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It is the duty of intellectuals to liberate

 
 
Reply Sat 18 Jul, 2009 02:08 pm
Philosophy is dangerous because it subconsciously forms the bedrock of belief, knowledge, action and re-action.

Baseline philosophical worldview outlines the shape with which our mind constructs knowledge, the types of patterns we see and seek, in metaphysics, in society, in politics.

Western philosophy was corrupted with the seeds of idealism from the start because of a failure of the masses to properly understand the nature of philosophy itself: that is, philosophy exists in form, not in content. It is the readiness with which the masses accept the conclusions produced by the "elite" philosophers, rather than learning the methods by which those conclusions were reached, that causes problems. Western philosophy, like science, is ever incomplete, its conclusions always evolving with every new generation of philosophers. But even as the old understandings are continually uprooted by cutting edge philosophers, the masses' fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of philosophy (as outlined above) keeps them away from the vanguard.

Idealism is the tool of slavery. True understanding of reality as dynamic flow--where the concrete and the ideal co-exist in synthetic flux, a web weaved with the intertwining fabric of Mother Nature and Death--precludes the possibility of intellectual enslavement. Western philosophy was unwittingly sabotaged by Plato when he misinterpreted "concrete reality" as an imperfect shadow of "ideal reality." The failure of Descartes' followers to identify the incompleteness of his conclusions, but the brilliance of his method, causes a corruption in the lineage of Western philosophy, allowing power-hungry Priests to seize control of its most important doctrines and horde the "transcendent" knowledge as a means of power and control. Eastern metaphysics, along with Greece's Heraclitus and others, is pushed to the side and a divisive marker is laid between. The simplistic binary conception imprinted into the minds of the masses lays the foundations for an enslavement of the mind. Analytical thinking takes over education and religion. Humans become a species of sheep.

The masses must understand the incompleteness of philosophy's conclusions, but the divinity of its method.

Education is the only freedom. Sartre was right to obsess over freedom. The key to the fountain of youth is the search for knowledge, an acceptance of change and continual challenge.. Only knowledge is infinite. The intellectuals have a duty to spread freedom to the masses.
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Fido
 
  1  
Reply Sat 18 Jul, 2009 11:21 pm
@rhinogrey,
Bull...Since when is philosophy dangerous...A loaded gun is dangerous, or a loaded woman.. A can of gasoline or a stick of dynomite is dangerous, but philosophy is safer than a rusty fish hook...
Holiday20310401
 
  1  
Reply Sat 18 Jul, 2009 11:34 pm
@Fido,
I think philosophy deserves to be held so highly as dangerous.
GoshisDead
 
  1  
Reply Sat 18 Jul, 2009 11:38 pm
@Holiday20310401,
Every idea is dangerous to someone.
0 Replies
 
rhinogrey
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Jul, 2009 02:47 am
@Fido,
Fido;78234 wrote:
Bull...Since when is philosophy dangerous...A loaded gun is dangerous, or a loaded woman.. A can of gasoline or a stick of dynomite is dangerous, but philosophy is safer than a rusty fish hook...


A loaded gun is a manifestation of hateful & destructive philosophy.
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urangutan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Jul, 2009 02:50 am
@rhinogrey,
I don't think Fido took into account the possibilities that philosophy, in the face of other authority is what you may have meant.
Theages
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Jul, 2009 09:47 am
@rhinogrey,
Your last sentence doesn't follow from the rest. Is it supposed to?
0 Replies
 
richrf
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Jul, 2009 10:51 am
@rhinogrey,
rhinogrey;78186 wrote:
Philosophy is dangerous because it subconsciously forms the bedrock of belief, knowledge, action and re-action.


I think fear is a great way to get people's attention. But I prefer other approaches.

Rich
0 Replies
 
Fido
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Jul, 2009 01:25 pm
@urangutan,
urangutan;78248 wrote:
I don't think Fido took into account the possibilities that philosophy, in the face of other authority is what you may have meant.

Idiots like Socrates, and Galaleo used philosophy to snag themselves; but on the whole, it is ideas and ideals, and not thought, or any process of thought that is dangerous....When we get it into our heads that people are flawed and need to be fixed, then we are in trouble... So we are not perfect...We are real, and ideals are perfect, but unreal for a very essential reason, because in the process of implementing ideals too many real people are injured...Don't let your ideals do your thinking...We need to recreate the future out of the better forms of the past, and not out of some absurd vision of perfection...
0 Replies
 
urangutan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 06:23 am
@rhinogrey,
Nice thought Fido but it does not deter the reasoning behind the philosophical failure behind Marx's communism, Ghandi's wish for utopia or the Georgetown masacre. That is to say while a fool is in charge philosophy is a jesters court. I don't think your reasoning is unsound, perhaps a little curt towards certain individuals but nonetheless, I don't see how blaming the failure of others, who dealt at a loaded table concerns itself with the same infomation being used today. All great times of the past had dark sides to the tale.
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William
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 07:28 am
@rhinogrey,
Hello Rhino, in my effort to understand the meaning of your thread, please tell me what your definition of an "intellectual" is?

Thanks,
William
0 Replies
 
jgweed
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 07:39 am
@rhinogrey,
By the time philosophy percolates down to the common man, it passes through many filters of ever greater simplification to the point it is almost unrecognisable as philosophy, and becomes a part of the always-already conditions into which we are born. One can say much the same for religion or science.

At least in the West, both in form and content, and not without struggle and "two steps backward," what has emerged as part of the natural world-view seems far from dangerous. The belief that reason is important in finding solutions and answers to important questions, and that every rational person is therefore able (at least in theory) to do so, and that to do this persons must be free from constraints is one of the legacies of the philosophical tradition.

Over centuries, this theme has undergone practical changes as society extended rationality to include more and more groups of people, from non-landowners to slaves to women, and it was later philosophy that helped bring about this change to the fundamental world view (one has only to think of the evolution of the doctrines set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution) that now seems destined to extend beyond the dynamic West to the static East.

The same theme contributed to the rise of modern science and to a gradual freeing of mankind from superstition and reliance on dogma when it became allied to the other philosophical themes of skepticism and analysis first announced by Socrates.

If there are dangers, and I think there are, it is TO this thematic tradition FROM other areas of human activity that repudiate it.
0 Replies
 
William
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 09:11 am
@rhinogrey,
Jg, just a note. It is beyond my cognitive ability to understand all you just said, but I'm glad you said it. Ha. (Now, observing what I just typed (scratching my head), it never ceases to amaze me. Ha.)

Thanks,
William
0 Replies
 
jgweed
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 11:55 am
@rhinogrey,
That is my fault then, not yours, William.
GoshisDead
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 01:22 pm
@jgweed,
William:
maybe we should find some people to filter his message so it can percolate down to us. Good posts though, still have not formed a definite opinion yet.
0 Replies
 
William
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 05:53 pm
@jgweed,
jgweed;78441 wrote:
That is my fault then, not yours, William.


Jg, so very kind of you but please assume no fault. Your eloguence is very much appreciated. If anyone is at fault her, it is I; but I am getting better at understanding as I vertually live in the dictionary. Ha. Smile

Thanks,
William
GoshisDead
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 05:58 pm
@William,
What I'm wondering about this is, If it is the intellectual's duty to liberate, whose duty is it to define the parameters of the prison?
0 Replies
 
salima
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 06:29 pm
@rhinogrey,
i believe it is the duty for anyone who is free to help liberate anyone who is not. i think a child is fairly free in his thinking but is not in the category of 'intellectual'. sometimes the view of a child's clear eyes and uncluttered brain is all it takes to show us the way. (the emperor's new clothes)

as far as the prison, i think we make our own more often, and the worst prison a person can be in is to be unable to think freely. freedom is not possible when the mind becomes rigid and builds all its processes around false beliefs, one-pointed perspectives, stereotypes, and refuses to admit new ideas let alone change.
0 Replies
 
Fido
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Jul, 2009 08:35 pm
@rhinogrey,
Sal; you still have the eyes of a child; and that is no insult...

---------- Post added 07-20-2009 at 10:43 PM ----------

GoshisDead;78501 wrote:
What I'm wondering about this is, If it is the intellectual's duty to liberate, whose duty is it to define the parameters of the prison?

All of our social and moral forms, like law and government, which would be useless if they were volatile, are instead made resistent to change... We built the edefices and monuments of government out of the strongest material to send that message, that this impediment to change is made for the ages... In fact; they should not exist a moment longer than they serve the needs of the people...The moment our forms quit serving us, we begin to serve them...And whe they do not work they exhaust the life of the people...When the people can no longer resist their forms, they can no longer resist enemies...
0 Replies
 
jeeprs
 
  1  
Reply Tue 21 Jul, 2009 05:16 am
@rhinogrey,
Question: freedom would consist of what? What would the masses have if they were free in the sense you intent that they don't have now? Educational opportunities? Job opportunities? Ownership of the means of production?
 

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