THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER SPEAKS

A man stands before a tree. He is approached by a "professional philosopher;" a truly informed academic. This great doctor of philosophy says to the man who is standing before the tree:

"Determinism has brought you here, I suspect you are a kind of perspectivalist. Surely this must be the case because your empiricism is rank. You ought to be honest with your existential leanings... leave all true philosophy to the foundationlists. There is a decompositional analysis which evades you. Have you never heard of the categories of subject and predicate which are joined by the copula? We really must find out where you stand. Are you a coherentist? (Surely this cannot be the case our else you would not be a foundationalist). We have deductive reasoning in part by inductive reasoning (not to forget the possibility of ontological relativity). Are you an internalist to the tree or an externalist? Even so, this says nothing about your doxastic state. Do you know that yellowness is the property of objects putatively presented to subjects when those objects look yellow? Yes this is very much true... the property of objects putatively presented to subjects when the objects look yellow is at least a normal cause of their looking yellow. Metaphysics are renewed; all things are renewed (it is simply a matter of accepting the language). But here the methodological naturalist is deluded, it would seem he is too focused on his materialism. Indeed there have been some fine egoists in the past, but whether they embraced a form of realism or anti-realism who is to say? If your non-cognitivism, or panpsychism is a feature of all things, then what is a tree? Let fall your Cartesian skepticism! It would seem that phenomenology does not suit you. Surely you would not give us a lecture on pragmatism or structuralism? It would seem you are totally ignorant of ethnomethodology, and here we can see your consequentialism come crashing through. But the more we analyze the more we realize that there is too much conventionalism in what you say. Your intentionalism is quite apparent. Your modality is simply juvenile.; what we might call paraconsistency or dialetheism. You really should leave these kind of questions to professional philosophers. Without these men and women you would simply suffocate under the sophistication of the hermeneutic. Your intersubjectivity is simply not intelligent enough to comprehend their equations, such interactionism lies beyond you. For even if you could put forth the hypothetical imperative, you could not put forth the categorical imperative. I suspect this is because your logic is heuristic."
 
The man plucks a leaf and walks away...

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MY DEPARTURE FROM MARX- Jersey Flight

There is a historical progression. Economic systems are the result of what the ruling class can get away with. The further society develops the less the ruling class can exploit people in the name of profit. Here the word society refers to the collective consciousness of the people. At one time men were enslaved by the ruling class (this was the stage known as feudalism), but capitalism is a social consciousness beyond this stage. In the capitalist stage of development the consciousness of society has progressed beyond the stage of feudalism, that is to say, society will no longer tolerate the primitive violence of feudalism. But this resistance is a kind of instinct, which is to say, society has to get to the stage of instinct before it can transcend a stage of history. 

The question regarding capitalism is whether or not society will ever be able to form an instinct against it? 

There is a historical progression, but so far from leading to communism (which is an event for a distant future) the development of capitalism simply moves society in the direction of fascism. This is first and foremost a tragedy. When the powers of capitalism falter, on the basis of crises, society does not move in the direction of equality, but in the direction of control. When the ruling class stumbles it has no choice but to reaffirm its grip or lose its way of life. What emerges from capitalism is nothing less than a society of control. 

The question is how many times this cycle must occur before mankind evolves an instinct against the motions of capitalism?

Will poor conditions, brought about by the exploitations of capital, really lead the masses to lasting liberation, or will this simply cause the cycle to repeat itself? Perhaps society is a series of revolutions? In other words, society has to complete a certain number of progressions around the wheel before it starts upon a new track. Only after we have gone through the cycle of capital so many times (even as mankind went through the cycle of feudalism so many times) only then can we develop an instinct to resist this primitive function. Perhaps this is due to the utility of the thing we would resist.  In other words, at one point existence was feudalism and feudalism was existence, even as existence is capitalism and capitalism is existence. And we cannot transcend the thing we are! This can only occur by means of repetition, because the space required for change can only be created by repetition. One cannot transcend without space and one cannot have space without repetition. This means there are many revolutions to a cycle before there is a change.      

My departure from Marx has to do with the destiny of social development under the capitalist means of production. I do not deny that capitalism is a destructive system based on exploitation. I do not deny that capitalism leads to the impoverishment of millions of people, but it is hard to accept the idea that this destructive progression will lead to a qualitative communism, when in fact, history has only produced Fascism. 

My departure from Marx is based on time, which is simply a difference of calculating the progression. This means Marx was vastly ahead of his time... he spoke of a far-off, distant future, because social progression (which is a kind of social consciousness) is required on an instinctual, default-operational-level, before society as a unit, can transcend the present order. The hard fact is that evolution, which is to say, our experience of social cycles, has simply not brought us this far. But this is not all dark prediction; capitalism is a stage beyond feudalism, which means there is a chance our species will eventually transcend capitalism. 

Fascism is perhaps the greatest enemy of society in that it thwarts the act of civility, leaving the prospect of unity mangled by sectarian violence. But knowing this is a powerful step in changing the course of the future. It is impossible to fight an invisible enemy. Knowing one's enemy is the key to victory. Let us expose the errors and methods of fascism with the same critical force that Marx exposed the errors and methods of capitalism. For only by understanding fascism, on such an intricate level, can we hope to begin the formation of an instinct against it.     

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THE PAINFUL TRUTH ABOUT THEISM- Jersey Flight

Down,
Down with the hammer against the rocks! 
Shatter and break! 
Pound the image to dust, 
Let the waves carry the ashes out to sea. 

This is what we have to say about theism: THEISM SIMPLY DOESN'T MATTER. 

We can prove this premise. 

If we refute the theist it doesn't matter, what have we done? The challenges of the world still await us. 

If the theist can prove his theism what does it matter? The challenges of the world still await us.

Either way, by reason or evidence, affirmation or refutation, theism simply doesn't matter!

The whole challenge of theism is to get the student to believe that theism matters. 

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DEGREES OF ANTI-AUTHORITARIANISM

There are degrees of being able to resist authority. One could classify the systems of authority and then measure their anti-authoritarianism in relation to these classification.

Level 1 would be something like, the ability to resist the authority of Parents and Teachers...

Level 2 would be something like, the ability to resist the authority of Police and Civil authority in general...

Level 3 would be something like, the ability to resist Social obedience, Friends, Mentors...

The highest level would ultimately have to be the ability to resist the authority of the Self.

[I have not thought deeply about these classifications, but I think the idea here is fairly solid.]

One of the most important things about us as thinkers is how much ability we have to resist authority. Anyone can be taught to obey, but it takes courage, power, to resist! The better we are at breaking and resisting authority the more free we become! 

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THE VALUE OF POLEMICS

Polemics challenge any given narrative... without polemics a particular narrative seems to occupy the place of authority in culture. In order to escape the possible tyranny of this authority it is essential to challenge this authority. Polemics is a difficult task but someone has to do it.

Our view of the polemicist is largely skewed. We assume that all confrontation is wrong (this proposition is false).

A true polemicist has the highest value to community in that he or she fights for the freedom of community, which is to say, the freedom of the individual. This is done by challenging the authority of any narrative which consciously or unconsciously tries to restrict freedom. We might go so far as to say that all progress comes by way of polemics. Above all else it takes courage to stand against error.

The world is full of men who would tell us what to do; but this kind of authority most certainly bears the burden of proof. The polemicist justifiably demands that the authoritarian substantiate his claims. And because we are so used to blindly obeying authority we tend to despise the polemicist. We criticize the man instead of his argument, we note that he has caused offense, but we very seldom interact with his ideas. This is not a refutation of the polemicist, but a mark against the intellectual character of the one who engages in this kind of fallacy.

Men are afraid to offend; they are afraid to step outside the dictates of authority. The polemicist is first and foremost a man or woman of courage. 

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