1. Ask about metaphysics - refuse to discuss issues as they are presented. Go back to the assumptions behind them.
2. Ask about motivations - refuse to go-along with assuming the benign motivations of modern mainstream institutions.
3. Take a step back from (fantasies about...) action*. Refuse to accept the primacy of action - and instead really work on your metaphysics, motivations and thinking.
*This is based on bitter experience of marching and waving a flag at the head of an army of like-minded truth warriors (that doesn't exist).
5 comments:
I would rather say, discuss metaphysics and motivations, rather than just asking about them. Especially, analyze how metaphysics and motivations relate to each other. On the last, be especially distinct about the difference between wanting to be good and wanting to seem good (including in one's own imagination). To be good absolutely requires facing the truth when we are not good, especially when our professed motives drive behavior that produces the exact opposite of what we claim to want.
This also relates to the last point. The difference between sound thought and principles and fantasies of action consists of facing ourselves the hard truths that things turning out exactly opposite our imagined motives means we need to analyze our own motives more closely. We need to face that we also have resorted to wish fulfillment fantasies in the past.
@CCL - Metaphysics discussions are most needed - but in practice almost impossible to have. I was trying to be realistic that asking a question may be all that can be managed. Planting *that* seed may be more valuable than any other.
My experience is that most people already have ready answers to the metaphysical questions at this point in time. Gone are the days when cultural Marxists felt a great need to hide their implicit metaphysics, now they boast openly of them. And merely asking the question of motivation has never been much use, Marxists have always taken advantage of people's easy self-praise of thinking that their desire to appear good is the same thing as (and only possible way of) trying to be good.
I feel that the seeds, both good seed and tares, have already been sown and are ripening for harvest. But it may well be different in other fields.
@CCL - I don't agree - mainly on the basis that all incipient metaphysical discussion is rapidly (usually aggressively) cut-short in public discourse (by any means possible). It intrinsically threatens the Left.
Of course it does not *necessarily* threaten Left hegemony, but it is very risky to have people realise that *all* evidence is based on assumptions. This may lead first to a superficial relativism, supportive of Leftism; but if persisted-in will lead out-of-that.
I see, you are mainly concerned with the explicit exploration of metaphysical assumptions and their logical consequences in current published work. Yes, the cultural Marxists have nearly abolished this discourse from the public sphere, and it persists only in the largely private sphere of communications.
Thus, in public forums we do well merely to raise the questions, pursuing them is quite impossible there. If one does not have a forum which is protected from the interference of Marxists, it is quite impossible to keep a logical discussion on topic, this I know too well.
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