06-09-2018, 04:16 AM
(06-08-2018, 06:25 PM)TheNomad Wrote: The fact anyone is arguing over what is a fact and who decides what is fact, can we not agree there is a fundamental problem with REALITY right now? And where does that come from? No one here will admit they are anywhere near part of the problem. Yet, "subjective reality" continues and that is why we have powers at the highest levels openly claiming they exist in an ALTERNATE REALITY.
They are not the only responsible parties for this fracture of what is real and what isn't. Perhaps we all need to take a closer look at how we operate in our own lives and ARE we contributing to this modern delinquency?
We must learn to separate factual reality from "I like" and "I dislike". That I dislike blizzards does not keep me from recognizing that there might be a blizzard raging just outside my door. If you live in blizzard country you can make adjustments, like relying upon such culture as is available in your home. You can also move if you have the funds, economic flexibility, and the ability to adapt to another place.
I have serious doubt that the current President can separate reality from "I like" and "I dislike" or ever had or exercised such capacity. I wonder if he ever took a college-level course in any aspect of philosophy, including even a survey course. Donald Trump may be a happy man to the extent that he gets whatever he wants, but the unexamined life is otherwise blind and likely delinquent.
A morally-blind or morally-inattentive life is delinquency. The juvenile delinquent has always scared us for having adult strength and a modicum of competence at doing harmful things. Adult delinquency is even more dangerous, which explains the loathing that so many of us have for fascists and gangsters. (Communism fails for gaps in its assumptions, more a result of factual inadequacies than of moral failings except of Communist leaders).
Ultimately we see a trend in which most people's happiness no longer has any relevance. Reality is that a few people have arrogated to themselves all the power and most of the wealth and streams of income. The rest of us can at best hope to protect what we have so long as we can. Donald Trump has the ethical values of a feudal lord of the Middle Ages -- that the rest of the world, except for the biggest lord of them all (the King) defers or endures horrific consequences -- like breaking at the wheel or burning at the stake. Happiness for any subordinate, especially the serfs, has no reality in a moral order that has such as its predicate.
No, he is not the only one. Maybe the economic elites of the Boom generation (like Trump) got far too much indulgence and far too little responsibility too early, and hence got a self-centered view of all reality. The prole Boomer found out at least with the first job that the source of the paychecks had the real power. I see serious contradictions (Hello, Hegel!) between our old claim and ideal of liberal democracy and a government that represents wealth and institutional power at the expense of all else. To be sure, this did not suddenly begin under Donald Trump. Lobbyists have effectively controlled the federal legislative branch and most state legislatures since 2011, and had similar power from about 1995 to 2006. But government that at all levels represents nothing other than corporate power is what we have now, and Donald Trump is the definitive expression of government by the wealth and institutional power, for the wealth and institutional power, and by the wealth and institutional power. The style of government that we now have is practically what the political pervert Benito Mussolini offered for Italy -- his Corporate State that represents economic ownership and institutional power instead of the people. Trump is no theoretician, as he has never had the pretense to philosophical prowess that Mussolini claimed. (Needless to say, Mussolini seems to have never examined his life and its purpose).
So perhaps our elites are a little more generous than feudal lords of the Middle Ages. They might let us listen to a little rock-and-roll on the car stereo if we are good enough to be able to buy car payments (tough luck if you must ride the bus). They might let us splurge every year on a trip to a theme park. Just to stave off the numbing boredom they might allow us to see a spectacular movie. So what? We will still be peons as long as people like Donald Trump reflect the political reality that we endure.
I hate life itself under this unified command in politics.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.