Philosophy question

[worm]

Point me at the dictionary you've used.

Edited December 17, 2010 by worm

[eFestivals]

The definition I'm following is the one you agreed with and the one that is in the dictionary. This one:

'If something can happen without political interest, attitude, content and/or bias it is a-political.'

it's not the definition in the dictionaries I've looked at. Which dictionary is it from?

Or is it - this is where my money is - a definition you've invented?

Point me at the dictionary you've used.

dictionary.com has it along with a great deal of others.

From dictionary.com (here)

a·po·lit·i·cal

   /ˌeɪpəˈlɪtɪkəl/ Show Spelled[ey-puh-lit-i-kuhl] Show IPA

–adjective

1. not political; of no political significance: an apolitical organization.

2. not involved or interested in politics.

Oh my god.

I didn't think that even you were so frigging dumb as to make a blatant lie that can be checked so easily.

You really are the biggest fraud to ever walk this earth.

[worm]

You really are the biggest fraud to ever walk this earth.

[eFestivals]

From that source:

apolitical

— adj

politically neutral; without political attitudes, content, or bias

Apology accepted Neil. You can put your dramatic prose away now and drop your false zeal.

No apology. That's not dictionary.com's definition, and it's not the definition you gave previously either.

And it still does not prove that "the need to eat" is free of politics. I can tell you without any doubt that it's got politics - because I cannot separate the need to eat from the political consequences of the need to eat.

Just because you don't have the same view it doesn't make your take from that definition right. The fact that I see the politics of it makes you 100% wrong by that definition, as by me seeing the politics of it it very definitely does have political content.

You only become right via that definition if everyone in the world is in agreement with you, that is everyone being unable to see anything political to it.

[worm]

No apology. That's not dictionary.com's definition, and it's not the definition you gave previously either.

[eFestivals]

And it's cited on dictionary.com!

yep it is but it's not their definition!

As I've said in full for a number of times now, that means that the politics of hunger is inseperable from hunger NOT that hunger is inseparable from the politics of hunger.

It depends on the consideration of hunger, even by your definition.

If just one person cannot consider hunger free of politics then it can never be free of politics - as given in the definition you want to subscribe to.

A definition that you've subscribed to BTW after ignoring the first definitions that were presented to you!!

Which of course is nothing to do with you cherry picking the evidence to suit your argument, is it?

And you believe yourself to be an 'academic'. Pleeeeaaaasassse!!!!

Edited December 17, 2010 by eFestivals

[worm]

yep it is but it's not their definition!

[eFestivals]

No, it means that that one person doesn't understand what the word hunger means. Every single person in the world experiences hunger. It is a universal human condition, not a political one.

And very many people can drive a car.

Driving is a universal condition when behind the wheel of a moving car, yet it is something that even a numptie like you should be able to grasp is not free of politics.

So where's the difference?

There's a condition. There's a political aspect that can be applied to it.

Politics is ALWAYS something that is applied to a pre-existing concept.

Who are you talking about here? It can't be me as I've maintained the same premise throughout.

Yeah, right.

I asked you were your definition was from, you cited dictionary.com.

As can be seen at dictionary.com, you only pulled up that specific definition by ignoring ones that were presented to you first.

So you cherry picked the definition that suited your purposes while ignoring those that didn't. That's called ignoring the inconvenient evidence which disputes your take on things. It's as un-academic as it's possible to be.

You can only maintain the basis of your argument by ignoring the evidence that disputes your argument. You've proven it as the case right here.

I'll leave you to carry on making up your conclusions to suit your dogma..... But also knowing that you know you're wrong by the very fact that you've resorted to doing that.

[worm]

And very many people can drive a car.

Edited December 17, 2010 by worm

[worm]

Neil, on further reflection, you seem to have politics mixed up with science and/or economics. Politics is a label used to denote the dealing of state matters in relation to a manifesto, ideology or idea. Whereas science and economics are labels we use to denote cause and effect in the world; economics being particular to the world of human based production and consumption.

[eFestivals]

Driving a car is not a universal condition to the human condition whereas hunger is.

I was meaning 'universal' as in universally applicable.

How one gets to be in any condition is of no relevance to the condition itself. By choice or by nature makes absolutely no difference with regard to politics.

Politics is about a situation that exists - so hunger, or driving - where there's a belief that intervention of some kind can bring about a better outcome.

There's murders - they exist. Politics has intervened with murders, and by locking up those who are caught it's believed that a murderer can't murder again (there's reduced opportunity, at least), and that the act of locking up that one person will discourage another (disputable for a crime like murder I'd say, but that's an aside). It's what's considered by society as a whole as a better outcome.

There's drivers - they exist. Politics has intervened with drivers, with rules and regulations which hopefully bring about fewer accidents and injuries and deaths from them. It's what's considered by society as a whole as a better outcome.

There's greed - it exists. Politics has intervened with greed, to temper it with consequences (gaol if caught stealing, say) if your greed takes you beyond the limits that society has placed on what greed will legally allow you to do. It's what's considered by society as a whole as a better outcome.

There's love - it exists. Politics has in France intervened with love, to allow it as a legal motivational defence for things which wouldn't otherwise be allowed. Politics has in the UK intervened, by formalising love into marriage, for the social control of society. It's what's considered by those societies as a whole as better outcomes.

There's hunger - it exists. Politics has intervened with hunger, so that there's limits to the hunger you're likely to suffer, by ensuring the food supply because everything else about the nation state breaks down in days without that food supply. It's what's considered by society as a whole as a better outcome.

All of these things exist as an action or feeling or physical symptom completely apart from politics, but all have had politics applied to them in the exact same manner and for the exact same motivation. There is nothing special about any one of them whereby a numptie like you can say "that's exempt because I've happened to give it the label of 'human condition'", or that "politics of hunger is inseperable from hunger NOT that hunger is inseparable from the politics of hunger".

So you can do a great deal of a-political things (such as love and feel hunger and write up your thoughts) before they become political. To become political, you need to give your thoughts to the state as a matter of policy.

No.

You - specifically you - might believe that you are doing some apolitical things, because the politics of that thing does not occur to you.

But it has occurred to someone within 'the state', the organised group that gets food to your plate - which in this case is the organised group of humanity (perhaps in just one nation state, certainly in this one), of growers, distributors, retailers, the govt with food regulations, vehicle builders and maintainers (for the distrubtion), clothiers (for what all those people are wearing), etc, etc, etc, on-and-on down to the very last detail. And of course finally you with your coin to buy their product.

So your belief in the apolitical is merely your lack of knowledge. Your hunger is not free of politics even if you with all honesty think that it is.

Unless of course you're going to show me the part in the definition which says "if one individual believes something to be free of politics then it is".

It doesn't say that tho does it? It says a catch-all "is free of politics" - and that catch-all has hold of your own hunger.

[grumpyhack]

my prediction.

neil will say one thing. worm will say the opposite. it will result in name calling. you won't know who to believe and will wish you hadn't started this thread.

[the real new messiah]

So who was right then? or are they both right? i got halfway through page four and my brain caved in

[rabid]

So who was right then? or are they both right? i got halfway through page four and my brain caved in

[feral chile]

So you can do a great deal of a-political things (such as love and feel hunger and write up your thoughts) before they become political. To become political, you need to give your thoughts to the state as a matter of policy.

Edited December 18, 2010 by feral chile

[worm]

Can you? Or does the state give you the freedom to do this because the state decides you're not a political threat?

[worm]

So who was right then?

[feral chile]

You've missed the discussion feral.

In short, it's an irrelevance. The only thing of relevance is the possibility, in that it is possible to have love that is free of politics. If it wasn't possible then you wouldn't have a politics of love; you'd just have love. What would we be referring to when we said the politics of 'love'? What does that word refer to if it is a political entity and not an experience?

When we say love we refer to an experience, not the politics of an experience. I'd say that the experience is conditioned by culture, but that's not to say that the experience is political. So for instance, film does not give us desire or even tell us what to desire, but it certainly tells us how to desire. Desire itself is an experience, not a politic.

Edited December 19, 2010 by feral chile

[worm]

Desire might be an experience, but the presentation of that desire as romantic love might be political. It's definitely ideological.

Edited December 19, 2010 by worm

[feral chile]

That's precisely what I've been saying.

Neil seems unable to acknowledge what I've said because it detangles and therefore undermines his favourite piece of rhetoric - that 'everying is political'.

Sex and company? That's pretty much what I believe at a functional level too. But that isn't love, it's a relationship.

Love is something abstract like truth. You can pour love into a relationship or a child or indeed a cause/policy. I think that love is inherently evil because of the actions that it justifies.

Edited December 19, 2010 by feral chile

[worm]

Love is incredible abstract, which is why it's so hard to define. You've got so many different kinds of love - the version you mention above I'd call passionate love, courtship usually likes to think of itself as romantic love. Then you have benevolent love, which is the least controlling.

[eFestivals]

Me.

Neil thinks that love is political - it isn't. I think it's an experience that is shaped by politics - it is.

Can you name any one thing that is political (on the basis you're using there for it?). Nope. There is nothing that is inherently political.

Politics is always something which is applied to something else. And politics is now applied to everything, without exception.

If you can get your two brain cells to work then you'll have to admit that I'm correct. But of course you won't, so I guess that your 2nd brain cell is now failing.

Edited December 20, 2010 by eFestivals