Posts by Amanda Jackson5

Meaning, goodness, truth, and beauty—they’re all pretty much intertwined, aren't they?

Harold Doyle3 said:Your logic is flawed.
I used the example of sacrificing a life for the sake of survival. What is the purpose of that life? Survival!
Survival and life aren't identical concepts. Sacrificing a life can affirm survival (take a parent sacrificing themselves for their offspring, for instance), whereas sacrificing survival cannot affirm life (like sacrificing offspring for the sake of a parent).

Consciousness is just an evolutionary byproduct of natural selection. Any form of life—including consciousness—that lacked a drive for survival (failed to adapt) simply went extinct.

Honestly, this is just trivial historicism reduced to the level of a pile of bones. You could swap out the word "consciousness" in that first sentence for pretty much anything else—life, nature, the laws of physics, subatomic particles, you name it—and the logic remains identical. In other words, there’s nothing inherently mysterious about the idea that everything in existence emerged from the development of something else. But why does development happen in the first place? It happens because of inherent contradictions that have to be resolved one way or another. Once those tensions are settled, things evolve in a certain direction, which usually just leads right into a whole new set of contradictions.

The absolute, unhinged, manic frenzy surrounding this topic just keeps rolling on:

Building on my last two points:

Looking at the thread above, besides the usual assortment of fascist-adjacent nonsense, we've even got some Holocaust denial floating around, none of which actually has anything to do with what we were originally discussing.

And I'll take those posts too;

Honestly, who knows how many more we're going to see, considering his unhinged little rampage through this thread just shows no signs of slowing down.

It looks like Parsifal is back at it again, relentlessly trolling and cluttering this thread with his usual obsession over WWII factions, the old America days, and all that other repetitive nonsense.
I’d appreciate it if someone could give him a warning and scrub the following posts from the "Glory and Misery of Patriotism" (Philosophy PDF) thread:

https://www.bosch-home.com/hr/?cid=H...61643406|bnr||

This is regarding the thread on Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man over at Philosophy Forum.
I’m asking the Admin to step in regarding Parsifal, who has been relentlessly trolling and sabotaging this discussion with incredibly aggressive and tasteless posts—specifically looking at posts #1173-1178, 1180-1181, and 1183-1184. It’s pretty much common knowledge how destructive this user is to the Philosophy Forum, so I’d like to suggest a permanent ban from this subforum. I also want to flag this previous report that hasn't been addressed yet:

Thanks.

William Palmer7 said:Progress means moving toward a destination.

But what is the ultimate goal of a society?

It really depends on which ideology you're buying into: whether it’s the pursuit of happiness, maximizing joy for the greatest number of people, unlocking every ounce of human potential, reaching some sort of cosmic omega point, or total universal enlightenment... But if you scrape off that thick layer of ideological varnish, how much do all those lofty goals actually differ from one another?

Lisa Jackson7 said:The only real value in eco-primitivism or any movement trying to drag us back to the past is that they act as a necessary reality check for those obsessed with progress, the Enlightenment, etc.—basically, they counter Pinker's "Enlightenment Now!" style of thinking.

Humanity is like a guy lugging around way too much luggage—he's stumbling, rushing too hard, dropping stuff everywhere, and constantly having to backtrack just to pick up the pieces.

Spot on.

Melissa Stewart6 said:Weekend Warrior

We’ll just have to wait and see if that part actually matters or not.

Weekend Warrior

So, Reich wrote about the three levels of consciousness.
The foundational mindset starts with that classic Wild West persona. Think of the rugged frontiersman—a true individualist who lives by a strict "every man for himself" code, with God watching over it all.

The typical consciousness of the mid-century American is exactly what we’re talking about here. It’s that conservative, deeply conformist mindset where a person's entire sense of self-worth is tied to external validation—whether that's prestige from their university, approval from their employer, or just keeping up appearances with the neighbors. It is the quintessential one-dimensional rebel described by Marcuse.

The "Third Consciousness" concept was actually quite groundbreaking when that book came out back in 1970. It describes a whole new counterculture. A typical person in this movement tends to be deeply skeptical—not just of the government, but of older generations and established rules in general. They’re very direct, act naturally, and have a real appetite for experimentation, whether that’s through things like marijuana or other lifestyle shifts. They’re playful, open-minded, and driven by one core value: absolute freedom.

Honestly, that whole "new counterculture" vibe went mainstream a long time ago. It isn't really "counter" anymore; if anything, it's been absorbed into the fabric of modern conservatism. It seems to me that today's 30 and 40-year-olds take this supposed "counterculture" for granted, treating it like some inherent, natural human trait rather than a specific movement. At least, that's true for those who don't bother picking up a book, and they definitely make up most of the crowd.

Melissa Stewart6 said:Weekend Warrior

Drug use is essentially a pillar of counterculture, much like that craving for raw, unmediated experience or trying to break free from the constraints of time. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Zerzan himself was a former sixties activist.

Have you ever read Charles Reich's *Greening of America*?

Sure, it might be a factor, but it’s hardly the defining characteristic. It's like saying drug use is central to rock music—it exists there, sure, but it isn't the soul of the genre. You can't argue that rock music or a counterculture ceases to exist just because you take the drugs out of the equation.

Melissa Stewart6 said:Weekend Warrior

Drug use is essentially a pillar of counterculture, much like that craving for raw, unmediated experience or trying to break free from the constraints of time. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Zerzan himself was a former sixties activist.

Have you ever read Charles Reich's *Greening of America*?

I haven't. What's the gist of it?

Gerald Jackson48 said:Unless we're talking about causing potentially fatal respiratory depression, like when someone overdoses on opioids.

To be honest, looking at how things are going, I don't see how anyone's lifespan would be particularly long in Zerzanov's utopia. But hey, maybe I'm wrong and maybe Zerzan thought of something I missed.

Or maybe he's just one of those guys who thinks life expectancy isn't all that important, as long as you're living authentically—you know, staying true to yourself and being happy.

Zoroasterix?

Sure, I get it. If you’re living like a wild animal, totally immersed in nature and stripped of any higher thought—since thinking acts as a sort of "buffer"—then how long you live doesn't really matter, mostly because in that state, you aren't even conscious enough to care.

Melissa Stewart6 said:There are definitely parallels there with the hippies and the counterculture of the sixties. Besides, since you were praising Zabriskie Point, I'm guessing you're a fan of the counterculture movement too.

Look, I might be a fan of the counterculture, but I draw the line at drug addiction. True counterculture is supposed to be about emancipation, whereas being hooked on substances is about as far from freedom as you can get. Even this idea of emancipation proposed by Zerzan completely misses the mark. Civilization is actually what provides us with liberation from the brutal demands of nature, yet Zerzan seems hell-bent on dragging us right back into its teeth.

Melissa Stewart6 said:The thing is, anarcho-primitivists aren't really hunting for "cognitive truth." They're looking for happiness found in a perceived sense of immediacy. As for narratives, even Zerzan isn't so blind as to miss the fact that mythology is itself an attempt at understanding. He isn't trying to regress into some imaginary state older than that.

Not all anarcho-primitivists agree on this, either. Some find tribal mythology or religion perfectly acceptable, provided it emerged organically—meaning it grew naturally from tribal stories rather than being an imported faith.

At the end of the day, I gave you that quote for a reason: Zerzan is interested in a certain kind of liberation of eros within nature through animalistic existence. Intellectual knowledge itself doesn't interest him; if anything, he believes humans can forgo it in exchange for true happiness.

Personally, I’d call what Zerzan is talking about nothing more than a self-inflicted lobotomy.

Melissa Stewart6 said:The thing is, anarcho-primitivists aren't really hunting for "cognitive truth." They're looking for happiness found in a perceived sense of immediacy. As for narratives, even Zerzan isn't so blind as to miss the fact that mythology is itself an attempt at understanding. He isn't trying to regress into some imaginary state older than that.

Not all anarcho-primitivists agree on this, either. Some find tribal mythology or religion perfectly acceptable, provided it emerged organically—meaning it grew naturally from tribal stories rather than being an imported faith.

At the end of the day, I gave you that quote for a reason: Zerzan is interested in a certain kind of liberation of eros within nature through animalistic existence. Intellectual knowledge itself doesn't interest him; if anything, he believes humans can forgo it in exchange for true happiness.

So, how are they any different from intravenous drug addicts? If anything, the junkies are much more direct when it comes to their desires and how they actually live them out.

Melissa Stewart6 said:Look, John Zerzan would probably argue that by equating immediacy with nothingness, you're just proving how detached you've become from the physical and natural world. He’d likely point to indigenous communities as an example—people who thrive perfectly well without needing all that modern mediation.

But honestly, that feels like an incredibly shortsighted way to look at the situation. For starters, I’m not equating immediacy with nothingness. Beyond that, even if we concede that the modern American is somewhat detached from nature in the sense that they aren't constantly brushing up against wild animals or plants, you could just as easily argue that through scientific understanding, we actually have a more direct connection to the natural world—at least intellectually—because we aren't busy interpreting everything through mystical fairy tales. Besides, those very narratives serve as a sort of cognitive bridge; after all, Theodor Adorno might suggest that mythology is essentially the precursor to the Enlightenment. And finally, I assume you meant that indigenous people function without mediation rather than without immediacy? If that's what you meant, then it's a total illusion. They exist in a state of immediate being that is, in itself, deeply mediated—not just by the myths and religions mentioned above, but by the very structure of their existence. Every relationship like that is a dance between the mediated and the immediate. You can't really pull one thread without unraveling the other; they are correlative concepts. At the end of the day, you can't grasp anything without acknowledging that dialectical unity of opposites.

Melissa Stewart6 said:That lines up pretty closely with the primitivist view.

But John Zerzan takes it even further. He argues that the introduction of symbols and rituals actually marked the birth of civilization itself. According to John Zerzan, once we developed symbols, we created language—and through language, our direct, unmediated experience of reality began to dissolve. From there, he suggests a domino effect: social hierarchies emerge, then agriculture follows, and the rest is history.

If we follow that logic, it implies that being human is essentially undesirable. It feels like a romanticization of a primitive, animalistic existence—likely flavored with secularized millenarian ideas and those "emanation" theories where being further from the "source" equates to a worse, uglier, more difficult existence. And if that's the case, why stop at criticizing civilization? We could just spiral into an infinite regression. You can actually find similar lines of thought in places you wouldn't expect, like among biologists, where some even argue that life itself is inherently self-destructive. Peter Ward calls this the Medea Hypothesis (as a counterpoint to the Lovelockian Gaia hypothesis):

In contrast to the Gaia hypothesis (or theory), which is named after a nurturing mother figure or Mother Nature, Ward proposes a hypothesis named after a much more toxic maternal figure—Medea. What’s the core idea? There is a fundamental tendency within life around us, including our own species, to make the Earth less hospitable for life, ultimately rendering it "uninhabitable." Throughout history, the evolution of life has triggered a series of catastrophes that were devastating for biological stability (which Ward refers to as Medean events), and it will continue to do so. Instead of the "return to nature" advocated by environmental movements, people should focus on practical work to maintain the possibility of survival for ourselves and other living beings. The reality is that we live on a planet that is aging rapidly, and if we want to survive as a species, we will soon be left with only two choices: planetary engineering or leaving the planet entirely. Rather than trying to restore the planet to its pre-human state, we should do exactly what the Gaia hypothesis suggests life does—optimize conditions for future life.

Peter Ward: The Medea Hypothesis – Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? Princeton University Press, 2009.

Contrary to all of that, I was raised in the spirit of the Enlightenment, so I believe in progress, and by extension, I believe in civilization. Nothing good for humanity comes from a lack of civilization. This isn't a question of immediacy versus mediation. The very essence of being human is self-awareness and intellect, which is nothing more than mediation. The further you drift into mindless instinct, the closer you get to that immediate, pulsing existence, and the further you move from a consciousness whose very core is representation. In the end, you just arrive at death and nothingness. I truly don't see how that could be considered a desirable state, especially for human beings.

Jared Diamond once went on record arguing that the invention of agriculture was the single greatest mistake humanity ever made.

Honestly, Parsifal, getting kicked out of the natural sciences department was probably for the best. You practically earned it. I’m fully backing the moderators on this one, too. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if someone manages to boot you from the philosophy department sometime soon.

hiddeneagle98 said:Are we talking about kerosene here?

Exactly.