Statement about Solway and Trump

[David Quinn]

jupiviv,

DQ: I don’t share the fatalism and cynicism that you and Diebert have. I still like to think that there are enough intelligent, sensible people in the world who are motivated enough to want to take control and steer the ship through these rocky waters.

J: I'm not a fatalist; certainly not on a philosophical level. Fatalism is essentially the intellectualisation of boredom - indifferentism - disconnect from reality. How are my views indicative of those things? Are you equating my refusal to support any side of the nonsensical, fantasy-filled political dialogue taking place the world over, with indifference and giving up on life?

I am hearing in you a hatred of the liberal establishment, that the system is irredeemably broken, that everyone is a hypocrite and a con-man, etc, etc.

The New York Times can (for the time being) afford to employ good writers, but no longer good *journalists*. Their coverage of the US election proves this beyond a doubt (as I have briefly demonstrated above), as does their coverage of issues like the Ukrainian revolution, Putin and the state of the US and global economy.

They are making many legitimate points, because, you know, it's as easy as fuck to do that, but there is so much whiny-arsed, butt-hurt nonsense and unfettered anger that it becomes quite unsettling - to paraphrase Dan Rowden's post.

Their bias against him and his policies adds to rather than palliates the confusion surrounding him.

Which of his policies do you support?

here are some news/blog sites I read regularly/semi-regularly:

_zerohedge.com/
_peakprosperity.com/
_breitbart.com/
_wsj.com/
_counterpunch.org/
_kunstler.com/

Thanks, I’ll explore these sites. I’m familiar with the Wall Street Journal. I won't bother with Breitart, as I've already explored their particular brand of mental illness.

DQ: You act as though anyone who doesn’t completely reject the mainstream media out of hand is automatically deluded. This is a very extreme and nonsensical position to have, and it can only lead to nonsensical conclusions, like the one above.

J: I said "distrust" not "reject". It's possible to pay attention to what someone is saying without believing them. They *may* be telling you the truth, but since you distrust them you will also listen to others. That's what I suggest you do instead of obsessing over Trump.

It goes without saying that I distrust everything I read. It is part and parcel of being a thinker. The reason why I haven’t strayed too far from the mainstream is that I haven’t yet come across an “alternative” site that has impressed me. They all seem like amateurish exercises in bile to me. But maybe the sites you have listed will be different.

I wonder how long it will be before the “alternative” in alternative media loses its meaning. It can’t be that far away. I mean, the alternative media is very much the in-thing these days. It seems every man and his dog has converted over to it. It’s almost mainstream.

DQ: Trump is trying to pretend there is no difference between Putin’s regime and normal US governing because he aims to turn America into a Putin-like state.

J: The ills of the US government pointed out by Trump aren't lies or pretense. This doesn't mean that Trump is wise and good. Trump is a hypocrite, but so are his opponents.

That is certainly what Trump wants us to think.

The cleverness of Trump lies not in what he is criticising but in what he *isn't*. And frankly it isn't even that clever because politicians have always criticised only those problems that make them look relevant while ignoring those that don't.

If you want to forecast what Trump's or any other politician's regime will look like, concentrate on the issues he ignores. For example, Trump changed his tune about the stock market being a bubble the moment he assumed office. Indeed, that Trump is taking credit for the stock market bubble proves beyond a doubt how incompetent and stupid he is. When the stock market goes down, everyone will be tearfully remembering the awesome stock market Obongo left behind and which Trump ruined.

“Obongo”. There is that hatred again.

DQ; So we should ditch the whole idea that a leader should be rational, mentally stable, connected to reality, and motivated to rule for the common good?

J: Sorry to disappoint you, but there aren't any such leaders at the moment. Pretending that the alternatives to Trump are any better than him isn't a good outcome for anyone. Neither is pretending that the support for Trump and others like him around the globe is anything more than a misguided and all too overdue reaction to the character and deeds of those same alternatives.

This is a good example of what I would call your cynicism/fatalism.

The political scene in the West has become an echo chamber of "tu quoque", and all those who believe that Trump is the sole or major cause of all the near term problems facing the West are guilty of causing those problems.

I don’t know if anyone is arguing that. Clearly, the Trump phenomenon is just the tip of a very large iceberg. He is the latest link of a long and very complex chain of events that stretches back for decades, if not centuries. We have to go back, for example, to the many decades of Republican environmental denialism and the whole industry of fake news that has built up around that particular issue. Or even further back, to the denial of evolutionary theory in favour of the fake story of Christian creationism. More than a century of warring against rationality and facts by a large segment of the American population has now coalesced into a single person who is anti-fact and anti-truth personified. Trump has given these people permission to fully embrace their irrationality and they are reveling in it. This is the chortling we are all hearing from them at the moment.

I am also seeing the whole Trump phenomenon as an re-enactment of the American scene in the 1800s. On the one hand, you have the lawlessness of the Wild West, the brothels, the gun fights, the lynchings, the strong Christian fundamentalism; and on the other, you have the pampered coastal elites, educated, cultured, who insist on coming in and imposing federal laws designed to protect the weak and unfortunate. The Wild West just happens to be in the ascendancy at the moment.

DQ: Your concept of the “MSM attacking Trump” is a very distorted one, for it ignores the reality that Trump is indeed a vile, unstable individual who is clearly unfit for office.

J: Your view is distorted. The press' function is to report facts about the world. It is not to slander and pour scorn on those they deem to be vile, unstable individuals, nor praise and express support for those they deem otherwise.

Trump's complaint (*months* before the media stunt you keep mentioning) about being denied the nomination despite winning the primaries was legitimate and the fact itself evinced *organic* corruption within the US political establishment. The New York Times *intentionally* downplayed it, choosing instead to insult him.

I had a look at those links that you gave to Dan and I didn’t see any instance of the New York Times insulting Trump or downplaying anything. To my mind, they were simply reporting the facts of the matter and the comments of the parties involved. You have to understand that those journalists were in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, they were fully aware that Trump was a vile, unstable person who was clearly unfit for office, and yet they had to write stories that were seen to be fair to him. It’s a very tricky line to follow. They have my sympathy.

DQ: The MSM reflects this reality in their reporting because it is absolutely impossible not to. It is like trying to report on a major city earthquake without mentioning destruction and casualties. It can't be done.

J: And yet they did precisely that in their coverage of Clinton's campaign.

I don’t know what sites you read, but I certainly saw plenty of coverage of Clinton’s scandals. Far too much coverage, in my view. So much of it was over-blown. In just three weeks of his administration, Trump has vastly exceeded Clinton’s scandals in about twenty different ways. But apparently, those of us who have a problem with this are deluded.

It's funny how easily our perception is distorted by our desires. When we are trying to be pure and rise above sex, all we see everywhere are pretty girls in short skirts. And then when we are aroused and want to oggle some girls, we can't seem to find them anywhere!

It baffles me that you of all people can be so obtuse and one-dimensional in your reasoning. In my early ventures into spiritual writings, I read the article/essay you wrote about how Jesus' teachings are at odds with the way Christians think and live. It was a wonderful example of flexible yet purposeful and intense thinking.

Whatever happened to *that* David? Perhaps he will resurrect when we switch to a more philosophical topic, but right now he is a happy halcyon myth. I feel like I'm arguing with a Berkeley protester. It's like Trump has *possessed* you or something. Is Meme Magic real?!

I’m still the same bloke. I think it is more the case that I am just not singing the song you want me to sing. I haven't bought into an "alternative" worldview. From what I have encountered so far, very little of it rings true.

[Dan Rowden]

We have indeed entered the realm of the infobesity of 'Future Shock'. And, as predicted, instead of doubling our efforts to ensure quality information for decision making, we have instead done the opposite and decided to run with the first thing we see that suits our agenda. I see it all the time in Australian political commentary (more particularly at the social media level).

Ironically, we need to be more like the journalists (that we claim don't exist anymore) than not.

[David Quinn]

For those interested in the issue of Putin's agenda, this is a quite interesting take on things:

As in intro to the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCWCu3fznIw

The [somewhat long] article: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... ame-214589.

A good video and article. It's interesting to see that Trump is engaging in the same tactics of information chaos, moral equivalency and fear-mongering that Putin and the FSB have been doing for years - all of it geared towards the shoring up of a strongman regime. Trump's supporters and alternative media consumers don't realize how much they are being duped.

Ironically, we need to be more like the journalists (that we claim don't exist anymore) than not.

Agreed.

[David Quinn]

From the Politico article that Dan has just shared:

• Trump should set the unpredictable course and become the champion against the most toxic, ambitious regime of the modern world. Rebuilding American power — based on the values of liberal democracy — is the only escape from Putin’s corrosive vision of a world at permanent war. We need a new united front. But we must be the center of it. It matters deeply that the current generation of global revolutionaries and reformers, like my Ukrainian friend, no longer see themselves as fighting for us or our ideals.
  
  In a strange way, Trump could be just crazy enough — enough of a outlier and a rogue — to expose what Putin’s Russia is and end the current cycle of upheaval and decline. This requires non-standard thinking and leadership — but also purpose, and commitment, and values. It requires faith — for and from the American people and American institutions. And it requires the existence of truth.
  
  The alternative is accepting that our history and our nation were, in fact, not the beginning of a better — greater — world, but the long anomaly in a tyrannous and dark one.

Molly Mckew is obviously in full hope mode here. If Trump rises to this challenge and sees off Putin, I'll take back everything that I said about him.

[jupiviv]

jupiviv,

DQ: I don’t share the fatalism and cynicism that you and Diebert have. I still like to think that there are enough intelligent, sensible people in the world who are motivated enough to want to take control and steer the ship through these rocky waters.

J: I'm not a fatalist; certainly not on a philosophical level. Fatalism is essentially the intellectualisation of boredom - indifferentism - disconnect from reality. How are my views indicative of those things? Are you equating my refusal to support any side of the nonsensical, fantasy-filled political dialogue taking place the world over, with indifference and giving up on life?

I am hearing in you a hatred of the liberal establishment, that the system is irredeemably broken,

Again, the liberal establishment *is* hateful and the system *is* broken. But if pointing that out makes me a cynic or fatalist then the same applies to you. Therefore, you are as cynical and fatalistic as I am for all the things you have written about the majority of human beings - even highly educated and respectable ones like academics - being deluded. The recent hate-filled, cynical rants about Trump go without saying, of course.

that everyone is a hypocrite and a con-man, etc, etc.

This is your invention.

Which of his policies do you support?

I don't think he has policies. Well, apart from entertaining the fans. However, I agree with him about what he has said about the media, Obongo's regime, Hitlary, immigration, outsourcing of jobs, and a few other things.

It goes without saying that I distrust everything I read. It is part and parcel of being a thinker. The reason why I haven’t strayed too far from the mainstream is that I haven’t yet come across an “alternative” site that has impressed me. They all seem like amateurish exercises in bile to me. But maybe the sites you have listed will be different.

No, you clearly believe that the NY Times is eminently respectable while alt media are "amateurish exercises in bile". That isn't scepticism.

DQ: Trump is trying to pretend there is no difference between Putin’s regime and normal US governing because he aims to turn America into a Putin-like state.

J: The ills of the US government pointed out by Trump aren't lies or pretense. This doesn't mean that Trump is wise and good. Trump is a hypocrite, but so are his opponents.

That is certainly what Trump wants us to think.

Pointless rhetoric.

The cleverness of Trump lies not in what he is criticising but in what he *isn't*. And frankly it isn't even that clever because politicians have always criticised only those problems that make them look relevant while ignoring those that don't.

If you want to forecast what Trump's or any other politician's regime will look like, concentrate on the issues he ignores. For example, Trump changed his tune about the stock market being a bubble the moment he assumed office. Indeed, that Trump is taking credit for the stock market bubble proves beyond a doubt how incompetent and stupid he is. When the stock market goes down, everyone will be tearfully remembering the awesome stock market Obongo left behind and which Trump ruined.

“Obongo”. There is that hatred again.

I was wondering if that is the only thing you'd respond to.

DQ; So we should ditch the whole idea that a leader should be rational, mentally stable, connected to reality, and motivated to rule for the common good?

J: Sorry to disappoint you, but there aren't any such leaders at the moment. Pretending that the alternatives to Trump are any better than him isn't a good outcome for anyone. Neither is pretending that the support for Trump and others like him around the globe is anything more than a misguided and all too overdue reaction to the character and deeds of those same alternatives.

This is a good example of what I would call your cynicism/fatalism.

How so?

The political scene in the West has become an echo chamber of "tu quoque", and all those who believe that Trump is the sole or major cause of all the near term problems facing the West are guilty of causing those problems.

I don’t know if anyone is arguing that. Clearly, the Trump phenomenon is just the tip of a very large iceberg. He is the latest link of a long and very complex chain of events that stretches back for decades, if not centuries. We have to go back, for example, to the many decades of Republican environmental denialism and the whole industry of fake news that has built up around that particular issue. Or even further back, to the denial of evolutionary theory in favour of the fake story of Christian creationism. More than a century of warring against rationality and facts by a large segment of the American population has now coalesced into a single person who is anti-fact and anti-truth personified. Trump has given these people permission to fully embrace their irrationality and they are reveling in it. This is the chortling we are all hearing from them at the moment.

I think you are arguing that, because in that whole paragraph you only mentioned liberal talking points. Both sides are environmental denialists because in general the environmental activists misunderstand/misinterpret the nature of the problem and their role in it. They also deny that science-magic can't make renewable energies even approach the EROI (energy return on energy invested) efficiency of fossil fuels. And quite apart from that, both sides are *resource* denialists and proud of it.

Teaching children creationism brainwashes them, right? After all, it's not like they are being taught anything else or that the world isn't already awash in *secular* delusions anyway. It's not like they can develop their own ideas in time.

Some people might argue that secular, Left-instated curricula like the Common Core rewards rote learning and blind respect for certain political ideas instead of prolonged study and analysis; that it is intentionally tailored for girls at the expense of boys, and is therefore *far* more harmful to rationality than creationist syllabi. But those people are conservofascists.

Some people might say that single mother homes (championed by the Left) are less likely to produce functional adults, but they are just privileged misogynist cis-white cis-male oppressors.

I am also seeing the whole Trump phenomenon as an re-enactment of the American scene in the 1800s. On the one hand, you have the lawlessness of the Wild West, the brothels, the gun fights, the lynchings, the strong Christian fundamentalism; and on the other, you have the pampered coastal elites, educated, cultured, who insist on coming in and imposing federal laws designed to protect the weak and unfortunate. The Wild West just happens to be in the ascendancy at the moment.

More pointless rhetoric.

I had a look at those links that you gave to Dan and I didn’t see any instance of the New York Times insulting Trump or downplaying anything. To my mind, they were simply reporting the facts of the matter and the comments of the parties involved. You have to understand that those journalists were in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, they were fully aware that Trump was a vile, unstable person who was clearly unfit for office, and yet they had to write stories that were seen to be fair to him. It’s a very tricky line to follow. They have my sympathy.

From the article:

Donald J. Trump and his allies are engaged in an aggressive effort to undermine the Republican nominating process by framing it as rigged and corrupt, hoping to compensate for organizational deficiencies that have left Mr. Trump with an increasingly precarious path to the nomination.

No mention of the fact that he did, in fact, win most of the primaries.

The new approach is a tacit admission that Mr. Trump’s campaign, which has been so reliant on national news coverage and mass communication via Twitter, has not been able to compete in the often intimate and personal game that is delegate courtship.

In other words, Trump is a meanie for not kowtowing to us and so we shall ignore the fact that the delegates did not do their jobs by representing the will of the people.

On review, I find I screwed up with the second NYT link because it does simply outline his views and no more. Again, I'm not saying that MSM prints *only* lies and propaganda. What I am saying is that they are not above lying and partisanship, as evident from their records. Once upon a time the NYT printed "The Pentagon Papers", but times have changed.

I don’t know what sites you read, but I certainly saw plenty of coverage of Clinton’s scandals.

Cite a link where the NYT offers an unbiased report of any of them. For that matter, cite a link where the NYT denounces her for torpedoing Sanders or continuing her campaign in light of those scandals and investigations (unprecedented in US history). "Plenty of coverage" is not an argument.

It's funny how easily our perception is distorted by our desires. When we are trying to be pure and rise above sex, all we see everywhere are pretty girls in short skirts. And then when we are aroused and want to oggle some girls, we can't seem to find them anywhere!

Even more pointless rhetoric.

I think it is more the case that I am just not singing the song you want me to sing.

If only it were, but I think that Trump is making you reveal delusions that years of abstract discussions about the need for applying philosophy to all aspects of one's life didn't.

Meanwhile, I'm sure Kevin's silence is deafening you right now.

If Trump rises to this challenge and sees off Putin, I'll take back everything that I said about him.

Does that include him being demonic or a vile, unstable man unfit to lead the US?

The Politico article is a joke that only proves that all establishments - no matter how anomalous in a dark and tyrannous world - respond to criticism and change with doubling down and reinventing narratives that no longer work while paying condescending lip service to emergent narratives. The latter, of course, only serves to inform, strengthen and solidify said emergent narratives rather than placate them. The Romans tried to assert their geopolitical legacy after Christianisation, but that didn't work on their new Frankish brothers in Christ. The Catholic Church (Rome's cultural legacy) tried to do it with the Council of Trent, but it lead to the 30 years war. In this case, the columnist is taking the "Putin is Hitler" narrative of the previous regime and superimposing Trump onto it - I guess because it sounds cool, edgy, perhaps even "Game of Thrones"-ish (tune in for the new season everyone!)

Rebuilding American power — based on the values of liberal democracy — is the only escape from Putin’s corrosive vision of a world at permanent war. We need a new united front. But we must be the center of it. It matters deeply that the current generation of global revolutionaries and reformers, like my Ukrainian friend, no longer see themselves as fighting for us or our ideals.

Someone should inform her that Putin did not attack Libya, Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, incite the Ukrainian revolution or fund militant groups. Nor did he send money and weapons to Saudi Arabia, which most likely created and funded ISIS' forerunner. He also didn't embargo western nations as they did Russia. Nor did he hack the American legal system and make it legal for a man's property and children to be seized by the government on behalf of his wife. David and Dan, what are the chances that "Molly Mckew" considers that last fact to be harmonious with the "anomaly"?

But no, it's a "good article" because happens to support a point of view you agree with. Does that remind you of anybody?

[David Quinn]

No one is saying that the liberal establishment, or Western democracy, or the US government, or whatever, is perfect. These things are far from perfect. But does this mean that we just cast them all aside in favour of a Putin-styled police state?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

No one is saying that the liberal establishment, or Western democracy, or the US government, or whatever, is perfect. These things are far from perfect. But does this mean that we just cast them all aside in favour of a Putin-styled police state?

In this case you are the one painting this extreme choice by yourself, mostly consisting of hot air but also commonly phrased as such in the media with zero evidence and little rationality attached. It's with such moments I do oppose anti-Trump rhetoric as being as bad as the man himself. There's zero evidence that a police state is desired or planned by anyone in Trump's cabinet. And Trump has never voiced anything like that, not even in the locker room. Nothing like that in his background. And if chaos keeps developing, the police will have to crack down but the US simply does not have the authoritarian history of Russia (Soviets, Czars) and will just erupt, if it comes that far, into another civil war. Of course people are free to fear anything to happen.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

For those interested in the issue of Putin's agenda, this is a quite interesting take on things:

As in intro to the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCWCu3fznIw

The [somewhat long] article: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... ame-214589

Also looks like Michael Flynn is in increasingly deep shit over his dealings with Russia.

There's an alternative viewpoint possible on some of the facts and opinions in there, without denying them altogether. It's the idea that Putin does not want to create chaos where there's none but taking down an imaginary sense of order, which is leaning on pillars of contradiction and falsehoods. Like the imaginary dream of a politically united Europe, We Are the World or the American political post WW2 world order? When it's lost its validity and became the opposite of what it set out to do?

To the ones residing in ivory towers built on cloud city, all realism will have the face of terror, chaos and vileness.

Every time I hear Russia comment on foreign policy, it surely sounds like a light of reason in twilight. It's all calculated of course, it's ruthless and only employed to the benefit of Russian ambitions. Sure. But that doesn't make it less true and realistic. The truth employed as sword, as demonstration of power, to show one controls the chess board. It pushes the opposition into impossible corners. It's a tough game but welcome to the real world of hard-ball politics, found everywhere. But mainly welcome to the real world of chaos, violent impulses and delusion growing like mold in each and every dark neglected corner.

We in the West grew up in some immaculate ordered society with peace on the continents and some universalistic approach of the future. What if the reality of human coexistence is nothing but strife? What if the more realistic outlook is that only brutal suppression can keep certain extremely destructive and vile forces minimized? What if people do not accept states without cultural identity? What if human nature is just better understood by Putin than it ever was by Obama and the Clintons?

Mind you this is amoral analysis. It's not about liking it. It's not about "supporting" it. Sometime truth demands admitting that the world works in a certain way in a certain age, not matter how hard or collective one dreams and wishes it wasn't so. We can all dream that people would not be deluding themselves and are not mainly steered by their emotion, their illusion. But right now the Western world has become way more emotional, sentimental and deluded about how societies work than the rest of the globe. Yes, Putin desires a new world order, more similar to the 19th century I suppose. The question is if that's such a horrible plan compared to trying to steer the Western ship into an ugly abyss more akin to mid 20th century, rationalizing industrial murder abroad while increasingly being forced to repress and persecute radical resistance at home. While of course denying it's happening, like a taboo, and seeing it sharply being done by the other. The hypocrisy as source of the ideologies dominant in the West.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

it is not just his name and reputation that he trashing with his foolish behaviour. It is also mine and Dan's, and everyone who has collaborated with him in the past and everyone here on Genius Forum. It is thus an issue that can’t be buried. I have alerted Kevin to the existence of this post, and so I am expecting that he will come on here and defend himself.

There are a few question on this I still have. It would be nice if Kevin will join here and yet the question remains if this topic is even proper Genius Forum material. Without this topic hardly anyone might have known of the link between Kevin and alt-right! So in a sense it's brought out in the open by the very one who feared it would be! Some irony in there but at the same time I do see why such a preemptive move could have some value. It's debatable though.

But lets try to become realistic. For years the forum has regularly been populated by rather confused and sometimes sick individuals. The idea was to have a certain degree of freedom of mind and some posters have suggested, racism, eugenics, violent forms of anti-semitic and other radical stuff. There was a period the quality of the average posts seemed so low or mindless, at best new agey mush, that the forum became at time perhaps the worst advertisement for philosophy ever!

Then again, what's the worry? Any proper thinker will not be in shock after toeing the water and seeing some undesired sea creature. If he wants to take a swim because he loves the water, he will. Lets face it: QRS philosophy has abhorred people because of the view on women, dismissals of charity, religion, sentiment and the emotional (okay a bit cut short here but it's how it often came across). In that light I'm surprised that there's now a sudden worry about trashing reputations. Was there any left then? Who are the peers? Any thinker worth his salt surely can look beyond for example Weininger's suicide and other errors and still read his book with interest? Or Nietzsche's collapse without worrying about the quality of his earlier writing? Why the need to immediately publicly disconnect things?

To be honest, I do suspect there's more under the surface brewing here. Personally I never glued Q, R and S, the articles and the forum together as some necessary unity or consistent fabric over time. I had my disagreements but I didn't think it was devaluing all the other work and in cases I just moved on if I didn't see value in chasing something down. Right now I start to suspect, David, that you are particularly upset seeing this side of Kevin while it might have been always there, in other things? Perhaps you preferred not to make an issue of it in the past? Or you just didn't see it? It would explain your seemingly extreme reaction to this development. And I really believe it's not as significant as a distortion as you seem to make it out to be. But it's possible you only start realizing it now, as it has become so apparent?

Here I'm just trying to make sense of your arrival here with this topic. Although I love to think about the Trump phenomenon and discuss modernity any day, or to see exemplary thinkers like yourself starting to participate again, I do still have questions on why this happens here and now. I guess that's my philosophical bend: to keep questioning what passes for reality.

[jupiviv]

No one is saying that the liberal establishment, or Western democracy, or the US government, or whatever, is perfect. These things are far from perfect. But does this mean that we just cast them all aside in favour of a Putin-styled police state?

The meaning of "police state" differs with context. Polls conducted throughout 2016 showed that approval ratings for both two main candidates for the US election were at record lows. And yet, they were the choices. In my view that is undeniable proof that the US government does not reflect the will of the US population.

My question to you is - what has Trump done or threatened to do so far as an individual and head of government that is worse than what others have done before him? In my view you are confusing Trump and his supporters with the causes of his election. Namely, a media culture controlled by a handful of corporations with ties to the government, callous financial practices like printing money to bail out banks' poor investments or dismissing the importance of rising debt, massive welfare programs, support for irrational leftist ideas of diversity, economic inequality, starting wars to hedge against threats to the petrodollar etc. But most importantly, as Diebert said, denying the depth and extent of those problems in favour of fantasies or outsourcing them to the putative *real* baddies.

Trump and others like him represent the anger a lot of people feel towards their leaders for that same denial and prevarication. When I hear what Trump actually says and compare that to what Obama, Clinton et al say, I find no reason not to prefer his - albeit calculated and artificial - honesty to their fairy tales.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

My question to you is - what has Trump done or threatened to do so far as an individual and head of government that is worse than what others have done before him?

Just to illustrate your question, at times I wonder: have people forgotten eight years of rule of GW Bush? The main reasons of why many still list him as worst president ever:

1. sleeping at the wheel at 9/11, ignoring all warning signs, even started policies which might have hastened it
2. as response started multi-trillion dollar wars based on false pretexts which resulted in making things way more insecure.
3. financial policies worsened an already existing bubble creating the world-wide financial crisis in 2008
4. US Patriot act, creating a virtual police state which is still not undone
5. couldn't handle hurricane Katrina, as a serious threat or as response
6. built ineffective and way too expensive fence on the border of Mexico
7. public appearances and factual errors were embarrassing all Americans
8. death counts of wars and poverty resulting from the above is staggering.

So it's hard to worry about the next "G.W." this time over. The madmen already ruled before. And got even re-elected. Case closed?

[David Quinn]

Diebert,

DQ: No one is saying that the liberal establishment, or Western democracy, or the US government, or whatever, is perfect. These things are far from perfect. But does this mean that we just cast them all aside in favour of a Putin-styled police state?

DvR: In this case you are the one painting this extreme choice by yourself, mostly consisting of hot air but also commonly phrased as such in the media with zero evidence and little rationality attached. It's with such moments I do oppose anti-Trump rhetoric as being as bad as the man himself. There's zero evidence that a police state is desired or planned by anyone in Trump's cabinet. And Trump has never voiced anything like that, not even in the locker room. Nothing like that in his background.

You don’t see the multiple strands of evidence that Trump is pushing things that way? I’m surprised to hear that, Diebert. That he is steadily undermining democratic norms and institutions on numerous fronts seems obvious to me.

And I must admit it didn’t occur to me that Trump needed to announce he was introducing a police state before introducing it.

And if chaos keeps developing, the police will have to crack down but the US simply does not have the authoritarian history of Russia (Soviets, Czars) and will just erupt, if it comes that far, into another civil war. Of course people are free to fear anything to happen.

You could well be right. I’m not saying that America *will* become a police state, only that Trump is pushing the country in that direction and destabilizing everything in the process. Things might indeed erupt into civil war before then, but that is hardly a better outcome. If America is destabilized, the whole world will be destabilized.

We in the West grew up in some immaculate ordered society with peace on the continents and some universalistic approach of the future. What if the reality of human coexistence is nothing but strife? What if the more realistic outlook is that only brutal suppression can keep certain extremely destructive and vile forces minimized? What if people do not accept states without cultural identity? What if human nature is just better understood by Putin than it ever was by Obama and the Clintons?

You describe the heart of the issue with great clarity. We have just undergone an unusually long period of peace and prosperity in the West generally, and in Europe in particular, but for whatever reason, many people in the West no longer believe in it. So many people want to see it come to an end. That’s the real issue, in my opinion. If a person, or a civilization, no longer believes in a particular ideal, whatever it might be, then the ideal quickly dissipates.

It is easy to spread chaos, much harder to impose order, and even harder to actualize an ideal. I guess my problem is that I still believe in a universal ideal - namely, the rational, global individual beyond all race and ethnicity. Such an ideal seems to have lost all credibility in the world today, and everyone is crawling back to their tribal groups, and now we are entering a kind of neo-nationalistic era. I’m just going to have to accept this reality, I guess.

I think a lot of it has to do with the cannon-fodder across the West becoming restless. There hasn't been a good war in a long time and many people, young men especially, are frustrated.

Lets face it: QRS philosophy has abhorred people because of the view on women, dismissals of charity, religion, sentiment and the emotional (okay a bit cut short here but it's the gist). In that light I'm surprised that there's now a sudden worry about trashing reputations. Was there any left then? Who are the peers? Any thinker worth his salt surely can look beyond for example Weininger's suicide and still read his book with interest? Or Nietzshe's collapse without worrying about the quality of his earlier writing? Why the need to immediately publicly disconnect things?

That’s a fair question. It stems from my belief that when this whole Trump fiasco blows over, people will look back at this period and judge it to be a very dark chapter in human history. Trump’s name will be mud and everyone associated with him will be mud, not unlike how those who sympathized with the Nazis in the pre-war period are now mud. By endorsing Trump, Kevin risks losing all credibility in the future. Poison for the Heart will lose all credibility. People will understandably conclude that if Kevin Solway exhibited such poor judgment in backing an obvious lunatic like Trump, then his judgment in other matters can only be suspect.

In other words, his support of Trump will only serve to alienate his own target audience for Poison for the Heart. The kind of people who will be drawn towards exploring Poison for the Heart won't be the Christian fundamentalists who support Trump, nor the uneducated rednecks, nor the conspiracy theorists, nor the white supremacists, nor the fearful elderly. Quite the reverse, they will be the educated, they will value science, rationality, knowledge and facts, and they will harbour an idealistic vision of humanity. That is to say, they will most likely come from the liberal establishment.

I realize that in many people’s eyes, including Kevin and jupiviv, the liberal establishment is the thing that has lost all credibility, but I don’t go along with that. From what I can see, the liberal establishment still represents the side of knowledge, science, facts, expertise, dispassion, idealism, etc, whereas the pro-Trump movement is anti-science and anti-intellectual to its core. I’m not saying all pro-Trumpers are anti-intellectual, but at least 99% are. And so as far as the promotion of wisdom is concerned, I don't see any value in siding with that lot.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

You don’t see the multiple strands of evidence that Trump is pushing things that way? I’m surprised to hear that, Diebert. That he is steadily undermining democratic norms and institutions on numerous fronts seems obvious to me.

That's just not convincing. You mean like the Patriot act, black CIA prisons, kidnapping from European streets, drone assassinations, etc? All done already for years and people have been warning for the sliding slope since then and perhaps even already since Nixon or before (see for example Philip K. Dick's vivid commentary at the time, his view on "evil empire").

If America is destabilized, the whole world will be destabilized.

That sounds a bit like preaching the brace position again. We're all in this delicate craft and can crash any minute now and take us all down. Do you see now why the analogy holds? Perhaps we should just learn to trust the future is less determinable or predictable than we might think. Governments didn't see the fall of the Soviet party just as they didn't see Bin Laden coming. Or even Hitler was not foreseen, how far he could take it. People still refer to that like some golden reference, the ultimate brace position, because of "camps!", "ovens!", "invasions!", "marching boots". It's the framing I read every day in "rational" mainstream media. Sounds rather traumatized to me. Perhaps cultural groups or societies can suffer trauma too? Would explain Israel.

We have just undergone an unusually long period of peace and prosperity in the West generally, and in Europe in particular, but for whatever reason, many people in the West no longer believe in it. So many people want to see it come to an end. That’s the real issue, in my opinion. If a person, or a civilization, no longer believes in a particular ideal, whatever it might be, then the ideal quickly dissipates.

We agree on that. Although I'd say that this "will to an end" would have several deeper causes. Where would that will or its opposite, the will to certain higher, socio-cultural ideals come from? What nurtures it? It's here where I often sound overly cynical but I cannot help realizing it has to do with some vital illusion, some foolish hope perhaps which has to run deep before people are willing to go through the sacrifices needed. That's the reason I believe Putin seems to understand this slightly better than Western leaders. The West having lost its deeper illusions and have only light entertainment left?

It is easy to spread chaos, much harder to impose order, and even harder to actualize an ideal. I guess my problem is that I still believe in a universal ideal - namely, the rational, global individual beyond all race and ethnicity. Such an ideal seems to have lost all credibility in the world today, and everyone is crawling back to their tribal groups, and now we are entering a kind of neo-nationalistic era. I’m just going to have to accept this reality, I guess.

It might be interesting to examine the rational, global individual beyond race and ethnicity. Some kind of "Übermensch ideal"? It was clearly one of the struggles of Nietzsche to define it in the face of German low brow nationalism. But I don't think the Lockean ideal is something he had in mind either. Or what he called "Chinesedom".

I think a lot of it has to do with the cannon-fodder across the West becoming restless. There hasn't been a good war in a long time and many people, young men especially, are frustrated.

Perhaps humans in general are still clueless about the energies and needs of their own being in the crowd? The steep price of having larger more complex societies? But as long this cannot be spoken about, as if it's some taboo, better solutions will never get in reach. But speaking about a core taboo could destroy the illusion of the group, or at least some social theorists said somewhere.

By endorsing Trump, Kevin risks losing all credibility in the future. Poison for the Heart will lose all credibility. People will understandably conclude that if Kevin Solway exhibited such poor judgment in backing an obvious lunatic like Trump, then his judgment in other matters can only be suspect.

While I understand your concern, I don't think you should worry too much about it. There are a lot of conditions there so it looks a bit imaginary to conceive of such future. And again, people with a seed of wisdom and experience will be able to separate it. Although they might wonder what happened with such particular mind at some stage. Who knows? And if that would be enough to step back and dismiss the work, I would not count on such people having enough basic courage or subtlety to read it anyway and make up their own mind.

From what I can see, the liberal establishment still represents the side of knowledge, science, facts, expertise, dispassion, idealism

That's more like the ideal though or perhaps the useful myth. Especially amongst brilliant scientific minds or historians you'll find quite a few varying political outlooks. Applying science to socio-cultural issues never really worked so far. Or even economics. In any case I think the dispassion and fact drive appears often in a very selected, limited context. It's being used more in a religious sense, like priests might tell you reasonable things about eternity, God and the wider spiritual view but then continue gazing at young children trusted to their care. This is the schizophrenic condition I hold to be modernity. Extremely fragmented views (true in a truncated context) and fundamentally hypocritical. But yeah right now I see no clear alternative either. Especially not "alt right". The future will bring its own thing I suppose and we won't see it coming until it's very nearby. And I'm not afraid.

[jupiviv]

That he is steadily undermining democratic norms and institutions on numerous fronts seems obvious to me.

You continue citing the rapid succession of executive orders as an example of this, but the fact that he is passing so many of them proves how ineffectual they are. Without the framework already in place for implementing them, they are just vague and arbitrary guidelines or directives.

If America is destabilized, the whole world will be destabilized.

People both in and out of the US are losing their patience with this concept because it no longer reflects the reality, neither economically nor ideologically.

I guess my problem is that I still believe in a universal ideal - namely, the rational, global individual beyond all race and ethnicity. Such an ideal seems to have lost all credibility in the world today, and everyone is crawling back to their tribal groups, and now we are entering a kind of neo-nationalistic era.

The ideal of complete rationality hasn't lost credibility because it never really mattered to as many people as you imply. Nor does the liberal establishment represent the compromised version of that ideal better. The so-called conservatives are, in theory at least, more legitimate heirs of the original Enlightenment liberals. The modern liberals represent a truce between Marxist socialism and 20th century capitalism that is nearing expiry.

Besides, if you really think that the liberals are the rational side, why have you avoided political discussion so steadfastly in the past?

Anyway, what is becoming obsolete is the idea of a world where everything is readily accessible to everyone so no one has any reason to be intolerant or nasty. This worldview is both non-rational and non-moral. If comfort and happiness is a requirement for being noble and rational, then by definition rationality is not the primary interest. Isn't that the essence of Kierkegaard's idea of Christendom vs Christianity?

Look at any large empire in history, and you are bound to find analogues to ideas of peace, tolerance, progress, open-mindedness and harmony. The Mauryan empire (first Jainist under Chandragupta, then Buddhist under Ashoka), the Achaemenids, the Romans, Genghis Khan, the Ottomans, the British and now the Transatlantic Empire. At the same time, among the ruling group/society, there is increasing corruption and decadence, the identification of pleasure-seeking and "free thought", petulant demands for more privileges by the privileged, increasing ignorance of actual problems and realities and so on. Something about the awesomeness of everything never seems right. And indeed, the end is bloodshed and chaos, replaced eventually by a new world order which itself progresses gradually towards a similar state of affairs.

For the vast majority of people rationality is only a means to an end. When the reason for being reasonable disappears, so does reason. When the poisonous clouds that support halls of earthly gods hatch out in a bitter rain, the crop of reason withers and is abandoned. Such a crop is sown only in fair weather. Therefore a sage only has fair-weather friends, unless he is lucky enough to have met another sage.

"Come here, come here, all, all you who labor and are burdened, come here, see, he is inviting you, he is opening his arms!" When an elegant man dressed in silk says this in such a pleasant, melodious voice that it gives a lovely echo in the beautiful vaulted ceiling, a silken man who spreads honor and esteem upon everyone listening to him; when a king in purple and velvet says this against the background of a Christmas tree hung with the glorious gifts he is about to distribute—well, then there is some sense to it, isn’t there? But whatever sense it has for you, this much is certain—it is not Christianity; it is the very opposite, as diametrically opposite to Christianity as possible—remember the inviter!

[Eric Schiedler]

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. Reading your opening post again, I see that I was probably a little harsh.

You can be assured that no offense was taken. That is because I contend that these two principles of good writing hold true and are not contradictory in any way. One is that there is such a thing as a standard for good writing. And the second is that no written work is ever complete until there is a reader of it.

There is no question that, in August of 2015, Trump was almost entirely underestimated, including by myself. The only public figure to claim to have always predicted a Trump victory is the Cartoonist Scott Adams (although he predicted a wide margin of victory instead of the actual narrow, technical win). That Trump was rightly underestimated is because Trump’s election is and always was an outlier outcome of a complex process - and an outlier event is unpredictable even though some outlier event is inevitable.

It was just something I sensed - a level of detachment...

On this point you are more perceptive than you may know. In my entire life I have never met, in person, someone else that is willing to follow a philosophical idea in its totality, whatever the personal cost. I have also never met, in person, a man that is willing to reject, as a conclusively inevitable position, the concept of bonding with a woman; rather they consider the status quo between a man and a woman to be what is inevitable despite having never thought through the matter.

My thinking tools, not to mention the time required to use them, have put me at a distance of observing everything, including a distance of looking and listening to other people. This is an existential distance. As an aside, I remain convinced that most people have never actually listened to another person. The cold, clean line that is drawn in the process of thinking clearly gives the impression of detachment, but I argue that my action in doing so is the opposite of detachment but rather that it is active participation in the thinking. The need to so, however, the motivation and the urgency of it, has always in myself been an urge to get a handle on the agony of living. Not as a temporary respite from the suffering, but as a direct contact with it in order to understand the Truth about why life is so painful. So yes, I am detached, but only because I have put myself so close to everything. My current stage of spiritual development is to stop trying to see that I was always that close.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

This is an existential distance. As an aside, I remain convinced that most people have never actually listened to another person. The cold, clean line that is drawn in the process of thinking clearly gives the impression of detachment, but I argue that my action in doing so is the opposite of detachment but rather that it is active participation in the thinking. The need to so, however, the motivation and the urgency of it, has always in myself been an urge to get a handle on the agony of living. Not as a temporary respite from the suffering, but as a direct contact with it in order to understand the Truth about why life is so painful. So yes, I am detached, but only because I have put myself so close to everything. My current stage of spiritual development is to stop trying to see that I was always that close.

The process of listening appears intimately connected to inner dialog. We hear only ourselves talking, with others, at best, reminding us of our own words, thoughts and forms: memorabilia. Like your post above reminded me about things I thought myself, experiences I lived. Am I listening now to you or just regurgitating my own experiences, coloring it in, already leaving behind any connect or closeness of spirit? But if it would be different and remain alien, how to understand anything at all?

A lot in life is about determining ideal distance. Essentially the ratio is just that: proper division of distance between this and other in a given context. It's naturally not fixed: we're close by nature and at the same time removed by observation.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

For those interested in the issue of Putin's agenda, this is a quite interesting take on things:

The [somewhat long] article: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... ame-214589

Finally finished the whole thing and noticed below the article:

• Molly K. McKew (@MollyMcKew) advises governments and political parties on foreign policy and strategic communications. She is a registered agent for Georgian President Saakashvili’s government,

Instead of listing all the problems or pointing out that it's really a vivid promotion of NATO, American exceptionalism and a world order based on "American sweat and ingenuity and blood and sacrifice" and other religious, ideological promotions, plus one or two known conspiracy theories, I'll just underline the quote above. Yes former president Saakashvili, who after arming himself to the teeth, started the war with Russia (according to the final EU investigation) and later fled his country because of pretty serious criminal charges. He's a dangerous fascist leaning criminal deluded bloke who now hides in Ukraine with his equally corrupt friends, always showing a modern, Western facade and a wink.

I'd say, it was pretty ironic to read analysis about Putin's master plan written by an agent of another scheming maniacal crook.

[Eric Schiedler]

This is an existential distance. As an aside, I remain convinced that most people have never actually listened to another person. The cold, clean line that is drawn in the process of thinking clearly gives the impression of detachment, but I argue that my action in doing so is the opposite of detachment but rather that it is active participation in the thinking. The need to so, however, the motivation and the urgency of it, has always in myself been an urge to get a handle on the agony of living. Not as a temporary respite from the suffering, but as a direct contact with it in order to understand the Truth about why life is so painful. So yes, I am detached, but only because I have put myself so close to everything. My current stage of spiritual development is to stop trying to see that I was always that close.

The process of listening appears intimately connected to inner dialog. We hear only ourselves talking, with others, at best, reminding us of our own words, thoughts and forms: memorabilia. Like your post above reminded me about things I thought myself, experiences I lived. Am I listening now to you or just regurgitating my own experiences, coloring it in, already leaving behind any connect or closeness of spirit? But if it would be different and remain alien, how to understand anything at all?

A lot in life is about determining ideal distance. Essentially the ratio is just that: proper division of distance between this and other in a given context. It's naturally not fixed: we're close by nature and at the same time removed by observation.

My overall impression is that, as you said, most people hear only themselves talking instead of other people. I am reminded of Weininger when he quoted Goethe: "He said of himself that there was no vice or crime of which he could not trace the tendency in himself and that at some period of his life he could not have understood fully." To listen to another person you have to become the other person.

[David Quinn]

jupiviv,

DQ: No one is saying that the liberal establishment, or Western democracy, or the US government, or whatever, is perfect. These things are far from perfect. But does this mean that we just cast them all aside in favour of a Putin-styled police state?

J: The meaning of "police state" differs with context. Polls conducted throughout 2016 showed that approval ratings for both two main candidates for the US election were at record lows. And yet, they were the choices. In my view that is undeniable proof that the US government does not reflect the will of the US population.

I agree this isn’t a great scenario. But nonetheless, it is still immeasurably better than living in an environment in which dissent is systematically quashed, journalists and activists are killed, the media is reduced to state-sanctioned propaganda, the internet is restricted and everyone lives in terror that their neighbour could be a government informant.

This is one of the things that really perplexes me about Kevin’s behaviour in recent years. He is living in a free and prosperous country where his ideas and speech are not being curtailed in any way, no one is gagging him, no one is trying to shut down his websites, no one is forcing him to do anything that he doesn’t want to do or act against his conscience in any way. His life really couldn’t be better as far as his political freedoms are concerned. And yet he has somehow managed to convince himself that we are all in a middle of a crisis, that his freedoms are somehow in danger, and that the situation is so dire that we are in need of a dangerously unstable strongman to quickly save us from this great feminist peril.

My question to you is - what has Trump done or threatened to do so far as an individual and head of government that is worse than what others have done before him?

If you remember, I wrote this to you in regards to his issuing of executive orders:

• The problem is the speed in which he is churning out these orders, and the chaos and scandals that he is overwhelming America (and the world) with, and the way he is trying to undermine the media and the court systems, and the utter bullshit that he constantly spews out with his comments and tweets, and the numerous conflicts of interests which already stink of high corruption, and the narrative of fear which he is deliberately sowing into the national psyche, and so on. Taken altogether, what we seeing here is something that goes far beyond the realm of Bush, Reagan and Clinton. So much of what he is doing is “unprecedented”, as numerous political and constitutional experts have already articulated .

In other words, when it comes to assessing Trump, we have to take the whole package into account - his abnormal psychology, his belief that he has a popular mandate to affect massive change, a compliant Republican party that is egging him on because they so desperately want to overturn the ever-expanding liberal establishment which seems to be engulfing them, a media environment in which serious journalism is being systematically undermined in its attempt to hold the administration to account - all of it is coming together to create a weakened democratic environment. This is what makes Trump's presidency so different from the past. In light of this, it is meaningless to single out a particular executive order of his and say that other presidents in the past have done a similar thing. That ignores the reality of what is going on.

Besides, if you really think that the liberals are the rational side, why have you avoided political discussion so steadfastly in the past?

Ah yes, now that’s an interesting question. In the past, there was never any reason to delve into politics because we - all of us, including Kevin - were focused on all forms of delusion and attachment, no matter what they were. Whether it be feminism/political correctness at one end of the spectrum, or fundamentalist Christianity, incoherent thinking, crude animalism on the other - all of these delusions were treated equally in the sense that they all represented obstacles to wisdom.

But now that has all changed. Kevin has over the past three years become so obsessed with feminism/political correctness that he has shifted, either consciously or unconsciously, from a neutral political position to a far right one and has sided with certain deluded positions that he and I both used to deride in the past, such as fundamentalist Christianity, myopia (e.g. Trump’s anti-environmentalism), greed, tribalism, animalism, etc. And now because of my past association with him, I have to decide whether I allow myself to drift over to the far right with him or make it clear that I value my neutral political position too much. And of course, I have decided upon the latter.

So it is not that I have become political, but that Kevin has become so. What I am doing is trying to disentangle myself from it.

One of the things that has become apparent to me, through my conversations here and elsewhere, and talking with Kevin privately, is how traumatic the gamergate/anti-SJW culture wars was for many people. It’s as though Kevin, and I suspect yourself, went through an extended period of extreme hazing, which led him to come out the other side of it a changed man. And so nowadays when he visits Breitbart and other alt-right sites, they all seem normal to him. By contrast, when I visit these sites, as someone who never went through this hazing and who more or less stayed away from the internet over the past few years, I am taken aback at how dark, angry and vindictive they are. And when I talk to Kevin, I am taken aback at how joyless and angry he sounds. He sounds traumatized to me.

Anyway, what is becoming obsolete is the idea of a world where everything is readily accessible to everyone so no one has any reason to be intolerant or nasty. This worldview is both non-rational and non-moral. If comfort and happiness is a requirement for being noble and rational, then by definition rationality is not the primary interest. Isn't that the essence of Kierkegaard's idea of Christendom vs Christianity?

Look at any large empire in history, and you are bound to find analogues to ideas of peace, tolerance, progress, open-mindedness and harmony. The Mauryan empire (first Jainist under Chandragupta, then Buddhist under Ashoka), the Achaemenids, the Romans, Genghis Khan, the Ottomans, the British and now the Transatlantic Empire. At the same time, among the ruling group/society, there is increasing corruption and decadence, the identification of pleasure-seeking and "free thought", petulant demands for more privileges by the privileged, increasing ignorance of actual problems and realities and so on. Something about the awesomeness of everything never seems right. And indeed, the end is bloodshed and chaos, replaced eventually by a new world order which itself progresses gradually towards a similar state of affairs.

Yes, it’s a cycle, no question. The past is repeating itself, at least to some extent. There are differences this time in that, unlike before, we are living in a vastly over-populated planet that is bursting to the seams with numerous flash-points and a deranged idiot has suddenly got hold of the nuclear codes. But also different is that we have a large educated population with access to all sorts of information, analyses, models, scientific theories, etc, and so we have the tools to break out of this cycle, if we want. My hope is that the progressive movement of the past few centuries will withstand the current right-wing/medieval onslaught and, having been shaken to the core by all this tumult, will intensify and deepen its efforts to eliminate its many flaws.

[Dan Rowden]

Curious thing that people have decided to question David's philosophic credentials on the basis of his seeming involvement in the realm of politics - by people arguing every nuance of it and throwing links to political stories around like confetti. Curious thing.

[Eric Schiedler]

My hope is that the progressive movement of the past few centuries will withstand the current right-wing/medieval onslaught and, having been shaken to the core by all this tumult, will intensify and deepen its efforts to eliminate its many flaws.

Part of the problem is that the SJW movement is seen as part of the progressive movement but is so completely irrational that the alt-right is willing to dismantle the progressive movement in order to eliminate the SJW's.

I have never spoken to Kevin about his experiences yet nevertheless I think I can say something interesting based upon the facts.

One fact is that Kevin reports that his experiences with Gamergate were the inspiration to make what is perhaps his best video. This seems like a very constructive outcome.

Another fact is that Kevin was subjected to personal attack with accusations of “sealioning.” Here is some of the evidence.

Here: https://archive.is/pfuBM
And here: https://archive.is/pfuBM (edit: corrected link: http://archive.is/KLslS)
In particular, take note of the cartoon by David Malki that explains “sealioning.”

The term “sealioning” is so utterly corrupt that it can only have been created by a malevolent, paranoid, vindictive, selfish, and cruel mind. It is one of the most immoral terms that I have ever encountered because it is completely bereft of any sound reasoning whatsoever. It does not even pretend to have a shred of dignity as to the purpose of the term.

It does, however, remind me of a quote from Winston Smith in Orwell’s “1984”. Winston thought to himself, “It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers−out of unorthodoxy.” This term, “sealioning”, is the type of humor that teenage high school princesses use among themselves while they destroy the reputation of another schoolgirl.

"Sealioning” would fit right in the Newspeak of “1984” and can serve only one purpose: to be part of a campaign to make rational thought and discourse a criminal offense. Specifically, this term is used to ridicule a person that tries to defend their reputation as a reasonable and fair participant in public debate.

Someone who comes across these SJW’s may very well experience something equivalent to a direct encounter with the power of the totalitarian state. Socrates and Jesus had to face vindictive enemies but these opponents were of the type who nevertheless believed in rationality as part of the law. We have to consider what might happen if a thinking person has to face a totalitarian state. He may come to fear that it is possible that reason itself (the ability for consciousness to arise in people) could be completely and systematically extinguished.

Of course, each individual SJW is only accidentally relevant. None of them are clever enough to create and maintain an original constructive narrative around which to they could build a breakthrough organization. They’ve survived and grown this far by making demands based on their emotional needs. Yet they might become aligned with others who do have a lot of brains and ambition or with a power structure in society that sees them as useful. Or they might gain strength through sheer numbers. But if they are identified as aligning with the progressive movement then they might tarnish the reputation of the progressive movement as a reliable source of fair and reasonable political systems. (Eric Schiedler)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Curious thing that people have decided to question David's philosophic credentials on the basis of his seeming involvement in the realm of politics - by people arguing every nuance of it and throwing links to political stories around like confetti. Curious thing.

It's not what I'm reading in this thread but trying to get to "what exactly is meant" is a bit of the theme, isn't it? It's indeed a surprise to see a political thread and yet perhaps it's not really about politics at all. This is about arguing if Trump is 100% irrational and that he shouldn't be supported by wise people. Or it is about him being clever but plans to limit our treasured freedoms? Or it's about how we really won't like to live in Russia and how that is evil. It seems not very focused at all. Which is questionable, philosophically. Then again, politics is a lot like that. Theology if you ask me.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Another fact is that Kevin was subjected to personal attack with accusations of “sealioning.” Here is some of the evidence.

I did notice he was accused of Wikipedia warfare (three edits in a row trying to get his version in). That would be part of the record so not easy to deny. In my view that's a rather irrational and abusive act, or perhaps immature, since the system is not meant for that kind of protest. Not that I haven't done anything like that ever but it's really not constructive in my opinion. It becomes the level of vandalizing. Apart from that the encyclopedia should not be given that kind of significance at all.

[David Quinn]

Hi Eric,

Part of the problem is that the SJW movement is seen as part of the progressive movement but is so completely irrational that the alt-right is willing to dismantle the progressive movement in order to eliminate the SJW's.

That definitely seems to be the case. Rather than go through the laborious task of dealing with the occasional bad fruit as it emerges, they want to chop down the entire tree and be done with it.

Interestingly, for the past 15 years Kevin has lived in a small, isolated town in Tasmania, one that is essentially working class and white. If you combine this with a daily lifestyle of being intensely absorbed in the anti-SJW wars on the internet, then a certain disconnect from reality is almost inevitable. I think in focusing so much on the outer extremities, Kevin has forgotten the existence of all the intelligent, constructive, sensible people who constitute the bulk of the liberal establishment.

Another fact is that Kevin was subjected to personal attack with accusations of “sealioning.” Here is some of the evidence.

Here: https://archive.is/pfuBM
And here: https://archive.is/pfuBM

In particular, take note of the cartoon by David Malki that explains “sealioning.”

The term “sealioning” is so utterly corrupt that it can only have been created by a malevolent, paranoid, vindictive, selfish, and cruel mind. It is one of the most immoral terms that I have ever encountered because it is completely bereft of any sound reasoning whatsoever. It does not even pretend to have a shred of dignity as to the purpose of the term.

FYI, those two links are identical.

I don't know. It doesn’t seem that bad a term to me. Almost a badge of honour. They would have applied it to Socrates had it been around back then. He was basically sentenced to death for “sealioning” the populace, after all. Kevin has been called worse. As have I.

[David Quinn]

Diebert,

It's not what I'm reading in this thread but trying to get to "what exactly is meant" is a bit of the theme, isn't it? It's indeed a surprise to see a political thread and yet perhaps it's not really about politics at all. This is about arguing if Trump is 100% irrational and that he shouldn't be supported by wise people. Or it is about him being clever but plans to limit our treasured freedoms? Or it's about how we really won't like to live in Russia and how that is evil. It seems not very focused at all.

Well, speaking for myself, I wanted to make it clear that I do not support Trump or the alt-right movement. That was my goal in starting this thread and I think I've achieved that. But yes, I've basically said all that I wanted to say, and the subject has never interested me that much to begin with, so you're right, it is probably time to start thinking about something else.

DQ: It is easy to spread chaos, much harder to impose order, and even harder to actualize an ideal. I guess my problem is that I still believe in a universal ideal - namely, the rational, global individual beyond all race and ethnicity. Such an ideal seems to have lost all credibility in the world today, and everyone is crawling back to their tribal groups, and now we are entering a kind of neo-nationalistic era. I’m just going to have to accept this reality, I guess.

DvR: It might be interesting to examine the rational, global individual beyond race and ethnicity. Some kind of "Übermensch ideal"? It was clearly one of the struggles of Nietzsche to define it in the face of German low brow nationalism. But I don't think the Lockean ideal is something he had in mind either. Or what he called "Chinesedom".

I was thinking more along the lines of a fully-enlightened Buddha. A person without any delusions. That is what this forum is all about, isn't it?