thebackalleys

I figured that since we have a lot of our Traditionalism (capital T) shitposts in the IRC channel, it might as well be helpful to have some discussions in a general thread, where we can post news updates, readings/excerpts/quotations, and questions to meditate on. Everyone who is interested in Traditionalism or esoterism is welcome; I think that these schools of thinking have a lot of underrepresented wisdom which you can use to enrich your everyday life.

What is Traditionalism? I can't really summarize the whole body of belief in just a few sentences, but I can give you some bullet points:

• Truth, wisdom, and enlightenment are things which are extremely difficult to obtain. Pure democracy doesn't make sense because you're essentially diluting extremely rare wisdom in an ocean of ignorance.
• The "common sense" of modernity is not really common sense at all. Think about how the common sense of the Dark Ages is totally incompatible with a modern worldview. A lot of the beliefs that modern people have are extremely recent, and we should be skeptical. Five hundred years from now, people might even consider the 21st century to be a Dark Age. Our adherence to "common sense" is something that limits us. We should seek to transcend our common sense and try to have a full picture of the Truth.
• Symbols, religions, cultures, legacies, and inherited traditions are something that are extremely useful and important to understanding the world. If you don't understand your own history, you're missing out on some of the great truths that people before you have discovered independently.

You can learn more of it on this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_School. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_School.) A lot of the belief has been kind of mixed around with Eastern philosophy, modern far-right movements, Buddhism, and Neo-Nazi stuff. But being a Traditionalist doesn't mean you have to be a Nazi or a Fascist (there are very many Traditionalist writers who lived during the times of Nazism and Fascism and actively spoke against those movements). It also doesn't mean you have to be a Buddhist, but perhaps that helps :^).

What is esoterism? Let's do bullet points again.

• Self-awareness and openness are extremely important. If you box yourself in by holding onto presumptions or being attached to circumstantial beliefs, you are limiting yourself. Even if you are a flawed human being, you can transcend many of these flaws by understanding what they are and where they come from rather than burying them away, pretending that the flaws are good, or ignoring them.
• Language, logic, and rationality are all incredibly overrated. They're very important to learning, but they are not sufficient by themselves. Many of the highest truths can't be summarized in words.
• Labels, distinctions, and seeming contradictions don't really matter at all. Being an enlightened person means having an extremely hyper-cosmopolitan worldview which is as broad as the universe and as deep as the transcendent.
• Experience and action are very important tools of learning. Climbing Mt. Everest, becoming president of the United States, or living as a beggar might teach you much more than even the best books.
• There's a lot of seemingly-dumb shit in religions. Who wants to meditate for 40 days or recite the names of Allah for hours or learn about the Holy Trinity? But meditating on these seemingly-dumb concepts can actually provoke higher learning. Think about how you had to learn "2+2=4" or count with apples before you could graduate to Algebra and Calculus. Things like the names of Allah or the Holy Trinity can be just like this; even if you don't believe them to be literally true, they can be very useful as a way of stimulating your mind and paving the way for greater learning.

Thanks for making a thread.

What's your favorite esoteric school?

I really like Advaita Vedanta Hinduism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta). So far, its the only school of philosophy I've found that independently blends together many of the good concepts from Daoism, Buddhism, Platonism, and Aristotelianism without much extra bad baggage. Comparative religions shitpost follows:

I don't really "enjoy" Buddhism because of its focus on the ultimate suffering of life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha), the denial of an inner Self (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta), and its refusal to answer some key metaphysical questions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions). But I do think that "well-performed, enlightened Buddhism" is basically the same as Advaita Vedanta. Tantric Buddhism / Vajrayana, in particular, is really sophisticated and worth learning IMO.

I really like non-pagan Daoism but I think it's ultimately an incomplete framework. There are a lot of vague holes and unanswered questions that you basically have to answer by yourself, with your own projections, which make it a difficult tool of learning and subject to wrong interpretations.

Aristotelianism is really good but I think it's too realist and attached to practicality. I think Platonism is cool but it doesn't answer the full picture.

Finally, I've been a very vocal defender of the Catholic faith in this forum, but I do agree that Western Christians in general tend to get caught up in the narrow-minded, exoteric practices of their faith and don't often try to find the transcendent, unifying truth. I think that "Enlightened" Roman Catholicism is almost like the best religion, but my vision of the Catholic faith is almost like heresy in modern-day terms (perhaps it would have been more acceptable back in the pre-modern world). Christian esoterism/mysticism does exist though and I think it's super interesting.

"You can be a nazi but you don't have to be :^)"

wow sounds great

Proper Traditionalism really isn't that Nazi at all though. It's just elitist in the literal sense: Buddhas, saints, gurus, and wise scholars (i.e. members of the spiritual elite) have greater access to the secrets of the world and are viewed with more respect. In contrast, bourgeois (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie) philistines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistinism) are more like children who need to learn more about themselves and the world before becoming mature individuals.

There's emphasis on ancestry in Traditionalism/esoterism in the sense that, if your family, friends, or community have connections to the spiritual elite, it's easier for those teachings to pass onto you (for example, it probably would be easier for a Tibetan Buddhist monk to become enlightened than it would be for an American college student), but even a deluded manchild can become enlightened as long as they're open and self-aware.

Neo-Nazis who happen to piggyback on Traditionalism just say that spiritual elite = racial elite, but there's no real reason (in my opinion) for race to correlate with spiritual intelligence in the Nazi-eugenics sense.

So you don't distinguish between eastern and western Esotericism? I guess that's inherent in Traditionalism but it's one of many aspects I'd like to learn more about.

Any entry-level texts you'd recommend?

Quote from: zwimmy on February  6, 2016 11:31 PM
"You can be a nazi but you don't have to be :^)"

Wouldn't this describe literally any school of thought ever conceived? It's just real life. There are radical and Fascistic ideologues everywhere (including the modern Social Justice movement). That doesn't mean all discourse should end whenever the word (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fnord) is invoked.

Speaking of Enlightenment, what do you think of U. G. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U._G._Krishnamurti) basket? I know I'm always the first to bring up contrarian perspectives but I'm curious as to how a Traditionalist/Esotericist would respond to him (or his wikipedia page because he's dead).

Quote from: Bamyasi on February  7, 2016 01:44 AM
So you don't distinguish between eastern and western Esotericism? I guess that's inherent in Traditionalism but it's one of many aspects I'd like to learn more about.

Yeah, I don't really distinguish between them. A lot of the Western scholars of esoterism draw influence from Sufism, Buddhism, or Indian philosophy, all of which are eastern in origin anyways. Actually, I'm not sure if I've ever heard of any Western scholar who draws influence SOLELY from Western esoteric sources like Christian or Greek mysticism, but they probably exist.

Quote
Any entry-level texts you'd recommend?

Julius Evola's Ride the Tiger is a classic, but tbh it's pretty annoying to read. I think the Bhagavad Gita is the best and most entry-level religious text for this (get E. Easwaran's translation, it's great!). Also, since you've already read Hermann Hesse's works, a lot of the concepts will be familiar to you. Also, Rene Guenon is the quintessential Traditionalist writer, but I'm bad and haven't finished reading him.

Basically, any book titles that say something like "The modern world sucks" or "revolt against modernity" will be Traditionalist in nature. Also, Alasdair MacIntyre is kind of quasi-Traditionalist.

Quote
Speaking of Enlightenment, what do you think of U. G. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U._G._Krishnamurti) basket? I know I'm always the first to bring up contrarian perspectives but I'm curious as to how a Traditionalist/Esotericist would respond to him (or his wikipedia page because he's dead).

I think that U.G.'s contrarianism is actually totally compatible with esoterism. There's a movement in Buddhism to fight against spiritual materialism, which is basically a holier-than-thou mentality which a lot of modern day Buddhist hippies have. Even the most "enlightened" initiates sometimes have this problem, where you're always comparing yourself to others and trying to appear smart and detached in your practice. U.G.'s response, that "there is nothing to understand", is basically the classic esoteric cop-out answer, that "these guys have [concept] wrong because they're dumb, but I have [the same concept] right because I'm smart."

That's why I think esoterism is interesting because you don't just judge the ideas, but you judge the person who has the idea too. It's like, ad hominem attacks are actually welcomed. If you're a dumb guy who really doesn't know anything and you HAPPENED to preach the correct answer, people will still criticize you for not really understanding your own words.

how the fuck could anyone say nazism is traditionalist in any way

they repudiated christianity

plus uh

there was no such thing as nationalism in the past - it was all conceived by some dumb fucks in maybe the XIXth century, before there were no uh

FRENCH people

there were just, subjects of the..king of france! thats how it worked

and really gay and stupid ideologies like socialism were conceived in the XIXth century as well

and nazism is national socialism, precisly speaking from an economic point of view, corporationism

Quote from: michaell on February  7, 2016 02:16 AM
how the fuck could anyone say nazism is traditionalist in any way

ditto "inward focus" because this does not concern spiritual enlightenment but pleasure seeking and self interest

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 02:13 AM
Yeah, I don't really distinguish between them. A lot of the Western scholars of esoterism draw influence from Sufism, Buddhism, or Indian philosophy, all of which are eastern in origin anyways. Actually, I'm not sure if I've ever heard of any Western scholar who draws influence SOLELY from Western esoteric sources like Christian or Greek mysticism, but they probably exist.

Oh yeah but I meant like considering Western esotericism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_esotericism) that developed during or pre-Middle Ages, before weeaboos like Marco Polo, separately from Eastern schools. Traditionalism would seem to conflate them, which I find interesting. So really there's no meaningful distinction between academic study of estoericism and esotericism proper? That's interesting. I always like when scholars don't pretend the thing they're studying exists in a vacuum.

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 02:13 AM
Julius Evola's Ride the Tiger is a classic, but tbh it's pretty annoying to read. I think the Bhagavad Gita is the best and most entry-level religious text for this (get E. Easwaran's translation, it's great!). Also, since you've already read Hermann Hesse's works, a lot of the concepts will be familiar to you. Also, Rene Guenon is the quintessential Traditionalist writer, but I'm bad and haven't finished reading him.

Basically, any book titles that say something like "The modern world sucks" or "revolt against modernity" will be Traditionalist in nature. Also, Alasdair MacIntyre is kind of quasi-Traditionalist.

I will download all of these. Thanks.

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 02:13 AM
I think that U.G.'s contrarianism is actually totally compatible with esoterism. There's a movement in Buddhism to fight against spiritual materialism, which is basically a holier-than-thou mentality which a lot of modern day Buddhist hippies have. Even the most "enlightened" initiates sometimes have this problem, where you're always comparing yourself to others and trying to appear smart and detached in your practice. U.G.'s response, that "there is nothing to understand", is basically the classic esoteric cop-out answer, that "these guys have [concept] wrong because they're dumb, but I have [the same concept] right because I'm smart."

That's why I think esoterism is interesting because you don't just judge the ideas, but you judge the person who has the idea too. It's like, ad hominem attacks are actually welcomed. If you're a dumb guy who really doesn't know anything and you HAPPENED to preach the correct answer, people will still criticize you for not really understanding your own words.

That makes sense. From what I know about U. G, he mostly talked to disillusioned westerners who were turning to Eastern wisdom after becoming bored with Protestantism or some other lame shit. It makes sense that his apparent Nihilism would be more polemic in nature, rather than an innate lack of belief. Am I understanding you correctly?

Quote from: michaell on February  7, 2016 02:16 AM
how the fuck could anyone say nazism is traditionalist in any way

they repudiated christianity

Yes but from a North American "what the fuck even is my culture" liberal perspective, a will to preserve any European heritage is basically synonymous with Nazism. I'm not saying it's correct, it's just how people think. Nazism and Communism were always considered a more internal threat here (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, both Red Scares) rather than an external imposition (1984, the invasion of Poland), because there was always at least a fairly large body of water separating us from the Third Reich.

Of course it's stupid but Americans are stupid.

I want to like esoterism but the belief that there are things in this world that can't be explained seems like a bit of a copout. If you told someone about string theory 300 or even 100 years ago, you'd be committed to bedlam. Humanities discoveries and mental faculties are growing at an exponential rate and why some may say that science doesn't offer a spiritual answer, it does offer a hell of a lot better answer than a guy living in a cave eating moss can give.

I'm really trying to understand this whole concept but it just seems rather vague. What I'm getting so far is "The modern world is bad, also read about these old religions." What parts of the modern world are bad? What does this whole "return to tradition" thing actually imply?

Quote from: Bamyasi on February  7, 2016 03:17 AM
Of course it's stupid but Americans are stupid.

they are now thanks to commercialism diversity and scaling up beyond the optimum human livable means

Hence Traditionalism I guess.

I've plugged it before but this BBC documentary series (https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/) really helped me understand America better than almost anything else. You'd probably like it Gladius, assuming you haven't seen it.

Quote from: Bamyasi on February  7, 2016 03:17 AM
Oh yeah but I meant like considering Western esotericism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_esotericism) that developed during or pre-Middle Ages, before weeaboos like Marco Polo, separately from Eastern schools. Traditionalism would seem to conflate them, which I find interesting. So really there's no meaningful distinction between academic study of estoericism and esotericism proper? That's interesting. I always like when scholars don't pretend the thing they're studying exists in a vacuum.

I can't speak with too much authority about this particular aspect of the philosophy, but I would guess that pre-modern Western esoterism might have been less perennial and less accommodating of other religions than modern esoterism. The pre-modern Western esoterics wouldn't have been as exposed to the inner traditions and holy books of other religions, as the 19th century esoterics were, and were probably more dogmatic about their particular customs.

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 02:13 AM
That makes sense. From what I know about U. G, he mostly talked to disillusioned westerners who were turning to Eastern wisdom after becoming bored with Protestantism or some other lame shit. It makes sense that his apparent Nihilism would be more polemic in nature, rather than an innate lack of belief. Am I understanding you correctly?

Yeah, I think that's it. U.G.'s position sounds like a natural response to westerners superficially picking up eastern religions without really understanding them.

Quote from: SrsSam77 on February  7, 2016 04:13 AM
I want to like esoterism but the belief that there are things in this world that can't be explained seems like a bit of a copout. If you told someone about string theory 300 or even 100 years ago, you'd be committed to bedlam. Humanities discoveries and mental faculties are growing at an exponential rate and why some may say that science doesn't offer a spiritual answer, it does offer a hell of a lot better answer than a guy living in a cave eating moss can give.

I think, whether or not its a cop-out, it's just true that there are things which defy explanation, and that's a flaw of our universe, not of esoterism. I guess it sounds nitpicky, but questions like "How do you know this isn't a dream right now?" and "On what basis do you accept the rules of logic?" show the limitations of purely rational reasoning. See my answer to zwim:

Quote from: zwimmy on February  7, 2016 04:14 AM
I'm really trying to understand this whole concept but it just seems rather vague. What I'm getting so far is "The modern world is bad, also read about these old religions." What parts of the modern world are bad? What does this whole "return to tradition" thing actually imply?

One way that someone could think that the modern world is bad is just by evaluating, like an Amazon reviewer, the modern moral experience. There is a lot of chaos, inconsistency, and confusion in today's moral world. Many important questions have answers which are shallow and ultimately unsatisfying. At the risk of repeating myself, questions like: "Is this a dream?", "Does the self exist?", "What's the purpose of life?", "Where do good and evil come from?", and "How can we explain the subjective experience of consciousness?" have very hollow answers in a modern, secular framework. Some people believe that the modern position has become so shallow and unsatisfactory as to be untenable, demanding a more robust replacement. These people might move on to Traditionalism, which is one of these robust replacement solutions.

Human existence has fewer existential holes in Traditionalism. A "return to tradition" means acknowledging that sacredness, intuitive truth, and transcendent morality play a fundamental role in human existence (even though we can't know for certain whether they are real). Tradition is like an infrastructure which supports the transmission of Existentially-Satisfying Truth; without it, everything just falls apart.

Note that this is distinct from stuff like people who believe in God because they just "feel like" that's how everything should be. When I talk about the "unsatisfactory answers" of modern philosophy, I mean that when you keep asking why? successively to the modern philosopher's answers for some of the big questions, you eventually reach a foundation which is hollow and unsturdy. For example, a modern philosopher might say that good and evil come from people's respect for human rights. But where do human rights come from? Maybe the modern answer is that human rights are something intrinsically inside every human being. But who put those human rights there? Why do they have to "intrinsically" exist instead of not being there at all? Eventually, you just reach a stopping point. Under the modern view, you end up with a sort of squishy uncertain answer which reeks of being overly influenced by the "common sense" of the 21st century (and remember, there's no reason to trust "common sense" understandings of human existence). In contrast, under the Traditional view, you get a more robust answer, i.e., that a transcendent, universal moral plane accounts for good and evil.

It's kind of like comparing the strength of two different pairs of glasses. When you put on a superior pair of glasses, you can "just tell" that they're better. Even if you've only been wearing one bad pair of glasses your entire life, you might still have a sense that this is not what the world should look like. You might even have a memory of what the world looked like before your vision changed for the worse. There's no other logic there. If putting on the glasses of Traditionalism makes the world more morally consistent and clear, then you might want to keep those glasses on indefinitely.

I haven't read PR but I loved Illuminatus. It has the best opening line of any book ever screw you Ishmael.

Also basket you're making a whole lot of sense ITT. Thanks again.

Quote from: Bamyasi on February  7, 2016 04:45 AM
I've plugged it before but this BBC documentary series (https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/) really helped me understand America better than almost anything else. You'd probably like it Gladius, assuming you haven't seen it.

looks like a good watch thank u

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Social_policies_(Civ5) (http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Social_policies_(Civ5)) Hello, I advise you look at the Tradition policy, have a nice day.

Have a nice day.

Quote from: crackers on February  7, 2016 07:40 PM
http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Social_policies_(Civ5) (http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Social_policies_(Civ5)) Hello, I advise you look at the Tradition policy, have a nice day.

Have a nice day.

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Social_policies_(Civ5)#Aesthetics (http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Social_policies_(Civ5)#Aesthetics)
:D

Also, please don't be afraid of just posting general comments, questions, or links to other concepts during this general discussion.

I was thinking about some of the stuff I wrote to Zwimmy yesterday, esp. stuff about why certain frameworks might seem more robust than others, and I realized something about virtue ethics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics), one of my favorite ethical philosophies.

Virtue ethics basically says that the concepts of right or wrong are naturally married to our ideas of the ultimate good life. In order to understand what makes an action good, we need to understand what makes a good person, first. This is different from Kantian Deontology, where action is married to rational rules exclusively, or Utilitarianism, where action is married to external consequences. Virtue ethics is one of the few ethical branches that focuses on the development of your individual character.

The biggest criticism of virtue ethics is that it's just too vague, or too wishy-washy, to be a truly objective and true philosophy. From Wikipedia: "Some criticize the theory in relation to the difficulty involved with establishing the nature of the virtues. Different people, cultures and societies often have different opinions on what constitutes a virtue."

Aristotle, despite having a huge hard-on for the critical use of reason, and despite being a practically-minded person, resolved this contradiction by just waving his hands in the air and saying that ethics is not a science which can be studied using reason alone. Ethics is like carpentry; you need to use reason and mathematics sometimes, but other times, you just need to get your hands dirty and trust your gut. Aristotle basically argued that having good character also means having a good intuition and gut-feeling, not just following rules like a mathematician. One limitation of Aristotle's work is that he doesn't actively advocate deep, inner learning in order to gain some of these good intuitions -- but I think that he almost certainly would have supported it (with minor caveats) if someone had proposed it.

So it's kind of funny. Esoterism seems to be pretty compatible with Aristotelianism; you could build an "ethical framework engine" where the internals are based off esoterism, the middle layer is built off Aristotelianism, and the last layer is built off any external rules-system of your choice (like human rights). I've never really thought about this aspect of virtue ethics too hard until you guys asked your questions.

Quote from: ExBerian on February  9, 2016 05:07 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCtypDIZipg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCtypDIZipg)

This dude has a video called "Transgenders in the Olympics. Degeneracy Alert!" where he fails to recognize the fact that intersex individuals exist, and calls trans women "men" and "abominations".


So, like, yeah.

So fuck yourself in the dickhole with an iron spike. I'm so fucking sick of you and your shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya)

I'm all for trans rights, but Caster Semenya is living proof as to why transgender/gender reassigned people cannot compete fairly in the Olympic environment.

I can't remember exactly what the case was, but I think Caster was a hermaphrodite, possessing breasts, but no womb/ovaries. In terms of competing, the surplus of testosterone circulating around her body gave her an advantage compared to other athletes.

If a person, who was initially a man, was to take estrogen supplements - even after progressing to becoming fully female, they would still have a 'male frame', with muscle foundations that were laid as a man - making it a lot easier to regain lost muscle mass from the transition (if any was lost), once again providing an unfair advantage.

Can we please not turn this into a shitposting thread.

Quote from: Bamyasi on February 11, 2016 06:00 AM
Can we please not turn this into a shitposting thread.

2late

Quote from: SrsSam77 on February  7, 2016 04:13 AM
I want to like esoterism but the belief that there are things in this world that can't be explained seems like a bit of a copout. If you told someone about string theory 300 or even 100 years ago, you'd be committed to bedlam. Humanities discoveries and mental faculties are growing at an exponential rate and why some may say that science doesn't offer a spiritual answer, it does offer a hell of a lot better answer than a guy living in a cave eating moss can give.

It's more like scientists increasingly discovering that traditionally held values and beliefs may (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna-james-watson-scientist-selling-nobel-prize-medal) have (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24326626) been (http://www.amazon.com/Troublesome-Inheritance-Genes-Human-History/dp/1594204462) more (https://archive.is/0FNWk) correct (http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/graph-of-2012-pisa-scores-for-65_4.html) than we're currently lead to believe, and subsequently having their findings silenced because reality doesn't seem to want to fit into a politically correct framework.

This doesn't really relate to esotericism, but I don't know much about (or have much of an interest in) esotericism.

Some of you might be interested in this forum; https://lumineboreali.net/. (https://lumineboreali.net/.)

Quote from: zwimmy on February  7, 2016 04:14 AM
What does this whole "return to tradition" thing actually imply?

Racism, we're talking about racism. Well, we're talking about more than racism, but that's a big part of what I assume you're driving at.

Refugees not welcome! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataclan_%28theatre%29)

man I feel like someone is going to get triggered again now that traditional values has been said

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FnDrSbiy.png&hash=bb9eac30c9816740c9cef60f9e826dbe26e02abc)

lol oops i guess this is why communism doesn't really work (https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FZnm9F0v.png&hash=f680470049cb9407bba68601ec30f530b6b5f1d3)

an interesting extract from one of my readings which criticizes modern sociologists for duplicitously smuggling in Marxist views of history and neglecting to understand the essential contexts from historical data, thereby leading to wrong interpretation:

"For the sociologist, the meaning of ceremonial [and sacred] rituals in industrial society is inferred from an essentially decontextualized analysis of the ritual itself, evaluated within the relatively historical framework of Marxist or functionalist theory....If the ritual and ceremonial of the British monarchy is contextualized and evaluated [properly], it becomes possible to rediscover its 'meaning' in a more historically convincing manner than sociologists have so far been able to do. For [the sociologist], England from the 1800s is assumed to be a 'modern', 'industrial', 'contemporary' society, [but] for the historian it is the changes and discontinuities which are of major interest rather than the unifying aspects. To suppose, for instance, as many sociologists do, that Walter Bagehot's description of the mid-Victorian monarchy was valid for its time in the same that it is assumed to have been valid since, is to show a profound ignorance, not only of the very peculiar context within which he wrote The English Constitution and his articles in The Economist, but also of the exact same way in which both the context and performance of royal ritual have changed and developed since that time."

- Sir David Cannadine [with underlines added by me]

I enjoy partaking in threads like these despite generally disliking actually posting in them, because I never get around to saying all of what I want to say, I often go on tangents, and I often have a hard enough time articulating all of what I mean even when we're not talking existentially about the concept of believing in things and whether or not the belief in things generally is applicable to life, the universe, or everything.

Quote from: SrsSam77 on February  7, 2016 04:13 AM
I want to like esoterism but the belief that there are things in this world that can't be explained seems like a bit of a copout. If you told someone about string theory 300 or even 100 years ago, you'd be committed to bedlam. Humanities discoveries and mental faculties are growing at an exponential rate and why some may say that science doesn't offer a spiritual answer, it does offer a hell of a lot better answer than a guy living in a cave eating moss can give.

Sure, this certainly offers a better scientific explanation which can be more accurately measured mathematically, which obviously has an appeal to it. You could argue that science gives an objectively better answer for this reason, though it gives a different sort of answer to a lot of what esoteric schools are trying to achieve. It objectively doesn't give any sort of better spiritual answer than eating moss in a cave.

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 06:25 AM
...who put those human rights there? Why do they have to "intrinsically" exist instead of not being there at all?

I understand that this isn't the main point of your post, but I'm going to take this aside here to ask what exactly these questions even mean. What exactly do these questions even mean? Human rights do not literally exist and only are a thing at all because we collectively pretend as though they are. When the broader question comes into play of whether anything actually exists (if we are dreaming, or in a simulation of some sort), I would argue that this legitimately doesn't matter on any level. Certainly it shouldn't stand to derail the fundamental understanding of how our self-contained reality exists as a whole, or its practical applications.

Off-topic:
[spoiler]

Quote from: crackers on February 11, 2016 12:21 AM
In terms of competing, the surplus of testosterone circulating around her body gave her an advantage compared to other athletes.

... a 'male frame', with muscle foundations that were laid as a man - making it a lot easier to regain lost muscle mass from the transition (if any was lost), once again providing an unfair advantage.

The special Olympics are an obvious example of catering for some of the most significant innate (dis)advantages which would mean that some people otherwise would have no hope of competing. Cisexual females as a self-contained group also vary in muscle mass and levels of testosterone anyway, and it's probably worth note that further divisions could be made in order to group people with others with which they'd better be able to compete.
This is speculation; I think I watched (most of) Ireland's matches in the soccer World Cup in 2002 because I was in a small primary school at the time where all the cool kids were into that sort of thing, but I've never been incredibly invested in sport and am not interested enough to have any opinions on where these hypothetical divisions could be fairly made.

[spoiler]

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 09:12 PM
Also, please don't be afraid of just posting general comments, questions, or links to other concepts during this general discussion.

How are you feeling today?

[spoiler]

Quote from: zwimmy on February 12, 2016 03:38 AM

Quote from: Bamyasi on February 11, 2016 06:00 AM
Can we please not turn this into a shitposting thread.

2late

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw2S8dGmJ1c (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw2S8dGmJ1c)
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Quote from: Unless on February 29, 2016 03:24 PM
I enjoy partaking in threads like these despite generally disliking actually posting in them, because I never get around to saying all of what I want to say, I often go on tangents, and I often have a hard enough time articulating all of what I mean even when we're not talking existentially about the concept of believing in things and whether or not the belief in things generally is applicable to life, the universe, or everything.

Thanks for posting. I don't think you should be afraid of tangents or of not being able to articulate your main ideas. I think any reasonable and good person should be able to briefly entertain ideas that they don't agree with. Language is a pretty bad way of expressing of ideas anyways.

Quote from: Unless on February 29, 2016 03:24 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 06:25 AM
...who put those human rights there? Why do they have to "intrinsically" exist instead of not being there at all?

I understand that this isn't the main point of your post, but I'm going to take this aside here to ask what exactly these questions even mean. What exactly do these questions even mean? Human rights and do not literally exist and only are a thing at all because we collectively pretend as though they are. When the broader question comes into play of whether anything actually exists (if we are dreaming, or in a simulation of some sort), I would argue that this legitimately doesn't matter on any level. Certainly it shouldn't stand to derail the fundamental understanding of how our self-contained reality exists as a whole, or its practical applications.

Yup. I agree. I think human rights are a fine approximation of morality, but I think it's silly to get overly attached to them or to take them at face value.

Off-topic tangent: Your response basically sums up how I feel about post-modern sexuality as well. I can certainly entertain the idea that, in a broad, ultimate, and existential sense, gender is social construct (and in fact, this is probably close to what I actually believe), but do people really understand what it means to truly believe in this? The T-shirt you're wearing, the concept of France, and idea of a continuous ego are unobjective constructs as well. I think it's kind of funny how a lot of people who claim to believe that gender is social construct don't seem to have the cosmopolitan understanding or broad, tolerant open-mindedness that naturally comes along with a proper understanding of the world. In the eastern tradition, there's a concept where a childish person can claim to believe in something without truly internalizing and intuitively understanding that belief, and I think that applies here.

Quote from: Unless on February 29, 2016 03:24 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 09:12 PM
Also, please don't be afraid of just posting general comments, questions, or links to other concepts during this general discussion.

How are you feeling today?

Pretty good. Have a computer science deadline in less than 24 hours which I'm currently struggling on. How about you?

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
I think it's kind of funny how a lot of people who claim to believe that gender is social construct don't seem to have the cosmopolitan understanding or broad, tolerant open-mindedness that naturally comes along with a proper understanding of the world.

A trillion times this.

People who call gender a social construct tend to be the ones who most actively reinforce normative gender roles.

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
Language is a pretty bad way of expressing of ideas anyways.

I actually like the English language because it's particularly good at this, relatively speaking. There are some areas where an awful many more words should probably exist for clarity, the first example that comes to mind is in describing tastes and scents.

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 06:25 AM
...who put those human rights there? Why do they have to "intrinsically" exist instead of not being there at all?

Okay but I was being serious in that I don't actually understand what you meant by these questions.

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
In the eastern tradition, there's a concept where a childish person can claim to believe in something without truly internalizing and intuitively understanding that belief, and I think that applies here.

And this is something else of which, if you care to, I'd really like to hear a bit more (of your opinion).

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
I can certainly entertain the idea that, in a broad, ultimate, and existential sense, gender is social construct (and in fact, this is probably close to what I actually believe).

What about the notion of gender and sexuality being completely separate things?

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
... but do people really understand what it means to truly believe in this?

No, but I think that people can believe it to be true without completely understanding it, and people can understand what it implies for those that understand it better (specifically trans and other folk who are non-comformative to typical and traditional gender implications and roles). But I also believe that most people in this day and age don't have much reason or need to understand it unless the non-conformity has a direct effect on them or somebody close to them, and having a better understanding is often what leads people to believing it to be true in the first place. And if it doesn't, it's very easy to not think very much about it and to dismiss as garbage, if that's your inclination. But I guess that's true of basically everything in this thread.

Quote from: Bamyasi on March  1, 2016 06:15 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
I think it's kind of funny how a lot of people who claim to believe that gender is social construct don't seem to have the cosmopolitan understanding or broad, tolerant open-mindedness that naturally comes along with a proper understanding of the world.

A trillion times this.
People who call gender a social construct tend to be the ones who most actively reinforce normative gender roles.

The people about which I think you're thinking, I think, are actually instead thinking about the concept of these gender roles being applied to their traditionally respective sex.

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
The T-shirt you're wearing ...

Either I'm over-thinking things and this makes me more inclined to see patterns where there aren't any, or this is coincidentally the third big coincidence of a similar vain today. In any case, please allow me to clarify to you in no uncertain terms that the cut of my jib is entirely beyond reproach.

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM

Quote from: Unless on February 29, 2016 03:24 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 09:12 PM
Also, please don't be afraid of just posting general comments, questions, or links to other concepts during this general discussion.

How are you feeling today?

Pretty good. Have a computer science deadline in less than 24 hours which I'm currently struggling on. How about you?

Well do HF and GL and all that. I am feeling pretty all right, too. I'm proof-reading a story for a friend and having fun conversations with my father about linguistic rules that I don't generally get wrong, but hadn't ever analysed before. Also I've been asked to be a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding next year, which yay.

Quote from: basketweaver on February  7, 2016 09:12 PM
Also, please don't be afraid of just posting general comments, questions, or links to other concepts during this general discussion.

Do you like hugs?

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM
I actually like the English language because it's particularly good at this, relatively speaking. There are some areas where an awful many more words should probably exist for clarity, the first example that comes to mind is in describing tastes and scents.

I agree. I think the English language is pretty awesome once you get over the hurdle of learning and mastering it. There's a lot of flexibility and room for cool literary moves that you wouldn't have access to in more logical and orderly languages.

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM
Okay but I was being serious in that I don't actually understand what you meant by these questions.

My questions weren't real questions. They were just empty words poking at the boundary cases, used only for the sake of furthering my argument that human rights don't "really" exist in the same way that "truth" and "order" might arguably exist (if you're an idealist). To quote one of my favorite writers, Alasdair MacIntyre: "There are no human rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and in unicorns."

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
In the eastern tradition, there's a concept where a childish person can claim to believe in something without truly internalizing and intuitively understanding that belief, and I think that applies here.

And this is something else of which, if you care to, I'd really like to hear a bit more (of your opinion).

For example, I could be someone who claims that "there are infinitely many prime numbers", but that would be different from proving this fact and truly understanding it.

I could also claim that "God doesn't exist and our world is fundamentally without meaning", but making that claim is different from truly understanding the words. For example, someone can make this claim without having answered the important questions to themselves and without having wrestled with the boundary cases. Once you have the boundary cases answered, that might be a better indication of a true understanding.

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
I can certainly entertain the idea that, in a broad, ultimate, and existential sense, gender is social construct (and in fact, this is probably close to what I actually believe).

What about the notion of gender and sexuality being completely separate things?

I guess that's probably true, but I don't have any real education regarding this specific separation.

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
... but do people really understand what it means to truly believe in this?

No, but I think that people can believe it to be true without completely understanding it, and people can understand what it implies for those that understand it better (specifically trans and other folk who are non-comformative to typical and traditional gender implications and roles). But I also believe that most people in this day and age don't have much reason or need to understand it unless the non-conformity has a direct effect on them or somebody close to them, and having a better understanding is often what leads people to believing it to be true in the first place. And if it doesn't, it's very easy to not think very much about it and to dismiss as garbage, if that's your inclination. But I guess that's true of basically everything in this thread.

I guess it's true that someone could believe it to be true without completely understanding it. For example, if I'm an engineer, then I can use the claim that "there are infinitely many prime numbers" without really understanding it. In that sense, I agree that ideas can be useful even without full understanding.

However, and here is what's important, the engineer should be humble before the mathematician. An engineer should use the claim that "there are infinitely many prime numbers", but he should acknowledge the limitations in his knowledge and be ready to change claims if the mathematician demonstrates otherwise. When you've accepted an idea without proper understanding, you must bear the burden of this uncertainty.

So, I guess it's true that you don't need to understand post-modern sexuality in order to subscribe to it or to use the idea for useful purposes. But I think that having a full understanding is good. And I think that not having a full understanding of the idea puts you in a relatively weaker position compared to someone who does.

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM
The people about which I think you're thinking, I think, are actually instead thinking about the concept of these gender roles being applied to their traditionally respective sex.

Could you elaborate? I'm curious.

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
The T-shirt you're wearing ...

Either I'm over-thinking things and this makes me more inclined to see patterns where there aren't any, or this is coincidentally the third big coincidence of a similar vain today. In any case, please allow me to clarify to you in no uncertain terms that the cut of my jib is entirely beyond reproach.

wut?

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
Pretty good. Have a computer science deadline in less than 24 hours which I'm currently struggling on. How about you?

Well do HF and GL and all that. I am feeling pretty all right, too. I'm proof-reading a story for a friend and having fun conversations with my father about linguistic rules that I don't generally get wrong, but hadn't ever analysed before. Also I've been asked to be a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding next year, which yay.

Thanks! Congratulations to your newfound bridesmaidhood. Glad you're feeling pretty all right.

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM
Do you like hugs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69MiOxQNnxM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69MiOxQNnxM)

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 07:03 PM

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 05:15 PM
In the eastern tradition, there's a concept where a childish person can claim to believe in something without truly internalizing and intuitively understanding that belief, and I think that applies here.

And this is something else of which, if you care to, I'd really like to hear a bit more (of your opinion).

For example, I could be someone who claims that "there are infinitely many prime numbers", but that would be different from proving this fact and truly understanding it.
I could also claim that "God doesn't exist and our world is fundamentally without meaning", but making that claim is different from truly understanding the words. For example, someone can make this claim without having answered the important questions to themselves and without having wrestled with the boundary cases. Once you have the boundary cases answered, that might be a better indication of a true understanding.

I understand that you can make a claim without fully understanding the basis behind it, and (to different extents for different things) in this thread we're basically saying that everything is like this to a degree. Anybody can do that though, so I'm wondering what's the uniquely eastern belief you're mentioning?

A thing happened. Will check back in later.

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 10:32 PM
I understand that you can make a claim without fully understanding the basis behind it, and (to different extents for different things) in this thread we're basically saying that everything is like this to a degree. Anybody can do that though, so I'm wondering what's the uniquely eastern belief you're mentioning?

A thing happened. Will check back in later.

One example from Buddhism which kind of illustrates this instrumental attitude towards assertions and knowledge-pieces is Upaya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya)

But in general, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism all kind of talk about the differences between intuitive, heartfelt wisdom versus logical, face-value surface knowledge

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 07:03 PM

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM

Quote from: Bamyasi on March  1, 2016 06:15 PM
People who call gender a social construct tend to be the ones who most actively reinforce normative gender roles.

The people about which I think you're thinking, I think, are actually instead thinking about the concept of these gender roles being applied to their traditionally respective sex.

Could you elaborate? I'm curious.

LGBT folk tend to stick together as a general-ish rule, despite LGB being being very different from T, regardless of whether or not they're intrinsically linked. And they're not, I don't believe, and only the association is made because it's almost the same sort of non-traditional view that one is more inclined to accept if they're inclined to accept the other. As in, people with traditionalist views tend to dismiss the ideas collectively, presumably because these are all awful people who completely lack empathy for the suffering of people who don't think alike.
Also, because these LGBTETC. peeps tend to stick together regardless of their inclinations not actually being the same thing — which mostly they do because generally this is the sort of person who would tend to jump at a chance to finally fit in — their views often tend to get mingled. In that way, (all of) such people would also be inclined to believe and/or accept that gender is only a social construct artificially applied to sex. Often, that's strange in trans people specifically because they're typically the sort to conform very heavily to the gender roles of the sex as which they identify.

I'm not sure any more what I meant in my response to Bam, but it seems to be something along the lines of "I think you're thinking of a particular type of person, and that sort of person doesn't do exactly what you just said, but instead does exactly what you just said", which I'm not going to pretend I understand.

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 07:03 PM

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM
Do you like hugs?

[spoiler]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69MiOxQNnxM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69MiOxQNnxM)
[/spoiler]

Hugs are great, hugs are. They help people to feel close to another person in more than just the obvious physical sense. I'm in the sort of group of friends where people are actually okay with hugging you when you suggest it, as opposed to looking at you funny and then acting really standoffish because you're obviously a faggot pervert of some sort. Still it's a little weird when I suggest it too much, and I feel like people misread intentions. I just like people and like to be reminded that sometimes they like me too, which I'd like to think is a pretty significantly different thing from wanting to press up against their bodies because I want to have sex with them. I do wish that masks, but ATM more relevantly hugs, would be a more common and socially acceptable thing.
I also wish that people would be more honest and not have to worry about other people being dishonest about their intentions, because it only very recently became awkward between myself and a friend of mine of about eight years when he became worried about me being worried about his intentions, after the party last Halloween where he made a point of insisting that all his hugs were platonic to cover up the fact that they weren't. But I guess that in his defence, that was his first time on drugs. As a result, lots of other little things have become just a little bit increasingly awkward only because they're being read into too much.

Or maybe all that night did was reveal true intentions, and he was only honest with me about it afterwards because he wanted me to think he's always honest with me about things like that in order to make it easier to lie to me about them, and secretly all men actually are pigs. That sounds like something I'd do.

Or maybe, just maybe, I'm the only one for whom it's become significantly awkward because I'm an idiot who spends far too much time thinking about all the wrong things.

Among a thousand and one other things I think should be different about how people operate, I wish that they would be more honest with other people, and could be more honest with themselves.

I usually just sit on my bed in the corner and hug one of my many plushies, and I don't have to worry about their intentions or their worrying about my intentions, which only almost makes up for the fact that they don't hug back.

Quote from: Unless on March  2, 2016 11:03 AM

Quote from: basketweaver on March  1, 2016 07:03 PM

Quote from: Unless on March  1, 2016 06:25 PM
Do you like hugs?

[spoiler]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69MiOxQNnxM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69MiOxQNnxM)
[/spoiler]

Hugs are great, hugs are. They help people to feel close to another person in more than just the obvious physical sense. I'm in the sort of group of friends where people are actually okay with hugging you when you suggest it, as opposed to looking at you funny and then acting really standoffish because you're obviously a faggot pervert of some sort. Still it's a little weird when I suggest it too much, and I feel like people misread intentions. I just like people and like to be reminded that sometimes they like me too, which I'd like to think is a pretty significantly different thing from wanting to press up against their bodies because I want to have sex with them. I do wish that masks, but ATM more relevantly hugs, would be a more common and socially acceptable thing.
I also wish that people would be more honest and not have to worry about other people being dishonest about their intentions, because it only very recently became awkward between myself and a friend of mine of about eight years when he became worried about me being worried about his intentions, after the party last Halloween where he made a point of insisting that all his hugs were platonic to cover up the fact that they weren't. But I guess that in his defence, that was his first time on drugs. As a result, lots of other little things have become just a little bit but increasingly awkward only because they're being read into too much.

Or maybe all that night did was reveal true intentions, and he was only honest with me about it afterwards because he wanted me to think he's always honest with me about things like that in order to make it easier to lie to me about them, and secretly all men actually are pigs. That sounds like something I'd do.

Or maybe, just maybe, I'm the only one for whom it's become significantly awkward because I'm an idiot who spends far too much time thinking about all the wrong things.

Among a thousand and one other things I think should be different about how people operate, I wish that they would be more honest with other people, and could be more honest with themselves.

I usually just sit on my bed in the corner and hug one of my many plushies, and I don't have to worry about their intentions or their worrying about my intentions, which only almost makes up for the fact that they don't hug back.

If you're into him, ask him out, he's very interested in you. I've been in similar situations and react similarly.

That being said, I adore hugs and hug people regularly. And since I'm the tallest and overall largest of my friends, nobody questions it when I go in for one. And I don't do the whole one-arm back-patting man-hug bullshit: big fuckin' bear hugs or nothing.

Hugs are gaaaaaaaaaay.
[spoiler=Translator's note]"Hugs are gaaaaaaaaaay" means "Please hug me I need the oxytocin."
[spoiler=Fun fact]Oxytocin is released during arousal and a natural painkiller which can increase a woman's pain threshold by over 100% during orgasm.[/spoiler][/spoiler]

Quote from: ExBerian on March  4, 2016 04:01 AM
Hugs from people that are not close family/significant other is a no no for me. It's too intimate as a form of appreciating another person. But that may be a geographical/cultural thing.

I don't know relatively how it compares, but that's still not an uncommon opinion over here — I just hang out with a certain sort of people.

Quote from: ProtoChaud on March  4, 2016 06:08 AM

Quote from: Unless on March  2, 2016 11:03 AM
... he made a point of insisting that all his hugs were platonic to cover up the fact that they weren't.

If you're into him, ask him out, he's very interested in you. I've been in similar situations and react similarly.

Well I should say that the part I've left in from my own quote didn't mean he was non-platonically hugging me specifically all night, just most people he could reach. And I'd like not to think that he must be lying specifically because he's a guy because that would be sexist and stuff.
We're going to the cinema, just us two, on Saturday, so I'm sure it'll be fine. That's a thing friends do, right?

Quote from: ProtoChaud on March  4, 2016 06:08 AM
That being said, I adore hugs and hug people regularly. And since I'm the tallest and overall largest of my friends, nobody questions it when I go in for one. And I don't do the whole one-arm back-patting man-hug bullshit: big fuckin' bear hugs or nothing.

Awesome.

Quote from: Bamyasi on March  4, 2016 06:29 AM
Hugs are gaaaaaaaaaay.
[spoiler=Translator's note]"Hugs are gaaaaaaaaaay" means "Please hug me I need the oxytocin."
[spoiler=Fun fact]Oxytocin is released during arousal and a natural painkiller which can increase a woman's pain threshold by over 100% during orgasm.[/spoiler][/spoiler]

That must explain why I'm so proficient at rubbing off on my friends in this regard.



I feel like this topic has devolved a bit.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10570319909374653?journalCode=rwjc20 (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10570319909374653?journalCode=rwjc20)


hahaha holy shit, that's modern existence

gonna post some Schuon shit ITT in this post. gonna edit with more quotes later.

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/The_Contradiction_of_Relativism-by_Frithjof_Schuon.aspx (http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/The_Contradiction_of_Relativism-by_Frithjof_Schuon.aspx)

QuoteRelativism reduces every element of absoluteness to relativity while making a completely illogical exception in favor of this reduction itself. Fundamentally it consists in propounding the claim that there is no truth as if this were truth or in declaring it to be absolutely true that there is nothing but the relatively true; one might just as well say that there is no language or write that there is no writing. In short, every idea is reduced to a relativity of some sort, whether psychological, historical, or social; but the assertion nullifies itself by the fact that it too presents itself as a psychological, historical, or social relativity. The assertion nullifies itself if it is true and by nullifying itself logically proves thereby that it is false; its initial absurdity lies in the implicit claim to be unique in escaping, as if by enchantment, from a relativity that is declared to be the only possibility.

QuoteBe that as it may, one of the noteworthy traits of the twentieth century is the confusion, now habitual, between evolution and decadence: there is no decadence, no impoverishment, no falsification that people do not try to excuse with the aid of the relativistic argument of "evolution", reinforced as this is by the most inappropriate and erroneous associations. Thus relativism, cleverly instilled into public opinion, paves the way for all kinds of corruption while at the same time keeping watch lest any kind of healthy reaction might put the brakes on this slide toward the abyss.

QuoteA patent example of the classic contradiction in question here—a contradiction characterizing for the most part all modern thought—is provided by existentialism, which postulates a definition of the world that is impossible if existentialism itself is possible. There are only two alternatives: either objective knowledge—a knowledge that is therefore absolute in its own order—is possible, which proves that existentialism is false; or else existentialism is true, but then its own promulgation is impossible since in the existentialist universe there is no room for an objective and unwavering intellection.

QuoteThis capacity for objectivity and absoluteness amounts to an existential—and "preventive"—refutation of the ideologies of doubt: if a man is able to doubt, it is because there is certainty; likewise the very notion of illusion proves that man has access to reality. It follows that there are necessarily some men who know reality and who therefore have certainty; and the great spokesmen of this knowledge and certainty are necessarily the best of men.

QuoteThere is a moral relativism that is truly odious: if you say that God and the beyond are real, this shows you are cowardly, dishonest, infantile, shamefully abnormal; if you say that religion is just make-believe, this shows you are courageous, honest, sincere, adult, altogether normal. If all this were true, man would be nothing, possessing the capacity for neither truthfulness nor heroism; and there would be no one even to note the fact, for a hero cannot be extracted from a coward nor a sage from a man of feeble mind—not even by "evolution". But this moralistic bias, ignoble or simply stupid as the case may be, is by no means something new: before it was applied to intellectual positions, it was used to discredit the contemplative life, which was described as an "escape", as if a man did not have the right to flee from dangers concerning him alone and—more important—as though the contemplative life and withdrawal from the world were not instead a pilgrimage toward God; to flee God as do the worldly is far more senseless and irresponsible than fleeing the world. To run away from God is at the same time to run away from oneself, for when a man is alone with himself—even though he may be surrounded by others—he is always with his Creator, whom he encounters at the very root of his being.

QuoteRelativism engenders a spirit of rebellion and is at the same time its fruit. The spirit of rebellion, unlike holy anger, is not a passing state, nor is it directed against some worldly abuse; on the contrary it is a chronic malady directed against Heaven and against everything that represents Heaven or is a reminder of it. When Lao Tzu said that "in the latter days the man of virtue appears vile", he had in mind the rebellious spirit that characterizes our time; but for psychological and existentialist relativism, which by definition always seeks to justify the crude ego, this spiritual state is normal, and it is its absence that amounts to disease, whence the abolition of the sense of sin. The sense of sin is the consciousness of an equilibrium surpassing our personal will and operating ultimately for the benefit of our integral personality and that of the human collectivity, even though occasionally wounding us; this sense of sin goes hand in hand with a sense of the sacred, which is an instinct for what surpasses us—for what should therefore not be touched by ignorant and iconoclastic hands.

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/The_Ambiguity_of_Exoterism-by_Frithjof_Schuon.aspx (http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/The_Ambiguity_of_Exoterism-by_Frithjof_Schuon.aspx)

QuoteCathedrals often, and perhaps even always, comprise intentional irregularities signifying that God alone is perfect and capable of perfection; that human works, like man himself, are necessarily imperfect.  And this applies to the entire universe, hence to all that is not God; "Why callest thou me good?" said Christ.  It is not surprising, therefore, that this principle also includes the domain of the sacred — we have just mentioned cathedrals — and above all religions themselves; thus humility as well as the sense of reality demand that we not be scandalized disproportionately by the dissonances we may encounter in celestial ambiences on earth; that we not be shocked, for example, by particular "providential excesses."  The natural shadows, in a particular earthly beauty, do not prevent us from seeing that it is still beauty; to see it with gratitude and to sense that the earthly reflection transmits a flawless archetype.  Since he who judges is himself not exempt from imperfection and must be aware of it, by what right and with what logic would he require that other cosmic phenomena be exempt from it?  "God alone is good."

QuoteDogmatic exoterism, as we have mentioned more than once, exhibits providential limitations determined by its mission and thus by its reason for being;  to begin with, it excludes the idea of universal relativity — of Māyā — and therefore is unaware of the diverse and at times antinomic aspects of things, as well as of the points of view which take them into account; this amounts to saying that it identifies itself with a particular point of view determined by a particular aspect.  By excluding the notion of Māyā, exoterism situates itself entirely within Māyā, the summit of which is the personal God who creates and legislates; Paramātmā, the supreme Self — Boehme's Ungrund  — could not produce a world or found a religion.  But religion could not be closed to the total truth, for God is one, and where the Divine Person is, there also is the Divine Essence;[1] the latter is accessible through esoterism, precisely, by full right and despite a certain inevitable opposition on the part of the exoteric framework.

QuoteOne has to realize that outward religion is not disinterested; it wants to save souls, no more no less, and at the cost of the truths that do not serve its holy strategy.  Sapience, by contrast, wants only the truth, and the truth necessarily coincides with our final interests because it coincides with the Sovereign Good.

QuoteIn descending into a collective soul, the Divine Word becomes refracted into the possibilities of this soul:  it becomes Judaized, Arabized, Hinduized or Mongolized, according to case; and in making itself human it cannot maintain, in every respect or modality, its original majesty and beauty; the human requires the little and the ambiguous and cannot live without it; but greatness, transcendence and harmony without admixture subsist always in the supernatural substance of the revealed Word.  Christ is "true man and true God"; the same is true for every Revelation;  it is this that must never be forgotten when one encounters elements that at first sight seem too human — to the point of seeming unlikely — in the variform stream of the divine Messages.

QuoteTo understand, at least morally, certain apparent contradictions in the Scriptures, the following principial situation must be borne in mind:  Divine All‑Possibility, ontologically "prior" to the Divine Personification, pours into creation what is ontologically possible; it is a manifestation of Infinitude, and necessarily involves contrasting and amoral aspects because in a certain manner it includes the impossible, owing to the limitlessness of Possibility itself; whereas the Divine Personification, which hypostatically reflects the essential Goodness of the Essence, coordinates the chaos of possibilities and "desires" the good, whence precisely the half‑divine, half‑human phenomenon that is Revelation.

QuoteA typical feature of the monotheistic exoterisms is their dogmatization of theological speculations; it is the fixed prejudice that not only wishes to "dot all the i's," but to do so at the level of "faith," and hence of dogmatic constraint —  this being the role of the councils and of promulgations ex cathedra — whereas it would suffice in many a case to let the scriptural enunciations stand as they are, in a holy indetermination that excludes no aspect of truth and does not crystallize one aspect to the detriment of the others.  In fact, the evil here lies less in the existence of speculations and precisions — for men cannot be prevented from thinking — than in their dogmatic fixation; one threatens with hell not only those who doubt God and immortality, but also those who dare doubt some exorbitant theological conclusion; and this threat is all the less plausible in that one postulates the incomprehensibility of God and always holds in reserve this begging of the question that is "mystery."  The more one adds precisions ex cathedra, the more one increases the chances of scission and the risks of persecution, which would not be the case if one remained content with a level of "admissible" or "probable opinions" in varying degrees.[5]   There is no point in objecting that pure metaphysicians do as much, for it is not the action of explaining or specifying which is at issue here, but the formalistic and therefore restrictive character of the specification, and above all the constraining dogmatization that is added to it, and that in no way forms part of the intentions and functions of pure and disinterested knowledge.[6]

Given its mission, exoterism has to take into account the weaknesses of men, and thus also, be it said without euphemism, their stupidity; like it or not, it must itself take on something of these shortcomings, or at least it must allow them some room, on pain of not being able to survive in human surroundings.  Thus one must not be too surprised, nor above all scandalized, at the paradoxical phenomenon of pious stupidity; certainly, this phenomenon is far from being harmless, for it sometimes affects the canonical domain, but it cannot but exist since religion addresses itself to everyone and everyone must be able to recognize himself in it, if one may so express matters.  A climate of religious belief appeals to emotivity, and emotivity is obviously opposed to perfect objectivity, at least when it goes beyond its rightful limits; when it does so, excessive emotivity damages the power of reflection or even —  with all due reservations — intelligence itself, while plainly favoring a fundamental sentimentalism, extending from an initial biased attitude to harmless prejudices.[7]   However:  remove emotivity from religion and you kill it; moreover, a stream has need of banks in order to flow, and thus it is that exoterism, or the religious form, has need of limitations in order to be a living influence; "grasp all, lose all," as a proverb has it.

QuoteThe exoterist mentality is largely the result of associations of ideas inspired by religious imagery:  for example, in Islam, the sun does not enjoy an unmixed prestige, because of the danger of becoming a rival with God and because of the sun‑worship which existed in the Near East, and this is attested to by certain symbolisms very unflattering to the sun.  Aside from this imagery, and prior to it, the Koran speaks of the sun, moon and stars as slaves upon whom God has imposed forced labor (sakhara) in the service of men, and it moreover enjoins men not to bow down to the heavenly bodies; thus it is considered advisable, whenever one looks upon the sun or the moon, to say that "God is greater" (Allāhu akbar).  Analogous remarks apply to fire:  whereas for the Indo‑Iranian, or simply Aryan traditions, fire is sacred like the sun — Agni and Surya being theophanies —  in the monotheism of the Semites it takes on a baleful coloration because of its association with hell.[8]   Christianity, which is not based upon jealous zeal for Unity, does not have such worries in relation to the sun, as is proved by the "Canticle to the Sun" of St. Francis of Assisi; for the Christian, it is all too evident that the sun is not God or that it is not Christ; thus he can love the sun in all innocence and without the least complex of guilt.  A question that arises here incidentally is the following:  would a Westerner who has serious motives for following the Sufic path be obliged to adopt the Muslim attitude towards the royal orb? — we chose this example among others — that is, should he feel obliged to experience an imaginative and sentimental reaction that he does not have and cannot have?  Clearly not, and all the more so since essential Sufism would not require it; for the confessional mentality is one thing, and spiritual realization, another.

QuoteThe only plausible explanation for the theological excesses of an 'Ashari — aside from religious zeal — is the principle of "functional" truth — not "informative" truth — of which we have spoken above; what is "true" is not necessarily what gives an adequate account of a reality, but what serves a particular psychological purpose in view of salvation and in relation to a particular mentality.  From this standpoint, heresy is not objective error, it is subjective inopportuneness:  it is better to reach Paradise with a limb missing than to be thrown into hell with all of one's limbs; this principle, purely moral and mystical in the intention of Christ, becomes intellectual or doctrinal in the domain of certain theological speculations.  If 'Ashari maintains that fire does not burn by its own nature, that it burns only because God decides to bring about the burning, this is because the faithful have to be convinced that "God is without associate," despite the evidence that He surrounds Himself with Angels and Prophets;[11] and if this same doctrine goes so far as to affirm that evil comes from God, otherwise it could not occur, or that God can impose obligations that man is incapable of accomplishing, or that God can make a creature suffer — or even punish it — for no reason and without compensation, or that, being free from all obligation, He can do "what He wills" with man, and that consequently it would not be unjust for Him to send the good to hell and the bad to Paradise[12] — if the Asharite doctrine upholds such enormities, this is, at bottom, in order to wage preventive warfare against certain vicious predispositions of man, rightly or wrongly, and in the context of a particular mentality — doubtless heroic, but prone to heedlessness and insubordination.[13]

QuoteAnd it is normally one of the functions of esoterism, not to play the mufti or the pandit, but as far as possible to bring visible forms as well as moral behaviors back to the serenity of a Paradise lost, but still accessible in the depth of our hearts.

QuoteWhen two religions have to exist side by side, as in India, or in Palestine at the time of the Crusades, two things happen:  on the one hand a stiffening on the part of the formal religion, and on the other a greater flexibility and a certain interpenetration in the domain of spirituality; it is true that religions exist side by side everywhere, but what we have in mind here are those cases where there is virulent antagonism, unmitigated by habit and indifference.  A crucial truth emerges from such confrontations and reciprocities:  when a man has grasped the validity of a religion other than his own — which comprehension results from concrete experience as much as from intellectual intuition — God cannot but take into account the widening of this man's spiritual perspective and the awareness he will have of the relativity of forms as such; God, therefore, will absolutely not demand of him what he asks of believers who are totally enclosed in the formal system of their religion, yet at the same time He will make new demands.  Knowledge is not a gift that entails no obligations, for all knowledge has its price; the "minus" on the side of formal religion will have to be compensated by a "plus" on the side of non‑formal religion, which coincides with the sophia perennis.

Esoterism, with its three dimensions of metaphysical discernment, mystical concentration and moral conformity, contains in the final analysis the only things that Heaven demands in an absolute fashion, all other demands being relative and therefore more or less conditional.  The proof of this is that a man who would have no more than a few moments left to live could do nothing more than:  firstly, look towards God with his intelligence; secondly, call upon God with his will; thirdly, love God with all his soul, and in loving Him realize every possible virtue.  One may be surprised at this coincidence between what is most elementarily human and what pertains quintessentially to the highest wisdom, but what is most simple retraces precisely what is highest; extremitates aequalitates, "extremes meet."

http://omarshahid.co.uk/2013/10/18/frithjof-schuon-on-why-many-atheists-reject-god/ (http://omarshahid.co.uk/2013/10/18/frithjof-schuon-on-why-many-atheists-reject-god/)

Quote"Now if one proceeds from the idea that exoterists do not understand esoterism and that they have in fact a right not to understand it or even consider it nonexistent, one must also recognise their right to condemn certain manifestations of esoterism that seem to encroach on their own territory and cause "offence", to use the Gospel expression; but how is one to explain the fact that in most, if not all, cases of this nature, the accusers divest themselves of this right by the iniquitous manner in which they proceed? It is certainly not their more or less natural incomprehension, nor the defense of their genuine right, but solely the perfidiousness of the means that they employ...this perfidiousness proves, moreover, that the accusations that they find it necessary to formulate, generally serve only as as pretext for gratifying an instinctive hatred of everything that seems to threaten their superficial equilibrium, which is really only a form of individualism, therefore of ignorance."

Quote"One may ask why so much stupidity and bad faith are to be found in religious polemics, even among men who are otherwise free from such failings; this is a sure sign that the majority of these polemics are tainted with the "sin against the Holy Ghost." No blame can be attached to a person for attacking a foreign religion in the name of his own belief, if it is done purely and simply through ignorance; when, however, this is not the case, the person will be guilty of blasphemy, since, by outraging the Divine Truth in an alien form, he is merely profiting by an opportunity to offend God without having to trouble his own conscience. This is the real explanation of the gross and impure zeal displayed by those who, in the name of their religious convictions, devote their lives to making sacred things appear odious, a task they can only accomplish by contemptible methods."

"There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man.
How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself."

Tolstoy

That was some good Shuon (chk-chk hand).

I think relativism is so pervasive because it's the easiest cop-out response to having one's cultural associations called into question (Globalism). People who are quickest to adopt it I think secretly believe the cultural fabric they sewed their identity from would survive absolute relativism at the expense of every other, i.e. relativism is intrinsically weaponized, a means of augmenting one's culture against the threat of equally relativistic claims from the Other.

It reminds me of a recent story in the news in which an American college student was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/world/asia/north-korea-otto-warmbier-sentenced.html?_r=0) for attempting to steal a North Korean flag as memorabilia. There were a bunch of strong, independent, post-colonial Black women in the comments basically defending the NK court's decision because quote: "It's important to respect other cultures when you visit other countries." I mean obviously they're right and stealing is wrong but you'd have to be an idiot not to see that the punishment doesn't suit the crime: exactly the same reason for all those BLM protests. So it's okay when the North Korean government does it, but not the American one? Doesn't it make more sense to say it's wrong in both cases? It's mental gymnastics.

I wasn't quite sold on his logical take-down of relativism but I was by this part:

Quote from: The Contradiction of RelativismThe opposite, or rather the primordial and normative, attitude is this: to think only in reference to what surpasses us and to live for the sake of surpassing ourselves; to seek greatness where this is to be found and not on the plane of the individual and his rebellious pettiness. In order to return to true greatness, man must first of all agree to pay the debt of his pettiness and to remain small on the plane where he cannot help being small; the sense of what is objective on the one hand and of the absolute on the other does not go without a certain abnegation, and it is this abnegation precisely that allows us to be completely faithful to our human vocation.

I think the only real way to combat relativism is to frame it in terms of effect, because really there's no way to rationally disprove it. Arguments against it only make it stronger imo.

I'm reminded of this quote by Eco (R.I.P):

Quote from: Umberto EcoWhen men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

The other two essays flew right over my head but I'll come back to them.