Hi, I'm here to learn

I need not provide any of this for my statement to be true.

 

I need not provide any of this for my statement to be true.

 

There are indeed certain very exceptional people who come up with new ideas. But most of us are just slobs that never have an original idea. In your particular instance, the Golden Rule was long understood in Judaism and no doubt familiar to Jesus.

 

Hi. Do you lay awake at night pondering the implications of being the last philosopher?

 

People come up with what they believe are new ideas all the time - it is usually only later they discover their idea was thought of by someone else and has a name.

 

Not just judiasim
,

 

Ok,
Since you decline
This from the encyclopedia of philosophy

Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticismthat condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference, often associated with antifoundationalism.

I gotta say, this seems like a very complicate foundation for simple minded progressives. But just to be clear, your assertion is that people could adhere to these tenets while being unfamiliar with them?

 

That's nice. Doesn't negate a thing I said.

 

Except that a name like nihilism or marxism is not something simple like the golden rule.... and so when someone says that my ideas ar3 based on marxism or nihilism..., they are making a very comprehensive claim.... and i want to know the basis for that claim...

 

You just have to confirm your view that people could conform to the tenets of nihilism as proposed without realizing what nihilism is

 

Nothing here negates what I said.

 

It is absolutely possible that people could conform to the tenets of nihilism as proposed without the knowledge that Nihilism is a thing.

 

No, it just makes it an absurd claim

 

Not in the slightest.

 

So give a single example of a progressive that conforms to the tenets of nihilism..., a single example!
Let alone trying to validate the initial proposition that nihilism is the basis of progressivism

This is an example of what i find so amusing about conservatives... you guys throw around words as critiques when you have no idea what the words mean, take no responsibility for defining what YOU THINK the words mean, and never clarify how you think the original comment is validated by anything approximating evidence

In all of this discussion... you guys have not presented someone else's definition of nihilism, you have not presented your own idiosyncratic definition of nihilism, you have not shown and specific example of someone whom you claim to. BE nihilistic, and you certainly have not validated the much broader claim that. Progressivism in general is fundamentally based on nihilism

 

I asked a question directed to a particular poster who apparently knows something about philosophy. I am interested in what that poster has to say; I might learn something.

I have no interest in debating with someone who had to look up what nihilism is.

 

Welcome to the board. For your information, the forum rules are at the bottom right of every page. Might not be a bad idea to peruse them before posting.

 

It's not necessary to my point for me to do so.

 

Hi Sally, thank you!
Glad to be here. People seem nice, even with opposing ideas.

 

Thanks Tog 6.
Logic indeed is very important. According to Heraclitus, logic is the logos of things, the inherent laws that things abide by.
But the rules of logic are meant to be broken, in a sense that most people fail to understand.
All things are self-contradictory and the fundamental logic that dictates them is not formal but dialectical.

 

Thanks, perdidochas, got it!

 

Hi Pycckia, thanks for the question.
Before any meaningful discussion, all the terms need to be properly defined.

Wikipedia says this:
Progressivism is the support for or advocacy of social reform. As a philosophy, it is based on the idea of progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition.

www.u-s-history.com says this:
The Progressive Movement was an effort to cure many of the ills of American society that had developed during the great spurt of industrial growth in the last quarter of the 19th century. The frontier had been tamed, great cities and businesses developed, and an overseas empire established, but not all citizens shared in the new wealth, prestige, and optimism.

As we can see that the progressive movement is not a new thing. It has happened before. It's happening now and It sure will happen again. The social context of the current progressive movement is exactly the same as the one in the 19th century: the rapid wealth creation and accumulation hasn't done any good to the majority of the American people and the economic inequality has ripped the society apart.

As to nihilism, it has 3 definitions:
1. a revolutionary doctrine that advocates destruction of the social system for its own sake
2. the delusion that things (or everything, including the self) do not exist; a sense that everything is unreal (and therefore meaningless)
3. complete denial of all established authority and institutions

I can't relate the progressive movement to any of these nihilist assertions. What progressivism asks for is just social reform. Society won't work when many members are ignored. Freedom doesn't imply that one can do whatever he can without having to worry about other people. Freedom means responsibility towards one another. That's why libertarianism is gradually giving way to communitarianism in today's western intellectual world.

 

Perhaps you'll vouchsafe us an example of a logical rule being broken properly, and why the author meant it to be broken.

 

Hi, yguy, thank you for dropping in.
For instance, the concept of Life is directly contrary to the concept of Death. Being alive and being dead are contradictory.
We say life is life and death is death, like A is A and not non-A.
But as a matter of fact, anything alive in our universe is meant to die. They are dying the moment they come into life.
And in that sense life is not life, it's death, like A is not A, but non-A.
Thus we say that every being is self-contradictory.

Formal logic rules in our scientific thinking, but in a higher realm of thoughts, every formal logic rule fails and only dialectical logic works.
You have to barge into the pure philosophy world to understand all these. I can assure you that even the best universities in the world
don't have a very clear understanding or can offer good teaching in this. Philosophy is a frontier more challenging than outer space.

 

it's referred to as being a 'blind faith follower'... iow, most progs are clueless to the real & true ideology of progressivism, ahem socialism, ahem totalitarianism, which is what it actually is, but has been cleverly disguised to 'trick & fool' young libs into joining 'the cause'...