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Post by Liberator on Nov 4, 2009 3:21:33 GMT
I got to this through a link about Scientology. On that subject, I recommend Barefaced Messiah though I forget who wrote it. But I found this excellent vaccination against another cult all the more insidious for claiming to be 'rational'. That's a mistake in itself: 'rational' is used in the sense of 'logical' and only machines are logical, human beings rarely as 'rational' as other logically inferior animals. Ayn RandIt is striking, but perhaps not surprising, how similar many points of dishonest argument and cult are to those I have met from certain individuals claiming to be 'feminist' but everything else that has ever called itself 'feminist' their worst enemy. Tariq Ali satirised that kind of secular cultism wonderfully about self-styled Trotskyites and their disappearance up their own Black Hole in his 'Redemption' since he had been part of the politics and people he was satirising. Compare assorted Far Right, Far Left, Feminist, Religious and Libertarian extremists and try to spot any difference in attitude behind the superficial differences in their areas of interest: The identity in those last sentences with the intolerance of a few females who used to post to BBC-related board like this as 'feminist' (© all dissent under the name fraudulent) shows them too to be no more than a bunch of cults.
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Post by jean on Nov 4, 2009 9:01:44 GMT
Why are you always looking for a fight, Ratarsed?
Does it satisfy some deep need?
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Nov 4, 2009 15:24:19 GMT
Why are you always looking for a fight, Ratarsed? Does it satisfy some deep need? Looking for a fight? I think retarsed is just helping members here with their insomnia!
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Post by beth on Nov 4, 2009 17:29:55 GMT
My opinion too, Anna. We started the Ayn Rand discussion over in CV in the Book section. It's very, very interesting - not really a religion or philosophy as much as an ideology. Ratarsed opens and expands upon many interesting topics. Most of his posts are worth a read and a thought.
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
e x a l t | s m i t e
karma:
Posts: 11,769
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Nov 4, 2009 20:03:44 GMT
Yeah Beth whatever! This conspiracy stuff just seems to be business as usual.
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Post by beth on Nov 5, 2009 1:21:41 GMT
I have trouble getting into almost ANY kind of conspiracy intrigue. This is mostly just a pop culture issue, to me. I remember when Objectivism was of great interest on U.S. college campuses. Not that anyone acted out on the ideas - pretty hard to do without political support, don'cha know. Seems kind of creepy to me that it's rearing it's pointy little head again. I don't think it will get anywhere because of the current climate of anti-intellectualism so its relevance is questionable. Just interesting to bat around and examine.
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Post by Liberator on Nov 5, 2009 4:49:56 GMT
I don't think Ayn Rand believers (like scientologists and 'feminists') in themselves appear to promote any 'creepy conspiratorial stuff' but because they think that way, genuinely believe that others do as part of some fantasy conspiracy that is their only excuse for why everybody else rejects them, because they could not accept that most people just innately reject their prejudice without needing to be ordered to do so and they are the ones faced with explanation for their traditional prejudice in the face of 'liberated equality'.
Ayn Rand, Nazism, L.Ron Hubbard, modern 'feminism' - all the same excuse for those who recognise their inferiority to blame everybody else for thier ownrefusal toacept 'everybody else' as equal human beings.
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Post by jean on Nov 5, 2009 9:01:38 GMT
Well just miss the BBC-related feminists off your list, and talk about Ayn Rand, Nazism and L.Ron Hubbard all you like - OK?
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Post by Big Lin on Nov 5, 2009 12:09:06 GMT
I don't think this particular thread is the right place to talk about feminism.
We do have a whole section of the board where that subject can be discussed.
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Post by Big Lin on Nov 5, 2009 12:13:05 GMT
I have trouble getting into almost ANY kind of conspiracy intrigue. This is mostly just a pop culture issue, to me. I remember when Objectivism was of great interest on U.S. college campuses. Not that anyone acted out on the ideas - pretty hard to do without political support, don'cha know. Seems kind of creepy to me that it's rearing it's pointy little head again. I don't think it will get anywhere because of the current climate of anti-intellectualism so its relevance is questionable. Just interesting to bat around and examine. For what it's worth, Beth, I prefer Ayn Rand and the Objectivist position to the lunatic fringe of so-called American conservatives nowadays. In the 1950s and 1960s both Randians and the Viereck/Kirk school of conservatism put forward rational arguments to support their points of view. If you didn't agree with them you were free to shoot them down with your own rational objections. Nowadays conservatism in the US has become a cult rather than a philosophy or even an ideology. It's like trying to argue with a Jehovah's Witness or some equally flakey fringe group. Conservatism deserves better than the modern equivalents of the 'Malleus Maleficarum' brigade!
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Post by Liberator on Nov 6, 2009 0:26:29 GMT
Amusing how Jean wants to keep her own cult out of the same consideration as others but don't all believers in these totalitarianisms that all share reduction of human relations and complexity to a single issue?
Exactly my relation to modern feminism. In fact I started annoying the 'BBC feminists' by repeating the evidence of others how 'feminism' today mirrors exactly 'Bolshevism' under Stalin compared to Trotsky's ideals. And since both are little understood blast from the past rejected and superseded minorities still fighting battles forgotten long go against foes of their own imagination, they may be left to Rot In Peace.
Is there really much difference between the American Far Right and Rand, except for their additional superstitions? Their version of 'Christianity' has nothing to do with 'gentle Jesus meek and mild' or 'love thy neighbour as thyself' except in very roundabout tendentious sophistry.
Theirs is the religion of the Old Testament of simply keep the rules, behaviour is irrelevent. It has often been said that the traditional Christian religions are those of the New Testament, Protestantism a reversion to the Old Testament's irrational irascible 'Jehovah'. In that respect, the Anglican is still a Catholic and Apostolic church, not a true Protestant one. It merely returns church organisation to its original legal status that it retains wherever Orthodoxy has been the state cult. That is, the head of most Balkan Orthodox churches is no longer the head of state simply because for 500 years or so their head of state was a Muslim and Islam was the state cult.
Incidentally, I don't really want to continue this thread because I could not find the Ayn Rand discussion when I started it, so opened a new one on the same theme. I have no interest in her or her kind. I have at present returned to reading Trotsky's essays on the Soviet Revolution's failure. He speaks as a true visionary of the ideal we could become, not her of return to warlordism.
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Post by jean on Nov 6, 2009 9:20:15 GMT
Amusing how Jean wants to keep her own cult out of the same consideration as others... No ratarsed, she simply rejects your intellectually lazy definition of anything she thinks as some sort of 'cult'. She knows of course that Ayn Rand is a bit of a problem for you since she is admired by Wendy McElroy, whose peculiar brand of feminism you so admire (for which reason, I suppose, you exempt it from your list of cults): www.ifeminists.com/introduction/essays/bibliographicalessay.html'...Then, in the 50's and 60's Ayn Rand exploded onto the intellectual scene with the philosophy of Objectivism, which she expressed both in fiction and nonfiction works...[she] built an interdisciplinary system that carried the defense of individualism and capitalism to sophisticated heights.
It is surprising that her works have not ushered in a renaissance of individualistfeminism...'
Very wise.
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Post by beth on Nov 6, 2009 18:13:39 GMT
Could we, maybe, salvage the thread by talking about religious cults in general? This is a list of religious cult characteristics presented by the International Cultic Studies Association (formerly the American Family Foundation). Note the disclaimer at the first of the linked articles. I don't know anything about this group but their list is interesting to read. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Family_Foundation www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm Religious Cult Characteristics 1) The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law. 2) Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. 3) Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s). 4) The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth). 5) The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity). 6) The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society. 7) The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations). 9) The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities). 10) The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. 11) Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group. 12) The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members. 13) The group is preoccupied with making money. 14) Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities. 15) Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members. 16) The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group. Comments?
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Post by Big Lin on Nov 6, 2009 21:16:13 GMT
Feminism, like socialism, conservatism, liberalism, marxism, communism and anarchism, is such a broad term that it's become almost meaningless.
Andrea Dworkin, for instance, with her disgusting hatred of men, expressed in terms that (with the substitution of words like 'Jew' or 'black' for 'man,' 'men,' 'male) could have come straight off the pages of 'Mein Kampf,' is a woman for whom her 'feminism' was nothing more than an expression of her personal neuroses. Dworkinesque 'feminism' is only 'feminism' in the same sense that 'National Socialism' was 'socialism' and it's fascism in everything but name. I prefer to call THAT type of 'philosophy' by the name of 'female chauvinism.'
Ratarsed, feminism is basically about equality (which is precisely WHY Dworkin and her like are NOT feminists.)
A cult is also pretty well summed up by Beth's list of characteristics and that's certainly NOT true of feminism which, apart from anything else, has always been too shambolic to be a successful cult.
Now let's get back to the original thread, shall we?
It would be a great shame to have to move this interesting discussion to Vendetta!
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Post by beth on Nov 6, 2009 22:47:36 GMT
Lin, I'm going to start a new thread for the "religious cult" discussion so this one can be moved or removed - whatever you think. Two decent topics coming out of one thread isn't a bad thing. We can just move along.
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Post by Liberator on Nov 16, 2009 2:11:22 GMT
Ratarsed, feminism is basically about equality (which is precisely WHY Dworkin and her like are NOT feminists.) A cult is also pretty well summed up by Beth's list of characteristics and that's certainly NOT true of feminism which, apart from anything else, has always been too shambolic to be a successful cult. Stalin and Trotsky again - " Mine is the True Communism". "No, mine is the True Communism". Probably neither is. As far as I am concerned, Dworkin and certain people who identify as such on boards represent 'feminism' as it has become and what you say about 'equality' has long since gone the way of similar Communist ideals under Stalin. We must deal with what is, not with what should be. There are secular political cults as much as religious ones and no real point in trying to differentiate them. I don't really want to divert into that area, but nobody has ever said they want 'equality' when it means losing privilege. Therefore, to make a demand for 'equality' is to presume oneself inferior. In the case of women vis-à-vis men I do not believe that women are the inferiors that feminists try to make out. Society is a construct of both sexes equally together and gives each minor advantages and disadvantages that pretty much cancel out overall to a state of near-equality favouring women (less so today than formerly). There is nothing a man might do socially that a woman may not, but so much that women are free to do and expect done for them, that men are socially debarred from. I 'love' those people who say You can be anything you want to be if you only put your mind to it. I want to be a teenage punk girl. The only way I can see to achieve that requires belief in reincarnation!
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Post by beth on Nov 16, 2009 2:38:17 GMT
Ratarsed, feminism is basically about equality (which is precisely WHY Dworkin and her like are NOT feminists.) A cult is also pretty well summed up by Beth's list of characteristics and that's certainly NOT true of feminism which, apart from anything else, has always been too shambolic to be a successful cult. Stalin and Trotsky again - " Mine is the True Communism". "No, mine is the True Communism". Probably neither is. As far as I am concerned, Dworkin and certain people who identify as such on boards represent 'feminism' as it has become and what you say about 'equality' has long since gone the way of similar Communist ideals under Stalin. We must deal with what is, not with what should be. There are secular political cults as much as religious ones and no real point in trying to differentiate them. I don't really want to divert into that area, but nobody has ever said they want 'equality' when it means losing privilege. Therefore, to make a demand for 'equality' is to presume oneself inferior. In the case of women vis-à-vis men I do not believe that women are the inferiors that feminists try to make out. Society is a construct of both sexes equally together and gives each minor advantages and disadvantages that pretty much cancel out overall to a state of near-equality favouring women (less so today than formerly). There is nothing a man might do socially that a woman may not, but so much that women are free to do and expect done for them, that men are socially debarred from. I 'love' those people who say You can be anything you want to be if you only put your mind to it. I want to be a teenage punk girl. The only way I can see to achieve that requires belief in reincarnation! orrrrrrr . . . go here and join Second Life. Some of their very best characters are punk girls. Trust me, it's not a bad plan.
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Post by Liberator on Nov 16, 2009 3:08:17 GMT
I'm in Second Life. Can't see the point. It's all just people with too little imagination to do more than repeat endless partying and money games just like 'first life'. I got some pretty clothes, haven't been back there for months. What I'd like is developing a planet with radically new objectives and economies, a sort of Kim Stanley Robinson Mars where we can kick the corporate capitalists out and do what we want for the sake of doing it. Trotsky's interpretation of "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need" was that they should be the ones to decide what 'ability' and 'need' meant.
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Post by beth on Nov 16, 2009 4:55:05 GMT
I'm in Second Life. Can't see the point. It's all just people with too little imagination to do more than repeat endless partying and money games just like 'first life'. I got some pretty clothes, haven't been back there for months. What I'd like is developing a planet with radically new objectives and economies, a sort of Kim Stanley Robinson Mars where we can kick the corporate capitalists out and do what we want for the sake of doing it. Trotsky's interpretation of "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need" was that they should be the ones to decide what 'ability' and 'need' meant. I'm sorry it didn't work for you. That's kind of the way it happened for us, too. My husband and I both joined - separately - but after a few weeks, reached the same conclusion. Not the game creators fault, just gamers with too little imagination to know what to do. We couldn't stay interested enough to continue. He went off to World of Warcraft and I fell back to some occasional Civ and message boards. We thought it was just us. You have to admit, SL does provide an excellent chance to be a punk gurl. There used to be a good MUSH (multi-user simulated habitat) here and there, but I don't see them anymore. Too bad. Sorry for off-topic post. Carry on.
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Post by Liberator on Nov 16, 2009 5:11:40 GMT
I get tired with these eternal war games. I would like an artificial world that offers things we do not have in real life. It might be developing new worlds and new ways to interact or it might be return to an imagined past like Jean M. Auel's 35,000BC world, but different. where there is something more creative to life than clubbing and pointless flirting. If I remember, my character there (and I have one in There as well), is punk to the extent of having blue hair and black skin I can never get to exactly the ideal hint of luminous gold underneath. Maybe somebody should develop Iain M. Banks's sci-fi 'Culture' with intelligent machines (including spacecraft mostly 'eccentric' verging on 'mad') as citisens intheir own right.
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