I vote for what I want government to do at a given time. — Vera Mont

Does this entail telling others how to live their lives or what they can and can't say, or what they can spend their money on or not?

I know of a dozen reasons, that have roots in the recent and distant past, but I will not discuss them here, for lack of sufficient space and time. In brief: fear and loathing beat out joy and optimism. A considerable amount of Repub cheating didn't help. — Vera Mont

You sound just like a Rep. Reps say the same thing. Dems and Reps aren't any different when it comes to using their constituents as pawns in their game of chess. They know that their constituents are in an information bubble and don't question the party for the threat of heresy (just look at the Dems who tried to criticize the extreme left of their party and ended up leaving it).

Abolish political parties. Abolish group-think and group-hate.

You sound like David Brooks. Both of you argue for a return to a community and family-centered life, claiming that societal drift away from such traditional anchoring has led to an epidemic of isolation , loneliness and despair. I think that’s true, for those who think in traditionalistic terms. A do-it-yourself culture of intentional community only works for those who are capable of a more complex and dynamic style of interaction with the world. I believe more and more people have evolved psychologically in that direction, so for them the shedding of the old bonds of social, religious and institutional obligation is a choice rather than an imposition. For others who aren’t prepared to thrive in such a world, it has been a damaging change. You can do good work by finding those people in your community who are not ready to take that step. They will be grateful to be led to a ready-made social structure they can fit themselves into.

For the many others like myself, who have worked hard to break way from the strictures of what to then are repressive and conformist social and family bonds, it is your preferred form of social organization that leads to alienation and unhappiness, and we will fight tooth and nail to remain free of it.

I vote for what I want government to do at a given time. — Vera Mont

Does this entail telling others how to live their lives or what they can and can't say, or what they can spend their money on or not? — Harry Hindu

Why would you assume that. It often entails changes in foreign relations, or public health, indigenous housing, environmental protection, elder care, energy distribution, education - issues far bigger than telling anybody how to live (so long as they don't harm others) or what to say (so long as they're not harming others with lies and abuse) or how they spend their money, (so long as they're not harming anybody.)

You sound just like a Rep. Reps say the same thing. — Harry Hindu

No, I don't. Seems like, whatever anyone says, you just keep hearing the same refrain.

Abolish political parties. Abolish group-think and group-hate. — Harry Hindu

Sorry. Not within my purview. Never mind; Trump will abolish parties, elections, every kind of speech, hate and thought that's not in line with his - on any given day.

You sound like David Brooks.

Brooks sometimes makes good points, particularly on the way our "meritocracy" has all sorts of negative consequences, while failing to live up to its name.

A do-it-yourself culture of intentional community only works for those who are capable of a more complex and dynamic style of interaction with the world. I believe more and more people have evolved psychologically in that direction, so for them the shedding of the old bonds of social, religious and institutional obligation is a choice rather than an imposition.

Yes, this is the "subtraction narrative" I mentioned above, and perhaps an example of the transparency issue. Liberalism is just "what happens when you remove the old forms of constraint."

Except it isn't. The atomized liberal consumer doesn't cease needing what they previously needed community to provide them, new (often mandatory) voluntarist versions of this same infrastructure need to be created, resulting in the hyperbolic growth of the state and market influence spreading into every area of life.

For instance, without community, there is no one to care for the injured or sick. People are left isolated and without resources after disasters. Older citizens cannot expect to rely on community in their decline. People cannot rely on support or intermediary negotiators in conflicts. Markets must expand to perform all these functions, but markets need regulation. Hence a gigantic (and phenomenally expensive) administrative state must take on all these roles to aid the liberal individual in attaining their individuality. The police and carceral state is the most visceral example, but also massive regulated (and often mandatory) insurance markets, etc. These are not optional (nor are laws banning community expressions or clothing that expressed cultural as opposed to personal identity so as to make the lived environment more conducive to the new individualism).

Indeed, this expansion of the state and markets comes with their own non-voluntary constraints in the form of regulation and taxation. Since liberalism and endless faith in "technology and innovation," growth, and "progress" prevail, there is a focus on the short term. Hence adequate taxes tend not to actually be raised in liberal welfare states, leading to huge accumulations of debt for operating expenses (as well as harrowing ecological debts for future generations to confront).

Aside from this, the reliance on markets to fulfill the former functions of community also has the effect of making the effects of economic inequality more global and all-encompassing. This was made particularly obvious during the pandemic, as the wealthy could comfortably "shelter in place," relying on a legion of anonymous low wage workers to bear the supposed risks for them.

At any rate, we might also ask: "freedom for who?" Industrializing education and care of the elderly certainly freed up prime aged adults from responsibilities, but not in ways that seem to be preferred by those whose care was being outsourced for greater economies of scale. Plus, if liberty requires self-governance, than the liberal education might seem to broadly fail on those grounds as well.

For others who aren’t prepared to thrive in such a world, it has been a damaging change.

You act like this is a minor issue. As far as I can see, it's one that dominates electoral politics and is tearing apart the liberal order in the world's economy and greatest military power. That's not an isolated small scale issue, it's quite possibly the begining of the historical failure of liberalism.

Plus, it presupposes the liberal notion of freedom as: "freedom to do as one currently pleases."

The idea of those being dependent on community not having evolved, or not being "prepared to thrive," does recall a quote though.

Notably, the [marginalized] groups that [liberal reformers] recognize are all defined by biology. In liberal theory, where our “nature” means our bodies, these are “natural” groups opposed to “artificial” bonds like communities of work and culture. This does not mean that liberalism values these “natural” groups. Quite the contrary: since liberal political society reflects the effort to overcome or master nature, liberalism argues that “merely natural” differences ought not to be held against us. We ought not to be held back by qualities we did not choose and that do not reflect our individual efforts and abilities.

[Reformers] recognize women, racial minorities, and the young only in order to free individuals from “suspect classifications.” Class and culture are different. People are part of ethnic communities or the working class because they chose not to pursue individual success and assimilation into the dominant, middle-class culture, or because they were unable to succeed. Liberal theory values individuals who go their own way, and by the same token, it esteems those who succeed in that quest more highly than individuals who do not. Ethnicity, [religion], and class, consequently, are marks of shame in liberal theory, and whatever discrimination people suffer is, in some sense, their “own fault.” We may feel compassion for the failures, but they have no just cause for equal representation.

Wilson Cary McWilliams - Politics

Or as James Stimson put it just a few years ago

"When we observe the behavior of those who live in distressed areas, we are observing not the effect of decline of the working class, we are observing a highly selected group of people who faced economic adversity and chose to stay at home and accept it when others sought and found opportunity elsewhere. . . . Those who are fearful, conservative, in the social sense, and lack ambition stay and accept decline.”

But this of course radically ignores the ways in which massive state intervention and diplomatic efforts were made to secure the vast (and helpfully unregulated and desperate) labor pool of the developing world so as move the economic engines of now "distressed areas" across oceans at great ecological cost to future generations in order to secure greater profit margins and lower prices in the short term (and so higher consumption), with both profits and consumption gains skewing heavily to elites. Globalization isn't an accident though, it's occured with heavy state intervention according to an explicit ideology.

Very perceptive analysis.

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. “Postmetaphysical thinking,” Habermas contends, “cannot cope on its own with the defeatism concerning reason which we encounter today both in the postmodern radicalization of the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ and in the naturalism founded on a naïve faith in science.” — NY Times,Does Reason Know What it is Missing?

This strain in Habermas's thinking is often presented out of context. The NY Times quote is from a Habermas paper called "An awareness of what is missing: faith and reason in a post-secular age" [2010]. This also came out as a short book, which I don't have, but you can find a short summary here.

The following two quotes from that paper give a more nuanced sense of what Habermas thinks is at stake. The problem, as he sees it, is mutual, between secular and religious traditions:

“The religious side must accept the authority of ‘natural’ science as the fallible results of the institutionalized sciences and the basic principles of universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality. Conversely, secular reason may not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith, even though in the end it can accept as reasonable only what it can translate into its own, in principle universally acceptable discourses.”

“The constitutional state must not only act neutrally towards worldviews but it must also rest on normative foundations which can be justified neutrally towards worldviews—and that means in postmetaphysical terms. The religious communities cannot turn a deaf ear to this normative requirement. This is why those complementary learning processes in which the secular and the religious sides involve one another come into play here.”

So it is not just that secular reason is "unenlightened about itself" -- though Habermas thinks that is true. Enlightened or not, the liberal state's normative requirement of neutrality is legitimate, and must be acknowledged by religious communities.

Indeed, it was a cherry-picked quote. That is from a New York Times article from 2010, which I've kept as a kind of scrapbook reference, by Stanley Fish (whom I hadn't heard of prior). The article is here (I don't think it's paywalled any more due to its age). It goes on:

Habermas does not want to embrace religion wholesale for he does not want to give up the “cognitive achievements of modernity” — which include tolerance, equality, individual freedom, freedom of thought, cosmopolitanism and scientific advancement — and risk surrendering to the fundamentalisms that, he says, willfully “cut themselves off” from everything that is good about the Enlightenment project. And so he proposes something less than a merger and more like an agreement between trading partners: “…the religious side must accept the authority of ‘natural’ reason as the fallible results of the institutionalized sciences and the basic principles of universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality. Conversely, secular reason may not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith, even though in the end it can accept as reasonable only what it can translate into its own, in principle universally accessible, discourses.”

As Norbert Brieskorn, one of Habermas’s interlocutors, points out, in Habermas’s bargain “reason addresses demands to the religious communities” but “there is no mention of demands from the opposite direction.” Religion must give up the spheres of law, government, morality and knowledge; reason is asked only to be nice and not dismiss religion as irrational, retrograde and irrelevant. The “truths of faith” can be heard but only those portions of them that have secular counterparts can be admitted into the realm of public discourse. (It seems like a case of “separate but not equal.”) Religion gets to be respected; reason gets to borrow the motivational resources it lacks on its own, resources it can then use to put a brake on its out-of-control spinning.

The result, as Michael Reder, another of Habermas’s interlocutors, observes, is a religion that has been “instrumentalized,” made into something useful for a secular reason that still has no use for its teleological and eschatological underpinnings. Religions, explains Reder, are brought in only “to help to prevent or overcome social disruptions.” Once they have performed this service they go back in their box and don’t trouble us with uncomfortable cosmic demands.

The essay concludes 'there is something still missing'.

Liberalism is just "what happens when you remove the old forms of constraint."

Except it isn't. The atomized liberal consumer doesn't cease needing what they previously needed community to provide them, new (often mandatory) voluntarist versions of this same infrastructure need to be created, resulting in the hyperbolic growth of the state and market influence spreading into every area of life — Count Timothy von Icarus

You make this sound like it’s a bad thing. State and market influences are a reflection of and response to where the community decides it wants to make use of the state and the market.

For instance, without community, there is no one to care for the injured or sick. People are left isolated and without resources after disasters. Older citizens cannot expect to rely on community in their decline — Count Timothy von Icarus

My mother expected to rely on the community in her decline. Specifically, she assumed she would move in with one of my brothers and their families. But that was no-go. Both of my sisters-in-law refused to allow that. It was a matter of a generational change in attitude toward the responsibility of grown children for aging family members. I don’t know anyone in my age group who expects or wants to be taken care of by a family member when they become unable to care for themselves. Perhaps we’re not as ethically enlightened as you are.

Aside from this, the reliance on markets to fulfill the former functions of community also has the effect of making the effects of economic inequality more global and all-encompassing. This was made particularly obvious during the pandemic, as the wealthy could comfortably "shelter in place," relying on a legion of anonymous low wage workers to bear the supposed risks for them — Count Timothy von Icarus

Somehow you don’t convince me that this is all about sensible economics for you. I think you’re using inequality as a rationalization for your real agenda, which is about advocating for a certain religiously inspired ethic of social responsibility. How convenient it is that going back to the days of living with Grandma and Grandpa until they croaked happens to save money too!
I want you to keep something in mind. None of my preferred philosophical touchstones accept the concept of the solipsistically autonomous individual. On the contrary, they see the self a more radically intertwined with and inseparable from the normative attributes of the larger society than you do. So my objections to your arguments are not about choosing the individual over the community, but rejecting your model of how the self and the social relate to each other, and especially your need for a transcendent ground for community ethics.

For others who aren’t prepared to thrive in such a world, it has been a damaging change.

You act like this is a minor issue. As far as I can see, it's one that dominates electoral politics and is tearing apart the liberal order in the world's economy and greatest military power. That's not an isolated small scale issue, it's quite possibly the begining of the historical failure of liberalism.

Plus, it presupposes the liberal notion of freedom as: "freedom to do as one currently pleases." — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, it’s a very major issue. It’s just not an issue whose causes are interpreted the same way by all parties in the U.S. , no matter how badly you want to convince yourself that this is a sign of the “historical failure of liberalism”. In case you haven’t noticed , the country is profoundly divided over this any many other issues.

But this of course radically ignores the ways in which massive state intervention and diplomatic efforts were made to secure the vast (and helpfully unregulated and desperate) labor pool of the developing world so as move the economic engines of now "distressed areas" across oceans at great ecological cost to future generations in order to secure greater profit margins and lower prices in the short term (and so higher consumption), with both profits and consumption gains skewing heavily to elites. Globalization isn't an accident though, it's occured with heavy state intervention according to an explicit ideology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Globalization lifted many more people out of poverty worldwide that it put into poverty. mEven without offshoring, automation alone would have decimated the industrial heartland. This wasn’t strictly a failure of liberalism. It was a failure on everyone’s part to anticipate how rapidly technological change would destroy communities. Having this fore-knowledge wouldn’t have prevented the loss of jobs , but it may have allowed for a less traumatic transition. Populists considered this a failure of both liberalism and conservative. After Brexit, and fairly soon in the economic wake of the current trade debacle , populism will also be considered a failure. My guess is once the dust settles, while it didnt come out smelling like a rose, liberalism will emerge as the least disastrous of the various political avenues which have been explored.

I want to add that I think the idea that mining the causes of globalism reveals a predominance of motives of greed and narrow self-interest is a kind of conspiracy theory. There have always been those who are fundamentally suspicious of human enterprise, those who are quick to jump on the mistakes we make when we try to venture in new directions in order to better ourselves and our world. Rather than chalking up those mistakes as the price we pay for the audacity of human inventiveness, their suspiciousness makes them look for hubris and an abdication of ethical responsibility. Climbing too high, pushing too far gets us into trouble, they say, because we dare to become god-like when instead we need to be humble in the face of our mortal sinfulness. The damage globalism has done to those unprepared to adapt is God’s punishment for the hubris of humanity, our distancing ourselves from the ethical source, which we must always remember is not to be found in the immanence to itself of thought.

Ah, that's more like it. A much clearer picture of Habermas's thinking about religion and secularism -- also see Religion and Rationality (1998) and Between Naturalism and Religion (2008), both excellent.

The result, as Michael Reder, another of Habermas’s interlocutors, observes, is a religion that has been “instrumentalized,” made into something useful for a secular reason that still has no use for its teleological and eschatological underpinnings. Religions, explains Reder, are brought in only “to help to prevent or overcome social disruptions.” Once they have performed this service they go back in their box and don’t trouble us with uncomfortable cosmic demands.

I do think Reder gets Habermas a bit wrong here. It's not that secular reason "has no use" for teleology or eschatology, it's more that to introduce either dimension into a liberal polity is to immediately desecularize the neutral normative constraints in favor of some religious tradition's view. Likewise, "instrumentalize" is too harsh. Secular society need not have much belief in religion, but what Habermas advocates is more than using religion to perform a useful service. He really wants liberal societies to be troubled by the "cosmic demands," and take religious perspectives on values more seriously.

He really wants liberal societies to be troubled by the "cosmic demands," and take religious perspectives on values more seriously. — J

Not surprising from someone who Rorty relentlessly critiqued for his need of Kantian transcendental underpinnings, or ‘skyhooks’ as Rorty called them.

Yep, he and Rorty never saw eye to eye. My sympathies are almost entirely with Habermas, who seems to me a much more careful and interesting thinker than Rorty, though the latter's historical importance is unquestionable. Habermas is also at a disadvantage here, because his writing is often turgid, while Rorty was a sparkling stylist.

I suppose the most trenchant criticism one could offer of Rorty is that, despite his sincere efforts, philosophy has not come to end.

It's not that secular reason "has no use" for teleology or eschatology, it's more that to introduce either dimension into a liberal polity is to immediately desecularize the neutral normative constraints in favor of some religious tradition's view.

Do you mean specifically religious teleology or just teleology in general? There is definitely a thread in modern thought that declares all teleology to be essentially just superstition, and sometimes this thread asserts itself pretty aggressively (e.g. the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis "controversy"). However, extended into the political sphere this would seem to me to be a quite totalizing vision of secularism. I don't think teleology is necessarily, or even primarily religious. I don't even think teleology in the ethical sphere is distinctly religious; a great deal of thought would seem to be precluded under "secularism" by that standard.

It's not that secular reason "has no use" for teleology or eschatology, it's more that to introduce either dimension into a liberal polity is to immediately desecularize the neutral normative constraints in favor of some religious tradition's view. — J

Would that be because of the implicit presumption of a normative axis, the implied idea of a true good.

Not surprising from someone who Rorty relentlessly critiqued for his need of Kantian transcendental underpinnings, or ‘skyhooks’ as Rorty called them. — Joshs

A criticism the forum's Secular Thought Police would no doubt endorse :-)

It's not that secular reason "has no use" for teleology or eschatology, it's more that to introduce either dimension into a liberal polity is to immediately desecularize the neutral normative constraints in favor of some religious tradition's view.
— J

Would that be because of the implicit presumption of a normative axis, the implied idea of a true good. — Wayfarer

Do you mean, within a particular religion's description of, say, eschatology? Not sure I understand your thought here. But if that's what you mean, then yes, perhaps it would be impossible to introduce eschatology on its own, without foregrounding a particular tradition and calling into question the neutrality of a liberal, process-oriented polity.

Do you mean specifically religious teleology or just teleology in general? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Religious teleology. The secular versions aren't really hot issues at the moment, politically. Remember, this conversation Habermas is taking part in concerns a specific moment in European politics. There are of course other ways to think about teleology.

Secular culture provides a framework within which you can follow any religion or none. But the proselytizing liberalism that Timothy is referring to goes a step further in saying that none is better than any.

I haven't followed most of this thread, so perhaps I need to go back and look more closely. It was the mention of Habermas that hooked me! I'm seeing a distinction between what a liberally conceived government can do, and what something called "liberalism" can proselytize for. Liberalism or secularism as a structure of politics ought to be neutral as to whether following a religion is better than not doing so. I suppose there would be other, more argumentative versions of liberalism as a philosophy that see it as a positive theory of what and what not to believe. I was only referring to the first, Rawlsian version.

↪Joshs Yep, he and Rorty never saw eye to eye. My sympathies are almost entirely with Habermas, who seems to me a much more careful and interesting thinker than Rorty, though the latter's historical importance is unquestionable. Habermas is also at a disadvantage here, because his writing is often turgid, while Rorty was a sparkling stylist.

I suppose the most trenchant criticism one could offer of Rorty is that, despite his sincere efforts, philosophy has not come to end. — J

I prefer Rorty to Habermas. Rorty was able to glimpse a world beyond modernism. He understood, albeit in a shaky fashion, what writers from Sartre, Gadamer and Wittgenstein to Foucault, Heidegger and Derrida were up to. Reading Rorty allows entrance into the most important thinking of our era , not only through his conversations with Continental thinkers, but also in the way he took up American writers like Davidson, Kuhn, Brandom, Dewey and Dennett. I think Habermas misses the boat on most of these writers, and falls back on a metaphysics that each of them was trying to escape from.

I would say that while philosophy of the sort that Habermas was up to has indeed come to an end (or should do so), I think Rorty’s lack of sure-footedness in the terrain of post-Cartesianism led him to become too suspicious of philosophy, not recognizing the validity of philosophical concepts pointing beyond metaphysical skyhooks of the sort that Habermas remained wedded to.

↪J Secular culture provides a framework within which you can follow any religion or none. But the proselytizing liberalism that Timothy is referring to goes a step further in saying that none is better than any. — Wayfarer

If ‘Secular culture’ amounts to a philosophical framework, then it has specific implications for religion. That is to say, even if it includes within itself the possibility of a religious viewpoint, it will entail its own implicit preferences with regards to religion. You, for instance, have decided that we are better off with religion than without it, so of course you’re going to prefer the secular vantage to what you call ‘proselytizing liberalism.’. But is there room in the secular tent for fundamentalist religions that are anti-Enlightenment and openly hostile to democracy?

As to the ‘proselytizing’ nature of liberalism, it’s not as though Timothy isnt proselytizing from his pulpit when he attacks liberalism. At least I’m self-aware about it when I try and sell postmodernism. I don’t go around claiming some fatal pathology or irrationalism in the political and philosophical perspectives I don’t agree with. He is right to see such accusations being leveled against religion from certain quarters of liberal thought, which is why I see his tussle with proselytizing liberalism as a bitch-slapping contest between sister schools of platonic metaphysics.

. Liberalism or secularism as a structure of politics ought to be neutral as to whether following a religion is better than not doing so — J

I love the juxtaposition of ‘ought’ and ‘neutral’ here. It illustrates , without recognizing it , that built into the assumption of norms of neutrality, objectivity and non-bias (like Rawls’ veil of ignorance) is a metaphysical ought. Secularisms and liberalisms which clothe themselves in the garb of neutrality share with religious points of view a grounding in an ethical ought. Such notions of the objective, the equal, the neutral are secular offshoots of religious thought, repackaging Godly platonism as humanist platonism.

It illustrates , without recognizing it , that built into the assumption of norms of neutrality, objectivity and non-bias (like Rawls’ veil of ignorance) is a metaphysical ought. — Joshs

What is a metaphysical ought?

I love the juxtaposition of ‘ought’ and ‘neutral’ here. It illustrates , without recognizing it , that built into the assumption of norms of neutrality, objectivity and non-bias (like Rawls’ veil of ignorance) is a metaphysical ought. — Joshs

I think you're selling the Rawlsian tradition short here. I recognize very well the juxtaposition you point out, and so does the tradition -- I simply don't find it scandalous in the way that you do. You're wanting to read "neutral" in terms that were never intended. It doesn't mean "without oughts." That would be directly counter to what Rawls proposed. It means "without religious doctrines, but attempting to treat each person fairly." It's you, not Rawls, who claims that this carries with it the idea that "such notions of the objective, the equal, the neutral, are secular offshoots of religious thought." If that is indeed true, then perhaps the liberal project was always incoherent. But I see no reason to believe it is true, certainly not on some universal grounds asserting that "objectivity can't be meaningful outside a religious tradition."

What is a metaphysical ought? — frank

Something like this:

To determine what is, what it's like, appears unutterably higher and more serious than any 'It ought to be so': because the latter, as human criticism and presumption, seems condemned from the start to be ridiculous. It expresses a need which demands that the disposition of the world should accord with our human well-being, and the will to do as much as possible towards this task. On the other hand, it was only this demand 'It ought to be so' which called forth that other demand, the demand for what is. Our knowledge of what is, was only the outcome of our asking: 'How? Is it possible? Why precisely like that?' Our wonder at the discrepancy between our wishes and the course of the world has led to our becoming acquainted with the course of the world. Perhaps it's different again: perhaps that 'It ought to be so', our wish to overwhelm the world, is - - -“
… the standpoint of desirability, of unwarrantedly playing the judge, is part of the character of the course of things, as is every injustice and imperfection - it's only our concept of 'perfection' which loses out. Every drive that wants to be satisfied expresses its dissatisfaction with the present state of things - what? Might the whole be composed entirely of dissatisfied parts, all of which have their heads full of what's desirable? Might the 'course of things' be precisely the 'Away from here! Away from reality!', be eternal discontent itself? Might desirability itself be the driving force? Might it be - deus.( Nietzsche, The Gay Science)

I recognize very well the juxtaposition you point out, and so does the tradition -- I simply don't find it scandalous in the way that you do… It's you, not Rawls, who claims that this carries with it the idea that "such notions of the objective, the equal, the neutral, are secular offshoots of religious thought." If that is indeed true, then perhaps the liberal project was always incoherent. — J

It’s not scandalous, it’s not incorrect and it’s not incoherent. But it is amenable to a deconstructive analysis laying bare hidden presuppositions. Whether you think the Rawlian approach is a secular offshoot of religious thinking depends on how narrowly you want to define religion. If you take Heidegger’s broader vantage, the platonism of Rawlian liberalism qualifies it as Ontotheology. But then of course he thinks the entire Western philosophical tradition up through Hegel and Nietzsche is ontotheology, the metaphysics of presence.

He's expressing Schopenhauer's pessimism. He's saying consciousness itself is dependent on dissatisfaction. The only place where wholeness and perfection exist is in oblivion.

The drive to answer the unanswered question is ontic here. The one will drives everything from where it is to somewhere else. This shows up in consciousness as dissatisfaction.

This is a hard deterministic picture though. There are no choices and "ought" does not have meaning relative to some external Good. There are no metaphysical oughts. The drive to move is all that exists.

↪Joshs
He's expressing Schopenhauer's pessimism. He's saying consciousness itself is dependent on dissatisfaction. The only place where wholeness and perfection exist is in oblivion. — frank

Except that Nietzsche is no pessimist. I was being lazy in throwing that quote out there. I should have explained metaphysical oughts myself. A metaphysical, theoretical or
perceptual interpretation about an aspect of the world commits itself to certain expectations about the way things should be. What lies outside of the range of convenience of that interpretive understanding may not be seen all, it may be seen as confused or non-sensical, or it may be construed in social terms as an ethical violation of accepted standards. In this way, all understanding is normative, defining its own limits of the acceptable and intelligible. The ‘neutral’ is never divorced from some stance or other arising from the messy business of assessing competing claims to validity within a diverse community. It is my notion of the neutral or your notion of the neutral or their notion of the neutral, but there is no sideways on viewpoint to retreat to.