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7 Comments
Got to state that it is a delight to meet someone on tribe.net who is a fellow absolutist and thoroughly committed to absolutism . I know some people who are somewhat favorable to absolutism /who have expressed that they have some misgivings/some level of disapproval of relativism , and there are others which I meet who share a liking for similar cultural artefacts of art, music, and architecture ...old films et al. that in light of that they prefer such (and I have not witnessed them express any liking for postmodern kitsch) , I'm inclined to think they may have an absolutist affiliation ...but I'm not sure , because I and they have not conversed about that specifically (i.e . as to whether or not they totally reject relativism, in regard to epistemology and ethics), so I'm not quite sure if they are or not ...so I am rejoicing to see that you are a staunch absolutist / or at least staunchly *reject* postmodernism/relativism .
Around the day before yesterday , I got into a telephone discussion with an old friend of mine named Travis (whom I have , in recent years become acquainted with, who had been in the past committed to an idealistic outlook, get all weird/ relativist on the phone and make statements which seemed to *betray* the idealism of former years, wherein he started defending the trendy , conformist MTV generation indie scene hipsters who go on those frivolous and soulless 'no pants subway rides' ( a juvenile stunt that such has been going on in the New York subways and in other metropolitan cities for a few years now ). He was giving me the typical relativist canard of rhetorically asking me : who am I to "dictate" the way they spend their time.? The spiel he gave me, as time went on, seemed to be more of the typical acceptance and tolerance, respecting opinions goofiness .
I pointed out how decadent the indie scene hipsters who go on those 'no pants subway rides' are , that they exhibit the exhibitionism characteristic of decadent affluent types (frivolous and trendy) . I went on to argue that the money that a number of those Indie hipsters have from their apparent rich trust funds could be spent on humanitarian charity organizations to help poor kids in Ghana , or even poor people in the U.S. , including families with children with birth defects . He kept equivocating ; making fast and loose (and, hence, false) comparisons based on often the most strained seeming similarities between separate contexts, glossing over distinctions ...treating pop culture, *as if *, it were the same as authentic culture when it is not the same ...speaking *as if* they were interchangeable terms . Equivocating and obsfucating with that adolescent , weird type of thinking called lateral thinking which is prone to loose comparisons. I was suprised at him , although in other discussions , there were some presages that seemed to indicate he was getting more into relativism . At times, he wouldn't give me time to present a rebuttal, and I kept pleading with him to get a world in edgewise .Finally he grudgingly acquiesced long enough to allow me time to present a rebuttal . I did and he glossed over the distinctions I highlighted , claiming what I said was the same as what he had been saying , only with more words (which was not the case) .I went on to elaborate on how he was glossing over distinctions / conflating separate contexts via phrases that were phrased in an open ended way .
I got so pissed off , that i had to take a tranquilizer type pill for the disgust with the mendacious and equivocal defense he was making of the decadent indie scene hipsters who waste time going on no pants subway rides, was getting my inflammation up...that level of bodily agitation would not have been the case if he had been willing to give me equal time to present counterarguments .
Then later in the course of that day or the evening of it, he sent me an e-mail on facebook claiming that he was just screwing with me *as if * were a gag. So now I don't know where he stands ; I hope it was a gag .
The experience of hearing a guy who at one time was rather idealistic appear to go away from idealism into relativism , had got me really down , and led me to get the mood that a colossal battle to counteract the rink dink , pervasively bad thinking of so many out there , influenced by the memes of contemporary pop culture is yet an even more collossal battle .
I hope that the guy was just kidding / only kidding , otherwise the alternative is quite scary .
It is indeed great to see someone who totally rejects relativism . Hopefully more people who are on the internet can link up and denounce it . I've had a number of other ideological allies , even one who was strongly opposed to relativism ,lately get weirdly flexible and refuse to continue going the distance with absolutism , so it gives me hope that there are some folks like you , who are standing up for what it right .
More absolutists must work together to stop sellout thining --to culture jamn it, so that it is subverted .
Well, I managed to get some sleep ...so I can reply more at length .
There are serious doubts that the frivolous behavior of so much of the youth stems from earnest ignorance of not knowing better. I have witneseed a number of examples, which leads me to conclude that they have an intentional disregard of the duty to be careful and cultivate sagacity ...that they simply *don't* want to slow down and ponder matters carefully ...that quite a number of them merely have a penchant for the sort of sheer perversity and mental laziness, which is given over to squishy semi-inchoate thought , the fast and loose sorts of comparisons/equivocations of lateral thinking (which tends to go along with relativism), and merely repeating relativist cliches .
In regard to the matter of that girl you went to school with , whom you mentioned is characterized by apathy, let it be said that, though apathy is indeed a drag , there is a yet far worse sort of tendency displayed by a lot of people in the current era , that tendency is : *ambivalence* of thought, a far, far more insidious trait than apathy .
Ambivalence is after all a NONconsistent trait . And the upshot of NONconsistency is that all approach to values and even knowledge itself is treated as anticlimatic , and , hence, undermined, betrayed *in thought* by the on again/ off again approach . With the evil tendency known as ambivalence, the ultimacy of any proposed proposition becomes tacitly denied and treated, as if it were a makeshift affair .
Even if the outward action may seem impeccable , if the intentions of the person who is characterized by ambivalence, then a progressive, (or otherwise noteworthy) agenda, is, thus, *mentally betrayed* by the attitude of ambivalence operant in those who are ambivalent .
For example, say a progressive activist, who supports a good agenda, such as preserving beautiful forests from developers who would chop them down to make way for banal subdivisions for the somewhat affluent to move into . Even if such a person is NOT apathetic , but out there busting his or her shoes, walking around getting petitions signed , so much that he or she might even get a million petitions signed and going to hundreds of protests in a year against, IF the activist turns around and makes some ambivalent / relativist, namby-pamby statement such as "well saving the forests is right to us from our perspective , but not right to the developer" and/ or "well I respect the opinion of the developer, but we have a different perspective and so we disagree" , and/or prattles about "another side " to the issue , or finding a "balance" ...or in any way claims that the rightness of saving the forest from commercial developers is but an "opinion" (and somehow less than absolute) , or any similar sort of squishy statements , then such a person has mentally betrayed the good agenda that they are supposed to be fighting for ...betrayed it with
ambivalence /NONconsistency , regardless of how many petitions they have signed ...regardless of how impeccable the actions they may display are ...For such a person who expresses such ambivalent thinking expresses thoughts which tactitly *deny* the *ultimacy* of the goal they are ostensibly seeming to support .
Such ambivalence is far , far worse adversary working *against* the manifestation of virtue than apathy ...for at least apathy is consistent with its stance of not caring , whereas ambivalence seeks to *dilute* the import of the goal being fought for / it denies its ultimacy and, hence, mentally betrays the good agenda from within ...which does a far worse offense to the goal then those who consistently don't care about it at all, in the first place .
The character of Pomo Kid (even though I have encountered a lot of people who make statements which display an attitude similar to Pomo Kid) was based on a young man named Matt , which I talked with in Orlando, in 1997, who made the squishy , MTV era sort of statements indicating that animal rights was merely "true to us" , but according to him "not true to them" (referring to the persons who would make the evil claim that killing an animal for the fun of it was somehow allegedly okay) . If animal rights is not ultimately right or true , as opposed to some squishy turn of phrase such as "right to us /true to us" , then why even freaking bother protesting !!!
The ambivalent sorts of faux-characterizations such as "right to us" , "true for us" ect (which are misnomers...muddled turns of phrase to begin with) reduce the import of any humanitarian / ethical criteria which one is doing activism on behalf of as being as trivial as / having no more import than the mere personal preference displayed, if , say, a person were to say "I prefer vanilla ice cream, but they prefer strawberry "(or some other flavor) .
The NONconsistency of ambivalent thinking / postmodernism/ relativism ...of people who would deny that the agenda they are acting on behalf of is ultimately right ; the thinking which seeks to be namby pamby and "respect points of view" even of that which they disagree with ...the thinking which seeks balance of a middle ground between opposite ways of thinking , is indeed a betrayal in thought (which is ultimately worse than betrayal in action) of good , noble goals . Such a betrayal in thought that relativism/ambivalent / ambiguous thinking offers is infinitely worse than apathy . If people are going to be relativists , it would even far be better if they were relativists of the apathetic sort, instead of the sort of relativists that seem to display such ardor and do all the outward action in favor of a cause , and then betray it mentally by ambivalent thinking ...that denies any absoluteness to the goal fought for and , instead, wants a mere balance in the middle between *so-called* "perspectives" .
Great to receive a new message from you, sir . Yes, sometimes an odd feeling comes over one when discoursing with those relativist types. Like you've mentioned don't like preachy . One often has to slow them down and keep highlighting the distinctions over and over , otherwise they gloss them over, with such quick abandon .
We ought to continue being preachy with them, regardless of whether they like it or not . If they keep on blowing it off then shun them, until at such time they totally renounce relativism . (Granted, if one were ever faced with some physical or financial emergency that put them in physical peril, it would be good to extend mercy to them as persons and yet do so *without* respecting the opinions they espouse. For example , if one were ever in physical pain the charitable duty would be to remedy that physical pain ...perhaps transport them to a hospital and so on , yet never respect the relativist opinion . The people who are relativists, though I will always pine for the day when they become completely ashamed of relativist notions and renounce them completely ...nonetheless, regardless of whether they do or not ever renounce them, I still wish them longevity and and NO physical suffering nor health problems, though again, I still wish them embarassment and guilt for embracing relativist notions ...embarassment and guilt.... *minus* any physical threat nor suffering ).
It is indeed, unfortunate, that some of them have given the impression that they think what happens in the long run historically doesn't matter because they'll be gone after that time . I can empathize with you completely in lamenting that lack of long term vision in so many people, in the current day and age ...
Yes, I can also relate to you for getting sleepy and wanting to wait till you have had rest so as to avoid typos . I get prone to lots of typos when I'm sleepy also, so I know the feeling .
Great to hear from you brother ! Glad to know that there are still other people out there who want a consistent approach to thought and living . Definitely keep on keeping on , there ought to be more folks like you who don't want to setlle for less for mankind and civilization !
Hope you are doing allright .
Read the article on human animal hybrid embryo experiments . It is interesting , however, though there are questions about how specifically hybrids can exist along some sort of tertium quid between natural kinds of biological species , that does NOT entail that far more basic ontological categories are somehow relative to mere perception. One could have a hybrid between a person and an ape , but one could never , say, in any possible world have an object which was simultaneously a circle and a triangle !
Regarding the ramifications for ethics posed by the biological tinkering displayed by those who would attempt human/ animal hybrids , it is not that the ethical parameters are intrinsically unclear . Which is to state that given the presence of any uncertainties as to the prospects for health problems that may be incumbent upon such possible hybrid beings, due to their exotic physiogomy and it perhaps being uprepared for physical exigencies extant, in the enviroments on Earth, where ecological evolution has not developed in tandem with the contingent biological structure of such beings, as well as the prospect of unknown variables as to what behavior dispositions such beings might be predisposed to , as a result of their biochemistry and physigomy, as well as the *lack* of the requisite social support system for such beings being in place, all mean that it would be wrong from an ethical standpoint to engender such beings ...out of regard for the well being of the hybrid individuals that could be spawned as well as other creatures who might be possibly imperiled by some disconnects in the relationship that might arise .
Salient to the above observation is an overarching precept .
If the ethical windfall from a considered course of action does not exceed the likelyhood of permanent loss as it has an impact *on others*, and/or the prospect of loss of the clear presentation of some ethical principle, (even if it only has an impact on thought and not on outward action) , then a sentient agent has a duty to, then *avoid* taking such a course of action . The notion of loss versus benefit analysis (wherein the reference to the terms 'loss' and 'benefit', does *not* refer to venal, financial sorts of concerns, in the usage I am referring to) is very important as a touchstone for evaluating whether some given course of action is ethically sound or not .
Facebook has a higher turnover rate of messages, however. One aspect about tribe that I prefer to facebook , is that tribe does not have such a fast turnover of such a large quantity of messages . The format of tribe is slower, in terms of the volume of messages, presented at a given time .
Since you prefer to be called on a first name basis , I have no qualms about that , so I will do that .
It is good that you have extreme politeness . Let noone of the people out there sway you into thinking that extreme politeness / decorum is something to be somehow avoided as outre . The current era has a gauche , coarse, and edgy zeitgeist about it , but we don't have to go along with the era ...to put it mildly .
So, yes, I would be delighted to correspond with you also on facebook , though I hope we can still correspond here on tribe, as well, sometimes .
Incidentally do you like the visual arts and music ? I like both. And if you don't mind me asking ...if you like the visual arts , who are some of your favorite artists ?
Sorry to bother you here in your photo album, but ever since around 2008 , I have had a malfunction which has prevented me from sending messages from my tribe message box, though I can still receive messages there .
Wanted to let you know that Loki (Lokifreign) has announced that he plans to try to contact the staff of tribe.net to get them to expell me from all of tribe.net , not just a particular message board , because he does not like me being outspoken in message boards . He refers to the "diatribes" I post against contemporary pop culture lifestyles as "hate speech" and seeks to have me censored from posting in any of the message boards . It is bad enough that he along with Groucho and Rockstar took over the Heated Debate to have me and three other people expelled from Heated Debate ---unseating the original moderator Weedmeister .Now Loki wants to have me expelled from tribe.net altogether , so as to censor free speech , which he does not approve of .
It is dangerous when the free speech of anyone is thwarted on line .
If he makes such arrangements with the tribe.net management now, he may seek to expell other people besides me as time goes on , using the pretext that vehement , outspoken commentary is so-called "hate speech" .
Was hoping that you , sir, could complain to the tribe.net officials , if he still decides to go through with the attempt he is making at censorship ?
Sincerely ,
Jason