We bury the dead because neolithics "fall" asleep - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#13921526
But the author goes further by suggesting that it's semiotic, yes... but it's also stupidity.

The first burials were under the floor of the family dwelling with horrendous consequences.

The author suggests that MIS-interpretations of previous generations' texts is what caused religion and ideology. The subtext is that religion is based on misunderstandings of written texts. That leads to a notion that Religion is stupidity-based - simulacra and social reproduction. And if this is so, perhaps society and civilization are stupidity-based as well.

The fact that something is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of a previous practice or text does not necessarily mean that it is useless or valueless. Many of our greatest cultural achievements have been based on misunderstandings of the past. Indeed, if Lacan is to be taken seriously, then even our own sense of an integral identity is based on a misrecognition of our own reflection in the mirror as infants during the 'mirror phase' of our psychosocial development. Mistakes and misunderstandings are an essental part of human progress. You also seem to be fixated on the truth value of beliefs - if you were truly postmodern in your thinking, Qatz, you would recognise that the truth value of a belief is irrelevant to its usefulness.
#13921544
Quoting some high-end postmodernites, Potemkin wrote:Mistakes and misunderstandings are an essential part of human progress.

I disagree. There is no collective human progress, so these collective mistakes are like playing Russian Roulette with survival: exciting but useless and eventually tragic.

You also seem to be fixated on the truth value of beliefs - if you were truly postmodern in your thinking, Qatz, you would recognise that the truth value of a belief is irrelevant to its usefulness.

This isn't the "true" postmodernism. The concept of postmodernism is more simply that Modern, instrumentalist thought (that goes back perhaps as far as agriculture and tools) are now dead as a means to a better life. They lead to unsustainability and collapse all the time and in every civilization.

But perhaps we can misinterpret this historical fact in a way that actually encourages us to continue on our current disastrous path?
#13921752
I disagree. There is no collective human progress, so these collective mistakes are like playing Russian Roulette with survival: exciting but useless and eventually tragic.

I am a Marxist, so I do believe in the concept of human progress (defined in an instrumentalist way as the expansion of the forces of production). We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, Qatz.

The concept of postmodernism is more simply that Modern, instrumentalist thought (that goes back perhaps as far as agriculture and tools) are now dead as a means to a better life. They lead to unsustainability and collapse all the time and in every civilization.

The fundamental insight of postmodernism is that the truth value of almost everything we hold dear rests on very shaky foundations. The house of human culture has been built, and can only be built, on shifting sands rather than on solid rock. Once you accept that the truth value of our beliefs is both illusory and unnecessary, then all you have left is instrumentalism.

But perhaps we can misinterpret this historical fact in a way that actually encourages us to continue on our current disastrous path?

Let us hope so. :)
#13935786
Potemkin wrote:I am a Marxist, so I do believe in the concept of human progress (defined in an instrumentalist way as the expansion of the forces of production). We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, Qatz.

Indeed. I also subscribe to the concept of human progress and realise that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. The French, Industrial and Russian revolutions were extremely brutal process, leading to the deaths of millions in the process, but a superior society was constructed in the end that benefited the majority of people still living. The fact that Qatz rejects the Neolithic Revolution makes him an anarcho-primitivist and not a leftist. Even hardcore reactionaries like Burke, de Maistre, and Dostoyevsky were more progressive than the pseudo-leftist Qatz.
#13935829
Quantum wrote:I also subscribe to the concept of human progress and realise that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.

So the earth is like eggs, and we can smash it, and a gigantic hen (God?) will simply lay another planet for us the next morning after the rooster crows?

The French, Industrial and Russian revolutions were extremely brutal process, leading to the deaths of millions in the process, but a superior society was constructed in the end that benefited the majority of people still living.

Yes, Charles Dickens wrote beautiful stories about how wonderful the industrial revolution was for "most people." And the future generations get to live in acidic oceans with reduced food and screwed up weather. Nice and very progressive. Progressively hellish.

The fact that Qatz rejects the Neolithic Revolution makes him an anarcho-primitivist and not a leftist. Even hardcore reactionaries like Burke, de Maistre, and Dostoyevsky were more progressive than the pseudo-leftist Qatz.

I am proud to NOT be a leftist or rightist. Ideology is a sickness. It robs people of free thought and replaces this with groupthink and team affiliation. The misinterpretation of historical texts is a result of this reduced freedom to think.
#13936116
I am proud to NOT be a leftist or rightist. Ideology is a sickness. It robs people of free thought and replaces this with groupthink and team affiliation. The misinterpretation of historical texts is a result of this reduced freedom to think.


But Qatz, isn't yours an ideology as well?! An ideology to revert the human history back to its cradle.
#13936359
But Qatz, isn't yours an ideology as well?! An ideology to revert the human history back to its cradle.

This isn't an ideology at all, cookie.

It would mean a final triumphant end to ideologies, and a return to the Garden of Eden.
#13936381
This isn't an ideology at all, cookie.

The greatest trick the Devil ever played was to convince everyone that he doesn't exist.

It would mean a final triumphant end to ideologies, and a return to the Garden of Eden.

That's nice. :hippy:
#13936737
It would mean a final triumphant end to ideologies, and a return to the Garden of Eden.


I'm sure that would reassure all the people who would die of preventable illnesses due to the lack of modern medicine in your paradise. :)
#13936871
I'm sure that would reassure all the people who would die of preventable illnesses due to the lack of modern medicine in your paradise.

The mass use of antibiotics has brought us superviruses that are about to eliminate their efficiency.

So Big Pharma is asking for more money to invent yet more drugs to put into our water supplies.

There might not be any future generations because of our Selfish use of technology.

Every invention - like every text - is abused by future generations in ways that the inventors would really despise.

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