I Reject, I Affirm. ''Raising the Black Flag'' in an Age of Devilry. - Page 30 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15124562
@Wellsy ;

Before I read Schmidtt, I read Juan Donoso Y Cortes, and Joseph de Maistre, and Donoso's attitude on Liberalism definitely influenced Schmidt, and myself.

Civilization can only be brought about and maintained by the imposition of demands and commands, no discussion can ever result in building anything that lasts, but rather ''delays the decision'' as Schmidt put it. People collectively speaking are too feeble brained and irrational to come about with any higher existence without structures which are repressive at first glance, but which truly do allow man to develop to the best of his ability within those set parameters. Liberal discussion only leads to doubt and uncertainty and chaos. As Schmidt and Donoso might put it, politics is the constant dialectical (Donoso was a student somewhat of Hegel) struggle between friends and enemies, and Liberalism only acts as a screen by which the enemy works to undermine civilization and bring about Tyranny.
#15125166
Rule by the people when they lack direction and are possessed-literally ''possessed'' of an anti-human consciousness, is the perversion of Democracy;

"For the people is our master and the great mob; a savage master and a severe tyrant: not so much as a command being needed in order to make us listen to him; it is enough that we just know what he wills, and without a command we submit: so great good will do we bear towards him. Again, God threatening and admonishing day by day is not heard; but the common people, full of disorder, made up of all manner of dregs, has no occasion for one word of command; enough for it only to signify with what it is well pleased, and in all things we obey immediately. 'But how,' says some one, 'is a man to flee from these masters?' By getting a mind greater than theirs; by looking into the nature of things; by condemning the voice of the multitude; before all, by training himself in things really disgraceful to fear not men, but the unsleeping Eye; and again, in all good things, to seek the crowns which come from Him."

(John Chrysostom, Homilies On First Corinthians, 12:8-9)
#15125177
annatar1914 wrote:As we've both known from years of experience on PoFo, education does not confer wisdom necessarily on people. It is better to have good and virtuous people involved than the bad and selfish.


That's what implied by very educated. What I am asking is an impossible hypothetical, but I'm asking it to get your thoughts.

That is, if everyone was educated in the sense that they have the actual wisdom needed to carry out responsible voting. Does that make democracy better?
#15125179
Rancid wrote:That's what implied by very educated. What I am asking is an impossible hypothetical, but I'm asking it to get your thoughts.

That is, if everyone was educated in the sense that they have the actual wisdom needed to carry out responsible voting. Does that make democracy better?


Hypothetically it should. And I'm not being unrealistic here, as the kind of wisdom i'm talking about is civic wisdom, civic virtue, as distinguished from personal morality. People generally know what is best in their own localities and regions, so Democracy on that level and going up in an ascending hierarchy is realizable.
#15125186
Rancid wrote:Does democracy become more acceptable if you have a VERY well educated populace?


No, "educated" people are some of the dumbest fucks I know. They're so fucking dumb they think technical proficiency is the same as intelligence. They're people who might have achieved intelligence if they hadn't been trained stupid from early childhood. What we call education is really just a kind of drawn out psychosocial lobotomy that very few individuals fully survive. Most come out the other end of the sausageduction process as full blown pod people who are no longer capable of independent reasoning.
#15125187
Sivad wrote:
No, "educated" people are some of the dumbest fucks I know. They're so fucking dumb they think technical proficiency is the same as intelligence. They're people who might have achieved intelligence if they hadn't been trained stupid from early childhood. What we call education is really just a kind of drawn out psychosocial lobotomy that very few individuals fully survive. Most come out the other end of the sausageduction process as full blown pod people who are no longer capable of independent reasoning.


Again, when I said educated, I really meant something more like what @annatar1914 called wisdom. That is, the ability to really vote responsibly. I didn't mean educated like educated in some sort of field/trade.
#15125191
Rancid wrote:Again, when I said educated, I really meant something more like what @annatar1914 called wisdom. That is, the ability to really vote responsibly. I didn't mean educated like educated in some sort of field/trade.


Yes, what some thinkers have labeled; ''civic virtue'', the ability of any citizen to take part in the political affairs of his locality competently. I also tend to think that it requires a measure of spiritual goodness as well.
#15125192
annatar1914 wrote:As we've both known from years of experience on PoFo, education does not confer wisdom necessarily on people. It is better to have good and virtuous people involved than the bad and selfish.

I would emphasize though, the intellect whilst not synonymous with morality is quite connected to it. The problem is the way of life is problematic such that it doesn't cultivate virtuous character.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1926/educational-psychology/ch12.htm
We can see this if we take a look at morally backward children. We know that intellectual development may be associated with the greatest immorality, and, consequently, intellectual development, in and of itself, is hardly a guarantee of moral behavior. We also know of the converse, that one may be blessed with luminous moral behavior even though one’s intellect is greatly retarded, that retarded children may display a genuinely keen and understanding heart, and, consequently, mental development cannot be taken as even a necessary condition of moral giftedness. Nevertheless, we are still justified in claiming that there exists a profound relationship between the two, and that mental development is a propitious condition for moral education.

Such a relationship denotes a finer life, more complex and more diverse forms of behavior, and, consequently, allows for far greater opportunities and possibilities for educational intervention. In the mentally underdeveloped child, the process of behavior is far simpler and, consequently, there is no opportunity for all those infinitely involved schemes children have to be drawn into in order to influence their behavior.

However, only that form of consciousness proves to be decisive for morality which is directly associated with behavior and realized directly in activity, for otherwise a correct consciousness may lead to incorrect deeds.

All attempts at moral education, at moral sermonizing, must, for these reasons, have to be seen as quite futile. Morality has to constitute an inseparable part of education as a whole at its very roots, and he is acting morally who does not notice that he is acting morally. Just like health, which we notice only when it is disturbed, like the air which we breathe, so does the way we behave in terms of morality arouse in us a whole series of concerns only when there is something seriously wrong with it. Herbart’s rule, “not to teach too much,” is nowhere as applicable to this extent as in moral education.

It is for this reason that we feel it is pointless to teach morality. Moral precepts, in and of themselves, will, in the student’s mind, seem like a collection of purely verbal responses that have absolutely nothing to do with behavior.


But I guess I would allow the distinction between being educated and being intelligent as many an idiot can complete a great deal of schooling. Persons who have no real knowledge but instead learn a lot of phrases, they have theory unapplied to life. This is where one might make the distinction between actual thinking and knowledge, because whilst a great thinker knows much, knowing much does not in itself train the mind to think.

But indeed, a vibrant democracy requires more than the formal ability to vote but a sustained way of life that allows meaningful engagement with politics rather than one dictated to the public through a narrowly owned media that lacks transparency and typically has a political discussion at the level of only insults, a lobbied and in a sense pre-selected political representation and a series of other things which undermine the ability of the public to meaningfully form their own self-determined opinion on issues transparently. Democracy seems to require a great deal to sustain it even on a small scale.
#15125196
Wellsy wrote:
But indeed, a vibrant democracy requires more than the formal ability to vote but a sustained way of life that allows meaningful engagement with politics rather than one dictated to the public through a narrowly owned media that lacks transparency and typically has a political discussion at the level of only insults, a lobbied and in a sense pre-selected political representation and a series of other things which undermine the ability of the public to meaningfully form their own self-determined opinion on issues transparently. Democracy seems to require a great deal to sustain it even on a small scale.


Which is why most government throughout history has been some kind of Monarchy. And why I too temper my personal ideology of Socialist Republicanism with a Monarchy also, things which superfically appear to be antithetical to each other and in tension.
#15125200
Rancid wrote:Again, when I said educated, I really meant something more like what @annatar1914 called wisdom. That is, the ability to really vote responsibly. I didn't mean educated like educated in some sort of field/trade.


Well then who would be qualified? Truly wise people are very few and far between, even most of the highly educated people I know wouldn't qualify as wise in my book. Most of them know a little about a lot of things and a lot about one or two things but they certainly don't know enough about enough things to even satisfy the knowledge prerequisite for wisdom. And knowledge is just one of many prerequisites needed to round out wisdom. It takes a person of wide breadth and deep depth just to be able to identify a wise man, so the biggest problem right off the bat is gonna be establishing the criteria for what constitutes a philosopher king. If we let fools decide who the wise people are we end up with the blind leading the blind right off the proverbial cliff.
#15125204
Sivad wrote:Well then who would be qualified? Truly wise people are very few and far between, even most of the highly educated people I know wouldn't qualify as wise in my book. Most of them know a little about a lot of things and a lot about one or two things but they certainly don't know enough about enough things to even satisfy the knowledge prerequisite for wisdom. And knowledge is just one of many prerequisites needed to round out wisdom. It takes a person of wide breadth and deep depth just to be able to identify a wise man, so the biggest problem right off the bat is gonna be establishing the criteria for what constitutes a philosopher king. If we let fools decide who the wise people are we end up with the blind leading the blind right off the proverbial cliff.


People have been having this discussion since before Socrates, and I think that there is no ''perfect solution'' to this in the age we live in. It appears though that a few things are universally known by most across time and space; that a people have to be obedient to their rulers legitimate commands, and rulers have to be just to the ruled and be responsive to their needs.
#15125207
annatar1914 wrote:Yes, what some thinkers have labeled; ''civic virtue'', the ability of any citizen to take part in the political affairs of his locality competently.


And who would that be? The teevee pundits who know how the system was intended to work as well as how it really works but are crazy ass lying manipulators and social climbers? The scientists that can do the math but don't know shit about the social realities or the philosophical assumptions that predetermine it? Don't get me wrong, there are people out there who could steer us straight, the problem is people are so corrupt and stupid that they're incapable of even identifying who those people are. The people in this world that do have real virtue are the people that society despises and destroys. That's the whole point of the liberty movement, people are not fit to rule over other people, they're not even fit to run their own lives. So why in the fuck would you give anyone or any system contrived by man more power over you than is absolutely necessary?


I also tend to think that it requires a measure of spiritual goodness as well.


It requires all of the virtues, virtues which 99.999% of people are seriously lacking in.
#15125208
@Sivad ;

And who would that be? The teevee pundits who know how the system was intended to work as well as how it really works but are crazy ass lying manipulators and social climbers? The scientists that can do the math but don't know shit about the social realities or the philosophical assumptions that predetermine it? Don't get me wrong, there are people out there who could steer us straight, the problem is people are so corrupt and stupid that they're incapable of even identifying who those people are. The people in this world that do have real virtue are the people that society despises and destroys. That's the whole point of the liberty movement, people are not fit to rule over other people, they're not even fit to run their own lives. So why in the fuck would you give anyone or any system contrived by man more power over you than is absolutely necessary?


Here you are touching upon the core reasons why I am a Statist and one of the reasons I posted this thread to begin with. It's because in your last comment my answer is that they would otherwise kill each other off in an orgy of pillage, rape, and murder, without the State restraining them, even if the State is composed of pillagers, rapists, and murderers itself.




It requires all of the virtues, virtues which 99.999% of people are seriously lacking in.


I'd say damn near 100%, including myself. This is why both persuasion and force must be used, unfortunately.
#15125211
annatar1914 wrote:It appears though that a few things are universally known by most across time and space; that a people have to be obedient to their rulers legitimate commands, and rulers have to be just to the ruled and be responsive to their needs.


Yeah, it's called being governed by reason. We don't trust rulers or institutions, we don't just go along with the will of the people, we subject everything to reason and only abide by those rules that survive the most rigorous scrutiny. That might sound racist to the woketards but rationality demands extreme skepticism of all power regardless of who's wielding it.
#15125212
Sivad wrote:Yeah, it's called being governed by reason. We don't trust rulers or institutions, we don't just go along with the will of the people, we subject everything to reason and only abide by those rules that survive the most rigorous scrutiny. That might sound racist to the woketards but rationality demands extreme skepticism of all power regardless of who's wielding it.


But on another level, is it rational to be ''governed by reason''?

That is, men try to apply the ideas of ''reason'' to politics, disagree with each other as to what is reasonable, and cover the world with blood. Nothing would be secure, nothing has been secure, since people started getting this idea at the dawn of our modern age.
#15125216
annatar1914 wrote:Here you are touching upon the core reasons why I am a Statist and one of the reasons I posted this thread to begin with. It's because in your last comment my answer is that they would otherwise kill each other off in an orgy of pillage, rape, and murder, without the State restraining them, even if the State is composed of pillagers, rapists, and murderers itself.


I'm a statist too, I just think there need to be strict limits on state power and I always err on the side of liberty. That's the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist, a libertarian understands that the state is only one among many entities that pose a threat to liberty and the only way to really maximise liberty is by achieving an optimal balance between all the various sources of predatory power. If you try to eliminate one you create a major imbalance between the others and you end up with tyranny.
#15125220
Sivad wrote:I'm a statist too, I just think there need to be strict limits on state power and I always err on the side of liberty. That's the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist, a libertarian understands that the state is only one among many entities that pose a threat to liberty and the only way to really maximise liberty is by achieving an optimal balance between all the various sources of predatory power. If you try to eliminate one you create a major imbalance between the others and you end up with tyranny.


This is something which I'll admit is an ideal that I wrestle with quite a bit. I'm a bit more on the Authoritarian side perhaps, because with other thinkers I believe that you have to have a state of exception to defend freedom that is above the machinery of government constitutionally speaking, as when Lincoln acted during the American Civil War to save the US Republic by all but suspending the US Constitution during the Civil War.
#15125222
annatar1914 wrote:But on another level, is it rational to be ''governed by reason''?

That is, men try to apply the ideas of ''reason'' to politics, disagree with each other as to what is reasonable, and cover the world with blood. Nothing would be secure, nothing has been secure, since people started getting this idea at the dawn of our modern age.


Nothing was ever secure and the bloodletting didn't begin with the modern age. You're nostalgic for a golden age that never was. It's always the best of times and the worst of times. There is no way back and even if there was you'd just be heading into a deathtrap because anything in nature that's not on its way up is on its way out.
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