Tag: philosophy

Refugee Crisis Continues | Keep Ignoring Everything

March 8, 2016

“I’m not sure whether this mirrors the sentiment of those currently caught up in Middle Eastern mass exodus. […] following is an edited excerpt of the beginning of Hannah Arendt’s 1943 essay “We Refugees”. […]
Should we be asking these Muslim refugees to change their culture in order to fit in with our Western way of life? […] We should not allow them to be treated as exceptions as the Jews were in Hitler’s Germany. I like to think we’re still far from anything like that, but the direction we’re going in when we turn a blind eye and ignore the lessons of history.” … More Refugee Crisis Continues | Keep Ignoring Everything

Personal Thoughts | January 2016 | On the Destruction of my (im)Potentias & Resignation as Resistance

January 11, 2016

” […] The kind of speed and mastery you get from playing an instrument allows you to do more, it unleashes potential, it increases the potentias that makes the soul of a man. The mastery of the pickle placement is like the increasing speed of a robot as technology develops- I don’t want to develop like a robot- I am not Aristotle’s talking tool. […] All of my possible futures, the options for how to be, burn away the more I become the burger robot, and the less human I feel. Theses futures don’t just disappear like usual, potentials for things that could have been but did not, they disappear into a true void of things that could never be and will never be- I am less free. Yet to resist means to quit, not to resign is the biggest sign of resignation.” … More Personal Thoughts | January 2016 | On the Destruction of my (im)Potentias & Resignation as Resistance

Personal Thoughts | September 2015 | BPS talk on Out-of-Body-Experiences; cherry-picking from religion; the arrogance of nu-atheist academics

September 22, 2015

“Blackmore is a hard determinist, or fatalist, meaning she believes that every action, including human action, has some cause going back to the start of the universe, which also means free will does not exist. Perhaps I was unable, in the short time I had, to explain my compatibilist position, which I believe follows from dialectical monism; however it seemed disingenuous for someone with academic authority to assert nomological determinism (fatalism) so confidently.” … More Personal Thoughts | September 2015 | BPS talk on Out-of-Body-Experiences; cherry-picking from religion; the arrogance of nu-atheist academics

On Makhaevism: Knowledge Capitalists and Authority-Discourses

September 6, 2015

“Jan Machajski’s big idea, Makhaevism recognised that simplified Marxist classifications of intellectuals as proletarian ignored the privilege they had due to them possessing an unfair monopoly on knowledge. An anarchist, he encouraged relentless questioning of authority. Foucault showed how knowledge discourses with public authority anonymously dominate individuals and legitimise governments. The solution to the problem of the knowledge capitalists is free education for all.” … More On Makhaevism: Knowledge Capitalists and Authority-Discourses

Personal Thoughts | August 2015 | Materialists should not blame individuals for their being, as their consciousness arises from their material conditions, but we should not forget radical freedom.

August 29, 2015

“[…] One of the most beautiful truths of dialectical materialism is the realisation that consciousness is a product of material conditions- not the other way around. What this means is that our personality is a result of the environment in which we develop. […] Although our will is limited, denial of radical freedom is bad faith.” … More Personal Thoughts | August 2015 | Materialists should not blame individuals for their being, as their consciousness arises from their material conditions, but we should not forget radical freedom.