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It is also possible that you just don't understand them due to some deficiency, delusions, lack of erudition on your part.
In fact, a little janitorial work on this forum might be an improvement. Janitors, unite!
Indeed. But many people prefer to create rubbish, and imagine that is a more exalted action than being a janitor. They are simply wrong.
Progress without a goal is just movement in no particular direction or else it is not progress at all but just a preservation of the status quo, cleaning up the messes, everything in it's right place, the end of history.
Indeed. Clever animals who have lost their appetite for the profound, immersed in their happy meal. The "waste land." Of course Heidegger could have used some irony....
There are those who want philosophy practical and/or political. It just annoys them when philosophers have the gall to present something difficult, sublime, profound....
They forget that they are dying animals. & that sometimes a dying animal wants to be more than just a clever monkey. They are ignorant of the numinous, perhaps, and have never been turned on by the beauty of certain thoughts. I'll agree that it's dangerous to lose one's irony, but perhaps it's even worse to lose one's sense of excitement.
The last man is anti-profound. No one is allowed to wonder from the herd. All must be 2 + 2 = 4.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." This is really where I draw the line. I have an Orwellian phobia that might be considered irrational by some but nevertheless, I won't back down 2+2=4, end of story.
That said, there are many ways to waste people's time including boring them with dry discourse or nitpicking at their every word rather than recognizing the real issue at hand. Maybe 2 + 2 equaling 4 is not the real issue.
That said, as hard as it is to face we must face it: sometimes the truth is boring.
That said, perhaps we can "Make it new".
That said...
That said...
That said...
not saying that 2 + 2 isn't 4, of course. i'm saying that it's so obvious as to be trivial. sometimes the truth is boring. of course.
If the entry criterion for participation is to have "great thoughts", then we might as well all pack up and go home.
But isn't the criterion rather that of being willing to have conversations?
If someone is spouting a monologue, then one might reasonably object, and try to get them to participate in a dialogue.
And if they won't, then isn't that the problem, rather than them talking "rubbish", "crap", etc.?
That is not quite what I had in mind. I have no problem with people keeping a notebook, or a computer file kept on their own computer, in which they write whatever pops into their heads. It may be a good first step for some people to do that. What I object to is someone promulgating this stuff when it is drivel while pretending it is profound. And what makes it worse is that after they have thrust it into the public arena, they object to people telling them the truth about it. If they don't want anyone to tell them their garbage is garbage, they would be well advised to keep it to themselves, but they do not do that and spout off their drivel, and expect others to "respect" it. If they did something worthy of respect, it would be a different matter, but I'll be damned if I am going to respect a pile of crap.
Yes, very often, reworking one's ideas is a good plan. But many people put forth the initial whim as if it were something great, when it typically is trash. It is very rare for people to have great thoughts without rethinking them, and it is rare enough even after rethinking things.
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But why not live and let live, as Deckard says? One can briefly disagree or question without talking about garbage or drivel.
Ideas are not all of equal value. Some are good, and some are not. Everyone makes this sort of distinction, though different people have different criteria. Some are very poor at distinguishing between sense and nonsense, but everyone does make some such distinction. If not in philosophy, they do so in their ordinary lives.
Since ideas are not all of equal value, they don't all deserve an equal hearing, and they do not deserve equal respect.
But even so, there are probably some things that you would object to others promoting. Would you speak up if, for example, someone said that black people are inferior to white people, or that women are invariably stupid, worthless, irrational creatures? I would object to someone posting such things, and I imagine I would not be alone on that.
I also happen to think that sloppy thinking leads to bad actions, and consequently it should be discouraged. There are many bad things people have done due to the sorts of things they believe and are willing to promote. Clear thinking is something that has value. If you disagree with me on that, then it would be understandable why you would not think it matters if people promote nonsensical gibberish.
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You may (or may not) think it is okay for people to promote nonsense. I do not.
But if you agree that clear thinking has value, then I would expect you to be on my side on this matter of not liking gibberish presented as profound philosophy.
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This is the heart of the matter. If you really believe that the nonsense posts some make on this forum are going to lead to bad things being done, then you would be right to try and convince them. If someone is talking about the benefits of homeopathic medicine over real doctors for example, I can see wanting to convince them otherwise. But if you want to do that, you can't be dismissive or call their argument rubbish. People will ignore the hell out of that.
And you probably aren't going to convince the people who believe the world is ending in 2012 of anything.
And this isn't even a medicine forum. It's a philosophy forum and, and most of the nonsense posts have to do with things that don't affect anybody.
I roll my eyes a bit and ignore it. It doesn't matter if people post gibberish. This is what I meant by live and let live.
If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future. It goes to make a part of that aggregate of beliefs which is the link between sensation and action at every moment of all our lives, and which is so organized and compacted together that no part of it can be isolated from the rest, but every new addition modifies the structure of the whole. No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may some day explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character for ever.
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It is not only the leader of men, statesmen, philosopher, or poet, that owes this bounden duty to mankind. Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race. Every hard-worked wife of an artisan may transmit to her children beliefs which shall knit society together, or rend it in pieces. No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.
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And, as in other such cases, it is not the risk only which has to be considered; for a bad action is always bad at the time when it is done, no matter what happens afterwards. Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to, and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide. But a greater and wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made permanent. If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done by the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest. What hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that it should become a den of thieves; for then it must cease to be society. This is why we ought not to do evil that good may come; for at any rate this great evil has come, that we have done evil and are made wicked thereby. In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.
The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs. Habitual want of care about what I believe leads to habitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to me. Men speak the truth to one another when each reveres the truth in his own mind and in the other's mind; but how shall my friend revere the truth in my mind when I myself am careless about it, when I believe things because I want to believe them, and because they are comforting and pleasant? Will he not learn to cry, "Peace," to me, when there is no peace? By such a course I shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere of falsehood and fraud, and in that I must live. It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to Man that I have made my neighbours ready to deceive. The credulous man is father to the liar and the cheat; he lives in the bosom of this his family, and it is no marvel if he should become even as they are. So closely are our duties knit together, that whoso shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
It is being willing to have sensible conversations that matters. Being willing to spout drivel as if it were profound is not worthwhile, even if done interactively.
Essentially, a book is a monologue, as one cannot ask it questions and interact with it as with a normal living person. But that is okay, if it is a good book.
This is the heart of the matter. If you really believe that the nonsense posts some make on this forum are going to lead to bad things being done, then you would be right to try and convince them. If someone is talking about the benefits of homeopathic medicine over real doctors for example, I can see wanting to convince them otherwise. But if you want to do that, you can't be dismissive or call their argument rubbish. People will ignore the hell out of that. And you probably aren't going to convince the people who believe the world is ending in 2012 of anything.
And this isn't even a medicine forum. It's a philosophy forum and, and most of the nonsense posts have to do with things that don't affect anybody.
I roll my eyes a bit and ignore it. It doesn't matter if people post gibberish. This is what I meant by live and let live.
The problem is the crap, but not just that. It is also presenting the crap as if it were gold, and then reacting badly to the truth about this.
I think we need an example of crap that has been presented as gold. Then we can discuss whether it is crap or gold. It would be best if we don't choose an example from someone else's post though. Maybe something from a famous philosopher.
Yes, that is very often true. Notice, I am not naming names in this thread, and that is part of the reason (another part is that it is likely a violation of forum rules).
I think it does matter if people post rubbish, and there we have our difference of opinion.
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It may be that my efforts will have little effect in the overall scheme of things, but the stakes are very significant. It is not a trivial matter that so many people have so little regard for getting at the truth of things.
[...] I think it is certain that the effort should be made to be clear.
Ideally, yes, we should all be clear all the time; but can't there be an intellectual division of labour - preferably not one in which the roles are fixed for all time - in which, from time to time, someone goes into a trance and shakes a bit and speaks in tongues and utters obscure prophecies and leaves a lot of ectoplasm all over the place, and then the janitors rush around tut-tutting loudly and tidying the place up for the next round? Can't we have both seance and science?
But isn't that sort of thing also liable to fail my test of willingness to participate in a dialogue?
If it really is nonsense (I for one certainly can make no sense of it), then isn't the person uttering it likely to be doing so in bad faith, and therefore be unwilling to enter into an honest discussion of what they mean (if even if granted good faith on the part of their questioners)?
And if someone writing such stuff does make an effort to explain it, then who knows, we might learn something!
I feel like there's a level of obscurity where the fact that the person is being that incoherent means they won't make enough sense of your arguments for it to be worthwhile.
