In the end most discussions here are simplistic. Even the good old, "I can eat it, so I must be superior" is quite boring and outdated. I'm happy with a conclusion of the sort of "it's debatable and currently under discussion and may change in the future". There is already quite some ethical status associated with animals and you cannot just do anything you like with them and to what extent this will change in the future.. I don't know.

And actually I really wonder what's going on in the big brains of elephants and wales and the like? What are they thinking? They must be thinking something. After all it's just biology and their brains are not so much different from our brains and partly also much, much bigger. I'm waiting for some scientific breakthrough to explain me all this.

It's a Gordian Knot type of solution. Neither elegant nor sophisticated but quite practical. No need to argue with a cheeseburger...

I wouldn't quite describe my feelings here as "happiness", but that's inevitably where most discussions end. Arguments can be presented, and solutions can only be found if certain assumptions are first agreed on...

Hmmm... there are individuals whose goals are perverse, and yet I believe most of them are in some way in pain, with compromised agency so to speak. Most sjw and activists overall mean well imo, just you know... humans are animals and very far from perfect or rational. Put another way, I do agree there are some few that want the world to burn, just not so many as that. This goes back to the banality of evil actually, in that no, they really are just like us...

Right, which is why to me it looks like we both meant the same :)
If you're radical enough, anything can be X: Liberty, Justice, Love... choose a good thing, push it too far and you'll arrive somewhere nasty.

As you referenced to the blog (which I cannot think highly of, in terms of flow of writing, sorry!) - or something else?

I meanwhile haphazardly came across Queen documentary, and came to think just now that possibly "Under Pressure" (by Q & D Bowie) might come somewhere near as to reflexion you possibly wish to provoke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWdLt3Afjrg

'Pressure, pushing down on me, pressing down on you, no man ask for.'
'Under pressure that burns a building down, splits a family in two, puts people on streets.'
...

"Insanity laughs; under pressure we're breaking -
can't we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can't we give love that one more chance?"

'Cause love's such an old fashioned word;
And love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night;
And love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves'

'This is our last dance, this is ourselves - under pressure.'

Cool bass riff, most thoughtful lyrics, and what a pity Freddie Mercury did not do more scat singing!! Well put forth I find, from these fellers.


Edit: see PS below - must have been too slow, or suchlike! :-)

Ps (trusting this will snippet as edit);

U with Hannah Arendt there, btw, in terms of "banality of evil"? Yes, and no, IMO.

Possibly Milgram experiment could exculpate about anyone from about anything, because social cohesion, when systematic pressure is applied - in authorative ("respectable") setting especially - tends to override independent thought cum morality, except with rare individuals. But still, I do think it is also the flip side of this same cohesion that makes for the better human impulses, as well.

In any case, I still think wrong is wrong, and not banal, in terms of consequence - especially when the real world offers more plurality, than that (= experiment) - I should hope!

Plus I tend to find it unfortunate that "evil" seems to require victims that are from privileged classes (Western countries, to generalize) to be called out as such - because it mostly shall be the same that do the calling.

For example, what UK did in Kenya, Leopold II (Belgium) in Congo or France in Algeria was hideously cruel - and based on imperial pseudo-Christian ethos that should be described as fascist for most practical purposes, and inhumane often enough. But these outrages are pretty much forgotten, I would assume because of geography, for the main - as opposed to lack of "evil" therein.


Edit: hum... this shall be the "readable version" :-p - removing some repetition notably.

You border on being incomprehensible :) I think I told you so once at least...

Under Pressure is a nice song, Queen were a great band, Freddie Mercury was an incredible artist.
Milgram experiment excuses nothing, just like a higher authority per se does not remove the underlings responsibility.

External pressure contributes to radicalism, or not. There are numerous examples of people being at their most considerate, tolerant, calm because of being under pressure. You refer to this yourself.

If your point is that external pressures usually cause radicalism, I mostly agree. If your point is that external factors are more important than individual choice to define responsibility I mostly disagree.


To your deeper points in the second post, namely that evil is biased by privilege, that evil is not banal, that plurality reduces 'pressure'.

Plurality and differences between groups usually cause friction and pressure, not reduce it. This myopic multiculturalism is imo one of the most stupid ideas ever. A and B tend to not like each other, let's make sure we mix them up so well the dislike will disappear. The actual result is rather more pressure, and maybe C which may be better or worse than A + B and usually neither wanted to become.

Evil and its consequences are extremely banal. What is more banal than death? We all die anyway. What is more evil than killing? Maybe inflicting pain for pleasure... pain and pleasure are also very banal. I see this tendency to see evil as a transcendental pressure as a denial mechanism, particularly individually. Imo the consequences of refusing to accept the animal in ourselves (the death, the pain, the pleasure, the hunger, the lust, etc) are equally shitty as embracing radically those impulses. I've told you a couple times, you see only this embracing choice as radical (terrorism, holocaust, rape) whereas to me the idealistic denial of human self may be quite radical and contribute to similar consequences.

In fact this inability to consider the actual animal human other is precisely what bias is all about. It can both come from believing the other is less than you, where the privileged interpret external signs of cultural privilege for internal merit, or from believing you are more, where the privileged access to your perfect ego drowns effective communication and empathy. The actual solution is equality as you social activists have correctly guessed, but not radical equality, which you typically pursue from an egotistical bias, rather tolerant equality, which you typically reject as imperfect, therefore problematic.

Maybe she didn't find a trustworthy farm, but people like her are quite seldom by now, there are more reasons for not buying meat than this, not supporting slavery at all for example and in most cases including mine one of the biggest reasons is the vast waste of ressources (space, edible food, penicillin) used in absurd amounts for raising and stuffing those animals.

Anyway, everybody today knows what's happening in those big meat-farms, everybody knows that this is wrong for sure and reducing the meat intake and choosing carefully from where you buy would be more healthy for you and everything else even if you have absolutely no respect for animals or starving humans who desperately need the food and penicillin that is given to those animals in masses and don't care about the destroyed woods for more farming space, but people even achieve to live in total ignorance of this, so what should one expect...

A habit is more important than anything else.

Actually, pigs have a language with over 40 terms but it took thousands of years for us "superior" humans to get it, either because most of the time nobody cared or thinking outside of the box is still very hard for humans although that's what they think makes them superior, how ironic.

http://www.rts.ch/galeries/6438121-hommage-des-dessinateurs-de-presse-apres-l-attaque-contre-charlie-hebdo.html?image=6438146

"What's this little weapon, which hurt us so much?"

Respect and respects to Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous & Charb, and the eight others.

It is a consoling thought that there are such men and women, who fight for ideals such as the freedom of press, with a full knowledge what it may cost them. At unjustly high cost, indeed - but their cherished principle is likely to emerge only reinforced.

So much this!

BTW: I advise everyone to actually read the quran, then people will finally see, that those are not extremists, but simply consequent moslems. I always wonder how Europeans manage to "argue" about Islam for decades without EVER having actually read what it's about for themselves. :/

I hope someday this stuff gets either reformed or banned, rather than encouraging people with such heritage to send their children to Islam schools right here in Europe where they learn stuff you'd never believe, I know what's tought there from some moslem girls who don't really approve of this, it's not nice but totally goes hand in hand with what I read in the quran.

So much "what", exactly, pray tell?

Read the Bible - and you will find most brutal references. It shall be including pronouncements in terms of decimation of "others" - excepting virgin women that had a career of a sex slave in store afterwards. Or destruction of a whole city due to same-sex interest - after Loot's offer of his virginal daughter for rape was rejected, mind you. And the Old Testament sets forth most cruel, but unfortunately not unusual capital punishments.

Yet Christianity is not about that, is it, in your view - despite what the Bible says?

Then again, I dare think, you are certainly not a consequent Christian, or even a secular Child of European enlightenment, but a bigot.

You piss on the corpses of those satirists - Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous & Charb + Honoré - who treated everyone equal in their irreverence, but also hated none on cheap stereotypes.

I meant the last two lines in your quote.

What is wrong with you? Why are you starting with the bible now? Those monotheistic religions always were a bad idea. Why exactly do you think I'm a christian and why do you think I'm a bigot? I'm not part of any deluded human group but an individual judging everything for himself and you?
The difference between the violent stuff in bible and quran though is, that the latter has direct orders for lots of violent acts, as seen in my list of nice quran quotes in the other thread, but of course the bible is bs too. I was forced into enough bible classes to know this and am happy to have freed myself from it when I was 14.
You won't find me defending christianity or judaism either, it's all desert conquestomania from the past and should be left in the books. I have read them and many other religious texts from buddhism and daoism too.

I don't hate moslems, I think Europeans should finally inform themselves about Islam and check if it's compatible with our laws, but nobody does it because of a big lobby.

See above for Brasas' more comprehensive views, snipped some of it, that hopefully is more or less fair.

@Brasas - maybe it would be fine to express myself more plainly - but also, if you could put up with the blog you referred to, I am quite convinced you can quite put up with my particular incomprehensibility! ;-)

Under Pressure was actually the deep point from my perspective.

Cabu, Wolinksi, Tignous, Charb + Honoré (+7) - can you say their death was banal?

LOOK! The important thing is that pot should be legal!