humor and being ''WOKE''

[Immanuel Can]

Something doesn't become a "lie" simply because you can't stand to hear it,

No, it usually becomes a lie by virtue of leaving your mouth.

Is that the level you're capable of now? Perhaps you should go back to swooning.

Well, it's clear your gun's out of ammo. Better go reload.

[Gary Childress]

Touché. I give you the golden guppy award. I'm just a sturgeon, waiting for the chum you create.

The truth is not your enemy, Gary. Your illusions are. The sooner you learn not to indulge them, the happier you'll soon be.

"Truth" is what it is. People on the other hand can be friends, enemies, bystanders, or many other things.

[Immanuel Can]

Touché. I give you the golden guppy award. I'm just a sturgeon, waiting for the chum you create.

The truth is not your enemy, Gary. Your illusions are. The sooner you learn not to indulge them, the happier you'll soon be.

"Truth" is what it is. People on the other hand can be friends, enemies, bystanders, or many other things.

True enough. But truth doesn't need quotation marks. It is what it is.

As for people, sometimes only the people who will tell you the truth -- when you don't want to hear it -- are really being friends to you.

[Alexis Jacobi]

And have you noticed that the biggest liars are the ones obsessed with "the Left"?

This is a worthy topic for conversation. But the success of it would depend on how serious one could be in relation to the issue of *truth*. I noticed that you said that your principle concern is with what is true. I take issue with this, or interrogate your declaration, believing as I do that you have not clarified your own relationship to what is genuinely true. And I base this on reading what you have written for about a year now (or many months anyway). Can you (Harbal) actually make declarations about what is true in the sense that you mean it (limited truths, possible political truths) and on what basis could you make declarations about larger truths (existential or 'cosmic' truths)?

It is an open question and one that applies to all of us.

Truthfully, I grew up in a very Left-tending environment (the Bay Area of California). All of my earlier formation was through Left-Progressive ideas and ideals. I do not negate them necessarily. But I am myself (now) involved in a critical project that involves a deep examination of the core tenets of what we are loosely terming 'leftism'.

Is this obsession? No, it is not. It is far more linked to self-preservation and survival (I mean survival in the sense of living well and correctly but also I mean spiritual health) and simply being capable of seeing things clearly. Understanding social and cultural currents. Understanding our present.

Who are these 'big liars' you refer to Harbal? And if you can coherently refer to a big liar this implies that you are aware of big truth-tellers. Name them please. I'd like better to understand.

[Harbal]

The one who recognizes a lie is asserting that he knows the truth.

Habitual liars, like you and IC, are not difficult to spot by anyone paying attention. You might occasionally tell the truth, but with deceitful manipulators such as the pair of you, it is far safer to assume nothing you say is the truth. So no, you don't need to know the truth to spot a lie.

[Gary Childress]

The truth is not your enemy, Gary. Your illusions are. The sooner you learn not to indulge them, the happier you'll soon be.

"Truth" is what it is. People on the other hand can be friends, enemies, bystanders, or many other things.

True enough. But truth doesn't need quotation marks. It is what it is.

As for people, sometimes only the people who will tell you the truth -- when you don't want to hear it -- are really being friends to you.

Truth needs quotation marks when someone else is trying to tell me something that I don't perceive as true. I just want to live happily in this world. If that is not possible, then I'll deal with whatever I have to deal with as I have always done. I have no other choice. But it can be exhausting when someone tells me that I'm going to go to hell if I don't believe what they believe. It becomes very oppressive and suffocating. But, hey, shade can be equally appealing when it's a scorcher. If you want to stand in the sun, be my guest.

[Harbal]

Something doesn't become a "lie" simply because you can't stand to hear it,

No, it usually becomes a lie by virtue of leaving your mouth.

Is that the level you're capable of now? Perhaps you should go back to swooning.

Well, it's clear your gun's out of ammo. Better go reload.

I don't know what I'm capable of, but we will find out in due course.

As for you; you couldn't tell the truth to save your life. You are known for it; your reputation on this forum for dishonesty is unsurpassed.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Habitual liars, like you and IC, are not difficult to spot by anyone paying attention. You might occasionally tell the truth, but with deceitful manipulators such as the pair of you, it is far safer to assume nothing you say is the truth. So no, you don't need to know the truth to spot a lie.

Very well. I will accept that as a good starting point: a bold assertion.

But I think it fair to ask you to prove your point. You would be asked to bring up an example, some evidence, of the 'lies' and the lying you refer to. With what would you start?

And if the truth is 'occasionally' told it would also be useful to hear from you what, eactly, you take to be true in relation to your principle assertion that a great deal is false.

The assertion about who 'pays attention' interests me. Because our *attention* is often wrapped up in views we have investments in. And so are our core values: investments in those things we believe to be really essential, really important (and this implies a hierarchy).

I need to know more about how you have come to see either me or IC (but moreover anyone) as "deceitful manipulators". What is the deceit? (I would guess that you believe the manipulation to take form through use of rhetoric and discourse, am I right?)

you don't need to know the truth to spot a lie.

In some instances, perhaps. If someone tells you that using a particular bar of soap will, in addition to cleaning your hands, also help make you rich, you can certainly know that the claim is false.

But the fact is you would also have to know something about what real wealth-building entails to know that *magical thinking* won't help.

This is sort of a moment of truth for old Harbal. Will you prove yourself capable of articulating your views or opinions? Or will you retreat into buffoonery and irony?

You have made scalding statments and have been asked to back them up. Will you make the effort?

[Alexis Jacobi]

As for you; you couldn't tell the truth to save your life. You are known for it; your reputation on this forum for dishonesty is unsurpassed.

This is also interesting and should be examined more closely. Unfortunately, simply making the declaration is not enough Harbal.

We have been talking about specific things here. And it would be more helpful, and ultimately more fun and interesting, to be provided with clear examples of what 'lies' have been perpetrated here, in respect to the on-going topics.

The question of Who, in this plane of existence, has the existential tools to 'save their life' (such a provocative statement with many possible levels of meaning!) interests me a great deal.

To see 'the truth' is a curious problematic all unto itself. If we are seeing things through 'darkened glass' we discern truth directly in proportion to what darkens our perception.

What does that, Harbal?

[Dontaskme]

I didn't peg you as a Wokie

Again, I am pleased to have avoided so much pegging.

Quite right, pegging is overrated, a fate we can all avoid, for the universe doesn't hang you see.Where would it hang? It has no place to fall on, even though it may be dropping; there will never be the crash of it landing on a concrete floor somewhere. But the reason for that is that it won't crash below because it doesn't hang above.

IC just refuses to see, learn that there is a much bigger illumination going on here, more visible than his tiny little pixel of a view.

[Immanuel Can]

No, it usually becomes a lie by virtue of leaving your mouth.

Is that the level you're capable of now? Perhaps you should go back to swooning.

Well, it's clear your gun's out of ammo. Better go reload.

I don't know what I'm capable of, but we will find out in due course.

As for you; you couldn't tell the truth to save your life. You are known for it; your reputation on this forum for dishonesty is unsurpassed.

And yet...you have never met me, and do not know whether I'm genuine or not, as honesty would compel you to testify yourself. Nor has even one other person on this forum met me, and none of them have even the slightest insight to my mind, obviously.

So your accusation is obviously a lie, in itself. The attempt to induce unwarranted "shame" through unfounded accusation is totally typical of the Woke. They call "racist" people of whom they have no particular knowledge at all, simply in order to seize control of the agenda. And it works, for those who are unaware of the tactic, sometimes.

James Lindsay has summarized Wokeness as, "Calling everything 'racist' until you control it." That's actually quite right, in a general way: that's what Wokies do. So your plan is to call me a "liar" until you 'win'...even with absolutely no reason to do so.

The tactic is transparent and, if I might say, rather unimpressive. It only suggests your affinity with Wokie tactics is significant. I now understand why you're so offended on behalf of the Left...the Left you aren't even sure exists, allegedly.

[Dontaskme]

The truth is not your enemy

It is when it's your truth. All you have are false beliefs.

If you mean there is no truth known, and that is true, then yes, that's true, otherwise if it's a known truth, then it's a lie, it's a belief.

Why, because ''my truth'' is also the illusions you speak of. Who speaks? speaking is nothing but sound, heard as words, purely fictional.

[Immanuel Can]

"Truth" is what it is. People on the other hand can be friends, enemies, bystanders, or many other things.

True enough. But truth doesn't need quotation marks. It is what it is.

As for people, sometimes only the people who will tell you the truth -- when you don't want to hear it -- are really being friends to you.

Truth needs quotation marks when someone else is trying to tell me something that I don't perceive as true.

Yet the statement, "Truth is what it is" is just plain true. It's even tautologically so.

Consequently, the quotation marks are misplaced.

I just want to live happily in this world.

Step 1: don't indulge delusions. Step 2: stop pitying yourself, and take charge. Step 3: love truth, and see where it takes you.

[Gary Childress]

True enough. But truth doesn't need quotation marks. It is what it is.

As for people, sometimes only the people who will tell you the truth -- when you don't want to hear it -- are really being friends to you.

Truth needs quotation marks when someone else is trying to tell me something that I don't perceive as true.

Yet the statement, "Truth is what it is" is just plain true. It's even tautologically so.

Consequently, the quotation marks are misplaced.

I just want to live happily in this world.

Step 1: don't indulge delusions. Step 2: stop pitying yourself, and take charge. Step 3: love truth, and see where it takes you.

Steps 1-3 are no problem. Dealing with you, OTOH, takes a bit more care. Would you like an umbrella?

[Immanuel Can]

Dealing with you, OTOH, takes a bit more care.

Deal with your own situation, Gary. We all have our challenges. The difference between people is the difference between those who recognize them and take them on, and those who make themselves continually miserable by the useless agonizing for a better "hand of cards" than they have.