The Deep Thinks of Hong Wu - Page 6 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

For the discussion of Philosophy. Discuss thought from Socrates to the Enlightenment and beyond!

Moderator: PoFo Agora Mods

Forum rules: No one line posts please. Religious topics may be debated in this forum, but those of religious belief who specifically wish to avoid threads being derailed by atheist arguments might prefer to use the Spirituality forum.
#14812434
What the hell does it mean? :eh:

Zhuangzi was making the point that all of our thinking is embedded within and is limited by our language. Language makes thought possible (how do I know what I think until I say it), but also limits and restricts it (concerning that whereof we cannot speak, we must remain silent). Most 'philosophical' disputes are therefore little more than disputes about the use of language. It's the same point which Wittgenstein rediscovered more than two millennia later. What Zhuangzi was proposing is that in order to discover the fundamental truths of the world, rather than merely our perceptions and preconceptions of the world as they are filtered through and distorted by our language and our culture, we must attempt to think on the other side of Wittgenstein's limit - to pass through and beyond language. This means "forgetting our words", setting aside our cultural and linguistic preconceptions about the world in order to experience the 'suchness' of the world, to sense (however vaguely or imprecisely) the root of heaven and earth, the Dao. He then gives it a humorous twist by saying that he would like to have a word with such a person, which acknowledges the inherent contradiction involved - the Dao which can be spoken of is not the eternal Dao. Yet here he is, speaking of it. Lol. The Book of Zhuangzi is full of such humour and wit.
#14812604
Associated Musings: Though Daoism is something in it's own right, it does seem to have some considerable influence on some schools of Buddhism. I keep seeing reference to Chan Buddhism, which is seen as the result of a mixture of Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. And I've recently seen some interesting points that for my brief exposure to points about what people think Daoism to entail that it seems to try and transfer Daoist thought within Buddhism.
And as already stated, it does seem to emphasize reality as separate from language but perhaps in a way that can't be understood through language but must be experienced for itself. That it goes beyond acknowledging that a word isn't the very thing that it refers to. But that perception itself is restricted by language, our way of thinking is constituted by language. It seems like it somehow moves beyond perception to a kind of immediacy where one is no longer individuated (sense of self/ego) from reality. Although I don't know well enough if it's correct to transcribe to such a context, seen it once described as experiencing Kant's noumenon (thing-in-itself). This might be illuminating in depicting the Chan Buddhist view where it's not emptying one's mind, but breaking the boundary between the world and self in a way that by removing something one isn't exactly emptied but neither are they full. But I presume part of the process of reality where things simply in a state of constant change.
“Look at this window: it is nothing but a hole in the wall, but because of it the whole room is full of light. So when the faculties are empty, the heart is full of light.” — Zhuangzi
This is confusing for me because I don't know enough to really try to delinate how much is in line with Taoism.

Stumbled upon all this when not understanding stuff about Freud and Lacan, which I still don't understand.
Where someone constrated Lacan's methods of teaching to that of Chan Buddhism, where words can't explain things, so they're presented in ways to disrupt and show the error of language or something like that.
Chan Buddhism and Lacan on the Role of the Teacher
Spoiler: show
Learning as Breaking from the Illusion of the Errant Discourse
For Lacan, reality is structured by language, not as natural language, but as discourse – language that has been given a meaning and a value by the speaking subject. The basis is a particular aspect of Saussure's theory of language, the view of the arbitrariness of the connection between the signifier and the signified along with its tremendous implications for the relation between language and reality:

"The characteristic role of language vis-à-vis thought is not to create a phonic means to express ideas, but to serve as an intermediary between thought and sound under such conditions that their union necessarily leads to reciprocal delimitations of unities. Thought, chaotic by nature, is forced to become precise in being decomposed."[10]

To my mind, this theory only has its fullest force when the arbitrariness is located, as Saussure has it, between the signifier and the signified, and not, as Émile Benveniste would prefer in a point of criticism of Saussure, between the sign and reality.[11] Language, coming between the sphere of meaning (signified) and the sphere of sound (signifier), can thus give rise to a contingent world, a world that – as Lacan extends the theory – is errantly taken as reality itself.

It is important, however, to distinguish a linguistic model of language, which Saussure still essentially uses, that is, one in which linguistic units (words, phonemes, morphemes, and so forth) have meaning due to their relation to other units in a system, from the concept of discourse that Lacan introduces – according to which the whole system of words first gains its meaning in virtue of an act of speech (la parole) by a subject. (Lacan's use of la parole is very different from Saussure's.) The mere fact of speaking a language by no means determines what world will exist for the speaking subject – she can take on the subject position that sustains the errant discourse and remain in ignorance, or she can express her own voice, her own speech, and come to see that discourse as error. In this way, for the enlightened, it is not language itself, and least of all the conventional meaning of words, that determines what reality is.
...
Given that the illusion of reality is constituted by discourse and that this depends on the act of speech (la parole), enlightenment would consist in perceiving this error, in making another act that corrects the errant discourse, an act that makes discourse not something taken over from outside, but something of one's own creation. This reality may stay the same, but our attitude towards it, as its creators, has now changed. True teaching, then, is not the transmission of water from one bucket to the other, or of tidbits of information from one human flash disc to another, but a disruption of discours resulting in a new awareness of reality, of being, and the creation of a new discourse and hence a new world. But where is the teacher in all of this?
...
The Chan Buddhist Master as Teacher
Zen verbalism parallels the analyst's role in transference as a sort of subjective intervention into the student's errant discourse enabling the student to see it as illusion. Bear in mind, it is not essential that the teacher's intervention with la parole be literally spoken words, since la parole is extra-linguistic. Speech as symbolic act essentially has no meaning in terms of the system of language, as was seen with the phenomenon of the holophrase. So the Zen master's kick, a blow with his staff, a twist of the nose, or any other gesture, even silence, can constitute a symbolic intervention of the master as "speaking" subject into the student's discourse. And, of course, the famous koan and numerous other Zen tropes suit this role well, precisely due to the fact that, while they employ the words of the standard discourse, they do so in ways that violate usual linguistic meaning. In many cases, the master's intersubjective intervention into the student's discourse directly illustrates the holophrastic nature of Zen verbalisms, since the point is to get the disciple to liberate himself from the conceptual linguistic meaning of the terms.[19] This usage of words, as Daisetz Suzuki tells us, cannot be analyzed by any of the standard models employed in the philosophy of language – it "violate[s] all the rules of the science of linguistics."[20] The verbalism of Zen is, like the tao of Laotze and Chuangtze, from which it is derived, ungraspable and unnamable. (As is la parole for Lacan, with its connection to unconscious repressed truth: "There are essential relations that no discourse can sufficiently express except in what I just called between the lines."[21]) The point is not to grasp the meaning of words in the system of language to which they belong as linguistic entities, but rather, quite to the contrary, the language usage of the Zen master, like the intervention of the analyst, serves to change the student's mental state in reference to the reality constituted by that normal discourse.

The underlined is interesting I think because it points out how it's not about the gap between sign and reality but the arbitrariness between the sign and signifier.
This sentiment of disrupting one's 'discourse' seems quite interesting to thoughts about ideology (in a very broad sense) in that it seems you're inherently trapped within it, so it's difficult to better see it because there's no contrasts/distinction. Can't see it until you're beyond it in some way as we're stuck like the fish that doesn't know it's in water.
#14812631
Given that the illusion of reality is constituted by discourse and that this depends on the act of speech (la parole), enlightenment would consist in perceiving this error, in making another act that corrects the errant discourse, an act that makes discourse not something taken over from outside, but something of one's own creation. This reality may stay the same, but our attitude towards it, as its creators, has now changed. True teaching, then, is not the transmission of water from one bucket to the other, or of tidbits of information from one human flash disc to another, but a disruption of discours resulting in a new awareness of reality, of being, and the creation of a new discourse and hence a new world. But where is the teacher in all of this?
...
The Chan Buddhist Master as Teacher
Zen verbalism parallels the analyst's role in transference as a sort of subjective intervention into the student's errant discourse enabling the student to see it as illusion. Bear in mind, it is not essential that the teacher's intervention with la parole be literally spoken words, since la parole is extra-linguistic. Speech as symbolic act essentially has no meaning in terms of the system of language, as was seen with the phenomenon of the holophrase. So the Zen master's kick, a blow with his staff, a twist of the nose, or any other gesture, even silence, can constitute a symbolic intervention of the master as "speaking" subject into the student's discourse. And, of course, the famous koan and numerous other Zen tropes suit this role well, precisely due to the fact that, while they employ the words of the standard discourse, they do so in ways that violate usual linguistic meaning. In many cases, the master's intersubjective intervention into the student's discourse directly illustrates the holophrastic nature of Zen verbalisms, since the point is to get the disciple to liberate himself from the conceptual linguistic meaning of the terms.[19] This usage of words, as Daisetz Suzuki tells us, cannot be analyzed by any of the standard models employed in the philosophy of language – it "violate[s] all the rules of the science of linguistics."[20] The verbalism of Zen is, like the tao of Laotze and Chuangtze, from which it is derived, ungraspable and unnamable. (As is la parole for Lacan, with its connection to unconscious repressed truth: "There are essential relations that no discourse can sufficiently express except in what I just called between the lines."[21]) The point is not to grasp the meaning of words in the system of language to which they belong as linguistic entities, but rather, quite to the contrary, the language usage of the Zen master, like the intervention of the analyst, serves to change the student's mental state in reference to the reality constituted by that normal discourse.

Precisely. This, essentially, is what Zhuangzi meant by his pithy phrase, "Where can I find a man who has forgotten his words so that I might have a word with him?" Zhuangzi intuitively grasped what it took Western thinkers more than two millennia to rediscover - that enlightenment means, in some sense, breaking free of the prison-house of language. Of course, by definition, this means that the insights of that enlightenment cannot ever be adequately expressed in words, but can only be directly experienced, and would seem like madness to someone still trapped within the confines of language (la parole). "The Dao which can be spoken of is not the eternal Dao. Those who speak do not know, and those who know do not speak."
#14824504
It's counter-intuitive but I think no one is as "hungry" as the humble. Arrogance is a way to keep from having to look at your real self, humility keeps you tethered to reality. But if you take it to extremes, perhaps you don't appreciate your own accomplishments and this turns into a fire that consumes every skill, every challenge, what modern people might call the ultimate type-A personality.
#14824521
One of the great barbarisms of the industrial era was supposedly making young children work. But if you consider human history, previously young children would be working around their household as soon as they were physically old enough to do some labor. From this perspective, it wasn't strange at all that people expected young children to work in factories; the factory job had replaced household jobs, but a job was still a job. Only it had become a different job.

The real problem then may not have been that children were working but that expecting strangers to effectively manage a workforce of other people's children was a tall order.

The answer to all of our woes, obviously, is to return to child labor!
#14825031
I am stunned by the depths of your thoughts.

"Child labor good!"

Wow, so deep.

You know how many children were killed or harmed in factories? Were deprived of an education? Were forced to do so in order to survive while the factory owners made the equivalent lf tens if not hundreds of millions?

This is why logic without empiricism is mental masturbation. You're not saying anything about reality, just trying to sound clever.
#14825046
Everything is relative. If we really wanted to protect our children, then we would never let them go to school and certainly would not let them go to college. The inherent threats this exposes them to definitely fits the definition of child abuse.
#14864168
Metaphysically, why do words exist? People have praised and criticized words since the beginning.

In most religious traditions, human beings are made up of multiple parts and at death these parts separate and dissolve if they have failed to become reconciled to each other. The path to reconciliation for most people is to be a "good person" as well as a forgiving person (and the two can conflict with each other) although this is arguably not the method for everyone. Without digressing too much, why do words exist? They are too specific to ever accurately encompass the full truth of practically anything.

If we assume that everything is the way it is for a reason, we might extrapolate from this nature of words that their clumsy specificity is also the reason they exist. Maybe the very act of using words and attempting to use our logic, even though it can never accurately encompass the word, forces us to bring our different parts closer together because of the very inadequacy and confining nature of the words. If so, the use of logic could be viewed as a means towards this end, not so much to succeed in quantifying and defining the world but to let us try and do so because it gives us an opportunity to quantify and define ourselves, something we would seemingly never have done without the various props this world gives us.
#14864189
Language seems to have evolved as a medium of communication whose primary purpose is to allow us to refer to things which are not physically present at the time. This is tremendously useful, and was and is the basis for the flourishing of complex human societies. However, it comes with a downside as well - language alienates us from the world, and can even serve as a substitute for the direct experience of reality itself, unmediated by abstract language. Mystics from every human culture have been trying for millennia to get people to forget words and just experience the suchness of reality (with very little success, be it noted). We use language to spin fantasies and delusions, to seduce people to believe in lies, to gain unjust power over others, to replace direct experience of reality with a web of fantasy and self-delusion. As Groucho Marx once put it, "Who are you going to believe - me, or the evidence of your own eyes?" Lol.
#14864195
Hong Wu wrote:The answer to all of our woes, obviously, is to return to child labor!

What else is school but make-work child labour? It is unpaid child labour too, which is to say slavery.
#14864196
School is education in society and learning how to learn so when you leave school you know a thing or two, and it also teaches you how to socialize. The "school is indoctrination" bullshit, is just that.
#14864210
Godstud wrote:School is education in society and learning how to learn so when you leave school you know a thing or two, and it also teaches you how to socialize. The "school is indoctrination" bullshit, is just that.



"socialisation"
#14864219
Isn't that the song where they sing, "We don't need no education."? :lol: The irony was never lost on me.
#14868150
The whole upper class globalist shtick ("let's create a new proletariat that is permanently at odds with itself, keeping just enough identity that they realize their differences but not enough shared identity that they would come together") is ultimately bad not because upper classes dominate lower classes (even communism acknowledges this) but because upper class people are generally only able to hold onto certain "good" traits whereas other kinds of good traits will not be sustainable in such an environment. Without any kind of shared identity between the upper and lower classes, but merely a cynical manipulation of factions sustained by the semi-automated economy, what few good traits that upper class people possess (such as loyalty to a racial or religious identity) will probably disappear, leaving nothing but a cynical beast behind.
#14868155
Hong Wu wrote:The whole upper class globalist shtick ("let's create a new proletariat that is permanently at odds with itself, keeping just enough identity that they realize their differences but not enough shared identity that they would come together") is ultimately bad not because upper classes dominate lower classes (even communism acknowledges this) but because upper class people are generally only able to hold onto certain "good" traits whereas other kinds of good traits will not be sustainable in such an environment. Without any kind of shared identity between the upper and lower classes, but merely a cynical manipulation of factions sustained by the semi-automated economy, what few good traits that upper class people possess (such as loyalty to a racial or religious identity) will probably disappear, leaving nothing but a cynical beast behind.

The Communist Manifesto wrote:The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.
#14868173
Potemkin wrote:potemkin stuff

The error the communists made was attributing this to the bourgeoisie; every example listed there was done in early communist countries at some point, sometimes even as deliberate policy, so the problem was not necessarily with the bourgeoisie itself but in something else.

To tie in to what I was writing earlier, it's well known that powerful people eventually develop brains that are wired differently from those of other people. If these behaviors are carried on and magnified across generations, through a combination of upbringing, environment and epigenetics, it would provide an explanation for why rulers (in any system, since it's almost always hereditary to some degree) eventually go insane. For example and to me personally, Hillary Clinton laughing in public about killing people was a good indication that the Rodham line had jumped the shark.

There is ultimately no way around this, politicians in America seem to be every bit as corrupt as politicians in Russia and China. The issue in terms of good leadership is probably even more fundamental than class-based arguments. What has gotten people this far is that not all good traits necessarily disappear, only some of them but I think again that the conditions for even this may be disappearing in the west.
#14868265
Potemkin wrote:The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.


I don't disagree with Marx on most of this, but I have to agree with @Hong Wu, that it would be, at the very least, simplistic to attribute this transition to the "merchant" economic class. Likewise, even if allowing that this was somewhat a class movement (which even Far-Right thinker Julius Evola concedes); it does not follow that the Marxist solution to these problems of alienation (which is what Marx is really describing here), can be solved by "progress" into a system of unbridled egalitarianism. Why is such an irreligious, anti-traditional, and anti-heirarchal goal seen as a solution to man's alienation from such under the "era of capitalism?"

There seems to be an anthropologial miscalculation here that believes it is possible for man to ever ascend to egalitarianism; however, if such is contrary to his fundmental nature, than capitalism does not represent a transitional era, but the height of "functional decadence" coming just prior to a future era of "disfunctional decadence" and collapse; unless, a revival of the natural order (that which man is alienated from, in the above) is at least, in its essential elements, restored.
#14868273
I don't disagree with Marx on most of this, but I have to agree with @Hong Wu, that it would be, at the very least, simplistic to attribute this transition to the "merchant" economic class. Likewise, even if allowing that this was somewhat a class movement (which even Far-Right thinker Julius Evola concedes); it does not follow that the Marxist solution to these problems of alienation (which is what Marx is really describing here), can be solved by "progress" into a system of unbridled egalitarianism. Why is such an irreligious, anti-traditional, and anti-heirarchal goal seen as a solution to man's alienation from such under the "era of capitalism?"

I think you are misreading what Marx wrote, VS. He was not condemning this process by which the rise of capitalism has alienated humanity from its traditional values, but was praising it. The first few pages of the Communist Manifesto are Marx's hymn of praise to the bourgeoisie - as he put it, "The bourgeoisie has everywhere played a most revolutionary role." He therefore did not see it as a 'problem' requiring a 'solution', but as the necessary first step on the road to the liberation of humanity from its ages-old false consciousness, from the set of delusions and lies which we call "religion" and "the social order". Marx came to see what he had not seen in his earlier writings - that the alienation and nihilism created by the rise of capitalism and the ruthless, selfish materialism of the merchant-class is a positive development. After all, isn't religion itself a form of self-alienation? And doesn't the hierarchical nature of feudal society alienate humanity from itself? How else can those lies and self-delusions be abolished except through the action of impersonal economic forces, under the guidance of the most philistine, materialist and self-interested class which has ever existed - the bourgeoisie? This is not a problem for Marx - he sees it, in fact, as part of the solution.

There seems to be an anthropologial miscalculation here that believes it is possible for man to ever ascend to egalitarianism; however, if such is contrary to his fundmental nature, than capitalism does not represent a transitional era, but the height of "functional decadence" coming just prior to a future era of "disfunctional decadence" and collapse; unless, a revival of the natural order (that which man is alienated from, in the above) is at least, in its essential elements, restored.

I suppose time (and the historical process) will tell, VS. We shall see, one way or the other. :)
#14868274
Potemkin wrote:I think you are misreading what Marx wrote, VS. He was not condemning this process by which the rise of capitalism has alienated humanity from its traditional values, but was praising it. The first few pages of the Communist Manifesto are Marx's hymn of praise to the bourgeoisie - as he put it, "The bourgeoisie has everywhere played a most revolutionary role." He therefore did not see it as a 'problem' requiring a 'solution', but as the necessary first step on the road to the liberation of humanity from its ages-old false consciousness, from the set of delusions and lies which we call "religion" and "the social order".


Don't misunderstand me, I am not insinuating that Marx was "lamenting" the end of feudalism :lol: :lol: :lol:

That should really go without saying.

However, Marx did acknowledge that the condition of alienation did arise out of these changes, and alienation is a negative condition even if it has a positive purpose teleologically (not unlike suffering in Christian doctrine).

Potemkin wrote: suppose time (and the historical process) will tell, VS. We shall see, one way or the other.


Indeed. Perhaps we will be having drinks and a good smoke as we watch the chaos from a rooftop in London or Edinburgh. We will make our wagers then. ;)
#14868280
Potemkin wrote:I think you are misreading what Marx wrote, VS. He was not condemning this process by which the rise of capitalism has alienated humanity from its traditional values, but was praising it. The first few pages of the Communist Manifesto are Marx's hymn of praise to the bourgeoisie - as he put it, "The bourgeoisie has everywhere played a most revolutionary role."
Technology (as an environment) has everywhere played a most revolutionary role. Historically, figure-ground perception/organization defines the process (information loop/interplay). The ground, being shapeless, is a difficult thing to discuss and define. The figure, which appears to have a definite shape, is the ruling author of human history. Marx is a figure commenting on a ground, he authored its rules or boundaries to fit his perception of the human process (be it physical, psychological, spiritual, etc).

'Alienated from its traditional values,' sounds like folklore.

He therefore did not see it as a 'problem' requiring a 'solution', but as the necessary first step on the road to the liberation of humanity from its ages-old false consciousness, from the set of delusions and lies which we call "religion" and "the social order".
Marx will set you free and communism will triumph... eventually, er, I think, maybe... :lol: How, by reorganizing the social order? Technology can do that for us, with or without bloodshed, for it is a personal and impersonal force.

Science turned knowledge into a religion. Complete with a technological pantheon. How many hours do you spend in front of your technological altar? Does the scrying screen hear your prayers?
Image

Marx came to see what he had not seen in his earlier writings - that the alienation and nihilism created by the rise of capitalism and the ruthless, selfish materialism of the merchant-class is a positive development. After all, isn't religion itself a form of self-alienation? And doesn't the hierarchical nature of feudal society alienate humanity from itself? How else can those lies and self-delusions be abolished except through the action of impersonal economic forces, under the guidance of the most philistine, materialist and self-interested class which has ever existed - the bourgeoisie? This is not a problem for Marx - he sees it, in fact, as part of the solution.
Right, because Nature produces conclusions. :roll: There seems to be an anthropologial miscalculation here :up: Anthropology is a holistic perspective and it's impossible to predict holistic behavior, especially the dynamic interrelationships of all human existence. All figures like to create conclusions or speculative interpretations of the figure-ground process. Nonetheless, causal reasoning should be used as a descriptive tool, not a prescriptive tool. Effects are perceived, whereas causes are conceived.

How else can those lies and self-delusions be abolished except through the action of
Technology. After-all, commerce is technology. Technology is an extension of ourselves. Technology redefines the ground and reorganizes the figures.
  • 1
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 12

It is implausible that the IDF could not or would[…]

Moving on to the next misuse of language that sho[…]

@JohnRawls What if your assumption is wrong??? […]

There is no reason to have a state at all unless w[…]