GENIUS FORUMS

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:

(All that I do here could be described in one French word oft employed by Nietzsche which you'll never, ever guess, not in 2 million years)

Ressentiment? ;-)

Wrapped in a decadent coat of renaissance though.

Carl quoted Confucius:

"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it frustrates you and annoys the pig."

But you can simply sing your little ditty and, lo and behond! you may discover the pig begins to hum along! And once you just get one pig humming, with time others chime in, and soon you have a chorus.

Jason,

Perhaps it would be good if you just state outright what your ultimate(general?) goal in debate is(in terms of this thread and line of questioning, anyway.)

In my mind at least, the words "debate tactics" tend, among other things, to conjure images of deceitful manipulation and desire to win, as well as formal debate, not things that are immediately and obviously associated with a desire for truth. Although I can understand that you may not mean to imply such things with those words.

"Alright, show me your cards: here are mine!"

I was playing with a 3, 7, 8, jack, and a king, and you just folded with a full house. You simply didn't use your hand to prove anything.



AJ,

But you can simply sing your little ditty and, lo and behond! you may discover the pig begins to hum along! And once you just get one pig humming, with time others chime in, and soon you have a chorus.

Then they'll start talking, and there'll be a rebellion, and pigs will walk around in business suits. I want no part of this Orwellian dystopia.

Diebert commente:

"Wrapped in a decadent coat of renaissance though."

Don't want to get too personal, but in what do you wrap yours, Diebert?

Le ressentiment avec une couverture de renaissance! Par ressentiment, il faut entendre un sentiment de rancune ou de rancœur, et monsieur Diebert, je vous assure que je les ai. Mais au moins, je suis honnette avec vous. Pour moi, ça c'est le commencement et y commence le vérité...(Ou Vérité si vous voulez).

It is always that biting sense of scorn and contempt, ain't it? Isn't it just fucking weird how so much hinges in this? Here on this forum! Yes! This is what I keep trying to point out and no one really seems to capture the significance. But you, Diebert, I really do have faith in you!

Nous sommes tous réactifs au sens indiqué avec mépris par Nietzsche, y compris et même à commencer par les êtres qui, apparemment, sont supérieurs au sens nietzschéen. De tels être, comme Roméo et Juliette ou les idoles du star-système, non seulement ne sont pas supérieurs, mais ils sont au contraire suprêmement dépendant des sentiments d'autrui pour nourrir les leurs, au risque, lorsqu'ils sont livés à eux-mêmes, du suicide et des mondes artificiels. Nietzsche lui-même apparait à Alex Jacob comme particulièrement "ressentissant" (par exemple à l'égard de Wagner, qu'il admirait puis qu'il attaquera), et la tension entre le mépris pour les esclaves et sa propre situation devient un paramètre explicatif de la folie de Nietzsche. Jacob développe également les idéologies du ressentiment (communisme, anti-sémitisme, et plus généralement tous les anti-quelque chose...) sur le même thème, alors que la Bible et le christianisme « crucifiés » par Nietzsche et par toute la pensée moderne lui apparaissent au contraire comme porteurs de la vérité des sentiments.

We all react, it is reaction that defines us! I think this represents a breakthrough, for you, for the forum, and for the ancestral spirits who flock around us! Who drink from us! Whom we nourish!

Mais c'est la vengeance qui est extraordinairement plus riche, plus delicieux...

La vengeance est un acte d’attaque d'un premier acteur contre un second, motivée par une action antérieure du second, perçue comme négative (concurrence ou agression) par le premier. Il peut s'agir de personnes---par example contre les monsieur David et Diebert---de personnes morales, de groupes familiaux ou ethniques, d'institutions, notamment pour le second acteur.

Ce comportement n'est pas exclusivement humain, mais c’est chez eux que la vengeance est la plus fréquente. On connaît notamment ces éléphants de cirque qui attaquent leur dresseur qui les maltraite. Il y avait une fois qu'un groupe de babouins hamadryas s'étaient embusqués sur le bord de la route pendant trois jours afin de lapider un automobiliste, qui avait précédemment écrasé un des membres du groupe de singes. (!)

Knowing this, I can forgive the geniuses of the GF for everything...

Every day that goes by---don't you think?---we make inroads to greater understanding. But today represents a big step!

One is wrong in all languages or one is wrong in none. I can assure you Alex, there went no trace of contempt into my words and indeed your reaction appears to define you.

On the other hand, decadence seems like a correct description, no matter if it's the literary movement or the psychological overripe 'rottingness', to link with your efforts to birth something in an infertile womb or efforts to first seduce heaven to kiss the earth once more.

My point goes beyond you or any singular person. To understand me you have to take a number of steps backword and you have to think a little more. You are being led along. All that I do is based in embodying, entering into, and [deleted].

A little jokingly I mentioned 'ressentiment' as a motivator on this forum by including myself in it. This ressentiment functions on many levels, for example simple reaction, or scorn, or a kind of arrogance, snottiness, pretension. It may not be used that way all the time, but the stance of looking down on women (the unthinking, the mindless, the 'feeling') as this inferior-order animal, is a clear expression of ressentiment, almost pathological.

We can't really see each other (all of us) and yet it is facinating to watch how ideas about each other are concretized, expressed, and take on a life of their own.

Are you going to give me my ring back?!

"On the other hand, decadence seems like a correct description, no matter if it's the literary movement or the psychological overripe 'rottingness', to link with your efforts to birth something in an infertile womb or efforts to first seduce heaven to kiss the earth once more."

Wow. Such honeyed words! But if you keep talking like that you are going to give me a complex.

This thread is about debate tactics, but it is also about (I hope) communication, the need and the desire to communicate, and all the positive that can arise from the process. After all, why does anyone show up here?

Decadence:

The decline or deterioration of culture and morality;
Degeneracy: the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities;
Decadence refers to a personal trait and, much more commonly, to a state of society. In a person, or used to describe a person's lifestyle, it describes a lack of moral and intellectual discipline.

Is there any redemption on my horizon, Diebert? I hope that you will give me at least a trace of a path toward it. Every time we talk lately I lose a notch. And there is no scorn in that?

;-)
__________________________________________________

" Wagner is merely one of my sicknesses. Not that I wish to be ungrateful to this sickness. When in this essay I assert the proposition that Wagner is harmful, I wish no less to assert for whom he is nevertheless indispensable—for the philosopher. Others may be able to get along without Wagner; but the philosopher is not free to do without Wagner. He has to be the bad conscience of his time: for that he needs to understand it best... . I understand perfectly when a musician says today: "I hate Wagner. but I can no longer endure any other music.' But I'd also understand a philosopher who would de dare: 'Wagner sums up modernity. There is no way out. one must first become a Wagnerian."

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:"Alright, show me your cards: here are mine!"

I was playing with a 3, 7, 8, jack, and a king, and you just folded with a full house. You simply didn't use your hand to prove anything.

I wasn't trying to prove anything. I was trying to help you, you asked for advice.

Debate (and its "tactics") is mental dualing or sparring among many combatants. I know. I was a "master debater" ( Thanks again, Sue) in high school and a debate judge for the state HS championships as a college grad student.

Dialogue is the the next evolutionary step up from debate. The most famous form of dialogue nowadays is "Bohm Dialogue."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue

I was engaged in such a dialogue group here in Eugene for over five years, so it's not just a concept in my life but a vital way of communication in total mutual respect... Someting we see very little of here on this forum. And of course, I am not above entering the sparring arena as a very nasty combatant when confronting "nasty" egos. A dirty job, but sombody who is awake has to do it!!

Thing is... I *know* its just drama, and hope those attached to their dramas (all egocentrics here) can relate to what I say better "at their own level." Ususally not, but speaking the expected language of sweetness and light (the supposed language of enlightenment) is even more easily ground under the cynical boot of egocentricity.

Anyhoo, I much prefer actual dialogue to debate, per se, and way more than nasty/hostile debate.
I invite dialogue in all my future conversations here. But I will still carry a big stick when the rabid dogs come at me.
(I got over being a pacifist after the war in Nam when a rapist was after my neice in a remote campground in Hawaii, and I had to do violence. ... no, didn't kill him but convinced him the hard way to go away.)
Way off subeject... just a little battle story... but most of the post is on topic.
Dialogue... as per link... something to consider as a model for this forum.
mikiel

Alex Jacob wrote:My point goes beyond you or any singular person. To understand me you have to take a number of steps backword and you have to think a little more. You are being led along. All that I do is based in embodying, entering into, and [deleted].

Subverting? You know, I could say similar things: "my point goes beyond the singular you" and "take a few steps backword and think". But I'm not steeping that low, that cheap. But you have taken on many coats, absorbed the lingo here, paced a reality which you now think you can influence by interrupt the structured thought and reason, to shock people awake so they might face their own immense irrationality and perhaps hinting that they might be able to respond to it by at least acknowledging.

Or something similar.

the stance of looking down on women (the unthinking, the mindless, the 'feeling') as this inferior-order animal, is a clear expression of ressentiment, almost pathological.

Looking down on feeling? Or anything else for that matter? Why do you keep on translating value judgments to issues on absolute superiority. This shows way more about your problem with valuing and by the way: you still do not grasp ressentiment in Nietzschean fashion. But for now I'll have to let that pass.

The problem here might be that your value judgments so far have been based on feelings and proto-thought. The idea of basing them on reason scares the shit out of you, you see images of marching boots and Swastika's? But how do you correctly assess reason without reason?

Decadence:

The decline or deterioration of culture and morality;
Degeneracy: the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities;
Decadence refers to a personal trait and, much more commonly, to a state of society. In a person, or used to describe a person's lifestyle, it describes a lack of moral and intellectual discipline.

It's also about having 199 satellite channels on the TV and hundred types of chocolate-cereal in airport-sized supermarkets. It's not a deterioration that is seen as such by the decadent enjoyers, the fruit pluckers!

Jason,

I wasn't trying to prove anything. I was trying to help you, you asked for advice.

Well, then, I can see how I completely misread this:

Perhaps it would be good if you just state outright what your ultimate(general?) goal in debate is(in terms of this thread and line of questioning, anyway.)

See, this thread itself can't actually be a debate without circularity, so I can't relate my ultimate goal of debate to this thread. But you weren't asking what my goals for this line of questioning were, but merely in terms of this line of questioning. I'm not prepared for a meta-debate.

The strategies I listed in the first post are methods for quickly finding flaws in argument without babbling. That's usually how I conduct debate.

Diebert writes:

"Looking down on feeling? Or anything else for that matter? Why do you keep on translating value judgments to issues on absolute superiority. This shows way more about your problem with valuing and by the way: you still do not grasp ressentiment in Nietzschean fashion. But for now I'll have to let that pass."

Because they seem to me to hinge into issues of 'superiority', as does a major portion of the attitude one encounters 'on these pages'. It is not even that I am really morally outraged or anything, but this is a very precise fact, one so obvious that it surprises me you can't distinguish it.

I offer this quote, David's definition of the 'feminine':

"Feminine: that part of the human mind characterised by an immediate, spontaneous, visceral, emotional and unconscious engagement with the world. i.e. the animal."

These sort of formulations are 'par for the course'. They don't irritate me, per se, but I just try to poke at them, to see what is there.

Diebert, everyone will come into contact with ideas and interpret them, understand them, as one can and as one is able. To say 'you don't yet undersdtand' is vastly arrogant, and it is also dead-wrong as I see things. Whenever I encounter this pretentious arrogance I make it a point to take it on, to wear it, and [phrase deleted] of he who displays it. Now, you say 'I'll just have to let that pass...'

"Subverting?"

That is your word, I say: [long phrase deleted]. What I do and why I do it, is just not revealed openly to Geniuses. If you subscribe to my correspondence course I go into everything, but for that you'll have to pay. We DO take Euros, just FYI...

"You know, I could say similar things: "my point goes beyond the singular you" and "take a few steps backword and think". But I'm not steeping that low, that cheap. But you have taken on many coats, absorbed the lingo here, paced a reality which you now think you can influence by interrupt the structured thought and reason, to shock people awake so they might face their own immense irrationality and perhaps hinting that they might be able to respond to it by at least acknowledging."

My dear friend, these are tough lessons, I know! You say 'I don't stoop that low or get that cheap', and yet in fact you do, but you keep it nicely covered over so you can back away from it when you need to. I aslo suggest that the QRS-tians do exactly the same thing, it is their essential and basic position. And you get mad at me because I try to make this all conscious? To open it all up to view? To personalize it?

"The problem here might be that your value judgments so far have been based on feelings and proto-thought. The idea of basing them on reason scares the shit out of you, you see images of marching boots and Swastika's? But how do you correctly assess reason without reason?"

I never rule out feeling, but you do I take it. Feeling is there just like reasoning is there. But then you get nasty: the proto-thought insult. (Henid? you asked some pages back).

This is now your position and, from the look of it, was your position all along. You said to David 'Well, I relate to him with sympathy because, not so very long ago I shared these defects" (I paraphrase, but that was basically it). You say you don't stoop low but really you have stooped the lowest, and the only way for you to uphold it is to say that 'only reason can assess reason', and this is pretty much the whole key to the whole GF bullshit game, brother! And I am fucking taking the time to point it out to you, and you get snotty with me?

;-)

Diebert, honestly, I think you are a swell fellow, so please read lots of warmth into anything I write. One of these days, I hope, we will return to a platform of 'good faith' and continue our conversations.

Alex Jacob wrote:

Diebert wrote:Why do you keep on translating value judgments to issues on absolute superiority.

Because they seem to me to hinge into issues of 'superiority', as does a major portion of the attitude one encounters 'on these pages'. It is not even that I am really morally outraged or anything, but this is a very precise fact, one so obvious that it surprises me you can't distinguish it.

The phrase "these pages" isn't very precise, is it? There are many different folks here and I long ago stopped trying to look at it in terms of "them" or "us" and not only at this forum. The need for some form of control or superiority in terms of establishing order (structure) has a lot to do with it but again, it's not very precise in what you're aiming at there. Again you wrote "looking down on feeling". But this is not about denying anything or badmouthing, or is it? But your phrase paints a picture that does imply all these things.

I offer this quote, David's definition of the 'feminine':

"Feminine: that part of the human mind characterised by an immediate, spontaneous, visceral, emotional and unconscious engagement with the world. i.e. the animal."

These sort of formulations are 'par for the course'. They don't irritate me, per se, but I just try to poke at them, to see what is there.

But where's the looking down? Only when one offsets human against animal and thereby creating a contrast, a structure, the judgement starts. But such judgement doesn't translate in sitting in the 'human' seat, identifying with that position and looking down upon animals which then should be treated as some lower organism.

But still, these are the pictures you paint and then protest against. You're a bloody impressionist painter! :-)

My dear friend, these are tough lessons, I know! You say 'I don't stoop that low or get that cheap', and yet in fact you do, but you keep it nicely covered over so you can back away from it when you need to.

Sometimes "nice covers" are not covers but don't have much underneath. They're what they are. It's with your words we keep on having the hints of deeper layers, secret intentions, blanked out words. Naturally you have to believe a whole universe of covert meaning under the words of others?

Feeling is there just like reasoning is there. But then you get nasty: the proto-thought insult. (Henid? you asked some pages back).

What's the insult exactly? We all have assholes and all have proto-thoughts and feelings. I explained that it's quite rare to get to reason or pure thought. I don't expect anyone to arrive at one. I only get nasty if people did arrive at one and then, knowingly still fuck up. I'd count myself under that category before throwing any stone.

Kevin Solway writes at times about common people who according to him didn't experience any thought in their lives yet. One has to understand this against the backdrop of his standard of what constitutes a thought.

This is now your position and, from the look of it, was your position all along. You said to David 'Well, I relate to him with sympathy because, not so very long ago I shared these defects" (I paraphrase, but that was basically it). You say you don't stoop low but really you have stooped the lowest, and the only way for you to uphold it is to say that 'only reason can assess reason', and this is pretty much the whole key to the whole GF bullshit game, brother! And I am fucking taking the time to point it out to you, and you get snotty with me?

You paraphrased it willfully into the defective. That's the lowest one can go in debates and I keep catching those small white lies and pointing them out to you. True mercy on my end!

Diebert, honestly, I think you are a swell fellow, so please read lots of warmth into anything I write. One of these days, I hope, we will return to a platform of 'good faith' and continue our conversations.

There will be no return on my side as I never left my position of being interested and sympathetic. My type of warmth doesn't have to be read into, it's always there not depending on any real of imaginary sin you might commit.

Well, no need to hash and rehash it all. We'll just say I came out on top and let it go at that.

...

I don't know if I understood exactly what you wrote, but it seems to me that the part of us that enables us to 'feel' our lives, to feel the meaning of things, to exist in relationship to, is not exactly 'emotional' or 'emotionalism', and is not necessarily reactive, or of a low, base order. There is a kind of feeling that is very high, and on a par with what we identify as 'reason'. What if [sentence deleted]?

[Paragraph deleted, with links to an indecent song-and-dance macaw site].

'Reasoned enlightenment', to me, is a meaningless phrase. Whatever it is is left up to the person who 'has' it. Being 'reasonable', though, in comparison to being outright emotionalism, like soggily emotional, is likely a good alternative, a better choice, and will take one further. But the whole 'rationalist' argument, that (seems to) negate the emotional part of human beings, both men and women, child and adult, seems to me sheer stupidity, sheer ignorance of the basic facts of human nature. [Large passage deleted]. Yes yes yes it is necessary to develop one's thinking side, yes yes yes it is vital to challenge unbridled emotionalism. No no no it is not a good idea to negate or lose contact with your own emotional interior, no no no the issue is not to be approached in that way. There comes a time in everyone's life, even to the 'philosopher' and to the 'sage', to have emotions, to give vent to them, but more than that to [deleted], not operate against them. It seems to me, but I have no statistical evidence, that people get further when they deal with themselves holistically. (Is my argument therefor 'populist'?) Am I misunderstanding about the GF position? Have I heard it wrong? Am I [deleted]?

Alex Jacob wrote:There is a kind of feeling that is very high, and on a par with what we identify as 'reason'.

According to Gurdjieff the emotional brain is divided in three centers. At the highest level the emotional and reasonable become one. Seems to be similar to your views.

xerox wrote:There's a tendency to interpret the nature of emotion and the reactions arising therefrom, relative to reasoned enlightment, as an invalidation of emotion. This may be a misinterpretation. Maybe its a case of lessening the dominant, over-reliance on emotion with its attend perceptual flaws and a conscious effort to allow and encourage the use of logic and reason to do what emotion has trouble doing, namely, perceiving truth.

Alex Jacob wrote:I don't know if I understood exactly what you wrote, but it seems to me that the part of us that enables us to 'feel' our lives, to feel the meaning of things, to exist in relationship to, is not exactly 'emotional' or 'emotionalism', and is not necessarily reactive, or of a low, base order. There is a kind of feeling that is very high, and on a par with what we identify as 'reason'. What if [sentence deleted]?

This area of perception is almost completely unexplored territory when it comes to rational thought. At least, that's how it seems to me by the lack of accuracy in English terminology and usage. I think it would be better to use terms like feminine emotion and masculine emotion, at least in terms of self-exploration. Other people may not be able to make the distinction if you were to discuss it in these terms, but their understanding isn't necessary for your understanding.

What I see as "emotion," as distinct from sentimental or "emotional" expressions, is very much able to supply truth in its own way. The power implied by emotion is a very real thing that cannot be denied except through beliefs--meaning, thoughts. It may seem egocentric to many spiritual belief structures to entertain the feeling that you are the center of the world, as emotion may imply, but this is actually no lie. It is very much a masculine characteristic, which of course goes beyond gender.

I find it interesting that people here on this site--more so when I first started posting--promoted masculinity by devaluing emotion, although I'm sure most didn't make the distinction I make. But to not make the distinction tells me that what is masculine is not exactly understood. To lump emotion with sentimental feeling and say it is the same and that it's unworthy of attention seems to me a very clouded view. This is not to say that sentimental or "emotional" feeling is somehow below the masculine expression of emotion and should never be considered in the same light, but as a thought-focus, my attention is not naturally close to those feelings.

With awareness, those feelings are ever-present in the background, so to speak, and they also provide their own take on truth--although that is a very mental and masculine word. "Love" would be more accurate from that point of view. Love has parallels to the masculine expressions of true vs. false, where "false" is really only a misunderstanding based on what is truly understood, and "hate" is really self-love cut off from the whole of self.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue
Bump: "Dialogue... as per link... something to consider as a model for this forum."
Is there no interest at all here in mutually respectful dialogue as distinct from debate and all its dog-eat-dog "tacics?"

So far it (this forum) seems like a gathering of male chauvenist bigots (and the moderators' "bitches") expounding on "Truth" as somehow superior to "Love" (cast as feminine seniment)... with a "side" of "discussion of enlightenment" as a very narrow belief system based on Puritan ascetic renunciaion of all those evil pleasures, most folks enjoy.

There are of course, other "sides" like "pure logic" in denial of empiricism in general and science as a particular empirical mehod.
So then "debate tactics" go to denial of empirical info gathering and glorificaion of the "pure" Platonic ideals with no reference to the "real world" of mere empirical infomation, gathered by those damed unreliable "senses."
"The world of mental ideals and logic-sans-objective- info *IS* "the real world." (Choke on the licence to quote if you can't help it!)... i.e., Solipsism rules this forum. No argument here yet seriously disputes this challenge. (That "the external, objective world is not "physical" is ridiculous. Energy manifesting in scientifically well known patterns... see the atomic chart, molecular science, quantum physics... *IS* the "physical world." ) Get over it, idealists!

So this post *IS* a debate with the forum ideology. My "tactic" is direct confrontation of the fallacies enumerateted above... and direct challenge to reply in formal debate protocol, i.e., without the usual nasty character assassination "tactics."
(trans-thread challenge)
mikiel

miki,

Is there no interest at all here in mutually respectful dialogue as distinct from debate and all its dog-eat-dog "tacics?"

You could lead by example, by being respectful of other's opinions and avoiding what you see as the worst offenses (character assassination, etc.).

So far it (this forum) seems like a gathering of male chauvenist bigots (and the moderators' "bitches")

If I'm reading this correctly, the males are chauvenist bigots, and the females are the moderators' bitches? Are there any exceptions?

expounding on "Truth" as somehow superior to "Love" (cast as feminine seniment)...

Like all normative claims, one chooses to value truth. Following such a value system, one may even value truth far more than happiness. How is this difficult to understand? Do people with different ethical views startle you?

So then "debate tactics" go to denial of empirical info gathering and glorificaion of the "pure" Platonic ideals with no reference to the "real world" of mere empirical infomation, gathered by those damed unreliable "senses."

I don't believe that a discussion of tactics implies Platonic ideals. Anyone can do it.

My "tactic" is direct confrontation of the fallacies enumerateted above

Your tactic is to fight people who you disagree with? At least you're focused enough not to fight with people who you agree with.

Mikiel wrote:

"Is there no interest at all here in mutually respectful dialogue as distinct from debate and all its dog-eat-dog "tacics?"

I read the Wiki page. I think I grasped the praxis presented but it seemed to me that what is done there is very opposite to what is done here. You have to understand, first, what IS done here, and why, and what purpose it serves, both covert and overt, conscious and unconscious, and then I think one would see that the Bohm 'game' (all communication/interaction as a kind of 'game' with 'game' rules) would just not work here. No one is interested in it.

I say this sincerely and with only a very light irony.

If you will permit me to share my opinion, the Bohm-style of dialogue is particularly suited to a woman-centered style of communication, with stereotypically female goals: concord, minimizing uncomfortable friction (that almost sounds like a pun but I didn't mean it that way), and a sort of 'leveling-out'. Speaking of forums, which are a peculiar space for human interactions, a very new one, I have noticed that woman-majority forums exhibit many characteristics that Bohm recommends, but there is so much 'bonding' that these forums tend to become unexciting, unchallenging, too 'safe' if you will. The strange oddball fact is that---Jaysus!---when there are meltdowns between women they go to the very depths, and they really seem that they want to cut and wound. I don't know if it is just the forums I have been on, but I have seen it quite a number of times. They call for all the PC behavior, but then they break every rule they ever set up!

Men have a peculiar and almost ritualized way of communicating but the basic rules, stated and unstated, are very different. Those 'rules' are and the 'game' that come out of them is very puzzling to women, and they generally don't see the value of it all.

The thing about your 'dog eat dog' metaphor is that dogs in pack don't eat each other, they eat the enemy. It is a very important distinction. Dogs work out 'agreements' and power-sharing arrangements but all within the context of the 'pack'. In its way, GF forums is a dog-pack of male dogs who work out 'agreements' even in the course of disagrements, which seem unproductive. But one of the lessons from the study of primitive societies, say for example chimpanzee society (I approach theology through primate studies BTW), is that apparently non-useful frictions really do have a specific function. As it is with grubs & roots, so it is with more advanced ideas.

"...a very narrow belief system based on Puritan ascetic renunciaion of all those evil pleasures, most folks enjoy."

You will perhaps find, as I have found, that the closer you get to the top of the QRS-tian apex, the less there is open declaration in favor of the delights of a tip-top blow-job. I personally locate myself well on the bottom of the apex, and I know I am not alone here, however I draw your attention to the following: castrated dogs will 'instinctively' attack another dog who is still 'intact'. You'd think it would be the other way around.

TS wrote: "You could lead by example, by being respectful of other's opinions and avoiding what you see as the worst offenses (character assassination, etc.).

I already addressed this as follows:

"... I *know* its just drama, and hope those attached to their dramas (all egocentrics here) can relate to what I say better "at their own level." Ususally not, but speaking the expected language of sweetness and light (the supposed language of enlightenment) is even more easily ground under the cynical boot of egocentricity."

TS: " If I'm reading this correctly, the males are chauvenist bigots, and the females are the moderators' bitches? Are there any exceptions?"

Have'nt seen any yet... just "wanna be men" type women, but maybe I've missed an exception.

TS: "Like all normative claims, one chooses to value truth. Following such a value system, one may even value truth far more than happiness. How is this difficult to understand? Do people with different ethical views startle you?"

No. But universal love (not the personal possessive kind) and truth are in balance in spiritual awakening. I value truth over sparing others' feelings with "white lies" and polite conversation.

TS: "I don't believe that a discussion of tactics implies Platonic ideals. Anyone can do it."
I was going "trans-thread" with my comments here, in ref to my debate with the anti-empiricists in the "Empiricism vs Logic" thread.
(I used to color outside the lines with my crayons too.)

TS: "Your tactic is to fight people who you disagree with?"

To debate people you disagree with is the nature of debate... no?

mikiel

AJ wrote: "You will perhaps find, as I have found, that the closer you get to the top of the QRS-tian apex, the less there is open declaration in favor of the delights of a tip-top blow-job. I personally locate myself well on the bottom of the apex, and I know I am not alone here,..."

I see you subscribe to the forum doctrines I have described above. Good boy!... Obedient to the hierarchy, submissive to the alpha males above you, ready to bend over and take it as required. (BOHICA!... Bend over... here it comes again!)

After over 5 yrs of attending a twice-a-month Bohm Dialogue group, I can say positively from direct experience that there are no gender issues involved. Rather it is about growing synergy through mutual respect, transcending "my opinions and personal viewpoints" and approaching a wisdom embodied in the greater whole of the group, which is not only greater than "my opinion/prejudice" but greater than the sum of the parts... (the reality of "synergy.")

It's not just an intellectual excercise in one-ups-man-ship, such as prevails in this forum.
But, you appear to be right about one thing: No one here is interested in it.
Fine. It was just a suggestion to minimize the dog fights and maximize real conversation in respectful sharing of wisdom.

mikiel

"After over 5 yrs of attending a twice-a-month Bohm Dialogue group, I can say positively from direct experience that there are no gender issues involved. Rather it is about growing synergy through mutual respect, transcending "my opinions and personal viewpoints" and approaching a wisdom embodied in the greater whole of the group, which is not only greater than "my opinion/prejudice" but greater than the sum of the parts... (the reality of "synergy.")"

What do I know? I was in Eugene once and was so freaked out by hippydom that I left running. But that was quite a while ago now.

What sorts of issues did you work on? Do you think it would be useful in, say, talking about the ideas of a given writer/philosopher? Or is it kind of a problem solving tool, an alternative to lawsuits and such?

"I see you subscribe to the forum doctrines I have described above. Good boy!... Obedient to the hierarchy, submissive to the alpha males above you, ready to bend over and take it as required."

I honestly think you misunderstood.

(But lately I have not been speaking exactly straight).

Divine Focus wrote:

"I find it interesting that people here on this site--more so when I first started posting--promoted masculinity by devaluing emotion, although I'm sure most didn't make the distinction I make. But to not make the distinction tells me that what is masculine is not exactly understood. To lump emotion with sentimental feeling and say it is the same and that it's unworthy of attention seems to me a very clouded view. This is not to say that sentimental or "emotional" feeling is somehow below the masculine expression of emotion and should never be considered in the same light, but as a thought-focus, my attention is not naturally close to those feelings."

This 'emotion' and 'emotional' is not necessarily 'below' the masculine expression, as you say, but when the feeling capacity is soundly wed to the reasoning faculty, most would agree that better decisions and choices are made. The female-emotional functions in closer distances it seems to me, in a more localized setting, for instance in a family setting.

An emotionally inflected intellect can be either paranoid or superstitious, it seems, and the all-too-familiar over-rational intellect just does not have enough connection to 'reality'.

Mikiel,

After much thought I've come to realize that, here, it is not 'dog-fights' that happen and that define the place, but rather miscommunication issues that arise from doggish ass-sniffing ritualism run amok.