Poison for the Heart - and Women

[Kevin Solway]

I'm one of those who believes delusion is the conceptual creationary force. I think enlightened control of society would be a dead end.

Delusion, greed, sexual desire, pride, etc, might be powerful creationary forces, but that doesn't mean they're the only ones. Society doesn't know of any other creationary forces because it hasn't tried any.

Personally, if I was in control of funding, I would plough a lot more money into science education and research.

That's the sort of thing that "enlightened control of society" would entail.

Perhaps you are worried that if all the people in society were enlightened, there wouldn't be enough greed, sexual desire, pride, etc, to motivate people to do very much.

But once an enlightened person has decided what they want to do, they simply go ahead and do it, and nothing is going to stop them - not a woman, not money, nothing. For example, if a billion enlightened people decide that they want to colonize space - and remember that they have nothing distracting them or clouding their minds - I predict that they will be able to achieve the goal a hundred times faster than if the work was done in the haphazard manner of normal deluded people.

Just look at the repetitiveness and lack of novelty in David and Kevin for instance. It is little different from being significantly deluded.

That boringness is coming from your side, not ours! :-)

I'd bet money that if they had not developed a habit of teaching others, then they would either turn back to delusion or neck themselves.

I don't think so. I personally don't feel like I'm teaching others. Writing these words, to me, is just like breathing in and out. I do it because I'm programmed to do it.

it just happens that they find reward [read positive emotion] in robotic behaviour.

It's certainly robotic behaviour, and in many respects I feel like a robot as I write. But the positive emotional reward is minimal, if any.

Without emotion one is simply not conscious.

You need to provide your reasons for this statement - you haven't provided any.

get excited or sad in a controlled fashion when the time is right.

These things are simply not rational. That is, they are feelings based on a misperception of the world. Why would a sage want to have such misperceptions?

[David Quinn]

Boredom is the eye of the beholder, of course. But it does make you wonder about the mindset of a person who thinks that life would be boring if there was no irrationality and violence.

It tells me that the person is making his judgments through the lens of an addiction.

It's essentially no different to a heroin-addict complaining that life would be boring if there was no heroin.

-

[Kevin Solway]

I thought pleasure was part of samsara and must be avoided.

Yes, pleasure is part of samsara. But samsara is an illusion, and only deluded people experience it.

The sage doesn't "avoid" samsara, he simply doesn't experience it. It is for the same reason that you don't experience that 2 + 2 = 5. It's not something that you need to "avoid".

And I'm not sure how you feel like you are in "heaven" but I doubt this feeling would persist without the vast majority of other people in "hell".

My experience of truth is not dependent on other people suffering the pains of being deluded. That would be cruel!

You are saying rationality stems from that which is non-rational. So why should we be rational? Is being rational not irrational?

You could think of it as a matter of chance. When you throw a dice, it is not appropriate to think of the resulting number as being either rational or irrational. It was simply caused. Likewise with rationality. That is, rationality is caused in those few individuals who have it, but it doesn't mean anything to say that that causal process was rational or irrational.

Generally speaking, a person becomes increasingly rational only as long as it brings that person rewards, such as avoiding pain.

[xerox]

...

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

What are red & white & black tantra?

White tantra involves cleaning out the mind so the individual can have better control over it.

Red tantra is about sensuality, accomplished through sexuality.

Black tantra (same link as red tantra) is about manipulating another human being.

[Imadrongo]

Kevin,

You could think of it as a matter of chance. When you throw a dice, it is not appropriate to think of the resulting number as being either rational or irrational. It was simply caused. Likewise with rationality. That is, rationality is caused in those few individuals who have it, but it doesn't mean anything to say that that causal process was rational or irrational.

Fatalism is no argument.

Generally speaking, a person becomes increasingly rational only as long as it brings that person rewards, such as avoiding pain.

Agreed. In this sense rationality is like a narcotic, and that's exactly how I think you guys use it -- to escape from the suffering/pain of the world into your spiritual bliss.

[skipair]

Agreed. In this sense rationality is like a narcotic, and that's exactly how I think you guys use it -- to escape from the suffering/pain of the world into your spiritual bliss.

Neil, you could be right, I don't really know. What really makes me think about "enlightenment", instead of immediately dissmissing it as ridiculous religious/metaphysical garbage, is my experiences in the past of gaining more perspective on life, and seeing the limiting factors in other's perspectives.

I've had two "epiphanies" in my life. The first was sometime in high school, and I somehow learned in a FLASH how to step outside of the emotional realm to a degree and look at things from afar. This took me out of the rat race. The second was sometime in college when I realized my most sacred emotion "love" was not what I thought it was, and that women were not on the planet to be fair with me. These two perspectives, or techiniques, have allowed me to see more of what IS, and when I see people who haven't found them yet they look like lost hampsters running around a cage. I can tell that I'm still in a cage to some extent - I really have no idea how much. But I see the immense value in taking steps toward wider perspetives, and regardless if there is an ultimate perspective or not, I would NEVER choose to erase the two epiphanies that I've had, and it makes me wonder what else I've yet to discover.

[tooyi]

Agreed. In this sense rationality is like a narcotic, and that's exactly how I think you guys use it -- to escape from the suffering/pain of the world into your spiritual bliss.

You are still discounting the possibility of it not being so. It doesn't have to be. The moment the thought is rising is the moment to see the things that are coming with you. In the end you will only end up watching those things and they compose the reality that you perceive. It doesn't have to be that way. It's like forever being on the rising wave, ready to surf, and yet never moving to the actual surfing part. Nothing has changed yet everything is different.

[Matt Gregory]

Neil,

Matt: And that's what men are capable of and women are not.

Neil: Men are capable of deluding themselves into thinking they are doing "rationality in itself"

Matt: They're also capable of developing themselves until they can actually do it. They can consciously create their own values if they want.

Neil: "If they want" -- yes, they are doing it because they want to. They are fulfilling their desire or purpose for wanting to do so, and it is not that they want it for rationality's sake in itself.

They want to be rational in order to obtain truth. We're allowed to value truth; there's nothing stopping those who want to.

NM: whereas they are really just doing something required for their optimal survival.

MG: That's a nice piece of doublethink right there. Obviously, we aren't required by anything to survive optimally. That's your own moral sensations talking.

Neil: That's what I observe. I see people who are suffering, sick of life, unsuccessful in life, and they subconsciously create some sort of mechanism whereby they are actually view themselves as successful, superior, "truthful", "wise", etc. I observe Christians do this with their redeemer God who comes to, very fittingly, save the poorest, weakest of the earth. Do you see this?

Not very often. Mostly I see people who take ideas that were handed to them by their parents, teachers, priests, books, etc. and adopt them wholesale without giving them proper scrutiny. But sure, miserable people take these ideas and try to implement them without first understanding them in order to figure out if they are valid or what they were even intended to be for. Sure.

And then I see sages do something similar. What they have in common is trying to escape this world, as Nietzsche put it, deny life.

Well, sages do the exact opposite of what Christians do. That is, they think and arrive at truth on their own. So, there's really no comparison. Nietzsche was a sage. Or playing that role, anyway.

Neil: The Christian wants some higher standards of God and Afterlife wherein he is successful and the the sage wants some higher standards of "absolute truth" and "nothingness" wherein everyone else is inferior and deluded.

Well, authentic people don't make efforts to be superior to others. Of course, they don't avoid being superior, either, as that would be committing the same fallacy in reverse.

It is almost as though these peoples' minds intervened so they wouldn't have to suffer psychologically.

You keep bringing this up, but an unintelligent cause is fully capable of producing an intelligent effect. If this weren't the case then intelligence wouldn't be possible at all. Indeed, if an effect had to be just like its cause then nothing whatsoever would arise anywhere, since effects have to be different from their causes by the logical necessity to distinguish a cause from its effect.

And then they go around spreading the truth to the inferiors and defending the truth with a cemented closed mind that protects them.

Sages spread truth because they want to help people cultivate consciousness. Being an honest person makes you suffer from dishonest people, so at the very least it's a way to reduce suffering.

NM: Either way they are selfish actions under the guise of "selfless" actions (these don't exist), and they are intricately linked with moral people who believe that selfishness is bad, who are usually people who couldn't surivive well any other way.

MG: It's true that most people have ulterior motives when they start talking about doing things in the name of rationality and so forth, but that in no way proves that an ulterior motive is necessary.

NM: Do I need to prove that? Only mentally braindead people would even begin to qualify for the category of doing something for no reason at all.

It's not possible to do something for no reason at all. I'm saying that honesty is possible in people who value it and strive to become honest.

[Imadrongo]

Matt,

I might reply more later, but I just need to recommend you actually read Nietzsche and not take David and Kevin's word for it. I recommend Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols, and Will to Power because these are the books he is most clearly directly opposing your philosophy.

[Dan Rowden]

Will to Power ought not be taken as a meaningful representation of his thinking.

[daybrown]

The flip side of the will to power is noblesse oblige, both of which are part of our instinctive hominid evolution. The shamen, witches, & elders always did what we now call 'case management', and helped to raise the kids of incompetent parents to maximize diversity in small gene pools.

The powerful men who monopolized the women resulted in too much inbreeding a few generations down the line, and the willingness to use violence in the exercise of power was inherited by the sons, who could never agree on which should have that power, each inheriting the same instinct to dominate.

The will to power as Nietzsche expresses it takes a longer view.

[Imadrongo]

Will to Power ought not be taken as a meaningful representation of his thinking.

Why not?

[Dan Rowden]

It's basically a bunch of notations and stuff tossed together by his sister. It's impossible to know how much of it authentically reflects his thinking and how much is just messing with ideas. I don't think it's a work that can be trusted.

[Matt Gregory]

I don't think any of his work can be trusted, but my point was that (a) he thought about what he wrote, he wasn't just picking the stuff up out the Bible or whatever; and (b) he was trying to write truthfully. He wasn't trying to write a bunch of bullshit, but trying to portray an accurate picture of the world.

[Kevin Solway]

Generally speaking, a person becomes increasingly rational only as long as it brings that person rewards, such as avoiding pain.

Agreed. In this sense rationality is like a narcotic, and that's exactly how I think you guys use it -- to escape from the suffering/pain of the world into your spiritual bliss.

Everyone starts from a position of suffering in one form or another - be it loneliness, boredom, a feeling of lacking, etc - and everyone naturally seeks to escape the suffering. I'd much rather people sought to escape suffering through becoming more rational than by any other means.

But while this is the motivation for becoming rational in the first place, it's not necessarily the motivation for remaining rational once you've already achieved it. For once you are perfectly rational (enlightened) then you don't suffer any more, and so suffering ceases to be a motivating factor.

[Kevin Solway]

I recommend Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols, and Will to Power because these are the books he is most clearly directly opposing your philosophy.

Nietzsche is opposing those who "deny life", as you put it.

But what is your definition of "life". Do you think what ordinary people experience, with all their lies, games, self-deceptions, hungers, and sufferings, is "life"? Is the spiralling demise of the heroin addict or alcoholic "life"? Is the fantasy world of the Christian priest "life"?

That's not life in my opinion, but death.

True "life" is Nature itself, undistorted by delusions. It is the true state of affairs that one only arrives at through a process of rational thought (and acting on those thoughts).

[Imadrongo]

It's basically a bunch of notations and stuff tossed together by his sister. It's impossible to know how much of it authentically reflects his thinking and how much is just messing with ideas. I don't think it's a work that can be trusted.

Well it follows the same style as his other books. His other books were compiled from his notebooks too (by himself). These were just done by his sister. I agree the book isn't the best source for Nietzsche insight but it is useful after reading his others.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Actually both Poison and Woman as literary pieces are less dangerous than what gets placed on the pillar in the forum from time to time - but as long as Kevin's hanging around to straighten out the ones that are misunderstanding (and Cory, and Ryan, and other guys), I'd far rather this stuff come from him and people can have a place to go and really discuss it and not be so dangerous as they might if someone else who actually is hateful published something like this.

I take it back. The evidence has mounted to the point that it is beyond obvious that even Kevin's benign intention only fuels the hatred of women. The male supremacy movement, just like any other supremacy movement, will lead to hate crimes.

I still agree that it is better to talk about it than to let it fester by being suppressed, but perhaps this is something that can best be discussed in a well-trained-counselor's office.

[David Quinn]

Kevin wrote to Neil,

But what is your definition of "life". Do you think what ordinary people experience, with all their lies, games, self-deceptions, hungers, and sufferings, is "life"? Is the spiralling demise of the heroin addict or alcoholic "life"? Is the fantasy world of the Christian priest "life"?

I've asked Neil this question several times before, but he never answers it.

-

[Dan Rowden]

I take it back. The evidence has mounted to the point that it is beyond obvious that even Kevin's benign intention only fuels the hatred of women. The male supremacy movement, just like any other supremacy movement, will lead to hate crimes.

I still agree that it is better to talk about it than to let it fester by being suppressed, but perhaps this is something that can best be discussed in a well-trained-counselor's office.

The greatest hate crime of all is that of pretending women are what they are not. Why the hell is it that people can't understand this simple point: it is false ideation and attribution of non-existent virtues that cause harm and violence to be done against women. The reason for this is that fantasy and reality must face each other in conflict eventually. Men harm women and women harm each other (and with far greater frequency) because of their ridiculous adoration for them (Woman) and for no other reason. Strip women of all this bullshit and they just become persons. Is it not a point so clear as to be invisible only to the vapid and the mentally indolent that the status we afford women is why mistreatment happens? That which looms large in our minds will always fall foul of our attachments - which are, themselves, the very core of violence.

[David Quinn]

It is because men and women adore the misogynistic framework in which they exist, and have no intention of ever dismantling it. For them, it is the very bedrock of life.

-

[Unidian]

True - but that's no reason to advocate the nonsense I see around here. Killing female infants will solve nothing, and will make monsters of those who do it (or seriously advocate it) in the process.

The Nazis had a few good points, too. And look how that turned out...

[Dan Rowden]

Jesus wept, Nat. Do you realise that this stupid mantra - this single non argument - you keep trotting out all the time shows that you have no argument? It makes you look desperate to have a point.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Strip women of all this bullshit and they just become persons.

This is true. Also, if you strip men of all that bullshit, they also become just persons. Why not just strip everyone of all the bullshit and just deal with reality? I think that is what you are trying to do, but too many are not seeing the male superiority attitude for the bullshit that it is. Some men are superior in some ways, and some women are superior in other ways. The reality is that women have been suppressed, and men have taken credit for the women behind the man, for so long in most recent centuries, that we can't really know for sure that there have not been female sages whose work was sufficiently taken from her that we don't even know she existed. There have been very few male sages - and possibly no more than that of female sages - but by the sheer number of male might makes right lynch mobs, if they existed, they could not possibly have made their mark known as broadly as men did.

If Lao Tzu, Jesus, Buddha, etc. were denied even enough education to become literate, as most women were for centuries, not let out of the house because a man's place was in the home, barefoot and pregnant, and his parents as well as the community refused to talk with him about deeper matters because he shouldn't worry his pretty little head about those things - or maybe his wife (who of course he would have married because it was the only way other than prostitution to get out of his parents house - who also suppressed everything he did so that he would be more attractive to the opposite gender) took credit for anything profound he might have said because society would never believe that such a thought came from anything less than a woman - how much historical evidence of male sages would there be? That would be like keeping a child in the closet for 30 years, and saying that this 30 year old would never be able to make anything of himself because here he is, already 30, and he has not done anything with his life yet. If could be true that he couldn't, and it's likely that he would not become a great leader or great teacher his first week out of the house - but continuing to dismiss him as incapable would do nothing but create a self-fulfilling prophesy.

If there really is only one or two really big names per thousand years, then it would take at least a thousand years of women being fully regarded as possibly having potential before anything could be proven out. Since there are areas in the world where women still have no rights as individuals, and even in "more civilized" countries, women are often regarded as having less potential than males, we have not even had one year, much less one thousand years, to prove ourselves.