Friday, September 11, 2020

On Medium: Top Three Criticisms of Liberalism

Continuing my Top Three Criticism series, here's one on liberalism. 

13 comments:

  1. Liberals are right about human (and/nonhuman life) essential equality but from this point they start to despise our superficial (surface) differences.

    Result: push multiculturalism and en masse immigration which will eclipse reached equality. Look at the Sweden as an example. Until recent en masse immigration of "third" and "second" world ones to this nation, Sweden had reached significant well being and equality. Because on avg these immigrants are less cognitively smart than native swedes as well psychological and cultural differences, social inequality rates have increased alarmingly.

    On other hand, conservatives despise our existential brotherhood while emphasise what we have as different to fix it resulting in naturalization of social parasitism/exploitation and opression/prejudice.

    Interestingly, liberals value individuality or individual differences but within a collectivity duty while conservative value social conformity or supression of individuality and emphasise individual differences negatively and pragmatically (the "poor" is to serve the "rich"; the "gay" is to be condemned while the "hetero" is to be exalted as a model of behavior).

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  2. When you say "OUR nature is not intrinsically noble" are you suggesting WE are equally evil??

    Seems you have a problem overusing these such strong and vague statement like "WE ARE x or y". It's what typical liberal think "WE ARE INTRINSICALLY GOOD", then you are saying "WE ARE INTRINSICALLY BAD" but humans, specially, tend to be variable psychologically and cognitively.. i'm not comparable to a corrupt politician, my nature is more noble than him, sorry.

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  3. I don't think the act to live is ONLY desperately sad after hyperrealistic understanding but also tremendously fantastic, to think that we are everything now we can be and this is absolutely unique and somewhat privileged, it's to be nothing and everything we can...

    "Loser" is not a word i expect a philosopher use freely. It still a word but seeing by an asshole sociopath trash perspective. I prefer terms like exploited, victimized.. much more realistic and precise.

    Call someone loser specially if related with social class and something like that it's like to call "poor" people as UNDERclass or LOWER social class. It's a perspective seeing by the top of parasitical pyramid and it's legitimate the point of view of parasitic. People from such classes i call BASAL looking at the social pyramid as whole.

    Call nordic countries as nanny is again legitimating the psychopathic language of useless parasitical ones. What nordic countries do is the basic of wisdom, even just the basic and incompletely of course. It's like treat a society a society and not a bantustan.

    Immigration is still low in Iceland and Finland but specially on Sweden...

    You still with this utter generalization by "feminine sensibilities" while many of modern western progressivism earlier academic/intelectual//philosophical Works are done by males, period. Do you think Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels works are "sensibly feminine"??

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    1. The point about our nature not being noble was about the naturalistic fallacy. Science informs us that nothing is inherently good or bad, since objects as such are morally neutral. Therefore our nature is likewise morally neutral and thus not noble (not good).

      I agree that “loser” is often used pejoratively. I use the word ironically, because I don’t side with the winners of the rat race whom I criticize precisely as being corrupted and disproportionately psychopathic. I was speaking of the metaphor of the rat race in which there are winners and losers, but even the winners lose because the race turns all the runners into rats. To deny there are winners and losers in the race is to avoid facing the absurd reality. I’ve even compared the different earthly end points of these winners and losers to the actual Heaven and Hell (link below).

      Remember that in this Top Three Criticisms series, I’m not necessarily speaking for myself. I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of a critic. Critics of liberalism and of the Nordic model would indeed feel hampered by the cultural restraints that prevent the rise of vast economic inequality. The government’s involvement would feel like a nanny state, and the socialist culture would seem infantilizing and womb-like. The irony is that individualistic cultures tend out to be at least as infantile, because the majority becomes prey to the parasitic corporations that exploit people’s cognitive weaknesses and feed them a diet of manipulative, regressive ads and propaganda.

      The major philosophical works in liberal Europe may be done by males, but philosophers tend to stand outside mainstream culture, so they’re not caught up in the feminine-masculine culture war. If anything, they write from an asexual standpoint, from that of a detached outsider taking up the objective, sometimes prophetic view from nowhere.

      In the article I was speaking of socialist culture as a whole, which is certainly feminine compared to individualistic cultures, since only the latter allow for the creation of an underclass that resembles an abandoned baby (which appalls especially those with feminine sensitivities). By contrast, communist culture, as in the kind advocated by Marx, is utopian so it too falls outside the masculine-feminine spectrum. Still, in practice, communist countries become hierarchical, dystopian and hypermasculine.

      http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2018/04/the-social-reality-of-heaven-and-hell.html

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    2. ''The point about our nature not being noble was about the naturalistic fallacy. Science informs us that nothing is inherently good or bad, since objects as such are morally neutral. Therefore our nature is likewise morally neutral and thus not noble (not good).''

      Science??? A poorly socially developed and lack of empathy mostly white, asian and jewish nerdy guys can't inform us properly about what morality is. Well, in the end of day we are not objects... morality is about knowledge of what is imprescindible to be done to survive and live based on reality understanding of given species. While is totally inevitable or imprescindible for parasitic wasps to parasite other (insect) species, it's not for us. We can adapt without exploiting other fellow human beings and even about most nonhuman animals. Sounding typical new atheism scientism...

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  4. When you says "This is a nanny State" you mean "this exagerated/caricatural/unnecessary". But this is the logic. If not, again, we don't live in societies but in colonies of enterperneurs or enterprises, what capitalism does.

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  5. Karl Marx AND any woman, specially smart one, can deduct that social parasitism is unnecessary, stupid and humanly ilogic not because they need to feed babies with their breasts. This "evolutionary psych" narrative look very stupid. You think morality is Just relative when you says "we are not good or bad" BUT we are morally neutral only when we are doing nothing, period.

    I think you can criticize "liberalism" without taking often fallacious criticism from their antagonists

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    1. Well, I did make such criticisms of liberalism in the article. You're only nitpicking about some words you don't like, not actually addressing those criticisms or arguments, as far as I can tell.

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    2. Very poor counterargument. So do you think i Just don't like some words and nothing more than this??

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    3. No, Santo’s, I’m afraid yours are the poor counterarguments. I made three criticisms of liberalism in the article. I put the criticisms in big, bold letters. You ignored them, as far as I can tell from your comments, given the language barrier.

      I get that a lot from commenters on my articles. Very rarely does a commenter actually address what I say in the article. Instead, they prefer to talk about their separate opinions on some related subject, and I indulge them. In this case, you’re offended by some words I used in making the criticisms, which words aren’t essential to the criticisms. Thus your responses to the three criticisms are red herrings.

      For example, you don’t like evolutionary psychology. That’s fine. I’m not committed to evolutionary psychology as a whole. I offer the masculine-feminine analysis as an explanation of certain social characteristics. The test of that analysis is its explanatory power. The characters of individualistic and collectivist societies can be explained in part, I submit, by appealing to those two dispositions and ideals. Individualistic societies like the US go wrong in very different ways than socialist ones like the Nordic democracies. It’s clear to me the former can become hypermasculine in the familiar sense, celebrating psychopathy and dominant, macho male leaders (such as Trump, Nixon, Bush Jr.), while the latter get wrapped up in bureaucracy, political correctness, and infantile overprotection. Of course, the social justice movement in the US is currently a hyperfeminine tendency but is also relatively powerless, compared to the American neoliberal deference to the weakly-regulated market.

      But if you don’t like that evolutionary explanation, that’s fine. It’s only a way of talking that cuts to the chase. I can explain the same phenomena in more conventional ways, so again your criticism is a red herring and it operates mainly on the semantic level (the choice of labels). My article doesn’t rest on tracing the origins of individualism and collectivism to their evolutionary underpinnings; rather, my point was that the Nordic democracies are caught between those two poles.

      Marxism itself isn’t particularly feminine, and indeed the Nordic social democracies were formed as compromises with the soviet model of communism. But that was decades ago. The question is whether the Nordic model ends up confirming my other criticisms of liberalism, especially since these social democratic states have become more neoliberal over time. Thus at the end of the article I say, “these countries vacillate between relying on proxies for illiberalism (for premodern tyranny, the proxies being ethnic homogeneity and collectivist or hyperfeminine social conditioning) and lapsing into full-blown self-destructive, dehumanizing neoliberalism.”

      I don’t really understand your rant about science in your 9:22 AM comment.

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    4. Of course, expecting overrationalization and intelectual dishonesty from you. Why do you think has a diploma in philosophy make you a philosopher?? Write garboise texts don't make you and none instantaneously a wise thinker, sorry.

      Most of my observations are solid valid.

      AGAIN. It's not just a matter to feel offended by words, dear. Use pejorative words are already excess of emotional intrusion in pretend to be objective analysis. You say the use of loser word is sarcastic but i doubt most people who read your texts easily detect your sarcasm. Maybe if i use offensive words to refer to jewish people you will have a different opinion or similar to my own...

      I like correct evolutionary psych. You are getting a wrong perception on me as uber typical leftist. I barely see myself as such if I yet and probably permanently will not have a definitive ideological identity based on current ideological or political spectrum. I tend to agree with both sides. Racial differences exist, they are mostly rooted on biology, for example. But i think you are using evolutionary explanation in very similar way to the typical rightist evol psycho, not good one.

      Yes, now i'm mostly agreeing with you but j don't think be kind is directly derived from feminine side or nature if you think near-like-that. When you say "political correctness (on the left.. because there is in the right too) are overprotective" i expect you will make a over negative criticism about it without separating what is valid and what is really not. I believe we can overpass feminine and masculine poles to validate behavior including by philosophical perspective. Like its signficantly better a pacified than a macho toxic competitive society. Its better a society devoted to well being and maximized adaptation than to feed a fragile masculinity cult.

      Words are the fundamental ways we understand the world. It's not a little thing. It's by language we build opressive words like bitch or son of bitch. This is often very subtle but with real impact on social relations as well serving as symbol of for opression and exploitation of those in the power. Replicate them is the same as validate them.

      I mostly like your texts and i'm sorry if i'm being very impolite with you now. It's my way and often i have a long and messy time and path to digest texts and their meanings worsen by language barrier. I understand most of what you write but still not 100% of mutuability.

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    5. My point about your disagreement with some words I used wasn’t that those word choices of mine were flawless. The point is that you were quibbling and nitpicking, that my criticisms of liberalism didn’t depend on those word choices. So as far as the main contents of the article are concerned, your criticisms this time were red herrings. Anyway, I’m not saying your comments are empty, baseless, or invalid.

      I understand your point that leftism shouldn’t be dismissed entirely as feminine or politically correct, as though leftism were equally as faulty as right-wing views. In fact, I’ve criticized centrism for taking this lazy fifty-fifty approach. But I don’t idolize much in popular discourse, so I push criticisms as far as they’ll go. I’ve said in several articles that liberalism is superior to what’s called conservatism, because liberalism is humanistic and progressive (which makes conservatism animalistic). I’ve called this the secret meaning of history. Liberalism, modernity, and secular enlightenment are experiments that offer amazing advances and also include potentials for catastrophe.

      I agree that in some ways a domesticated setting is preferable to a macho one. I live in Canada after all. Maybe hyperfeminism is less destructive than hypermasculinity. I’ve condemned the latter in the strongest possible terms in numerous articles. But liberalism is problematic too. Wherever I see fault, I aim to criticize it, regardless of whom I offend. I’ve criticized atheism, naturalism, and philosophy too, even though I’d consider myself an atheistic, naturalistic philosopher. I’d agree with liberals on numerous issues of value. But I’m more interested in understanding the grey tones of reality, as it were, than in dividing things into black and white.

      And again, that particular series (Top Three Criticisms) is intended to push the envelope of criticism. Those are the best three objections I can think of at that time, which doesn’t mean I agree with them completely. It’s possible some of the harsh words I used were residues from my taking up the devil’s advocate position against liberalism.

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    6. ''So as far as the main contents of the article are concerned, your criticisms this time were red herrings.''

      Good to elaborate.

      ''I understand your point that leftism shouldn’t be dismissed entirely as feminine or politically correct, as though leftism were equally as faulty as right-wing views. In fact, I’ve criticized centrism for taking this lazy fifty-fifty approach. But I don’t idolize much in popular discourse, so I push criticisms as far as they’ll go. I’ve said in several articles that liberalism is superior to what’s called conservatism, because liberalism is humanistic and progressive (which makes conservatism animalistic). I’ve called this the secret meaning of history. Liberalism, modernity, and secular enlightenment are experiments that offer amazing advances and also include potentials for catastrophe.''

      Ok.

      ''I agree that in some ways a domesticated setting is preferable to a macho one. I live in Canada after all."

      On avg, males are emotionally dumb than women.

      "Maybe hyperfeminism is less destructive than hypermasculinity."

      Little less but still impressively problematic.

      "I’ve condemned the latter in the strongest possible terms in numerous articles. But liberalism is problematic too. Wherever I see fault, I aim to criticize it, regardless of whom I offend."

      Say the truth =/= be offensive. Offense is express what you are feeling negatively.

      "I’ve criticized atheism, naturalism, and philosophy too, even though I’d consider myself an atheistic, naturalistic philosopher. I’d agree with liberals on numerous issues of value. But I’m more interested in understanding the grey tones of reality, as it were, than in dividing things into black and white.''

      I'm more a "problem solver" than a contemplative thinker.

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