Bold Standard
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Posts posted by Bold Standard
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Yeesh, welcome to the machine.. [rant]Sometimes, when I let or make myself sit and think about it, it really blows my mind that a government can be so corrupt, and so blatantly and shamelessly exploit its citizens, and with such pathetically feeble and illogical reasons and justifications provided, and yet the majority of supposedly freedom loving people simply accept it and obediently submit to it, not only failing to oppose it but even usually to accept it as a moral duty. The fact that this is the freest country in the world and the freest in history doesn't make it any easier for me to comprehend this--At least the more explicit and more consistently totalitarian countries often have the excuse that the truth is obstructed by force, and that ideological dissent is illegal. In this country, the choice is available, and people still continue to choose more and more statism and human sacrifice.For $168,000 and above the current federal income tax rate in the US is 35%. This of course excludes state income tax which is generally between 5-10%, social sceurity and medicare which end up being about 15%, unemployment another 2%, property tax on your house which varies greatly(ask mweiss about how much this can be), sales tax, auto registration, capital gains tax which is 38% on any increase in value of your saved investments, if you have any money left when you die, 50% of it will be taken as well on any amount over 625K. Further, if you are a doctor, due to a defunct legal system, you can expect to pay unreasonable amount for malpractice insurance. (Roughly, on average $20,000/month in florida.
have a nice dayI'm not a pessimist, and I believe there is hope for future change, and I acknowledge the many people who are fighting and winning various battles to preserve those freedoms we do still have. But still, to think of the actual gravity of the crimes which our government is now getting away with; and to think of the many ways *my* rights have been and are being and will be violated by those people in my country who are the government, it really pisses me off. Yeah, it could be worse, but it should be better.[/rant]
This is logical, but unfortunately the government cares more about power than money. More unfortunately, the type of "increasing certain freedoms will boost productivity and lead to more forcibly acquired tax revenue which will lead to a more powerful State" argument is pretty much what modern conservatives, alleged defenders of capitalism, have been reduced to. (See The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism by C Bradley Tompson for more info on that).I have to mention the irony: I would be working more hours (more $ for government), but its illegal! Limiting hours is also a lose lose situation, for me and the government. -
God.. You think so? Literal ones? Why? (I hope not!) : /There will always be Nazis -
Roughly stated, Godwin's Law states that, in any debate on an internet forum, as time moves along the probability of Nazi/Hitler comparisons approaches 1. Whoever is the first to invoke such a comparison automatically loses the debate. Comes in quite handy against wacko leftists who think that capitalism is synonymous with Nazism.
I bet that Law would also come in handy if you were a Nazi.
Damn, I think I just lost... (j/k) -
What do you mean when you say that any mental concrete has a (its?) physical form? Do you mean that an idea of "cow" corresponds to the physical firing of neurons in a specific way in the brain? Or do you mean that an idea of "cow" corresponds to an actual physical cow that exists?Any mental concrete has a its physical form (for instance your idea of "cow"), though what makes mental existents particularly interesting is that you can't integrate them at the physical level, that is, the concept "cow" doesn't have an extractable physical form for all consciousnesses. A mental existent can affect the universe only via the "physical" interface.But unless your arguing from materialism, the question of whether mental existents must have physical counterparts would seem to be scientific rather than philosophical, since I don't see how you could derive it axiomatically, in the way that you can derive that both mental existents and physical existents exist (and are not the same thing).
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I love poetry, and read it often. I especially like poetry from the Renaissance through the 19th Century. I love Swinburne, Goethe, and Edmund Rostand (who wrote Cyrano de Bergerac--I think that play is a great sales pitch for poetry, if you get the right translation).
I'm one of the two people who likes to hear poetry recited the best. I prefer hearing poetry recited by a professional reader, because when I read it myself, I usually have to read or skim every line first, and then go back and read it once I figure out how the rhythm is supposed to go, which kind of takes the initial surprise away from hearing it perfect the first time. If the reader really gets it right, then I can just sit back and enjoy the poem all the way through as it was intended to be presented.
But a truly talented reader is about as rare as a truly talented poet, and sometimes even when a poet reads his own works, he gets it wrong.
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"Hello, fat, lovely maid. Why, thank you for asking about my coat, and yes, it was"
"There's a note for your Madam, and bringing it to you fills my heart with joy, since I love to serve"
Lol, oh yeah, I have to comment on this, too. The people in this picture could never say those things! Did you look at the expressions on their faces at all?? The last thing on the Mistress' mind is idle chit chat. She is greatly concerned about the contents of that letter--she looks as though, at that moment, the letter is all that exists for her! And the Maid is not thinking about how her heart is filled with joy. She's obviously concerned for the Mistress, at the same time being polite in delivering the letter.
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Yes, Misstress and maid, is superb. It bring to mind the following dialogue:
"Hello, my mistress, that's a fine yellow raincoat with dalmatic fur you've got there. Was that designed by the fire-fighters department?"
"Hello, fat, lovely maid. Why, thank you for asking about my coat, and yes, it was"
"There's a note for your Madam, and bringing it to you fills my heart with joy, since I love to serve"
"Leave it on the table..."
Nothing like fat people, a dark room, a maid and a yellow raincoat to present the romantic side of life.
You said that Larsen's paintings "bare no justice to what the ideal of our philosophy has the capacity to look like", so thank you for showing us how the ideal should look like.
I think Vermeer's work is superb, and much superior to anything by Larsen, especially in style but also in theme. I don't get the sarcasm.. Regarding your dialog, for one thing, in 1666, when Vermeer painted this piece, in Delft, the mistress' wardrobe was the height of fashion. Compare this to the girl in Winter Evening, whose wardrobe is not the hight of fashion, but rather a very plain, unspectacular outfit that could be bought cheaply at any generic department store. Not to mention that in Vermeer's painting, the outfit is rendered superbly, and looks realer than real, whereas in Larson's painting, the outfit is rendered approximately, and looks only slightly realer than a typical comic book illustration.
Thematically, Vermeer's work is full of mystery, and tension--a hundred stories come to mind that could explain the scene and you wonder what happens next. Larsen's painting is full of the familiar, the comfortable, the undramatic, and you know exactly what's going to happen next, and probably for the next four hours--there will probably be more activity coming from the window in the background than from the figure represented.
In Vermeer's painting, every detail is presented with astonishing detail, from the objects on the table, to the many different textures of fabric, to the jewelry. Any time I look at a Vermeer painting, I walk away seeing everything as more vivid than I did before, because his vision was so intense. In Larsen's painting, some things are vivid and detailed, such as the shadows on her arm. But some things are sloppy and pretty cheesy and fake looking--check out the metal in the fireplace! Vermeer would never paint something metal without making it jump out of the picture at you.
As to what the ideal of our philosophy looks like, if "our philosophy" is supposed to mean Objectivism, I will point out that Ayn Rand did call Vermeer "the greatest of all artists" (The Romantic Manifesto, pg. 48). Although she criticized Vermeer for being too naturalistic, his works still strike me as being more romantic than Larsen's, whose themes often strike me as being a little trite, if not boring. I agree with Mr. Sandberg's evaluation of Larsen. I think Larsen has potential, but is far from greatness as an artist.
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I just posted two new songs on my Myspace page.
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But you do have faith in Senators to make the right decision?Not to mention, I have absolutely no faith in the American voter to make the right decision. -
My questions -
[*]Do you believe we freely "choose" to be rational/irrational (obviously it's a matter of degree), or are some of us, at least to some extent, naturally predisposed to having an interest and ability in being rational, as some are naturally interested and predisposed to being good at math, art, or social ability?
As the others have said, I believe that the choice to think or not is the basic choice, and that it is a choice. But to address your specific question--I think that a person who knows what it means to be rational can make the principled choice to be rational, and I think that is what most rational people do. I think in most cases, irrational people do not make the principled choice to be irrational, but rather fail to make the principled choice to be rational. This leads them to be rational in some cases, and irrational in others.
There are some who attempt to make the principled choice to be irrational, such as the German Romanticists and Irrationalists of the 19th century, and their modern followers. But life requires some rationality, even if you believe that Will or Instinct or something else supersedes reason.
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The formal name of this argument for the existence of God is "the argument from design." I agree with you that created things are more "purposeful" than merely existential things, since only living things are capable of purposeful behavior, and arranging things according to a teleological end. But I don't see in what way created things are more "organized."Here it is: when you look at nature, at rocks, water, wind, etc', they never seem to organize themselves into an organized shape, or something complex like a living entity. On the other hand, the products created by man (and animals) are more sophisticated, more organized, purposeful (like a nest, an egg, a computer, etc').It seems to me that the molecular structures of inanimate objects, for instance, are as fantastically well organized as just about anything created by living things (maybe more so). And the same goes for other natural phenomena--celestial formations, topographic evolution, chemical reactions, etc.
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Hm, really? Could you give some specific examples of that? It seems to me that 19th Century writers were often critical of Enlightenment writers, and Enlightenment writers critical of Renaissance writers, and so on. I agree that the trend of the past 100+ years has been towards more cynicism, and that that's not good; but I'm not aware of *most* writers a hundred years ago looking at their predecessors as "blemish free."I do think that if we step back a century or so, people of that time looked back at their historical heroes as nearly blemish-free. -
You got it right. For any bath they'd take on an exchange rate basis they gain so very much more marketing wise. Plus they garner some of the us vs them viva la raza sentiment.
There was one near my old house when I lived in the heart of Houston. It wasn't bad pizza. Especially good was the pepperoni and jalapeno. It grows on you.
Oh, they've got them here? I haven't eaten there yet. Well, I'm curious now. I think the marketing ploy has worked on me.
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I thought this was interesting. I've never heard someone express this view point before. How did you come to that conclusion? Who has time to pursue a business career and at the same time get a masters degree?I've kind of thrown out majoring in business, because I feel like you should pursue a career you love and *then* get a masters in business if you need one. -
Ha-Well, I hope you know you don't need to cower on my account, since I respect your literary opinion more than anyone else's I know.At the risk of outing myself as an extreme minority here…I like this poem. (Charlotte cowers)
I'll grant you that it's not the worst--not anything approaching the worst. But what I see in Eliot is the beginning of the end in poetry. Between 1919 and now, there has been a lot of poetry that is a lot worse than this--pretty much all of the beat poets wrote worse stuff, IMO. But would any of that have been possible if not for Eliot, and those like him such as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein? Undoubtedly the majority of poems written since 1919 have been worse than this. But what about the majority of poems written between the Renaissance and 1919? Were they worse or better? I think most of them were better--most that I've read, anyway.It is not the best poem I have read, but it is not the worst. And there is much more in its favor than “that it rhymes”.There is clever analogy, as in “Streets that follow like a tedious argument,” where the reader (or at least this reader) steps back to marvel at the unique comparison made, sensing a familiarity in it.Hmm.. That's actually a simile rather than an analogy, isn't it? Maybe I would be able to appreciate the comparison if you would be willing to explain it to me. What does "Streets that follow" mean? Arguments can follow, and people can follow streets, but what does it mean to say streets that follow? Follow what?
Yeah, I guess those are some strengths of the poem besides the rhyme scheme.In speaking of the fog there is personification, that it “Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,” and the image is quite poignant. One can sense the thick movement of the fog, feel the weight of an evening in which it lingers. He backs up the personification with imagery, as in “And seeing that it was a soft October night,/Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.” The soothing feel of these lines is carefully crafted, in the consonance of the S sound and the sparse but selective use of adjectives (i.e., “soft” and “October”).That the events and people Eliot references are ambiguous is not, to me, the point. I presume that he wrote this with his own intent, and so whether or not the readers knew who the women talking of Michelangelo were, or represented, was not his priority.Hmm. I'm not sure I understand this. Was The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock discovered in a private diary of T.S. Eliot's, and not intended for publication? I thought it was intended for a general audience. Is it appropriate for an author to fill his works with "inside" references that an audience would be incapable of grasping, without knowing the author personally (or, perhaps, without being the author, or perhaps, not even then)? Should intelligible communication not be an author's priority? Why does one write, then? Why show anybody?
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I'd like to respond to this, since I don't entirely agree with y_feldblum's response. It's true that Objectivism rejects materialism, since materialism denies the existence of the mind, and that Objectivism rejects positivism for many reasons.I joined this group to learn more about this perceived to be atheistic philosophy, which appears to be allied with materialism, positivism, and empiricism.But, technically speaking, Objectivism could be considered a form of empiricism. Empiricism simply means the belief that all knowledge is derived from experience, and that there are no innate ideas. In that sense, Ayn Rand was an empiricist. The confusion comes from the modern tradition of empiricism beginning in the 18th century with David Hume. Starting with Hume, and ever since then, most (virtually all) empiricists have also been nominalists and sensualists. Since Ayn Rand rejected nominalism and sensualism, many people think that she couldn't be an empiricist. But there is nothing inherent in empiricism which suggests that it must incorporate nominalism or sensualism. Empiricism existed before nominalism and sensualism. Aristotle is also properly considered to be an empiricist, but not a nominalist or sensualist.
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The Ayn Rand Institute website has a lot of good introductory information <-(if you click on that it should take you there).So where do you all think is a good place to start reading and getting acquainted? Obviously the intro to Objectivism is the first stop. But are there any other areas that would be a great intro to this site and Objectivism? Also are there any meetup type groups out in So Cal? I live close to Huntington Beach. Thanks you guys!I don't think that someone who loves Atlas Shrugged as much as you will be in any way disappointed with Ayn Rand's other works. As works of fiction, The Fountainhead, Anthem, and We the Living are all fantastic as well, as are her plays and screenplays (such as Ideal, Good Copy, and Night of January 16th).
The first non-fiction book that I read by her (actually, the very first thing I read by her) was Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Although it was a lot of information for me to absorb, it laid a great foundation for my further studies of philosophy in general, and Objectivism in particular, and it remains my favorite non-fiction book. The Virtue of Selfishness is fantastic, and I'd say very much in the style of Atlas Shrugged. It was written not long after (AS was published in 1957, VOS in 1964). Philosophy: Who Needs It would also probably be a good introduction--to Objectivism and also to philosophy in general [to give you a hint about the content of this book: it's not a rhetorical question! ; )].
As to an introduction to the forum, I'd suggest just clicking on whatever is interesting to you, and skipping any threads that don't catch your interest in the first few posts.
Also, don't be shy about digging up ancient threads that haven't had any responses in months or years. That's one of the things that makes Internet forums nice--you can pick up on an old conversation anytime. Of course, you can't expect the original posters on that thread to necessarily still be around.
You'll probably want to check out the Forum Rules (most message boards have these, and it's always good to look them over, because different forums often have different guidelines).
Welcome aboard. : )
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Hello, nice to see you here. I didn't know you wrote for the Atlasphere. Actually, my opinion of the Atlasphere just improved about 700% with that information. How long have you been writing for them? I haven't been to their website in a couple of years. I wonder if its content and format has changed much since then.Many of you may know me already from the Forum for Ayn Rand Fans and/or my writings on the Atlasphere. -
Hate to bump such an old thread but my experience has been similar. David Kelley association does not bother me personally (I keep it in context - it is a minor flaw in comparision to all the possible flaws
) - it is the fact that all the people I have met through the Atlasphere dating section were not interested in O'ism and it was after having read AS or TF. I have met few crazy Libertarians (with the big "L") though! (and I mean crazy - literally).Wow, hm. I haven't been to the Atlasphere website in a couple of years, since the Kelley/Buddhism/Libertarian thing does bother me. But still, I'm a little surprised and impressed that it's grown to the extent that there is a substantial amount of people one could meet up with in Canada. Are there a lot of Objectivists or even Libertarians in Vancouver?
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Some? Who, him and his friends? : P Some have argued the same thing about Green Eggs and Ham, I'm sure. The question is--why should their opinions matter?T.S. Eliot...I'm sure you've at least heard of him if not read him extensively in a college literature class. My English teacher gave us "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to read last week. He said (and I tried to find criticism to support this but couldn't find it) that this poem was argued by some to be the best poem ever written in Western literature.
That was the poet's intent.Keeping this in mind, I read it. I didn't really understand it
I'm not sure if the poem deserves such a generous interpretation, but maybe that will make it easier to get through the class.This poem, which I will post if someone hasn't read it and wants to check it out, doesn't directly show how man ought to be. Instead, Eliot writes about how most men are very self-conscious, somewhat pretentious, and constantly concerned with what society will think of them. He displays these characteristics of man, however, not to advocate them or even indifferently state them. The poem, at least from what I could understand, serves to really warn the reader of the stifled and restrictive life one leads when he is constantly worried what other people think and doesn't really act on his own beliefs because he is too scared his ideas will be rejected by others.
I could only find one specific reference to TS Eliot in The Objectivism Research CD-ROM, and it was from Leonard Peikoff, not Ayn Rand. It's from The Ominous Parallels, which is a book that analyzes the cultural/philosophical trends in Germany which led to the rise of Nazism, and compares them to trends in America. (A very interesting book, btw).Is this poem's technique of conveying a message, from an Objectivist point of view, aesthetically good? He doesn't directly show how one ought to be, but he presents a contrast of how man is now and by his tone, it is evident that he thinks people should act differently.The last of the nineteenth-century defenders of laissez-faire were gone. The schools and colleges were not turning out replacements. Although Progressivism had faded, its major cultural ally was flourishing: the twenties marked the emergence of Progressive education as a national force. For the first time, the ideas of the new educators gained a mass base, spreading beyond a comparatively small vanguard to engulf the children of the middle class. Increasingly, the children were hearing more about feelings and less about objective reality; they were also hearing more about social responsibility and less about the country's past. A generation was losing the knowledge of what the American system had originally been.At the same time, the avant-garde, led by a group of expatriates, was introducing a similar perspective into the arts; it was presiding over the first major eruption in America of the modernist revolt against objectivity and the nineteenth century. Obediently imitating their old-world mentors, fawning over Continental decadence while cursing the "philistine Americans," the Pound-Eliot-Stein axis and its equivalents in the other arts were turning out free verse, stream-of-consciousness novels, expressionist plays, "abstract" paintings, nonintelligible forms, nongraspable symbols, obscurity as a means of "bourgeoisie"-baiting, obscurity offered as spirituality, obscurity for its own sake. The artists said they were bored by life in the United States; they found European manifestations they could admire. The work of Paul Klee, boasted the newly founded Museum of Modern Art during the painter's American debut in 1930, "makes the flesh creep by creating a spectre fresh from a nightmare."
America was still decades away from the cultural condition of Germany. At one time, however, the distance between them would have had to be measured in light years.
(The "Pound-Eliot-Stein axis" is a reference to Ezra Pound, TS Eliot, and Gertrude Stein).
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1919)The one thing I can say good about this poem is: at least it rhymes!
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosseA persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
[...]Talking of Michelangelo.
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Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter
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To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead
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No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
I think it's pretty lame when a poet as poor as Eliot fills his works with references to better artists, poets, and writers. It's as though he hopes that his poem will be improved by the strength of their reputations.
What a repulsive couplet that is!Time to turn back and descend the stair,With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
It's a testament to the unintelligibility of modernist poems that one as short as this one can have 9 footnotes, and they add almost nothing to the meaning of the poem. For instance, number 4. Well, duh about him being a Renaissance artist (though I wonder if Eliot really thought he was great)--but does anyone have a clue what he has to do with this poem?(1) A passage from Dante Alighieri's Inferno (Canto 27, lines 61-66) spoken by Guido da Montefeltro in response to the questions of Dante, who Guido supposes is dead, since he is in Hell:. The flame in which Guido is encased vibrates as he speaks: "If I thought that that I was replying to someone who would ever return to the world, this flame would cease to flicker. But since no one ever returns from these depths alive, if what I've heard is true, I will answer you without fear of infamy."(2) Anesthetized with ether; but also suggesting "made etherial," less real.
(3) Cheap bars and restaurants used to spread sawdust on the floor to soak up spilled beer, etc.
(4) The great Renaissance Italian artist.
(5) Cookies and ice cream.
(6) Like John the Baptist (see Matthew 14: 1-12)
(7) A man raised from death by Jesus (see John 11: 1-44).
(8) Early form of slide projector.
(9) Shakespeare's sensitive hero known for procrastination.
Personally, I love poetry. But I don't like this or anything else I've read by TS Eliot. What's the point of reading [or writing] something if its meaning is entirely ambiguous? Besides getting a grade in a class, which is a good reason if you want to do good in the class, but I mean other than that.This would be an example of the sort of thing that I point to when people ask me "Why do you dislike poetry?" -
There are people who love to discredit prominent figures, and even worse, some who love to discredit great innovators, political liberators, and industrialists in particular. That type of cynicism is one of my pet peeves too. However, I think looking critically at the lives of prominent and even heroic historical figures can be an important and productive activity, if not done with the goal of denigrating greatness. To use Thomas Edison as an example--I'm not familiar with accusations of antisemitism with him. But there are some things he did that I think are pretty despicable. The worst is that he not infrequently attempted to use political pull to initiate force against and immorally eliminate his competition. For instance, he initiated the most infuriating campaign against AC power, in favor of his far inferior DC electrical generation, which if it had been successful would have slowed down progress in this country to an almost unimaginable degree. Based on the arguments he presented against AC at that time, I wouldn't be surprised if he would have had more success convincing a modern American government to ban it than he did then, if he were arguing it today instead (not knowing everything we do now about it, but only the information we had at the time). Something like that is important to know about one of the greatest inventors in American history--not because it illustrates his dark side and proves that "nobody's perfect" or any of that sort of nonsense. But because of what it teaches us about history and about the psychology of those great historical figures who we can admire and at the same time view critically.You are definitely right that many people love to discredit prominent figures in history. A good example is Thomas Edison, who is often accused of anti-semitism but I presently see no reason to believe that he was anything more than a curmudgeon.
Interesting--my knowledge on this issue of Ford and antisemitism is extremely sketchy, and I'd never heard of this apology before.. It's encouraging and I hope it's true, but I'd like to research it some more when I have time.Anyway, for what it's worth, here are snippets from the apology as reported on one web-site... -
However, publishing and sponsoring articles isn't technically his "personal life," but his public life, which perhaps shouldn't matter either, since it was predominantly his professional life which was interesting.Unless you were writing a biography about him, his personal life shouldn't really matter.But his public life does have relevance to world history (such as his influence on events of WWII and Nazism) which is perhaps of broader interest than a mere biography of Henry Ford would be.
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Wow, I've never seen that premise expressed that way. But I've seen people act as though they thought like that! In fact, when I am forced to spend a lot of time with a group of people who all share a same point of view which is foreign to me, sometimes it does seem like the whole world is going crazy, or I am, and not just those people (but if I think about it, of course I'm aware that it's only an odd sensation, and that I know it's really just them [edit: as opposed to reality]). How did you come up with that formulation? Very interesting.Another option is that you feel that by not agreeing with you, they somehow transform reality into "their view"? And that the new reality is bad, and must be changed back.I'm not sure if this is relevant to your situation, but I remember ayn rand saying something to the extent of "love people for their virtues, not their vices." try not to think about your friends' problems, but focus on what is good about them. After I got into Objectivism, people really started to bug me, it seemed like everybody was a mindless sheep. After awhile, I learned to just not care if people don't live up to my standards, and only associate with people in situations where they could.
It didn't sound familiar to me either, so I skimmed around that part of the book to see if I could find what kufa meant.Where does she say this? It doesn't at all strike me as familiar.This is the closest part I could find--is this what you're talking about, kufa? If so, I'm very interested in how you think it is related to the current discussion. Not that I think it's not, just that it's not obvious to me how, exactly.
I'll admit, when I read "I remember ayn rand saying something to the extent of 'love people for their virtues, not their vices,'" my reaction was, "Love someone for their vices? But why would anyone do that??" I'm glad she explains it. : )Love is our response to our highest values—and can be nothing else. Let a man corrupt his values and his view of existence, let him profess that love is not self-enjoyment but self-denial, that virtue consists, not of pride, but of pity or pain or weakness or sacrifice, that the noblest love is born, not of admiration, but of charity, not in response to values, but in response to flaws—and he will have cut himself in two. His body will not obey him, it will not respond, it will make him impotent toward the woman he professes to love and draw him to the lowest type of whore he can find. His body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions; if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned existence as evil and only the evil will attract him. He has damned himself and he will feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying. He has equated virtue with pain and he will feel that vice is the only realm of pleasure. Then he will scream that his body has vicious desires of its own which his mind cannot conquer, that sex is sin, that true love is a pure emotion of the spirit. And then he will wonder why love brings him nothing but boredom, and sex—nothing but shame.
Why do you make this distinction? It seems highly unusual to me--isn't a debate usually considered to be a type of discussion?I consider a debate to be something you undertake primarily to win. A discussion is something undertaken primarily to gain knowledge. -
...On the topic of flukey quotes, it didn't take me long from scrolling through that quotes page to find this: "Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on earth to do. With such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.-- Vincent Van Gogh"
Oh yeah? First of all, your profession doesn't bring home your paycheck? What does, then, Welfare or crime? Second, who "puts" you on earth to do anything. Third, why would anyone have put Van Gogh on earth to do the squiggly, swirly, scribbly monstrosities he was famous for? Fourth, is it supposed to be the profession, the putter, or the way in which you were put that posseses the passion and intensity? Or is it you? It's an ambiguous and poorly worded several sentences, at best! IMO, anyway. : P
Question about Endurance
in Psychology and Self Improvement
Posted · Edited by Bold Standard