There is, however, a very serious societal problem if that large a number of people are pushed that often to mass murder. — Isaac

Yes, which is why I dedicated an entire thread to it here.

Not sweeping it under the rug. But the issue here is gun control, and since other countries don’t have the mass shootings we do, despite the same problems with “mental health,” we should be emphasizing that.

And I don’t see the gun lobby pointing out the US’s outlier status. If they do, they talk about mental health. It’s simply the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” slogan masquerading as concern for healthcare — which the same people want destroyed.

Each dot is a country. If I told you the y axis was number of mass shootings and the x axis was number of guns, what do you think a rational human would conclude?

Any guesses on what country the top right dot is?

If the answer were no, wouldn't we expect to see similar events carried out with other weapons happening in the UK? People have committed massacres with common household objects like kitchen knives. Stomach churning to think about it, but alas there it is... — Tzeentch

In China, about a dozen seemingly random attacks on schoolchildren killed 25 people between 2010 and 2012. Most used knives; none used a gun.

By contrast, in this same window, the United States experienced five of its deadliest mass shootings, which killed 78 people. Scaled by population, the American attacks were 12 times as deadly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html

Its hard to settle on a specific breakdown of contributing factors but it seems to me that mental health is a significant factor yet gets ignored by and large. — DingoJones

On the contrary, it’s the go-to argument of the NRA-owned GOP. It also happens to be completely bogus.

In fact some research suggests that mental illness was a factor in 4% of mass shootings.

Once we get guns into everyone’s hands, as the gun manufacturers want, then at long last gun violence will be solved.

We’ll finally reach the lower levels of mass shootings achieved by…every other nation on earth.

Opioid crisis solution: give EVERYONE opioids!

All of this is a natural consequence of one stupid belief drilled into American brains for decades: everything the government does is bad. This belief was developed by the corporate sector so as to reduce regulations and increase profits.

You don't think kids committing mass murders is a mental health issue? — Tzeentch

Mass murders that wouldn’t happen without powerful weapons. Japan, Italy, Brazil, Britain, France, China…all have people with depression, anxiety, despair, violent ideation, suicidal ideation, etc. None have the rates of mass shootings that we do. Why?

To argue it’s because we have a greater rate of mental health issues is factually incorrect.

One has to really try hard to avoid the obvious: it’s guns.

But the fact of the matter is that the frequency and extent of damage is nowhere near comparable. — Fooloso4

True, but also: it’s laughable to say people who want to do something WILL do something, and that having easy access to particular means is irrelevant. Yes, I suppose you could run someone over with a bicycle or try to kill people by knife…but the results are going to be much, much different than a truck or AR-15.

So the mental gymnastics is fun to watch, but don’t try to make sense of it.

It’s hard to imagine continuing to hold beliefs that lead to laughable conclusions, over and over again.

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
“Government is the problem.”

Simple slogans for simple minds.

:rofl:

Indeed.

Gun worshippers have no real argument. So don’t expect much except motivated reasoning.

Anyway - we require licenses and training to drive a car. It’s not a human right to own one. It’s not a human right to own a gun either. This is true despite what years of gun manufacturing propaganda — linking guns with “freedom” that so-called libertarians lap up like slaves — has to say about it.

I'm just saying, if your young'uns are massacring each other with assault rifles, your gun legislation is not the only thing that's rotten. — Tzeentch

Mental health problems exist all over the world. Rates are not higher in the United States than elsewhere. The reason we’re an outlier in mass shootings is that we’re an outlier in the amount of guns (and the ease of acquiring them).

Plenty to say about mental health, but this is not a mental health issue, it’s a gun control issue. When you have a country run by gun nuts and politicians bought by the NRA, it creates an environment where anyone can get a gun — including assault weapons.

Result: same rates of mental illness, but much higher rates of mass shootings. It’s not that complicated, despite efforts to make it seem so.

Heidegger traces the modern idea of being as persisting presence to Descartes — Joshs

But being as constant presence isn’t a modern idea really. It goes back to the Greeks. I think he’s quite clear about that. Ousia, etc.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your wording.

This persistent presence could be understood to be dependent on consciousness, on the perceiver, or it could be taken, as it is with materialist metaphysics, to be prior to consciousness. a persistent presence that is "there" regardless of whether it is being perceived or not. — Janus

I think this is the subject/object thing again. I don’t think it’s either. There’s simply being in the world. However, once in a present-at-hand mode of being, a subject contemplating an object makes sense. In that case, sure, it’s dependent on consciousness — and everything Kant says rings true, etc.

Another mass shooting. Good time to point out, once more:

1) it’s the guns.
2) the Republican Party will continue to block any solutions, because they care more about money than children’s lives.

Simple truths get lost in a sea of bullshit, so it’s worth reminding ourselves occasionally.

[I’m posting this here because I don’t think my comments are relevant to the “Heidegger’s Downfall” thread.]

The tradition has always treated being as a persisting presence.
— Joshs

Present to who, though? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say being has mostly been thought as persisting existence or simply persistence, rather than persisting presence? Unless you mean presence to denote simply a general "thereness", rather than something perceived, or even merely perceptible in prinicple. — Janus

This is interesting. I’ve always taken “presence” to be connected with presence-at-hand — i.e., the mode of being we’re in when contemplating things, when things break down. Something like the centipede effect. It’s something derivative and emerges out of a more basic human state, the ready-to-hand — the realm of habit, skill, automaticity, “second nature” actions, etc.

So it’s not perception, but a certain kind of interaction with the world. On this basis do nearly all philosophers begin their philosophy, and so everything said is biased towards an objectifying or “substance-ifying” (ousia) interpretation of the world.

But I’m open to different interpretations.

His understanding of being and time, of history unfolding, cannot be separated from what he claimed had come to be in that here and now, — Fooloso4

Yes it can. Simply asserting it doesn’t make it true.

Guessing a bit, the point in many of these threads, so far as I can see, is that Heidegger is not only, say, unintelligible or hard to understand, but also that because he was a Nazi, he is not worth reading.

If it's not something like that, then why so much insistence on him being a Nazi? — Manuel

I think it’s exactly that. Especially among people who already thought he was a charlatan or too obscure. Now they can dismiss it all easily. One of my heroes, Chomsky, does exactly this —incidentally.

Understandable, but not very persuasive. Being and Time is still amazing, in my view. I’m open to being shown that it isn’t— but no one has done that yet.

it is, however, like the Nazi bible — 180 Proof

Says who? I’ve read it several times, and I see no relation to the “nazi Bible,” even if Heidegger liked Hitler’s writings.

And this is coming from someone who thinks less of his work than I used to. But, I cannot deny it has value, just like people here get massive amounts of value from Wittgenstein or Nietzsche or Husserl, Ayer, etc. And we all can make arguments for why any of these figures here shouldn't be as influential. — Manuel

:up:

My feeling as well.

Absolutely read him like a Nazi. Does that mean a phenomenological "sense of community", as Heidegger's described it, is a Nazi concept? Remains to be seen. — fdrake

It’s not a sense of community. The “they” can be thought as something like Freud’s superego— the sense of what “they” think and “they” believe. The masses, the mainstream, the general culture, this vague sense of “what one does.”

You’re all really stretching this if you’re arguing the “they” or “one” or “das man” is somehow referring to the Jews or anyone non-German. It may seem right on the surface, but I really can’t see how it makes sense to anyone who’s spent any considerable time reading Heidegger.

So yes, read him as a Nazi. Read Schopenhauer as an asshole. Read Wittgenstein as an abuser of children. Read Descartes as someone who justified cruelty to animals. Etc. But let’s be careful in making connections that aren’t there— and really don’t make sense in context if they were.

So imagine substituting “jews” for “they” in B&T. Would that make any sense whatsoever? No. It’d be completely incoherent.

I think it’s worthwhile to go back and look to see if there are any connections, given what we know now. I’m just not yet convinced of any.

Who are those from whom he does and does not distinguish himself? It is the Volk (the Folk) from whom he does not distinguish himself. — Fooloso4

But you said that— he didn’t. At least not in your quote. I read it as conforming to an ambiguous “they”.

Is this the claim that is being made in the reviews or in the book itself? Or in this thread, even? — Jamal

Not that exact wording, but something like it yes. If not, who cares? Plenty of thinkers — and artists, and scientists — were fairly nasty people. If the point is to shed some light on that, cool. Not sure what it has to do with questions or arguments though.

As a matter of hermeneutic scruple, SuZ should be read in that cultural-ideological context; I don't think my characterization above is hyperbolic or uncharitable considering the Völkische Bewegung milieu. — 180 Proof

No, I don’t think it’s uncharitable. You make interesting points.

I just don’t see much in the text itself — you mentioned “blood” and “soil,” but where in the text does it mention either to any significant degree? I think the anti-modernist claim is also wrong — I see why people would think it, given the focus on simple tool use and simple, average ways of interacting with the everyday world — but he’s not anti-technology or anti-modernity, in my reading.

Anyway — if it was all an elaborate system created to justify deeply held antisemitic and German nationalist sentiments, then why is there so little evidence in the text for it?

Being and Time was published in 1927, well before Nazis came to power. There’s nothing in there about Nazism. There’s a long analysis about the question of being, its history, and its relevance to what a human being is and what time is. If all of this was somehow an elaborate justification for antisemitism or racist theories, I see zero evidence for it.

That being said, it’s become clearer that Heidegger was an asshole and a nazi. But I figured most knew that already. Doesn’t undermine his analysis, in my view.

So when there’s more violence, I guess Trump is off the hook again. Since he said “protest.” Nothing predictable about all this…

MAGA nation seems riled up. Lots of Twitter posts, oh no!

All because their criminal hero is throwing a toddler tantrum over (maybe) being held accountable for one of his many crimes -- this one being fairly minor compared to others.

I think the Fed is now busy saving the banking system... again. — ssu

One consequence of fighting inflation, as Powell has stated, is that ordinary Americans will have to go through some "pain." We know what this means. They want unemployment higher, wages to "stabilize," etc. But yes, right now they're worried about the banks. Good! Fuck 'em. Puts them in a real bind which I'm very happy to see. Of course, they'll choose the banks first and foremost.

All this talk of inflation during a time of unprecedented wealth and prosperity. Soaring profits, massive taxpayer handouts to Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Things are great. Sure, it’s great for the top .1%, but according to the law of trickle down, it’ll eventually come to the lower 80%.

Eventually.

In the meantime, something must be done about the fact that we gave working people checks two years ago — and higher wages for, you know, risking their health to keep the economy going. That cannot go unpunished.

Please try to bring it back to arguments.

All these best picture winners of the 80s I never saw until recently — Chariots of Fire, Ghandi, Out of Africa, the Last Emperor, etc— have such similar feels: they’re mostly boring as shit, but have some great features — scores, some great photography, some great acting. Sprawling epics. But the stories and pacing and length — oy.

A lot of political correctness to boot.

They also were the start, in my opinion, of Oscar-baiting movies, carefully crafted for critical praise. Dances with Wolves— a 1990 film and movie I’ve always loved — is in this tradition too.

Simple: whatever age I am when I die.

Now that I think about it, perhaps this is a better thread to discuss being: What is Being?

That seems to be the only interesting part of his claim.

ChatGPT — Wayfarer

We’re citing ChatGBT now? Have you really been reduced to this? :wink:

As I asked already, does Jung mean by this that consciousness is a pre-condition for the existence of rocks?
— Wayfarer

Yes.

Rocks are part of the world, right? So no world, no rocks.
— Mikie

So you agree then that the world is created by consciousness. — Wayfarer

Depends on what we mean by “world,” of course. If we restrict world to linguistic, perceptual or abstract entities, then sure. But he says consciousness is a precondition of “being.” If by ‘being’ he means the world of aforementioned entities, then sure. But I’m not convinced of this.

I think he’s taking an idealist view, basically.

As I asked already, does Jung mean by this that consciousness is a pre-condition for the existence of rocks? — Wayfarer

Yes.

Rocks are part of the world, right? So no world, no rocks.

Rocks are not conscious, but they are still “things” — they are still beings in that sense. They have existence, they “are.” They show up in the world for a human being to perceive and label “r-o-c-k.”

“Beings” are things. “Beings” is not reserved strictly for sentient beings. It can be, sure, but that’s not the common usage in ontology.

In my defense, I'm English. — Isaac

Ah, I forgot. In that case, I’ll let it slide.

Damn you Isaac— Couldn’t just give me 5 minutes, could you?

Some good news:

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