David Quinn wrote:No, it is more the case that he is a very unusual person who is thriving in a very unusual set of circumstances. With over two decades of the internet now behind us, with the predominance of social media and tailored news, with the cynicism and jadedness of many people (including yourself), the awful hullabaloo over Obama (the evil black foreign Muslim!), the hysteria over Clinton and her emails, the alarm of white communities terrified over losing their privileged status in an increasingly global environment, decades of Republican conspiracy theories and fake news, etc, etc - all of these things have come together to produce a perfect storm and create the conditions for a conniving bullshit artist like Trump to prosper.
If you're trying to say the world is and always was a strange place where morals or rationality appear almost as incidental, then I'd not only agree but also would have condensed that paragraph quite a bit. But somehow I suspect you think the disconnect is really some recent issue in terms of scope and dominance? That's perhaps the base difference then, to me modernity itself looks likes this Frankenstein monster which somehow copes, somehow survives. Essentially I'm not even convinced
reason had anything to do with most of what keeps society going. Necessities, belief, power, yes. And science, although born out of a very strict, limited appliance of reason, the usage of the resulting technology has still little to do with that. Or in other words: I don't think our minds are very good in dealing with the complexities of causality. Only when we dumb the situation down first to something we recognize or control. In other words: most of life will fall out of the scope. And this is not just my belief, one can derive it quite easily from the truth of causality and understanding of the infinite.
So many people, for whatever reason, are aiding Trump in this regard, including jaded intellectuals who really should know better.
And some jaded thinkers are opposing him strongly, for whatever reason.
And in doing that, you would be playing into the hands of the Trump/Breitbart propaganda machine.
That's only relevant if there actually existed this enormous conspiracy which could afford and control such vast machinery.
Virtually everyone who is intellectually competent is in opposition to him. No matter what the field - military, science, intelligence, medicine, psychiatry, academic - the most renowned experts in all walks of life are united in their view that Trump is dangerously delusional and unfit for office.
That's just some stubborn faith speaking, in itself potentially dangerous as you
disqualify in one stroke not only many millions of qualified US citizens and Europeans as delusional, or degrade some of the more competent members of your own forum as basically crazy, or not to mention discredit your own philosophical "father" but you're asserting it almost
out of nothing as fact.
What the world needs to fear is the mindset unwittingly betrayed here. But at least I won't call it incompetent. It's ideological.
Diebert, if hatred of a particular group of people is causing you to want to side with a lunatic who lives in a fact-free world, then there is something seriously amiss.
Political discussions or even preferences at the voting booth have nothing to do with
siding with this one or that one. That's more like G.W. Bush talking with his black and white proposals: with or against the
terrorist -- with terrorist meaning anything threatening our good Empirical Existence, with bombs, lunacy or alternative facts. And the same message might be there implicit:
never ask why it's happening and if perhaps there's something else going on which would challenge the perception and definition of the words "lunatic" as well as any larger "asylum".
It’s all relative. As much as I dislike the feminization of society, it is preferable to having a dangerously unstable lunatic create an authoritarian state steeped in hate and fear.
That's debatable. But then again, it's just a preference and one that I understand. But it's a false choice though. It's reasonable to suppose some dangerous, unstable passage is needed to get something to change at all, at this stage. And that's my main reason not to join the Trump witch hunt at this stage. The world is changing but modernity and Western governing: not that much.
If the Russians have a dark hold over a dangerously unstable man like Trump, then how will a closer alliance between them possibly serve the interests of the rest of us?
My view on the benefits of a deliberate, outspoken reproach towards Russia is completely independent of conspiracy theories involving some ominous Russian influence on Trump. At the moment, it's more likely people advertise this idea of a supposed dark hold over Trump because of some internal politics. But even if it was true, it doesn't invalidate the fact that there are many good reasons to work with Russia on a few global matters. So I'm not even sure if some proven cloak and dagger operations would change that fact. It might change the view if Trump could be a president and he'd be impeached of course, if there was any truth to it at all.
You’re not making any sense. You were saying earlier that you supported Russia on the basis that they are being the most rational in world affairs. So do you still value the idea of our using rational forces to organize the world or not?
Societies are hardly organized by any rational means so far -- they seem to run mostly on the power of theatrics and perhaps increasingly so. Foreign policy is different, it's
where it happens these days, the cutting edge, the only relevant political chessboard left although it's getting rapidly even too complex for even that and mixed with non-state entities. But I think Russian leaders represent "Realpolitik", being wise enough to understand how the global world works but yes, also lost in some pretence about their own society, knowingly or unknowingly. For this reason I don't expect the USA to introduce rationality into society (that has to come from the people, over generations) but I do hope to see first some introduction of rationality in foreign relations and policy. Which is for example why I was more worried about Clinton than any other candidate. She and her husband simply had the wrong track record.
We, as human beings, create order from the chaos of Nature. We impose our man-made structures upon the world because they make our lives more comfortable and free of care. Is this something you are now against? Is it suddenly old-fashioned to want to live in an ordered society which enables everyone, including thinkers, to pursue their interests to the utmost? Are you advocating pure anarchy? Do you want us to go back and live in the caves? Are you bored with life?
Lets just say I'm challenging the illusion of particular "man-made structures" and other ordering imposed on nature. Simply by pointing out their transient, contemporary nature. And also the tendency of people to hold on to various structures while nature, or reality, already is moving on. There's this attachment which always keeps creeping up, in society and men alike, this refusal to rest inside the restless, to hold on to what was crafted out before, now steadily looking back instead of forward. Perhaps Kevin is an example but somehow I get the same drive from you in your arguments: to want to defend some order, some time frame against what you see as forces of chaos. Isn't that the same as Kevin is supposed to be involved in? To actively, politicly, preserve "masculine" values of society against "feminine forces" of the progressives and "establishment"? Or now hearing you defending, actively, politicly, those "reasonable" mainstream wind mills against the chaos of a rule of Trump and Breitbard?
Those who work for the intelligence services are required by oath to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". Thus, if they perceive that Trump and his cohorts are threatening to ride roughshod over the Constitution and the democratic institutions of America, then they are duty bound to act against him. This has nothing to do with being a police state. It is one branch of government safe-guarding the interests of the wider population.
It would have
everything to do with a police state if the Constitution and the institutions it upholds like the Presidency and the whole body of law, would be stepped over to dismiss what one group
thinks as a danger to some
belief in how things should be interpreted or done in their country.
However, sane people in all walks of life - whether they be spies, or journalists, or academics, or scientists, or philosophers - are duty bound to oppose evil when they see it.
Even more fundamental: we define only our selves when we define our enemy, our
evils as well.