In Praise of Tattoos

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Dachshund
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Dachshund »

The 12th of never ?...Everyday is Judgement Day, Gretschen ! ( I thought you'd have worked that out by now ?) :wink:

Regards

Dachshund
Dachshund
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Dachshund »

chewybrian wrote: July 2nd, 2018, 9:00 am For every Marcus Aurelius, there may be a hundred Neros. Worse yet, there may be a thousand with the heart of Nero and the outward appearance of Aurelius. Certainly, one assumes you consider yourself worthy to be among the privileged elite, or these arguments would not appeal to you. Yet, you clearly lack the humility, sound judgment, and care for others that would make Marcus Aurelius worthy of such a position. So, how would you feel about your brave new world if you were counted among the subjugated?

You admire Marcus Aurelius I see. You think that Marcus was worthy of his role as a Roman emperor; that he was a worthy ruler of the great Roman Empire of his time.

I agree that Marcus was a great ruler, and I agree that he was a great ruler because he was a man who - as you say - possessed great personal wisdom, a highly refined rational intelligence, tremendous humility and moral virtue. The eminent Victorian literary critic, Matthew Arnold, wrote that Marcus was one of human history's most "beautiful souls", and I fully concur.

Given this, I would like to respond to your criticisms and insults by telling you what Marcus himself had to say about the notion of universal human freedom and equality in one or two relevant passages from his famous "Meditations".

Before this, I must emphasise, first and foremost, the fact that I have never once expressed the view (in any post of mine on this Forum to date) that I, personally, regard myself to be a "Philosopher King" of the kind to which I refer, that is, the kind idealised and endorsed by Plato or Aristotle in classical Athenian antiquity. That I hold myself to be some kind of privileged, elite, Platonic "Philosopher King" is , as you admit, merely an assumption that you have made; and it is, I can assure you, entirely false. The truth is that I am, in fact, the very first person to admit that I possess nothing like the kind of lofty nobility of spirit, refined intellect, sagacity, moral rectitude and excellence of virtue that characterise a true aristocrat like Marcus; one who was, in my opinion, truly "born to rule". I would , in fact, be more than happy to accept my subornation and subjugation as a lesser human being in a State ruled and organised by the likes of a superior man like Aurelion and his chosen administrators. I would be more than happy to accept my status as an inferior; more than happy to "know my rightful place" ( whatever my appropriate station in life happened to be, however humble) and, in short, more than happy to serve as a respectful and dutiful subject in his Republic. It would be my pleasure - indeed my privilege (!) - to "know my place" and do as I was told by my betters who occupied positions of official authority in such a State.
chewybrian wrote: July 2nd, 2018, 9:00 am People are created free. What chains of subjugation hold back any young child, other than those put upon them by arrogant, would-be "philosopher-kings" Subordination is common but not universal, and never desirable, and always put upon people, never inbred.
Marcus disagreed entirely. To begin with, his overall view of the cosmos (the universe) was inherently teleological, that is, he saw the universe as being a complex, though innately purposeful and orderly system, in particular, in the sense that it was structured hierarchically. In Book 5 of his Meditations, he says in note 30 that...

"The soul of the universe is kind and social. It has, therefore, made the inferior orders for the sake of the superior; and has suited the superior beings for each other. You see how it has subordinated, and co-ordinated, and distributed to each according to its merit, and engaged the nobler beings into a mutual agreement and unanimity." ( my italics).

Marcus repeatedly emphasises how the hierarchical ordering of being that structures the Cosmos applies to human society as well. In any given human society, each man or woman has, he believes, his/her given, natural place or rank on a great vertical scale of merit that distinguishes individuals of higher value or worth ( in the upper echelons of society) from those of lower value or worth ( at the bottom, in the lower classes of society). The higher one's position on the human hierarchy of worth (value), the more noble, meritorious and respectable, i.e; the more superior a human being one is. Marcus believes that this hierarchy of human merit/worthiness has been ordained by divine ( supernatural) governance, that is, by the will of God ( or what he typically refers to as "Providence") for a purpose. Providence has made some human beings superior to others for a good reason, and it is just (right and good) that those who are inferior ought be subordinated/subjugated by those who are their betters. Everyone has their proper place in society, and one's station in life is determined by the rank they have been allocated at birth (by Providence) in the overall hierarchy of human merit. Marcus believes that it is vitally important that all men and woman strive to know and accept their proper place in society. For example, those persons who have been placed relatively low on the order of human nobility/merit, are typically best suited to relatively humble and basic roles in life, such as that of the common labourer or farmer whose work does not require the possession or application of any particularly advanced skills or rational intelligence. Providence desires that those of lower rank in society ( i.e. "inferiors") be willing to co-operate in these sense that they are glad to comply with the instructions and directions that are given to them by those they accept as their superiors, those, for example, who occupy positions of official (political) authority in the State (society). When this happens, everyone is happy, and the State as a whole, thrives in the way it ought; that is, as a truly just and benevolent moral organism. This is why Marcus always emphasises how very important it is that all men and women should strive to "know themselves", by which he means strive to know their rightful place in society - try to know and peacefully accept their proper "station" in life, however humble or lofty it may be.

Here is a passage from Meditations where Marcus reflects on the hierarchical structure of rank ( i.e. merit/nobility) that characterises human society...

"The objects of vulgar admiration, may be reduced to some general classes. First, such as are preserved by mere cohesion, or, regular but inanimate structure, or organisation; such as stones, timber, fig-trees, vines, olive trees. Men of a higher rank, admire things preserved by an animal (irrational) soul; such as flocks or herds or the possession of slaves ( who have rational souls) by sheer quantity. The admiration of a third and higher class of men, with a more elegant taste, turns upon things that are held together by rational soul; not qua rational (as it is akin to the universal spirit); but[qua[ possessing a skill or other ability that is artificial and otherwise ingenius and acute); and merely on this account. But he who honours and admires a rational and political (i.e. social and public-spirited) soul as universal, no longer concerns himself with these others, he will despise their objects of admiration; and above all things, he will study to preserve his own rational soul, in these social dispositions and affections (i.e. in the context of engaging in communal states and processes) and ; and co-operate with those souls which are akin to it, in the same purpose."


Basically Marcus is saying that in any society, human beings can be ranked in an order of merit ( worthiness) that extends from the least noble/honourable/virtuous/righteous/dignified of persons to at the bottom to the most noble/honourable/virtuous/ noble/virtuous/righteous/dignified specimens at the top, according to the kind of things that they value most.

The most base and least noble kind of human beings are those, (he says in the passage above ), who make up the majority of the common public( i.e."oi polloi"), these are the people who admire the the lowest ontological categories of discrete being, such as dead, inanimate, non-sentient things like rocks, stones , logs and other such abiotic physical objects, and those entities graded slightly above them, which are characterised by what the stoics called physis and roughly correspond to the plant kingdom ( which is made up of things that are vital (alive) but not sentient ( i.e. lack consciousness) such as the "fig- trees, vines and olive trees" Marcus mentions. In other words, he is saying the most vulgar human beings are those who make up the common crowd. These are the average ordinary members of the public are people who chiefly possess materialistic values and prise the usual kinds of consumer goods and commodities - in short, "the material things that money can buy". In the Roman empire of Marcus time these were things like saleable, natural resources like stone and timber for constructing buildings, or mineral ores containing metals like iron, copper ,lead, gold and tin that could be extracted and used for making swords, shields spear-heads and other military hard-ware, coins, nails, metal ornaments and so on; fine foodstuffs like olives, figs, honey, milk, dates, grapes for making wine; natural textiles like wool, cotton, silk, linen and flax for use in making clothing ( like the chilton tunics, cloaks, shawls and togas worn by Romans in Marcus' time) ), leather for manufacturing shoes and sandals and so on. In the modern West today ,the situation is still much the same, the vast majority of the ordinary, common public are persons who place a high importance on striving to acquiring "valuable" material things like : the latest "mod-cons"; high-tech electronic gadgets and devices ( like iPhones, powerful computers, etc); fine, gourmet foodstuffs; expensive, designer-label clothing; beautiful jewelry ( like costly gold and silver bracelets and chains, designer watches, diamond/ ruby/sapphire rings and broaches, pearl necklaces, etc; prestige makes of car ( Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Jaguar and so on) big, fancy houses in the more exclusive and affluent districts of their towns and cities; places for their children in elite, private, fee-paying schools and universities The next highest rank of human beings for Marcus were those who admired and desired to possess things marked by soul ( psyche or what we might call today the presence of a conscious mind, whether it was an "irrational soul", as in the case of higher animals like pigs or goats ( who possessed conscious minds but lacked - Marcus would say, the capacity to reason in a rational manner), or a "rational soul" (as in the case of slaves who possessed rational, human minds). This class of person who admired beings with "souls" (psyche) was, however, one who chiefly valued them only in terms of the sheer (numerical) quantity of such creatures they could possess, for instance, in terms of how man ( the more the better) cattle, for instance, there were in a herd of cows they owned, or how many sheep they could possess in a flock of these animals that they kept; the number of working horses they could have in their stables, or the number of human slaves they could own to work in their households and on their land. The next highest category of human beings were those who focussed their efforts on applying the use of human reason to cultivate refined, ingenious, inventive/ creative skills, such as the skills of the master- craftsman or the professional artist ( the sculptor in marble, say), the design skills and technical expertise of the architects and civil engineers who conceived and drew up plans for the construction of the Roman empire's remarkable temples, amphitheatres, spars and aqueducts, roads, bridges and tunnels. Also in this category would be ancient Rome's academics and intellectuals, including famous thinkers like Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Livy, Tacitus and Epictetus; men who dedicated their lives to cultivating and refining their powers of their rational intelligence to the end of becoming experts in formal disciplines like oratory, rhetoric, history, literature and philosophy.

For Marcus, however, the most noble class of all were those individuals who fully valued not just their powers of reason ( i.e. their "rational soul") but also their "political soul". The most noble and dignified of all men were those he believed kept their minds focussed in a state of rational and social activity. By social activity, Marcus means civic-minded, public-spirited activity that aims to contribute in promoting the common, communal welfare and good of all members of society - all of one's fellow citizens. For Marcus, acting justly (morally) entailed acting politically (socially), and those who fully valued refining their powers of rational intelligence in order to ( i.e. for the express purpose of) using them in the service of beneficent and benevolent political activity were the most noble and meritorious of all human beings. Such persons, Marcus notes are always rare (few in number) - and will thus represent an elite minority in any human society (State). They will , he adds, naturally despise all the materialistic objects of admiration that characterise the lower ranks of humanity of men, and therefore only wish to fraternise and co-operate with others of their own (superior) kind.

I think Marcus' analysis is more or less "spot on", because we can observe that same basic hierarchical gradation of human beings in terms of their inherent nobility and dignity today, thousands of years after he wrote his "Meditations" in the contemporary societies of the advanced West. That is, the common (vulgar) majority of the public in nations like the US, the UK, and Australia, for example, still chiefly value "soulless" material possessions and the (disvalued, "non-moral") concrete goods and services provided by late techno-corporate capitalism within the dominant ethos of mass "consumer society" that it first began to firmly establish in the mid 20th century ( by the late 1950s). Above the rank of "oi polloi" in Western consumer societies are those who are well educated and naturally intelligent enough to reject the mindless values of modern consumerism and abandon the greedy, grasping ethics of the "rat-race" to pursue more meaningful and intellectually satisfying roles in life, in , for example, careers as: professional intellectuals/academics/ lecturers in fields like mathematics , philosophy, the fine arts , the liberal humanities and/or social sciences and so on; theoretical and/or research scientists employed in the private or public sector; civil/chemical/mechanical/electrical engineers; successful, critically acclaimed,published writers working in one or more of the mainstream literary genres; experts who specialise in advanced technologies like computer programming, biogenetics, aerospace design; highly- skilled practitioners in traditional professions like medicine or the law, etc. Finally, at the highest level in the human hierarchy are the creme de la creme of society, namely that rare group of truly great political leaders and Statesmen, who, in the era of modernity have included, for instance, men like: Edmund Burke, Sir Winston Churchill, US President Dwight Eisenhower and the brilliant American diplomat, Henry Kissinger - to name but a few of those individuals who, (IMO) ,qualify as members of the, small, elite company that properly represent mankind's most noble, most dignified, most virtuous and most valuable human beings.

So, in summary, my world-view is much like the world - view that Marcus held, especially in the sense that I do not believe human beings are born free or equal and the claim that all human beings have a right to equal justice and equal individual freedom and equal respect for their supposed equal dignity ( worth, merit, value, nobility) is nothing, in my opinion, but the unjustifiable nonsense. All it serves to demonstrate is that the dogmatic philosophical liberalism that was unleashed by the 17th century Enlightenment is still poisoning the bloodstream of Western modernity.As Marcus observed thousands of years ago, human beings are obviously NOT born equal, nor are they born free in the sense that they, when conceptualised as wholly independent, separate, individuals, possess any kind of absolute rationally-grounded, self-determining, genuine moral autonomy .The claim that they are all created equal and free is simply false, and current declaration that they have, in consequence of this assumed inherent equality and liberty, corresponding absolute rights to equal, universal justice and equal individual liberty is absurd. It is utterly unwarranted and completely unjustifiable. The truth is that human worth ( merit) is distributed along a vertical hierarchy of rank that extends from the most base and vulgar at the bottom to the most noble and virtuous at the top- from the most "inferior" of human beings to the most "superior". In this natural order the superior are intended to rule the inferior and the duty we have to act justly does NOT mean that we ought treat others as equal, but rather that we ought treat them as they properly deserve; and their deserts are chiefly determined by their order of merit - their ranking - in the the human hierarchy of value.

In an ideal society, the most superior human beings, the kind of aristocrats that Plato had in mind when he referred to "Philosopher Kings" would rule. That's pretty much what Marcus thought and I totally agree. I fully appreciate, BTW, that correctly identifying those who are genuinely "Philosopher Kings" in the sense Plato conceived them would be a very difficult ,if not, impossible task, in practice in the real world as it exists today. My point is that regardless of this, the current status quo in the West where we are all forced by the enforcers of a dominant liberal orthodoxy to give lip service to the bizarre lie that all human beings are created equal and free is simply no longer an option; the whole tragic farce of liberal democracy has proved an unqualified disaster. Briefly, despite this, we must not despair, because there ARE things that we in the West can do now to begin doing in order to start salvaging our own dire situation; as to what they are (?), this would be the subject matter of a separate post/s.

That's enough for one post - it is already far too long.


Regards


Dachshund
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chewybrian
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by chewybrian »

Dachshund wrote: July 9th, 2018, 5:12 am
chewybrian wrote: July 2nd, 2018, 9:00 am For every Marcus Aurelius, there may be a hundred Neros. Worse yet, there may be a thousand with the heart of Nero and the outward appearance of Aurelius. Certainly, one assumes you consider yourself worthy to be among the privileged elite, or these arguments would not appeal to you. Yet, you clearly lack the humility, sound judgment, and care for others that would make Marcus Aurelius worthy of such a position. So, how would you feel about your brave new world if you were counted among the subjugated?

You admire Marcus Aurelius I see. You think that Marcus was worthy of his role as a Roman emperor; that he was a worthy ruler of the great Roman Empire of his time.

I agree that Marcus was a great ruler, and I agree that he was a great ruler because he was a man who - as you say - possessed great personal wisdom, a highly refined rational intelligence, tremendous humility and moral virtue. The eminent Victorian literary critic, Matthew Arnold, wrote that Marcus was one of human history's most "beautiful souls", and I fully concur.
I admire the person while understanding the historical context, much as I might admire the writings of Thomas Jefferson, yet despise the fact that he owned slaves. Of course, you entirely missed my point. I was not attempting to put him on a pedestal and advocate searching for his modern day counterpart. *If* you are going to have an Emperor, than one hopes he is the one you get. But...

My point was that he is not what you get in most cases. You get Nero or Stalin or Trump or Hilary or all the other buffoons we have now lining their pockets and pretending to be trying to do the right thing. It's too dangerous to give anyone that power, because they are almost universally corrupt, and you need all the checks and balances you can get (thank you, Mr. Jefferson).
Dachshund wrote: July 9th, 2018, 5:12 amBefore this, I must emphasise, first and foremost, the fact that I have never once expressed the view (in any post of mine on this Forum to date) that I, personally, regard myself to be a "Philosopher King" of the kind to which I refer, that is, the kind idealised and endorsed by Plato or Aristotle in classical Athenian antiquity. That I hold myself to be some kind of privileged, elite, Platonic "Philosopher King" is , as you admit, merely an assumption that you have made; and it is, I can assure you, entirely false. The truth is that I am, in fact, the very first person to admit that I possess nothing like the kind of lofty nobility of spirit, refined intellect, sagacity, moral rectitude and excellence of virtue that characterise a true aristocrat like Marcus; one who was, in my opinion, truly "born to rule". I would , in fact, be more than happy to accept my subornation and subjugation as a lesser human being in a State ruled and organised by the likes of a superior man like Aurelion and his chosen administrators. I would be more than happy to accept my status as an inferior; more than happy to "know my rightful place" ( whatever my appropriate station in life happened to be, however humble) and, in short, more than happy to serve as a respectful and dutiful subject in his Republic. It would be my pleasure - indeed my privilege (!) - to "know my place" and do as I was told by my betters who occupied positions of official authority in such a State.
"I will work harder." Boxer, "Animal Farm".

I'm not sure which is more dangerous, the tyrant or the useful idiots who enable their rise to power. You can serve the tyrant only until your trip to the glue factory is in their best interests. I (perhaps incorrectly) assumed nobody would willfully sign on to your nonsense unless they thought themselves at least a dog. I suppose I gave you too much credit. Fine, then, you can be a horse or a sheep or a chicken.
Dachshund wrote: July 9th, 2018, 5:12 amBasically Marcus is saying that in any society, human beings can be ranked in an order of merit ( worthiness) that extends from the least noble/honourable/virtuous/righteous/dignified of persons to at the bottom to the most noble/honourable/virtuous/ noble/virtuous/righteous/dignified specimens at the top, according to the kind of things that they value most.
This is true in a sense, but it does not call for or justify monarchy, tyranny or party rule. People have the right to show their abilities and climb to the level they are willing and/or able to reach, rather than being assigned to a caste system. People can and do change over time, and they also deserve a chance to redeem themselves if they are able.

And, everyone deserves respect until they show they don't deserve it (and a chance to earn it again once having lost it), regardless of their level of ability. Nobody chooses their own basic intelligence, strength, health, etc. As long as they are making the effort to do the best with what they have, they should be treated as ends rather than means, as people rather than tools or possessions. Most reasonable people see the need for this view. "There, but for the grace of God", eh?

What is certainly true and vitally important is that leaders can not be trusted with unchecked power. Even if you can find one worthy philosopher king, he will inevitably be followed by a series of tyrants. Human history shows your ideal society to be unattainable, or at least unsustainable.

You may be beyond pity, but I do feel sad for mankind that people hold the views you claim to hold. Our sad history can only be repeated as long as these opinions are widely held. One wonders how many Chairman Maos have to come and go before you'll get the memo. Absolute power corrupts at least *almost* absolutely. Rather than searching for the incorruptible leader, we should instead withhold giving absolute power to anyone, for the justified reason that they are much more likely to be corruptible, and we will suffer as a result again and again. Someone new will always be willing to pretend to be the philosopher king to obtain the power they want, and people like you will enable them, and only see too late, if they ever do manage to see, that they have been used once again.
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
Steve3007
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Steve3007 »

Dachshund wrote: I fully appreciate, BTW, that correctly identifying those who are genuinely "Philosopher Kings" in the sense Plato conceived them would be a very difficult ,if not, impossible task, in practice in the real world as it exists today.
Yes that is a difficult problem. One of the methods favoured today, for example in a country like the US, is to declare an aspiration to grant equality of opportunity regardless of such factors as ethnic background or gender, to allow merit to rise to the surface of as large a pool as possible. As a German Jew who found refuge in the US, Henry Kissinger certainly benefited from this.
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Sy Borg »

chewybrian wrote: July 9th, 2018, 7:13 am
Dachshund wrote: July 9th, 2018, 5:12 am... in short, more than happy to serve as a respectful and dutiful subject in his Republic. It would be my pleasure - indeed my privilege (!) - to "know my place" and do as I was told by my betters who occupied positions of official authority in such a State.
"I will work harder." Boxer, "Animal Farm".

I'm not sure which is more dangerous, the tyrant or the useful idiots who enable their rise to power. You can serve the tyrant only until your trip to the glue factory is in their best interests.
Exactly. Even D has to admit that history supports your observation. Mao and Adolph started out well, turning around their country's fortunes before eventually destroying those nations. Beware the magic bullet solution.
chewybrian wrote:
Dachshund wrote: July 9th, 2018, 5:12 amBasically Marcus is saying that in any society, human beings can be ranked in an order of merit ( worthiness) that extends from the least noble/honourable/virtuous/righteous/dignified of persons to at the bottom to the most noble/honourable/virtuous/ noble/virtuous/righteous/dignified specimens at the top, according to the kind of things that they value most.
This is true in a sense, but it does not call for or justify monarchy, tyranny or party rule. People have the right to show their abilities and climb to the level they are willing and/or able to reach, rather than being assigned to a caste system. People can and do change over time, and they also deserve a chance to redeem themselves if they are able.

And, everyone deserves respect until they show they don't deserve it (and a chance to earn it again once having lost it), regardless of their level of ability. Nobody chooses their own basic intelligence, strength, health, etc. As long as they are making the effort to do the best with what they have, they should be treated as ends rather than means, as people rather than tools or possessions. Most reasonable people see the need for this view. "There, but for the grace of God", eh?

What is certainly true and vitally important is that leaders can not be trusted with unchecked power. Even if you can find one worthy philosopher king, he will inevitably be followed by a series of tyrants. Human history shows your ideal society to be unattainable, or at least unsustainable.
Thank you. It reminds me of Sam Harris's thought experiment that he was given a killer's genetics and upbringing - he would be a killer. "There but for the grace ...". It is cause to celebrate our good fortune rather than add to the woes of those with less luck in life.
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Steve3007 »

Dachshund wrote:Suffering is real, and the artful infliction of suffering on another, for its own sake, is absolutely morally wrong. This is now a cornerstone of my belief.
Dachshund elsewhere: Women should be slaves. It was right that Japanese children were killed in Hiroshima because all Japanese people both were and are evil monsters. The indigenous populations of Australia and New Zealand should either be driven from their homes (ethnically cleansed) or killed (genocide). The life of an incapable-of-suffering individual cell takes precedence over the suffering of a pregnant girl. All people in the UK who self-identify as Muslim should be made to wear identifying armbands in the style of Jews in 1930s Germany and/or forcibly evicted from their homes. etc.

These are not idle, empty accusations. You cannot write them off as mere insults. These are things that YOU have said in this forum. By YOUR argument YOU are absolutely morally wrong, Dachshund. You propose the infliction of suffering by group-punishment against people purely because they belong to groups which you regard as inferior to the group with which you self-identify. Morally, you are therefore identical to the young man who kills a random selection of strangers because he believes them to be representatives of the morally decadent West and he believes it to be God's will that they die. "They" get what "they" deserve, inshallah, right?
Dachshund wrote:they are an innately cruel ,vicious and breathtakingly arrogant race of people ... They got what they deserved at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, thank God.
After thinking hard, perhaps for the first time, about what your own fear and tribalism drives you to propose doing, discuss.
Steve3007
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Steve3007 »

Note: The above post is in the wrong topic.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Steve3007 wrote: July 9th, 2018, 11:45 pm
Dachshund wrote: I fully appreciate, BTW, that correctly identifying those who are genuinely "Philosopher Kings" in the sense Plato conceived them would be a very difficult ,if not, impossible task, in practice in the real world as it exists today.
Yes that is a difficult problem. One of the methods favoured today, for example in a country like the US, is to declare an aspiration to grant equality of opportunity regardless of such factors as ethnic background or gender, to allow merit to rise to the surface of as large a pool as possible. As a German Jew who found refuge in the US, Henry Kissinger certainly benefited from this.
To the detriment of millions of Asians, for example. I'd worry I've strayed far from tatoos, but we seem already to be far from tatoos.
Steve3007
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Steve3007 »

Karpel Tunnel wrote:To the detriment of millions of Asians, for example.
My comment wasn't either a condemnation or an endorsement of Henry Kissinger's words and actions. I picked Kissinger as an example of a beneficiary of the system which Dachshund condemns (and an escaper from the kind of society that Dachshund condones) because Dachshund holds him up, among others, as an example of the "creme de la creme":
Dachshund wrote:Finally, at the highest level in the human hierarchy are the creme de la creme of society, namely that rare group of truly great political leaders and Statesmen, who, in the era of modernity have included, for instance, men like: Edmund Burke, Sir Winston Churchill, US President Dwight Eisenhower and the brilliant American diplomat, Henry Kissinger - to name but a few of those individuals who, (IMO) ,qualify as members of the, small, elite company that properly represent mankind's most noble, most dignified, most virtuous and most valuable human beings.
Kissinger would not have been in the position of power which Dachshund thinks he naturally deserved if it were not for the aspirations, in the US system of government, for equality of opportunity which Dachshund condemns.
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2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021