Blair not a liar shock

luka

Well-known member
what i'm advocating is the scientific method. have a look at the evidence before coming up with a theory. evidence which doesn't fit the theory casts doubt on the theory. this is somehow irrational? in what sense are you using these words mark? please start having a look at the world before making these grandiloquent pronouncements about it.
 

johneffay

Well-known member
k-punk said:
but if you are engaging in argument you simply have to present valid reasons for your conclusions.

Exactly. Sweeping generalisations fail to convince anybody.

The fact that some lawyers are good is not because they are lawyers; on the contrary, it is in spite of the fact that they are lawyers, i.e. because they have ethical principles which they will stick to despite the logic of their profession which is intrinsically and of its nature amoral.

Whereas it's a well known fact that most lawyers have no ethical principles, therefore they must by definition be amoral, right? Where is the empirical basis for this?

The fact that any [insert profession of choice] are good is more likely to be down to individuals' ethical principles rather than the profession they follow. I'd be interested if you could come up with an example of an ethically pure profession.
 

Melmoth

Bruxist
k-punk said:
A good lawyer is like a good soldier. It would be better if we didn't need either wouldn't it?

Yes, but if the death drive exists, as you have always argued, then to have a semblance of society they will always be with us. Like the poor.
 

Savonarola

New member
On Fetishes, Electoral and Revolutionary

A pithy explanation to our conundrum from the much-maligned Herbert: "The commodity form becomes universal, while at the same time, with the disappearance of free competition, the 'inherent' quality of the merchandise ceases to be a decisive factor in its marketability. A President is sold like an automobile, and it seems hopelessly old-fashioned to judge his political statements in terms of their truth or falsehood - what validates them is their vote-getting quality. To be sure, the President must be able to perform the function for which he is bought: he must be able to assure business as usual." (Counterrevolution and Revolt, 1972) Of course, if you've been inundated, as I, with ever more detailed accounts of Diebold's self-hacking of central tabulation in Ohio and sundry other states (perfectly plausible stories, by the way) you may wonder if 'vote-getting' is anything to trouble ourselves with. 'One man, one vote' is more than obsolescent in the society of control, no? So what if they 'stole' the election again? The very idea that Gore winning in 2000 would have been a visitation of justice upon our graceless planet is an obscene crime perpetrated against anyone who has ever actually lived and/or died for an idea. Surely, as Monsieur K notes, the bearded Slovene is right in stating the obvious: for reasons too boring to enumerate, our 'liberal democracies', evacuated of any of the criteria that would make the act of voting in any sense political, are so beyond rescue that dispensing with this anal attachment to counting our freedom and agency would be a liberating prelude to the parturition of the quivering larvae of some actual thought, not to mention action. Doubtless, if the latter were ever to rear its faceless head, we would once again be confronted with the good old problem of how to separate 'persons' from their 'roles': from the sans culottes of the French Terror to the child armies of the Khmer Rouge, revolutionaries have always harboured an unfortunate obsession for the signs of one's role, one's participation in the machinations of Moloch, whether these be glasses, love handles, or what have you. But surely, if K's commendably fanatical formalism is to have a future, it must be based on the most thorough indifference to signs, properties and qualities. Ergo, the abolition of the role (its possibility, consequences, etc) is what is at stake, and any question of guilt ('why did you choose to be a lawyer?') or exception ('but I'm a nice lawyer') is quite irrelevant. Or, as the great agitator had it: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation." Gal. 6:15
 
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be.jazz

Guest
k-punk said:
Law is precisely the emptiest of empty parlour games, the raising of idiot debate and winning to the highest principle. In other words rhetoric, rather than argument.
Really? Isn't that an extremely limited view? What about law's role in establishing rights, responsibilities, property, etc.?

This is why rationality is impersonal; it doesn't matter who or what is making the argument
Do you really believe in rationality as a universal, ahistorical, acultural constant? (BTW, before you say it, I'm still unconvinced by the 3-step "rationality is self-interest/collective action" plan)
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
johneffay said:
Exactly. Sweeping generalisations fail to convince anybody.



Whereas it's a well known fact that most lawyers have no ethical principles, therefore they must by definition be amoral, right? Where is the empirical basis for this?

The fact that any [insert profession of choice] are good is more likely to be down to individuals' ethical principles rather than the profession they follow. I'd be interested if you could come up with an example of an ethically pure profession.

Where do I get off the bus with this one? I expect this kind of argument from clueless twentysomethings who have no concept of the structural or the systemic, but really....

I'll let another authority speak for me:

[1163] But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them.

[1164] Of course.

[1165] And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess to have had a liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of the want of good-breeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him?

[1166] Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful.

[1167] Would you say "most," I replied, when you consider that there is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a life-long litigant, passing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness; he imagines that he is a master in dishonesty; able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of the way of justice: and all for what?--in order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful?
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
be.jazz said:
Really? Isn't that an extremely limited view? What about law's role in establishing rights, responsibilities, property, etc.?)

Yes, law's role in establishing property is definitely something that I'd forgotten about. I utterly recant.

As for rights, I assume you mean individual rights, which as a communist I of course don't believe in. There are collective rights or none at all.


be.jazz said:
Do you really believe in rationality as a universal, ahistorical, acultural constant? )

Yes, of course. Do you really believe in Nietzschean cultural relativism? (Of course you do, everyone does these days....ask any teenager....they'll tell you, it's all just a matter of opinion)

be.jazz said:
(BTW, before you say it, I'm still unconvinced by the 3-step "rationality is self-interest/collective action" plan)

Interesting personal anecdote. And what is your argument against it?
 

luka

Well-known member
yeah, i'm a clueless twenty something... you need to fix up mark, you're way out of line.
 

luka

Well-known member
in the last year you've held about 23 mutually exclusive positions, all presumably supported by structural systematic arguments, you've been a communist, an egoless space-cadet, a cold rationalist, you've subsumed yourself to Causes, to Reason, to Uttnall, you've praised something one week and denigrated it the next, you change gurus like most people change their underwear. its nietzsche then spinoza then zizek and badiou, you're a magpie, a mimic, it's all surface, shiny things which catch your eye... invoking rationality doesn't make you rational. your ego was most inflamed when you were talking about ego loss, now you're at your most irrational when singing the praises of rationality. what are you trying to acheive, you want to be the new marcello? is that the role you want? if you were a total prick i wouldn't even care, i'd just say, fuck it, let him embaress himself, let him make a prick out if himself, but when someone i like starts behaving like a cock towards me i take it personally. you need some deep breaths son, look back on what you've written cos you're riding an ego wave, think you're something all of a sudden, i've done it myself, let things go to my head and started acting arrogant, you think you're in control of yourself? emotions are carrying you, don't think i can't see, you're transparent, i can see right through you. i know everything that goes on, stop running your mouth, its time to take stock. you want to know why you get depressed? it's a direct result of what you're doing right now, letting your ego get so inflated that you got nowhere else to go but down. as soon as you become aware of the gap between how you see yourself and how others see you it's going to be the same old shit. its not sustainable. i might regret writing this in the morning but fuck, it needs to be said, don't fall down that stupid hole again, cultivate some self-awareness.
 
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be.jazz

Guest
k-punk said:
As for rights, I assume you mean individual rights, which as a communist I of course don't believe in. There are collective rights or none at all.
Could you give some examples of collective rights that eliminate the need or existence of individual rights?

Yes, of course. Do you really believe in Nietzschean cultural relativism? (Of course you do, everyone does these days....ask any teenager....they'll tell you, it's all just a matter of opinion)
I don't know if it's Nietzschean, but I don't see rationality as a substitute for God (maybe you were being sarcastic?). Apart maybe from very abstract levels of rationality, but on lower levels, I don't see rationality as a constant. Which is not to say that choices between them can't be made. In practice they are, every day. A month or so ago a vice-Prime Minister here stated that "some cultures are inferior to others, such as one in which women are not allowed to get education." The workings of power in the real world ensure that choices are made.

Interesting personal anecdote. And what is your argument against it?
It just seems full of leaps (rationality=self-interest, for one, especially if you're going to end up at collectivism), but your frame of reference is rather impenetrable to me.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
woebot -vs- plato

k-punk said:
[1163] But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them.
i take it this is plato? that's quite a fascinating perspective (i hope i'm reading it correctly). it appears to lay quite a lot of responsibility on the individual to take responsiblity for themselves. seems to suggest that people should take care of their own health (through a better diet exercise and less self-abuse (call me mr motivator)) and practise their own law (picture of positive anarchism?) is this correct?

on the other hand i suppose the law is now a positively ancient institution, and although it might appear quite involuted and twisted to the "clear-headed", in lieu of other channels, im sure many believe the ends justify the means. again with doctors, im sure one could take an evolutionary approach to disease (quite coldly seductive in many ways) but helping people get better, again dealing with a fucked status quo, but what else can society do?
 
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