Salmoneus wrote:As a more general point, and please don't take this the wrong way: I don't know whether it's a symptom or a cause of your difficulties, or what diagnoses you may have had, but in case you're not aware of it at the moment, I feel someone should point out that this habit of responding to everything - whether your own conbiology post or someone else questioning the potential meaninglessness of existence - with a political-ideological lecture on a topic that has no apparent relevence to the matter at hand (whether or not it is accurate) is not healthy behaviour. I really don't mean to sound aggressive, I'm just genuinely and increasingly concerned. As you know, we've never seen eye to eye, but you seem to have drifted from "reasoned contributions to the topic with obvious flaws" to "what the hell?" non sequiturs - you often sound almost manic now. Are you remembering to sleep properly?
Well, obviously I think everything I say is relevant. In this case, I am defending my advice that Nort should engage in politics more fully. Any flaws you can find in my conbiology will be helpful.
The ZBB seems to be the only place where people think I have a mental disorder. I don't know what to think. The fact that a lot of ZBBers have mental disorders does nothing to raise my confidence in that diagnosis. I think the root of the problem is that I have been badly educated, and I don't know how to communicate well. Being ignorant and a bad speaker is not considered a mental disorder outside Oxford.
Salmoneus wrote:1. Leaving aside that "branch" suggests more a field than a school to me, there are lots of different schools of thought in Western political philosophy. These include classical liberalism, liberal egalitarianism, socialism, social egalitarianism, conservativism, and rights-based approaches.
This is more of an language thing than a meaning thing. Suppose someone were to say, "I didn't know crows cawed as deeply as that," and I were to respond, "There are two kinds of birds called ravens and crows. Ravens have a deeper call than crows do." In this situation, I do not think it would be appropriate to interpret the response as saying, "There are literally two species of birds in existence, namely ravens and crows." or, "Since the beginning of time, literally two things have existed, ravens and crows. Both are birds."
Salmoneus wrote:2. Republicanism is generally considered a subspecies of liberalism, for one thing. If I had to split western political philosophy in two, I think the logical places to do so would probably be either perfectionism vs non-perfectionism or, very slightly different, positive vs negative liberty. Or, different slightly again, liberty-focused vs non-liberty-focused. Or, from a different angle, contractarian vs 'absolute' theories?
I don't know what you are trying to do, I am not trying to teach political philosophy as a subject. I'm defending my view that Nort should get into politics. Your analysis ignores the context of what I'm saying.
Salmoneus wrote:3. Liberalism is not about individuals staying out of politics, but about politics staying away from individuals. Liberalism is defined by a commitment to personal liberty, but specifically by its non-perfectionism: the belief that the State should be neutral with respect to competing theories of the good life, except to the extent of protecting the ability of its citizens to independently seek the good life for themselves.
What I said is not something liberalism directly tells people to do, but I would argue that it follows from what liberalism tells people to do. There are academics who agree with me.
Salmoneus wrote:4. This is a bit trickier. "Classical Republicanism" is a theoretical historical concept that has been interpreted in various ways. The way you're probably talking about (it was Arendt's view) is now considered less historically accurate, and so is often termed "civic humanism" to disambiguate. Civic humanism doesn't exactly say that "the greatest actions are political", but it says that participation in government is inherently rewarding, that the virtues that enable this are inherently valuable, and that government itself (as a vehicle for the more complete realisation of individuals and communities) is inherently valuable; furthermore, it is a perfectionist ideology, in that it believes the government should promote such inherently valuable things as government, and the virtues required to partake in government. This civic humanism is broadly speaking a species of communitarianism, and in the modern political debate would typically be seen as right-wing or conservative.
These days, classical Republicanism is instead seen as more accurately continued in what's called "civic republicanism", which shares many results with civic humanism, but for different reasons. Civic republicanism is, we might say, the strain of liberalism closest to socialism and social democracy (and libertarianism): in that, while it is non-perfectionist and prioritises liberty, it conceives of liberty in terms of structural relations. Specifically, it seeks to minimise 'domination', the relation in which one individual is at the mercy of the arbitrary rule of another. Civic republicans may be found among those called "progressives", "conservatives", "liberals" or "libertarians", depending on the details of their flavour.
I don't understand the difference. By "greatest actions are political", I don't mean that political participation is literally more important than breathing. That example is necessarily strained because I don't understand what you interpreted me as saying. I would point out things like, "Nort is not a traditional conservative." or ask questions like, "Have you read Hannah Arendt?" to pinpoint the source of the confusion, but I have zero faith that any of it will do any good.
By the way, practically everything I said comes from primary sources and mainstream academic secondary sources.
PS. In case it wasn't clear from the above, my position is that "the greatest actions are political" is a fairly accurate synopsis of Arendt's political theory. I mean, that is literally what she says, with common sense caveats. At the same time, her theory is also compatible with Sal's point 4. (parts of it anyway) I gathered this from reading her books myself.
PPS. Also, it is my opinion that liberalism versus republicanism is a dichotomy that is very much in use in mainstream academic political philosophy, and that this dichotomy more or less follows the path outlined in my previous posts. I know this because I read SEP articles in my spare time. It is possible to quibble with my specific interpretation, but accusing me of manic raving amounts to gaslighting. This article discusses "liberalism versus republicanism" in the context of citizenship:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/citi ... tiRepuLibe (Of course, liberalism and republicanism, being traditions, have internal diversity, but that is irrelevant to my point IMHO.)
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way. - Mark Twain
In reality, our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, which indeed is a divine gift. - Socrates