Kevin Solway wrote:David Quinn wrote:So this is what it has come down to: “Everyone's perspective is equally valid”. “Everyone is unique and special”. “We are all geniuses”.
That's not what Weininger is arguing.
That’s right. It was you, Diebert, and jupiviv who were doing the arguing. For some strange reason, all three of you suddenly decided that you wanted to stretch and distort the concept of genius so that it could include the subhuman mentality of Trump.
No need to bring Weininger into it. He is too busy turning over in his grave.
Kevin Solway wrote:To my knowledge, nobody has speculated that Trump actually is a genius, so this would be a figment of your imagination.
*sigh*
- Diebert: The image of a man who somehow, possibly purely on instinct, seizes each and every opportunity to move on, to somehow get the fundamental issue of a situation and capitalizes on it. Could you call it genius? In some bizarre way perhaps.
- jupiviv: However, what endears Trump - as a person if not anything else - to me is the boldness with which he upholds the *pretense* that it can work...... If spirit is what we really are, and genius the expression of spirit, then there is indeed genius in that.
- Solway: It can indeed be argued that Trump has a "kind" of genius, in the broadest sense of the word. I don't know if I'd agree with that argument, but it can certainly be argued. It cannot be absolutely proven that he doesn't.
Kevin Solway wrote:When a person has achieved all that Trump has achieved, it's perfectly natural that some people will speculate that he achieved it through some kind of genius.
What exactly has Trump achieved? He hasn’t produced anything of value. He contributes nothing to higher thought. He doesn’t raise the level of discourse in the community. He doesn’t inspire anyone to greater things. Quite the reverse, he lowers and debases everything. Everything he touches turns to shit.
Looking at his life overall, he inherited millions of dollars from his father, as well as his cruel bullying streak, invested it in glitzy real estate with mixed success, often running his businesses into the ground and walking away from the resulting debts, frequently ripping off people by simply not paying them for their work and then using bullying legal tactics to scare anyone off who objected, getting himself involved in thousands of lawsuits and generally spending his time each day deceiving people with empty promises and blatant lies. How could any of this possibly be considered an achievement, let alone an act of genius?
On a related note, this raises a concern I have about Trump's intentions in the coming months. Normally, when one of his businesses reaches the state that his White House administration is currently in - i.e. flailing about in turmoil with the authorities closing in - he just runs the business into the ground, declares bankruptcy, walks away from all the damage and debt, sues the life out of anyone who dares to call him into account, and goes off and seeks another bunch of suckers to fleece. It’s a process that has worked well for him for his whole life. But what about when it comes to the White House? There is only one America, after all. There is no escape route for when he bungles things. He can’t possibly treat the White House as a failing business, can he?
It concerns me that this is exactly what he is trying to do. If you look at the way he is behaving - sowing as much chaos and confusion as possible, undermining the media, undermine democratic norms, politicizing the judiciary, engaging in divisive demagoguery, being flippant with classified information, decimating the federal government by not appointing heads of staff and senior employees, and so on and so forth - it all begins to look like Trump is engaged in a sustained campaign to weaken America - indeed, weaken it to the point of collapse. The idea is to create unprecedented levels of turmoil, drive America as much as possible into the ground, present himself to his idiot followers that only he can save them from the chaos, and then use law and order/state of emergency strategies to strengthen and consolidate his power.
Kevin Solway wrote:David Quinn wrote:The key difference is that Dan’s vision is not causing him to abandon his lifelong values.
You are speculating, and your speculations are mistaken. There is no evidence that I have abandoned any of my values, and you haven't provided any evidence that I have.
That’s not true, of course. We have already touched on Trump’s environmental vandalism in a previous discussion. What was your response then? It was an indifferent shrug, wasn’t it?
Trump is firmly in bed with the Christian fundamentalists. For example, he has stopped funding to medical clinics who provide information about abortion (thus, both curtailing free speech and increasing over-population pressures). His education cabinet pick, Betsy DeVos, is a religious fundamentalist who seeks to "advance God's kingdom" by greatly increasing the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in schools.
That will do to begin with. The is plenty more, but I can't be bothered detailing it all. The list is already big enough. The survival of the species, the importance of coherent thought, the cause of atheism - disposable values, all of them.
Kevin Solway wrote:If you think it is "strange" why some few people might speculate that Trump has some kind of genius, then you don't know anything about human nature.
I certainly might expect a fundamentalist Christian or an uneducated redneck to speculate whether a Trump is a genius, for they don’t know any better. They have no conception of what genius is to begin with, and they are easily dazzled by Trump’s sub-human shenanigans. But the sight of supposedly wise thinkers on Genius Forum also being dazzled by Trump’s sub-human shenanigans and speculating about whether they are acts of genius? That’s just embarrassing.
What next?
- “It can indeed be argued that Oprah Winfrey has a "kind" of genius, in the broadest sense of the word. I don't know if I'd agree with that argument, but it can certainly be argued. It cannot be absolutely proven that she doesn't. After all, Winfrey does have hundreds of millions of dollars, and she was voted a number of times the most popular celebrity on TV. That counts for something. Weininger argues that all people have some degree of genius, so it's not an outrageous thing to claim that Winfrey has, in some limited manner, made use of what she has. Simply doing your own thing is a "kind" of genius, and no-one will disagree that she does that.”
Inspiring stuff. It sounds like something Oprah herself could have said. Perhaps we can publish it in the
Life and Death magazine.
Kevin Solway wrote:David Quinn wrote:the whole movement behind Trump is almost exclusively populated by third-rate individuals
Exactly the same thing can be said about the left. You are not making any rational point.
I agree that it can be said about a few pockets of the left, but most of the left is comprised of sensible, intelligent people who understand things like scientific principles, the importance of government transparency and the rule of law. By contrast, 95% of the right consists of people who wouldn't know a scientific principle or a rational thought if they stumbled over one.
The liberal establishment has its flaws, but it is also where nearly all the first-rate people reside. The top scientists, academics, writers, philosophers, military leaders, medical practitioners - that is to say, anyone who possesses genuine expertise and sophisticated thought-processes are naturally part of the liberal establishment and nearly all of them to a tee are utterly horrified at the spectacle of Trump shitting all over the Oval Office.
So in your ham-fisted attempt to oppose the left, you are not only placing yourself in opposition to the college kids and wack-jobs who make up the "authoritarian left", but you are also placing yourself in opposition to the greatest minds and highest quality individuals that are alive today. Well done.