Top 5 most damaging philosophies?

@shmikky,

shmikky;12069 wrote:

From your perspective, what five philosophical ideas have had the most damaging impact upon civilization and why?

1) Capitalism (self evident as to why)
2) Christianity, as taught to the masses (God as an 'external only' phenomenon)
3) Democracy that 'sees' corporations as a 'legal person'.
4) Pre-determinism without free will (avoidance of responsibility for one's actions)
5) Trying to get answers for test questions on the internet.

.

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@Play Dough,

Play_Dough wrote:

5) Trying to get answers for test questions on the internet.

.

That's funny right there!

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@shmikky,

Note: This is most likely going to be a largely political thread as many schools of philosophy do not directly affect humnity. They affect humanity several times removed after having been adopted by socio-political structures.
1) Any Sort of Utopianism - Contra-Human Nature
2) Anarchism - too many people with no rule of law is scary
3) Scientific Materialism - Although very uselful as a tool, dimisses a person's non-positive elements
4) Fundamentalism of any sort - Creates dangerous fring elements
5) Solipsism - because if i were a figment of your imagination, all my existential meaning creation was in vain.

1 Reply

@GoshisDead,

1.) Supreme Being. The idea of deities (IMO) has done far more damage than any benefit they may have produced.

2.) Afterlife. The concept of afterlife is also (IMO) more damaging than helpful. I do not think that morality emanates from or requires the concepts of afterlife (or any other religious concept) as some would suggest. Seeking eternal life or other afterlife rewards have been and continue to be very harmful.

3.) Determinism. Thinking that all is under the control of a supreme being and therefore predetermined fate creates the apathy that prevents our controlling things that are well within our control.

4.) Humanism. The idea that humans are superior is the justification for the most egregious acts and wrong headedness of all time. Mans cognition is akin to any other species adaptation to occupier a niche and no more. Our narcissism has always fouled our thinking and continues today.

5.) Nationalism. The false boundaries we erect, and pride in them, has led to much harm (IMO).

Shmikky, thank you for a wonderful question, but you have yet to answer it with your own opinions.

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@shmikky,

Anarchism. Too many people think they know what it is, but have no clue of it.

Freedom of Speech. It doesn't mean you can stomp on people's beliefs and hide behind it...it's a privilege to have, not a weapon.

Theology. I could write a thesis on this one alone, and why it's a bad philosophy.

Women's Suffrage. Too many people misunderstand its' purpose and still try to exploit it.

Self-Empowerment. Damn Tony Little and all the other motivational morons...some people are better left in the dark behind their pessimism and not in the open where they can screw up others like them.

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@Aristoddler,

Dang, this is a difficult topic for me. I'm not sure what to put to down as a deleterious philosophy, since the very idea of what is deleterious presupposes yet another philosophy. The most obvious candidate for me is "Naziism," if one can call that a philosophy. Yet to say that Naziism is harmful is already to have in mind a definition of "harmful," which in turn rests upon an assumption of what is beneficial. Destroying an entire race of people is probably an evil thing to do--most if not all of us would agree on this point. But does our agreement rest on philosophical grounds? In other words, do we know that genocide is bad? Or do we merely believe that it is bad because our common culture tells us as much?

The same thing goes for racism and the philosophies that justify it. Is racism bad? Very likely it is. But do we know that it is bad, or are we just as ignorant as those who defend it and participate in it? If the proposition "racism is bad" is true, then our faith in this proposition is a true belief. However, while it appears self-evident that true beliefs are better than false beliefs, if we are entrenched in either kind, we have no way of knowing which is which.

It would seem, then, that the judgement of particular philosophies can only be made from the standpoint of a meta-philosophy. But how can we determine which philosophy transcends all others, and thus is truly meta?

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@saiboimushi,

saiboimushi wrote:

In other words, do we know that genocide is bad? Or do we merely believe that it is bad because our common culture tells us as much?

Quote:

The same thing goes for racism and the philosophies that justify it. Is racism bad?

Saiboimushi, are you going to defend genocide and racism as not being deleterious?

The thread is asking for a judgment on what you determin the five most deleterious philosophies are.

Quote:

It would seem, then, that the judgement of particular philosophies can only be made from the standpoint of a meta-philosophy. But how can we determine which philosophy transcends all others, and thus is truly meta?

Why must we judge from "the standpoint of meta-philosophy"? I make determinations about philosophies on a regular basis. I can't really "know" that I'm right, but thats another thread entirely.

Smile

1 Reply

@Aristoddler,

Aristoddler wrote:

Women's Suffrage. Too many people misunderstand its' purpose and still try to exploit it.

Aristoddler, would you expound on this one please? I don't get it. Surprised

1 Reply

@ogden,

ogden wrote:

Saiboimushi, are you going to defend genocide and racism as not being deleterious?

This is exactly how Socrates got killed! Many people assume that if you question a doctrine (especially one this sacred), then you must be an advocate of some other, usually contradictory, doctrine. It's hard for people to understand that it is really possible to question in a truly open-ended fashion, without some underlying and potentially sinister motive creeping into the picture. The reason why people have so much trouble understanding this is simple: most of the questioning that humans do IS rhetorical, IS done from a position of advocacy or doctrine. So when I question our sacred beliefs, I am (for natural reasons) confounded with rebels and rabble, lowlifes and know-nothings. Yet I am full of patience and understanding, and am ready to declare, "they know not what they do."

I admit, however, that by questioning sacred beliefs, I am indeed attempting to destroy them. For I am an iconoclast. But even so, you should embrace my surgical method, as false idols are "harmful" to humanity, and the sooner they are destroyed the better! If I can help society to replace belief with knowledge, then am I not its greatest beneficiary? I don't want you to exchange one belief for another--e.g., to stop believing that the holocaust was evil and start believing that it was good. Rather, I want you to come to the knowledge that it was evil! That way you will be better equipped to resist the poisonous charms of eugenic fascism--you will be armed with genuine understanding, which is more powerful than true belief, for true belief can easily be perverted into false belief, whereas understanding wavers not.

But my original point was that the very notion of "deleterious" is vague to me, and so I am unable to say with certainty which philosophies have been the most harmful. This makes me a moral agnostic--a very dangerous thing to be, as this thread clearly demonstrates.

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@ogden,

ogden wrote:

Aristoddler, would you expound on this one please? I don't get it.

It's widely misunderstood.
Therefore, people who try to use it to their advantage often use it incorrectly... Wink

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@saiboimushi,

saiboimushi wrote:

This is exactly how Socrates got killed!

Socrates wasn't killed, he could have fled but he drank poison instead(so they say).

Quote:

Many people assume that if you question a doctrine (especially one this sacred), then you must be an advocate of some other, usually contradictory, doctrine. It's hard for people to understand that it is really possible to question in a truly open-ended fashion, without some underlying and potentially sinister motive creeping into the picture. The reason why people have so much trouble understanding this is simple: most of the questioning that humans do IS rhetorical, IS done from a position of advocacy or doctrine.

Sorry, I didn't realize your questions were rhetorical.

Quote:

So when I question our sacred beliefs, I am (for natural reasons) confounded with rebels and rabble, lowlifes and know-nothings. Yet I am full of patience and understanding, and am ready to declare, "they know not what they do."

Thanks, I guess I am the know-nothing lowlife then, sorry. Smile

Quote:

I admit, however, that by questioning sacred beliefs, I am indeed attempting to destroy them. For I am an iconoclast. But even so, you should embrace my surgical method, as false idols are "harmful" to humanity, and the sooner they are destroyed the better! If I can help society to replace belief with knowledge, then am I not its greatest beneficiary? I don't want you to exchange one belief for another--e.g., to stop believing that the holocaust was evil and start believing that it was good. Rather, I want you to come to the knowledge that it was evil! That way you will be better equipped to resist the poisonous charms of eugenic fascism--

You have saved me from those poisonous charms, thanks?

Quote:

you will be armed with genuine understanding, which is more powerful than true belief, for true belief can easily be perverted into false belief, whereas understanding wavers not.

Now you have armed me with understanding protecting me from "false beliefs" thanks again (I'm being sarcastic). Very Happy

Quote:

But my original point was that the very notion of "deleterious" is vague to me, and so I am unable to say with certainty which philosophies have been the most harmful. This makes me a moral agnostic--a very dangerous thing to be, as this thread clearly demonstrates.

This point is well taken and I agree that it requires a bit of presumption to think that any of us can really decide what is most harmful.

I'm sorry Saiboimushi, I guess I'm really not too smart and I often just missunderstand what you say. Surprised

1 Reply

@ogden,

Thou art forgiven! Smile

But will you forgive me?

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@saiboimushi,

saiboimushi wrote:

Thou art forgiven! But will you forgive me?

YEA! All is well :cool:.

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@ogden,

Thank you. It's been a hard day. I got really sick this morning but went to work anyway. At least I get to go home in a few minutes. Take care Smile

Oh, and keep philosophizing! We're all going dark in a few infinitesimal quanta of Infinite time. If I could spend eternity studying mathematics, I'd devote a google years to it--not a minute more and not a second less.

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@shmikky,

Unless we use some catch phrase which carries negative connotations (like racist), there is no such thing as a dangerous philosophy.

The only danger in philosophy is extremism. And no philosophy is inherently extreme, unless you compare it to your philosophy.

1 Reply

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

Unless we use some catch phrase which carries negative connotations (like racist), there is no such thing as a dangerous philosophy.

The only danger in philosophy is extremism. And no philosophy is inherently extreme, unless you compare it to your philosophy.

I agree that extremism is a danger, but I feel that philosophy has the potential to be widely accepted and damaging simultaniously. Obviously philosophy in itself is not damaging but the affect of them are. I'm thinking of the Aztec philosophy that required human sacrifice as one example. It may seem extreme to us now but I doubt that it seemed extreme to them at the time.

Do you agree?

1 Reply

@ogden,

Talking about extreme philosophies makes me wonder about apathetic phillosophies. While it might be hard to claim that apathetic philosophies and attitudes are driectly responsible for anything bad (or good for that matter), it seems that apathy has been a breeding ground for some more obviously damaging philosophies.

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@NeitherExtreme,

NeitherExtreme wrote:

Talking about extreme philosophies makes me wonder about apathetic phillosophies. While it might be hard to claim that apathetic philosophies and attitudes are driectly responsible for anything bad (or good for that matter), it seems that apathy has been a breeding ground for the more obviously damaging philosophies.

I think that any philosophy that pramotes apethy is directly damaging in that it shunts the posibilities that could have been realized. As an example think of the idea that fate is at work and there is really nothing you can do to change what has been predetermined; this idea hinders the idea that real change can be effected.

1 Reply

@ogden,

I don't think the harm that has befallen people has happened because of philosophies. The victims of Naziism and Stalinism were not victimized by a philosophy -- they were victimized by an orgy of murderous hatred in the absence of any sense of shared humanity, by need for slave labor on an immense scale, and by humans who en masse somehow became psychologically blinded to the perversity they were committing.

It's amazing how varied and even counterposed philosophies (like Naziism and Stalinism) can lead to the same thing in the end -- mass killing, war, dictatorship, and concentration camps / gulags. The underlying philosophy is nothing but the veneer of rationalization.

This point of view of mine encapsulates my larger idea that philosophy doesn't really ever change history -- it merely reflects it. Arts and music and science and many cultural phenomena are reflections of larger movements in history and culture. And philosophy is yet another manifestation of its own era. Hume and Berkeley and Locke did not create the Enlightenment -- the Enlightenment created them. Plato and Aristotle did not create the rich intellectual environment of Athens -- that environment created them. And the philosophies we call "damaging" are products of their era and context as well.

1 Reply

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