of truth is not the same as not-having-heard. There is a judgment for the tribesman who does not act on what he knows; but how much more is there a judgment for a rich Westener who did know, or one who not only knew but stuffed his fingers in his ears and hummed?

So you should be less concerned with the mythical "tribesman" whose name you do not know and whose responsibilities you can leave in Divine hands...and very concerned about both what you know and what you could have known if you were willing to know it.

God will help the tribesman to know what he needs to know. But as for those who know better and will not listen, well...God help them!

[jayjacobus]

And what of the man from the third tribe---he will have died never having even been made aware of the Christian faith. Where does his soul end up?"

This is, of course, a very old question, not a new discovery at all. And, of course, it's also one of the first things a Christian would have to think about. So it won't surprise you to know that a great deal of thought has been put into it, and some time ago, there were already good answers to it. It might also surprise you to know that the Bible itself has dealt with this problem, so a lot of those answers don't even need to be guesses.

Short answer: God holds men responsible for what they know, not what they do not, and could not know. But there are things that every person can know, and these are listed in Romans 1. Furthermore, the Bible says that a more developed knowledge of the issues isn't, itself, always an advantage; if you know more, you're responsible for more. So in some ways, there would be an advantage in being the third tribesman; you would only be held responsible for what you could -- and should -- have known.

But now let's get practical: you are not a tribesman. The fact that you're on the internet, here, says you're a rich Westerner, with every advantage and every chance to know what God says. In fact, the only way, today, you can NOT know something is by deciding, willfully, not to know it. Willful refusal of truth is not the same as not-having-heard. There is a judgment for the tribesman who does not act on what he knows; but how much more is there a judgment for a rich Westener who did know, or one who not only knew but stuffed his fingers in his ears and hummed?

So you should be less concerned with the mythical "tribesman" whose name you do not know and whose responsibilities you can leave in Divine hands...and very concerned about both what you know and what you could have known if you were willing to know it.

God will help the tribesman to know what he needs to know. But as for those who know better and will not listen, well...God help them!

Whatever you say, whatever you do; God will not mock you and even if He does, will anyone know?

I will accept what God does but I can't get him to explain.

[Immanuel Can]

I will accept what God does but I can't get him to explain.

Fair enough. But when He does explain, wise people listen.

The foolish ones keep saying, "He hasn't explained."

[jayjacobus]

I will accept what God does but I can't get him to explain.

Fair enough. But when He does explain, wise people listen.

The foolish ones keep saying, "He hasn't explained."

The smart ones say, "He hasn't explained". The foolish ones say, "I can hear God".

Who are YOU listening to?