The Political & Philosophy Thread

[CiG]

Indeed it is a secularist for me!

I would make a distinction between lifeforms that may have an instinct to survival but not an ability to assert it intelligently and lifeforms that have an intelligence with which they may assert a right which goes beyond an instinct.

As we all know not all humans have the same degree of survival instinct. Or at least it would seem so to me, I have many very non-violent friends, extreme pacifism etc.

 

[Einherjar86]

Okay, but in that case the most important element for identifying and/or clarifying "rights" isn't actually survival at all, but this reflexive capacity, as you suggest. The capacity to reflect means that one might consider a survival instinct critically, and perhaps even resist it: "I have the right to defend myself through violence, and in this situation it may or may not be necessary." In this case, it's not the survival itself in which we may locate rights, but in the reflection upon survival (and, by extension, reflection upon anything). And biological/neurophysiological studies have brought forth evidence to suggest that reflection, or consciousness, actually inhibits survival instincts because it means that the conscious subject thinks about surviving, which cuts into the instinctual response.

This takes us in a whole new direction of argument. Additionally, at this point we run into a nasty problem of conscious thought: does my consciousness, or reflexivity, actually contain some metaphysical trace of "right" - or (more likely, in my opinion), does it produce the impression of "right"? In other words, is it possible that rights do not actually exist at all to begin with, but that consciousness retrospectively assumes rights to have existed?

Sorry if I pursue this beyond others' interest, but this is a really fascinating subject for me.

 

[CiG]

I wish I was smart or patient or interested enough to take you down the path of a really interesting discussion on this subject, but actually I'm a pretty basic-minded person, I'm crap at expressing views on the kinds of levels that yourself, Dak and rms participate on.

To your question about whether "rights" exist retrospectively in the human conscience as a means (I assume you imply) to justify violent action or if they exist outside of that scenario in some kind of objective way, hanging in the ether waiting to be wielded, I would say we probably do create the idea of "rights" upon reflection.

I don't think people think to themselves "I have this right" just before they draw on an attacker, I do think people instead justify their actions after the fact with concepts of "rights" like you suggest might be the case.

However, I would say the reason that consciousness gets in the way of survival (because it puts a barrier between animal instinct and action which doesn't exist in the non-human animal kingdom) is because as a human society there are certain cultural factors that cause us to challenge our initial survival instinct, consider the consequences of possibly shooting an intruder (rather than a moral question of murder which I hope I don't imply) and then after the consideration, we assert our right to survive with an action. Sometimes too late as you suggest with your reference to biological/neurophysiological studies.

Now, I would say that these studies don't actually show pure human nature without even needing to read them, but rather civilised human nature because it would be quite hard to study reflection vs reaction and how that comes into play with survival without finding some undisturbed source of people (ie isolated villages somewhere that doesn't have complex laws in place that serve as a barrier for survival instinct) and testing that source.

I would argue that peoples closer in relation to pure human nature have much less retaliation to assert their "right" to survive and I mostly base this view in my experience living in indigenous Australian bush communities.

 

[rms]

I wish I was smart or patient or interested enough to take you down the path of a really interesting discussion on this subject, but actually I'm a pretty basic-minded person, I'm crap at expressing views on the kinds of levels that yourself, Dak and rms participate on.

Dak and Ein have been entertaining my low level of philosophical knowledge for many years now

 

[Dak]

I'm pretty sure Ein is going to take the idea of bush people in small villages being any more "pure in human nature" compared with urbanites, to task. I'm personally torn on that issue, because I can see where he's coming from but I do think that the more heavily we modify our environment the more we change.

 

[CiG]

Dak and Ein have been entertaining my low level of philosophical knowledge for many years now

Well that's great considering I feel stupid compared to you.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm pretty sure Ein is going to take the idea of bush people in small villages being any more "pure in human nature" compared with urbanities, to task. I'm personally torn on that issue, becauze I can see where he's coming from but I do think that the more heavily we modify our environment the more we change.

Yeah, I feel like there isn't really any kind of human nature, but that's because I'm skeptical of any and all claims to nature in general. But that's a whole other conversation, and one that gets us further away from rights.

Ultimately, and ironically, "nature" is a concept that can only appear after human beings have already begun to augment their relationship to their environment (and I would argue that this kind of augmentation precedes humanity, even - after all, ants use technology). I get wary of descriptors like "natural" or "organic" because I see them as complicit in origin myths. The capacity to identify "nature" actually signals the condition of being separated from nature; it obscures the very thing it purports to illuminate. Even if we can locate indigenous bush people that have no word for "nature," there is no such thing as a place untouched by governmental appropriation.

 

[CiG]

That is true, but I was suggesting that the less you see government appropriation, the less you see consciousness getting in the way of survival instincts.

 

[Einherjar86]

Ah, right. Being completely honest with myself, I can't deny that there seems to be something to that. I'm not well-versed in anthropological studies, so I can't speak to the practices of what we might call pre-modern peoples, but certainly there must be differences in the way they seem themselves relating to their environments (I prefer this term over "nature").

That said, we can still insist that these people do possess consciousness, yes? And it's important to keep in mind that consciousness does not mean that we are conscious of everything about our minds. This is why, for example, studies on the potentially debilitating effects of consciousness were necessary (i.e. we assume that consciousness is a boon to our evolutionary status and survival, but remain unconscious as to how it actually might hinder our survival capacities). Even if aboriginal peoples inhabit places relatively uninterrupted by government or more complex social systems, they still possess some degree of consciousness toward their own existence. So even as an evolutionary achievement, beyond social conditioning or government regulation or what have you, consciousness begins to work against our instinctual behavior without us even knowing it.

This is kind of a mindfuck to think about: basically, "nature," in the form of evolutionary adaptation, actually produces something that separates us from our "nature." The term carries its own semantic deconstruction within it. This is why I resist appeals to nature or origin. In my opinion, it's impossible to really draw the line between, for instance, metropolitan London and Australian bush people and say that one group is "more natural" than the other. Either everything is natural, or nothing is, both of which render the term moot.

 

[arg]

FUCK YEA RESPECT FOR LEGAL IMMIGRANTS

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

the only answer

 

[End of Glory]

 

[End of Glory]

Good for England to leave EU. I wish Sweden could do the same.

 

[Dak]

Is anyone at all interested in serious military discussions (in a separate thread), that is: discussions about capabilities, tactics, strategies, geopolitical developments, etc?

 

[CiG]

This is a more recent interview with Sowell. In response to asking where he would criticise Obama he said it's like being a mosquito in a nudist colony. He says funny shit.

 

[rms]

Is anyone at all interested in serious military discussions (in a separate thread), that is: discussions about capabilities, tactics, strategies, geopolitical developments, etc?

When im back ill check it out

 

[Dak]

Trying to decide if 3 people (one absentee for the time being) is enough to start another thread lol

 

[CiG]

Trump's whole appeal is that he can say whatever the fuck he wants and get away with it. The fact that he gets to play by different rules is his strength, so if you deny that then you're also denying him the one thing he actually has going for him.

His strength isn't being able to get away with it, his strength is that he doesn't care about the consequences. Plenty of people don't let him get away with it. There's an entire republican/conservative #NeverTrump movement for this exact reason.

Don't mistake the two.

Especially since he's being killed in the polls, he's doing terribly with people in the under 35's. Hillary is going to decimate him in the primaries.

I'm not trying to elicit your sympathy for Hilary - by all means continue hating her. But when you reflect upon her long list of supposedly heinous crimes, factor into your judgement that we would probably never have known about most of them if she hadn't been such a prominent target for such a long time.

Wrong.

We know about them because a) she has been a major individual in politics forever and b) she doesn't know how to secure her emails and they leaked. Nothing to do with being some target for everybody.

 

[CiG]

He'll go down in flames.

 

[Internally Deformed]

His strength isn't being able to get away with it, his strength is that he doesn't care about the consequences. Plenty of people don't let him get away with it. There's an entire republican/conservative #NeverTrump movement for this exact reason.

Don't mistake the two.

He would care about the consequences if it had upset his polling figures until recently. If anything it's worked in his favour due to the amount of coverage he received. It's to be expected that his opponents would kick up a fuss - what no one could predict was that the fuss would have so little impact on his support.

Not sure what you mean by Hilary decimating him in the primaries.

Wrong.

We know about them because a) she has been a major individual in politics forever and b) she doesn't know how to secure her emails and they leaked. Nothing to do with being some target for everybody.

You don't think that the republican party/right wing media have known for the last 8 years that she would likely be running for president, and haven't done everything in their power to discredit her? It's impossible to know what would or wouldn't have gotten out, or what would or wouldn't have been seen as significant, if it weren't for the fact that so many people desperately wanted to see her involved in a career ending scandal. To adapt a popular phrase: if a scandal did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent one.