Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 10:35:42 EDT
Subject: More Sermonising



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Content-Language: en



Subj: Fwd: More Sermonising Date: 05/10/2002 18:57:02 GMT Daylight Time From:
gospode-AT-yahoo.com (Gary C. Moore) Sender:
owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Reply-to:
heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu To: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

Jud: [previously]
I agree with you that some statistical surveys are less reliable than others,
and a lot depends on the nature of the questions asked.

Gary:
Actually, a really good statistical survey is going to cover so many related
and mutually influencing parameters that it cannot present clearly any
definite conclusion. It will operate like a vicious circle in logic, i. e.,
"This cannot be defined without that yet that cannot be defined without
this." However, such a survey could very well bring out totally unexpected
elements of great importance if the investigation is carried through without
prejudice or influence. Actually finding out what so-called 'ordinary'
people, inclusive of you, me, and thee, but most of all thee, would actually
be fascinating and I guarantee a complete surprize and maybe something,
afterward, we would have wished we never knew.

Jud:
I doubt whether there are many true singletons left in the world now, for
most have been transformed into controlled, predictable robots who
thoughtlessly comply with the medians of consumer society, and that those few
who try not to conform are only conforming to a notion of unconformity,
initiated, stimulated and cashed-in upon by others, who themselves in their
turn  conform to a notion of cashing-in on the conformity of
counterfeit-unconformists. And so the treadmill of  conformity rotates, the
outer disc of unthinking conformists revolving around the multiple inner
discs of reasoning conformists who suppose they are unconformists, but are
actually conforming to an unconformity laid out in conformist patterns that
rival the orthodox symetry of the gardens of Regent's Park.  Finding out who
you are depends on identifying which tread- wheel you tramp. Nobody is free
from the treadwheel of determinism, everybody has their place on the wheel of
the inevitable consequences of antecedent and anteriority.  Heidegger's
"Dasein" is antecedally determined rather than  contemporaneously determining
The fun of reading Heidegger is observing the manner with with he attempts to
convince us that and of the moves that  his naively prevenient puppet  makes
on the checker-board of life, [which he perversly insists on nominalising as
"Being," is of any significance whatsoever.
With rocks and human beings we are simply talking about different degrees of
meaninglessness and purposelessness. Why then not be like Hannibal Lector and
simply blow where the wind or human intestines listeth?  In a word -
retribution and in a second word self-preservation.
Which raises a question.  Is there any evidence of revenge in the animal
kindom?  I think not, [apart from anectdotal stories of elephants getting
their own back for some hurt  after many years] Maybe revenge and retribution
are important  humanising features that have assisted us in our journey from
the cave to the Shopping Mall, for in their absence would not all hell break
loose?

Is it noble to be an individual and if so why?  Is a thinking conformist any
different from a thinking unconformist  [if there is such a thing] and if so
why?  Is not being "authentic" simply recognising one's  conforming to
conformity or conforming to a conforming  unconformity? Where do we draw the
line between the two conformities?  Are there two conformities. Is this
morning's daseinic authenticity the same as this afternoon's daseinic
authenticity? Is not being  a Dasein, or imagining oneself  a dasein, or
interpreting the world through the daseinic mechanism  simply conforming to
Heidegger's narrowly prescriptive ontological schemata to a degree which is
only to be found in religion?   Are babies mini-daseins? What about mentally
disabled daseins or comatose daseins? Are there any animal daseins? If
"Being-There" is dasein, is a dead body a dead dasein,  for a corpse has
existence too? Is part of the daseinic device no more than a way to escape
from the deterministic anteriority that Heidegger knew damn well was the real
engine of our existential behaviour? Why did he see the whole history of
individual human development as an encumbrance that clouds our
phenomenological  apprehension of reality?  Why strip ourselves of previously
obtained knowledge and  facts when we are egaged in making judgements?  How
can we make informed decisions regarding our authenticity if we are not in
possession of the background information?  "To smoke or not to smoke - that
is the question?"  or "To attack Iraq or not to attack Iraq - that is the
question? "but it is a question we cannot answer sensibly unless we know the
statistics, [whether they be perfect or flawed] and have seen a cross-section
of a diseased human lung, or seen an estimate of the expected body-bag countWould Heidegger applaud the "authenticity" of a Nazi soldier who refused to
fight? If so -  why? Conviction?  If not - why not? In a word - retribution
and in a second word self-preservation? 

Most of the above is me talking to myself  - asking myself questions.

JUD EVANS: [previously]

As per the TV discussion today concerning a survey of Americans being in
agreement with the of attacking of Iraq, [given as 70% in favour] This has
probably been more widely reported on your TV stations than ours, so I won't
bother going into more details about how the result has been challenged etc.

GARY C. MOORE:
 It is total garbage. Bush is scaring the shit out of me. He is getting
sensible, conservative people whipped up into a war frenzy. But what
specifically has Saddamn done recently that he hasn't done continuously and
consistently for more than thirty years? Washington is getting very, very
strange. People like Powell know there is an extremely serious problem about
our 'allies' in such a war. We get Prince Faud Air Base loaded up with
equipment and personel, our Saudi guards could very well and knowingly
deliberately let in a suicide bomber but this time with a thermo-nuclear
warhead donated from Osama ben Laden. In such a situation you do not need
sophistication. All you need is a truck - like in Beirut. In Saudi Arabia,
religion comes first, one's 'country' that one sets off an atomic bomb in is
way down the list of most important things whereas killing Americans and
Britons is very high on that list.

Jud:
Evidently [according to the programme I watches] when the figure of 70% in
favour of attack was published, the actual question, which the respondents
addressed, was not given; which is a customary feature of most survey
results. This has led to a lot of media speculation as to the way in which
the question was framed. Maybe the wording of the question has since been
released
- I haven't yet read today's press?

JUD EVANS:  [previously]

The gathering of other, more certain information however which compares the
deaths of lung cancer by smokers compared with non-smokers is so overwhelming
that no reasonable person could fail to agree with the findings.



GARY C MOORE:

You suddenly made me realize something I had known all the time and had not
fit together. Doctors doing autopsies have known physiologically, as a
goddamn obvious as hell fact right before their eyes, what tobacco does to
lungs FOR OVER A HUNDRED YEARS AT LEAST! Tobacco can completely occlude the
lung up to 75% capacity without the person really noticing they have a
problem. A dissected smoker's lung is a goddamn pool of tar. Statistics were
NEVER needed and certainly did not tell scientists of any sort knowledgeable
of the situation anything new WHATSOEVER! "Put that in your pipe and smoke
it!" Now I'm starting to get as angry as you obviously are but I should have
known better and sooner. There are a whole bunch of mutherfuckers that need
to be (censored).



Jud:

 What you say is true, [about the of the visible and tangible physiological
effects.] You are also correct when you say that statistics were NEVER
needed, and certainly did not tell SCIENTISTS of any sort knowledgeable of
the situation anything new. IMO however statistics were useful in bringing
the full horrors of the effects of smoking to the notice of SMOKERS We could
argue about the degree of accuracy of the cause and effect of tobacco
statistical figures of mortality even by such a large figure of 10% either
way, but the underlying evidence, specially when juxtaposed against a
photograph of a tar-filled suppurating lung was an important contribution in
dissuading people from smoking and thereby saving millions from an early
death. [Not to mention "innocent =E2=80=9C 'passive smokers.']  I guess that the
deaths from tobacco consumption have already overtaken the death-toll of the
holocaust many times over - but as yet there is no museum or memorials to the
dead?

Gary:
X: Just as Hubert L. Dreyfus described it in his discussion of Aristotles
wise man and Heidegger's discussion of Aristotles phronesis in PLATOS SOPHIST
(available at one of Dreyfus web sites). But all of this, in an honest and
intelligent person is just a plan of action according to rational expectation
that might well turn out otherwise than one expected and one should be
prepared for.

Jud: [previously]
Yes, every person should be allowed to make their own choices if they are
armed with the full details that are connected with the pros and cons of a
given course of action.

GARY C MOORE:
That applies to a whole hell of a lot more than just smoking right now.

Jud:
This seems to raise, [for me anyway] one of the weaknesses of
'existentialism' which posits the view that man should liberate himself from
the herd and make his own choices regarding his personal life, and strive for
'authenticity' - in other words to recognize and be true to his own nature.

If however the 'facts' on which he bases his choices on which to achieve
authenticity are no more than illusions created by others for their own
purposes, whether to manipulate for reasons of political power, or for money,
or for religion, then the whole concept of authenticity falls does it not? 



If the response to this were to be: =E2=80=9CWell I make my life-style decisions
based on the evidence I have to hand, and if that evidence is [and other
salient facts bearing upon my decision] are concealed, corrupt, or plainly
false it doesn't alter the fact that at least I am making a decision and
whether that decision is right or wrong it is MY decision.=E2=80=9D



Where does that leave the existentialist?  Is individualism a possibility in
modern society?
The sepia image of a moody Jean Paul Sartre gazing thoughtfully and perhaps
contumaciously into the depths of a murky River Seine, dragging on the
Gauloise hanging from his lower lip is a romantic one which symbolizes the
struggle of the individual to assert his/her own uniqueness and singularity,
but another view would identify him as just another mug-victim of the
advertising industry posturing individualism but in reality living a life of
grotesque commonality as a consuming victim of mass culture, made worse by 
his pathetic  belief  that he appears to others [and perhaps to himself] as
=E2=80=9Cdifferent.=E2=80=9D



This peculiar social behaviour can be observed amongst such =E2=80=9Cindividuals=E2=80=9D
that populate the culture of =E2=80=9Chippies,=E2=80=9D who apart from the different ways
and combinations in which their beads are hung and a certain variety in their
hair-styles and head-gear look almost as identical in their dress as if they
wore army uniform. The truth is of course that they too are duped into
dressing the same as thousands of others to the extent that they become
almost indistinguishable in an attempt to be different.



 I think that a conscious desire to be different is usually demonstrated by
the overanxious and unsure, who are unsure as to whom they really are.  A
person who really IS an individual and who is happy about his individuality
KNOWS HE IS AN INDIVIDUAL and feels no psychological compulsion to dress
differently or to act otherwise to the natural way that his nature dictates
in order to demonstrate his individuality to others.

 It is true that his socially conformist nature has to a large extent been
created as a result of the influence of the other, but no more so that those
whose rebellion against the 'norm' is ALSO the direct influence of the other,
and who may as a result of seeing the book cover on which the picture of a
saturnine Jean Paul Sartre sitting on the condom-strewn embankment dressed in
a white raincoat smoking a Gauloise may rush to the tobacconist the next
morning to buy a pack of Gauloise and sniff around the second-hand market on
the lookout for a white mackintosh.

Are existentialists [like the rest of us] no more than victims of their own
biological destiny? Destined to conform to a notion of unconformity foisted
upon them by others also destined to conform to unconformity?  Is not the
Heidegger industry with its hero worship, its scribish hermenueticians, its
own cultish nomenclature and fantastical word-bending, its system of
=E2=80=9Celders=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Cnoviates=E2=80=9D and other cultish=20=E2=80=9Cauthorities,=E2=80=9D its inbuilt
strictures and rank-closing against genuine individuality a denial and a
proof and a disruption of the belief that character is overwhelmingly a
product of experience and choice.  Surely the conventionality and cognitive
ossification one observes in modern Heideggerianism - is a contradiction of
the post-Freudian assumption that speaks of genuine individualism and freedom
of ontological speculation? Further research into our genetical codes may
well reveal the true extent to which we are all creatures of our dna for the
way I see it fate - the way we act and think may be the corollary of
evolutionary biology now rather than Zeus and the godlings who are now in a
fight to the death with =E2=80=9Cfreewill=E2=80=9D Gauloise cigarettes and white raincoats.



JUD EVANS: [previously]

Unfortunately for years the bad effects of drink, cigarettes and crap food
were known by the manufacturers but not passed on the consumers - so the
consumers' "freedom of choice" was in fact non-existent. Hence the big court
cases ongoing right now.



GARY C MOORE:

Phillip-Morris owns too much of America. They own the companies that own the
companies that own the companies, etc, etc, etc. You knock that kingpin down
for real, the whole sheebang goes to pieces. I think I just read the same
thing in Arthur Schlesinger's account of the causes of the great 1929 crash.
"Those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it."



Jud:

The notion that the poisoning of millions should continue because the
collapse of the Phillip Morris industrial empire would cave in and throw USA
into a financial crisis to rival 1929 has not occurred to me.  Is this an
argument put out by the tobacco industry? Has any well-known economist 
published these views?  Out own government obtains a large amount of tax
revenue from tobacco sales - and that maybe the reason that it hasn't yet
emulated USA in its courage and vigour with which it has attacked the trade.

Gary:
X: This strangely applies equally well if you deliberately want to drink
yourself to death. You may well have a long life of misery and meanness.

Jud:
Sadly it is not just the alcoholic who suffers - it is their wives, children,
friends, and workmates too, to say nothing of the drain on the health
services, which in this country are already understaffed and under-funded.
It is not just the victim of alcohol abuse who suffers a long life of misery
and meanness it is usually everybody else that he or she comes into contact
with until the liver gives up and the problem ceases to be around anymore.

Jud:
 I am reminded of the part in Antoine de St Exupery's Petit Prins [Little
Prince] when he meets the dipsomaniac:

What are you doing there? He said to the tippler whom he found settled down
in silence before a collection of empty bottles and also a collection of full
bottles.

I am drinking," replied the tippler, with a lugubrious air. 'Why are you
drinking? demanded the little Prince. So that I may forget," replied the
tippler. Forget what? inquired the little Prince, who already was sorry for
him Forget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head. "
Ashamed' of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him.
"Ashamed of drinking! The tippler brought his speech to an end, and shut
himself up in an impregnable silence. And the little prince went away,
puzzled The grown-ups are certainly very, very odd," he said to himself as he
continued on his journey.

GARY C MOORE:
 I have to quit. My computer is doing funny things. And I want to get drunk. '

Jud:
I prefer [with Omar] to get "jocund with the fruitful grape" rather than
drunk, although it is sometimes difficult to identify where the
light-emitting gauze of jocundity ends and the thick cloak of drunkenness
darkens the soul  - one misses all the fun and spoils the fun of others when
one is drunk.  I prefer to use alcohol rather than allow it to use me. And
with that dreadfully pompous clich=C3=A9 I shall unashamedly  finish here.

regards,

Jud Evans.












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