This is a response to my article 'Liberal Fascism'/
" Where do we start.
Let us start at the first line of the argument.
The collective is a difficult notion to express.
Liberalism is inherently, deductively, not fascistic. If it was it would not be liberalism. Your argument fails on the first line. americas intended destiny.
But you say:
"Clearly 'fascism' is more than just a buzzword- it is a morally indignant insult. When one feels that ones ethics have been violated or undermined by a government, the knee-jerk response is to call the perpetrators fascist"
Okay. So what you actually mean then is that you feel the government have "violated your ethics" and you want use a morally "morally indignant insult" on them. That whole bit makes things pretty blurry. But the argument now makes much more sense since it only meant to be inflammatory.
Now to your actual argument:
You regard liberalism, empiricism and relativism as synonymous. They are not.
"When one sees ones own mental phenomena as untrue, and sees science as the only way of penetrating the truth, one is left open to accepting fascism more readily by virtue of the fact that one deifies science and places simple everyday 'Being' in the realm of 'subjectivity' (often times when people are asked about their philosophical world-view, they write it off as merely 'subjective interpretation')"
So according to you liberalism = empiricism = dualism = relativism. Highly problematic chain of reasoning but we will focus on the the dualism.
"Descartes is the philosopher who famously said Cogito Ergo Sum (I Think therefore I Am). This effectively splits "reality" into 'subjective' mental phenomena and the 'objective' external world"
Not really. ‘true community’ is replaced and eroded by a Jungian ‘Collective mind’ It says that when we push a skeptical argument to its furthest possible point all we can know for sure is that "I" exist in some form because their would have to be something doing this thinking. "Reality" is not remotely objective, and we cannot even be sure that our mental phenomena are objective. All our thoughts could be being fed to us by a "evil demon" or in a more modern take we could be in the Matrix. All we can be sure of is that some part of us exists because something is doing this thinking.
Your usage of Cartesian dualism, therefore the argument from ignorance to claim that:
"Once one sees their own 'being' as subjective then one comes to trust authorities in their claims that they, in fact, possess the 'real' scientific truth"
When in fact the opposite seems to be the logical conclusion
(i) S does not know that not-q
(ii) If S does not know not-q then S does not know that p
(iii) So S does not know that p
(Where 'not-q' is the negation of any skeptical hypothesis, and 'p' is any empirical proposition we take ourselves to know
(i) Carbine does not know that he is in the Matrix
(ii) If Carbine does not know that he is not in the Matrix then Carbine does not know that the sky is blue
(iii) So Carbine does not know that the sky is blue
Dualism tends to entail extreme skepticism.
I am not sure what you would call the philosophical position you describe where you distrust your own mental phenomena and only trust the outside world, but it definitely isn't dualism or empiricism. I am the devious design of psuedo-intellectual rationalists who have no real philosophical foundation and have an inherent prediliction for simply accepting ideology . Why would you trust the external world if you do not trust your tools for perceiving it?
"When one puts faith in science (or deifies it), one is far more likely to trust those who claim to have your best interest at heart".
Not really. Science is about objectively, empirically studying the world not faith. Again just like the first premise if your science is based on faith then it is inherently, deductively, not science. What do you mean by science?
"An experiment in eugenics was done in europe where Nietzsche and Darwins relatives went to live, and breed, together in an isolated community. It was thought that this would create an Ubermensch. Ultimately, what this amounts to is the morals of the slave- and liberals will always have the morals of the slave regardless of whether it is in their best interest or not! This is a form of suicide- but not even noble suicide like committing sepiku because one has been shamed- no- this is the suicide of lemmings. What happened was after a few generations the offspring were sick and troubled and the experiment was a complete disaster"
I can find no reference to this experiment. I would be interested to see your source on this."
My first response-
I would respond to each point, but here's a little summary.
I would say that your interpretation mischaracterizes the conclusions I was getting at.
The popularity of this show and the pervasive influence of MSNBC and its ilk reveals, without a doubt, that the left is far more conformist than the right (not to mention the liberal bent of most institutions of education). In fact, the vast majority of media is controlled by marxist schooled journalists (ie columbia university), cynical leftist entertainers, and politically nihilistic anarchists-
Descartes Error was to split the world into subjective/objective realms.
hence, our only way to access truth is via 'objectivity'.
This ignores the unity of subject and object, and essentially says that our Mental Representations can never 'know' Truth.
I am interested to know how, deductively, liberals cannot be fascist.
I never mentioned Empiricism, so I'd be interested to know why you thought I was talking about empiricism.
Many liberals are Cartesians.
Cartesians accept Ideology.
Ideology is Liberal.
His response (not directed at my last comment)-
Their is no interpretation here. I am pointing that almost every step in your argument is faulty and almost every and almost every concept you use is misinterpreted or misunderstood (either by accident or deliberately).
After looking closer and using a bit of google I think I found the problem. You seen to often use other people's second hand interpretation of primary sources without making this clear.
For example:
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Descartes Error was to split the world into subjective/objective realms.
hence, our only way to access truth is via 'objectivity'.
This ignores the unity of subject and object, and essentially says that our Mental Representations can never 'know' Truth.
hence, our only way to access truth is via 'objectivity'.
This ignores the unity of subject and object, and essentially says that our Mental Representations can never 'know' Truth.
I had no idea what you were on about until I noticed the caps and googled "Descartes Error", then it all became clear.
You're mixing a number of different theories that all clash.
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(i) Descartes Error was to split the world into subjective/objective realms.
(II) hence, our only way to access truth is via 'objectivity'.
(III) This ignores the unity of subject and object, and essentially says that our Mental Representations can never 'know' Truth.
(II) hence, our only way to access truth is via 'objectivity'.
(III) This ignores the unity of subject and object, and essentially says that our Mental Representations can never 'know' Truth.
(I)
I thought you were talking about Descartes.
It appears here you are referencing a neuropsychological book ‘The daily Show’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes'_Error
I haven't read the book but I am quite familiar with the area.
In short a nice way to fuck with Descartes. Stick a sharp object through specific areas of his brain or a massive line of ketamine.
"The mind" is the phenomena of various interconnected functions of the brain which is a part of the body. No dualism here.
So premise (i) is a neuropsychological criticism of dualism.
Note that Descartes dualism is a epistemological concept not a neuropsychological concept. ‘The daily Show’
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(II) hence, our only way to access truth is via 'objectivity'.
Indeed. But no objective truth can be known is Descartes framework except for the one. "I am". ‘The daily Show’
See the argument from ignorance I posted earlier.
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This ignores the unity of subject and object, and essentially says that our Mental Representations can never 'know' Truth.
As you may have noticed I really dislike this whole Hegel business so I'm going to ignore that first part. It seems a bit unnecessary step and brings in a whole other can of worms. Blurring the concepts again.
But yup. It is probably the most persistent problem in epistemology. Logically we cannot really "know" anything. ‘The daily Show’
BUT:
From a neuropsychological perspective this problem is not a problem.
Anyway.
The problem with all your writing is that you slapdash throw in a load of different theories from different areas making a mess without properly defining what you mean or how they link together. In those three lines I was looking at you use about 8 different positions some of which are probably immiscible / dissonant if we were to look at them closer without explaining them or in what sense you use them.
Me having to unpack your writing this hard to try to make sense of it is a sign of shitty writing.
Also you hei‘The daily Show’nously misuse logic.
Your argument is from the Zeitg‘The daily Show’eist / Jeff Goldblum school of logic. (For an example check the South Park episode where Earth gets cancelled and it has a Jeff Goldblum scientist‘The daily Show’ character. Couldn't find any youtube links. Its basically free association)
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I am interested to know how, deductively, liberals cannot be fascist.
If a liberal was a fascist they would no longer be a liberal, they would be a fascist.
Maybe you mean those who call themselves liberals are not in actual fact liberals but are fascists masquerading as liberals. Maybe I'm giving you too much credit.
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I never mentioned Empiricism, so I'd be interested to know why you thought I was talking about empiricism.
You constantly mention objective evidence based search for truth ie. empiricism.
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Many liberals are Cartesians.
Cartesians accept Ideology.
Ideology is Liberal.
Cartesians accept Ideology.
Ideology is Liberal.
This last bit is nonsense. Be a bit less lazy before you publish things.
Zeitgeist / Jeff Goldblum school of logic
My Response-
Great counteraction.
Here is the problem, which is more Kantian than Cartesian.
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When we divide the world into Phenomenon (subjective) and Nuemenon (objective), we can never know Truth. Our mental representations are not the real thing (the neumenon is the 'real' thing). What Hegel says, is that the split between neumenon and phenomenon means we can never know any kind of truth apart from the subjective interpretation (even though Kant says the neumenon is the domain of god), and we must reconcile the subjective/objective split by recognizing that Reason IS Spirit.closer look revealscloser look revealscloser look revealscloser look revealscloser look revealscloser look reveals
It's not a matter of 'Logic'- and even Nietzsche favors Passion over 'logic'. Logic leads us astray. If, as you say, a=b and b=c therefore a=c, then we are in terrible trouble philosophically. A=B and B=C therefore A=C is not nearly as primordial as 'Reason is Spirit when its certainty of being all Reality has been raised to truth and it is concsious of itself as its own world and of the world as itself'.
Think of the great mysteries of knowledge. They are not a matter of mere logic but of illumination.closer look revealscloser look revealscloser look revealscloser look revealscloser look revealscloser look revealscloser look revealscloser look reveals
When we deify logic we diefy science- and this is a fatal mistake for people outside of the 'true' scientific community.
Logic is terrible.
The passions are what truly make life worth living- living life fully- with vigor- adding 'style' to our character- being fully engaged with the world- noy accepting the 'collective' interpretation of things... and I assure you, the 'collective' puts its 'faith' in logic and coherence. Being coherent or understood is dramatically overrated- the Truth or truths are, ultimately, in the mystery of life- the sacred knowledge and fire kept alive since ancient times,,,
We can only come to know the truths of this mystery through passionate involvement with the 'world'.
One could easily say that this is slipping back into Descartes, however, I would posit that 'passionate involvement' is far more basic than logical reflection or intentionality.closer look revealscloser look revealscloser look revealscloser look reveals
In fact, we have no intentionality- all we do is 'cope'. Liberals, inherently, don’t ‘stand’ for anything. They simply take the predominant ideology of the times, accept it as their own because it is what is presented as ‘hip’, and ignore the important philosophical distinctions which have been made historically.
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