shamgar
1yr ago
For what it's worth, historically Reformed theologians did resort to something more like compatibilist arguments. I know this claim sounds unlikely in a world where Calvinists proudly adhere to determinist views and claim there is no free will and so forth, so let me provide a source for it. Unfortunately, it turns out that through liberal theology on the one hand and anti-intellectual fundamentalism on the other modern Protestantism has jettisoned quite a bit of its theological tradition.
shamgar
1yr ago
I have read a fair bit of Calvinist theology from John Calvin himself up to contemporary stuff and I've never had a sense that there was some sort of class struggle going on behind it. Where did you get this idea?
shamgar
1yr ago
Your mention of Solzhenitsyn peaked my interest a little, but after having looked at it for a bit as far as I'm concerned it's not difficult to acces at all all. It has a pretty big wikipedia article. It's been translated to German and French. In German it looks like you have to get it second hand (although you can find offerings easily) and in French you can just buy it on amazon. And apparently they're working on an English translation due next year.
There are also other works by Solzhenitsyn which haven't been translated to English yet by the way, not just the one that's about Jews.
shamgar
1yr ago
My understanding is that the blue and red tribe refer more to cultures than to a set of ideas. Of course these cultures and certain political ideas go hand in hand, but they are not necessarily the same.
To quote the original SSC article coining these terms:
I think these “tribes” will turn out to be even stronger categories than politics. Harvard might skew 80-20 in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans, 90-10 in terms of liberals vs. conservatives, but maybe 99-1 in terms of Blues vs. Reds.
This is purely speculation and gut feeling, but I suspect most people here are part of the blue tribe minority whose politics do not line up with their tribe. HBD to me sounds more like an idea for disaffected edgy blue tribers, than for red tribers to be honest. I'm not from the US so maybe my perception is completely off, but I don't have the impression that the average grill-pilled rural Trump voter knows what HBD is. The people talking about HBD on the internet and the red tribers might both be anti-immigration, but that doesn't make them from the same tribe. A white Westerner converting to Islam on paper shares a lot of beliefs with the average Arab, but he doesn't become an Arab, even if he might be a more conservative Muslim than the average Arab. A middle-class college educated urbanite might develop edgy right wing political opinions, but that doesn't make him red tribe.
shamgar
1yr ago
I'm not super knowledgeable about the issue, but I'm inclined to him in a negative light. As I understand it, he played an important role in moving Europe from cabinet wars to total war.
Given the historical distance, we maybe can appreciate a romanticised Napoleon as a military genius in the way that people think Vikings or Caesar are cool. But if we take a more serious look, I don't see how Napoleon can be seen as a good or even morally neutral person outside of French nationalistic hero worship or Raskolnikovesque nihilism.
shamgar
1yr ago
Care 83%
Loyalty 69%
Fairness 92%
Authority 64%
Purity 64%
Liberty 75%
Strongest moral foundation is fairness and I got matched to conservative.
However, I do score much higher on care and fairness than a typical conservative apparently. Actually, except for the libertarian on liberty I score higher or (almost) equal on every moral foundation compared to any of the profiles. I don't know how good my morality is, but I sure do seem to have a lot of it.
shamgar
1yr ago
Does anybody have tips on interesting stuff to read in French? Fiction, non-fiction, articles, books, blogs, anything goes.
I've always been interested in languages and enjoyed studying them, but I've never had quite the discipline to commit to one and learn it to a high level. Now I want to just commit to one language for a while and learn it properly. Because I already have some basic knowledge of French and I have a trip to France planned coming spring, I figured French would be the best candidate to start with. Just looking to get some more sources of input.
shamgar
1yr ago
Note how you are getting all these positive things, while not yet having undergone The Hock. Maybe the real Hock is the changes you made along the way!
shamgar
1yr ago
That's a good point, the Rijksmuseum is probably worth a visit. I haven't been there in a long time and I am personally not super into art and musea, so take my words with a grain of salt, but obviously they have a lot of famous paintings there and that's something the other towns I mentioned don't have to offer.
The Netherlands is a small country, so a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam does not exclude a visit to Leiden or Utrecht, to get a taste of a historic city centre with canals, with less crowds and less tourist traps.
shamgar
1yr ago
I don't know what film you're referencing, so I can't attest to that, but personally I had more fun visiting Bruges than visiting Brussels. I think Bruges still has a reputation in Belgium itself of being a bit touristy, but it does have a large beautiful historic centre. I might be a little harsh on Brussels, it does have some nice historic areas, but given that it's the most famous and biggest city in Belgium it just felt a little underwhelming and at least anecdotally when I visited there myself it also felt overcrowded. Bruges also gets plenty of tourists, but it has a large historic city centre and at least when I visited there, the tourist crowds weren't quite as bad as Brussels.
Brussels is pretty bad indeed. Even in Belgium itself there are nicer towns to visit in my opinion. If you ever find yourself in Brussels as a tourist again, take a short train or car ride to Leuven. Not as crowded, comparable amount of pretty historic things to look at and for me at least it has a much nicer vibe. Sometimes major capitals can be too flooded with tourists and not actually be the nicest places to visit. I am Dutch myself and I can tell you, if your European trip includes a visit to the Netherlands, that for instance Utrecht, Leiden and Delft are all cities with pretty historic canals like Amsterdam, but without being overcrowded with tourists and are hence much nicer places to visit as far as I'm concerned.
Can you elaborate a bit on how culturally there is a bigger difference between your hometown and Salt Lake City than between Brussels and Salt Lake City? I'm quite surprised to hear that.
Although he currently has a lot of mainstream success, I think Bach is a historical example of your favourite composer's favourite composer. While he received a fair bit of recognition in his own time, after his death his works were regarded old fashioned as music went from Baroque to Classicism and then to Romanticism and he was a bit forgotten. In the 19th and 20th century people started getting more interested in historical music and Bach's reputation grew again to the point where he's now regarded as (one of) the greatest composer(s) ever. However among Bach enjoyers in the period where he wasn't very highly regarded, were Mozart and Beethoven. Both of them studied Bach's work, which inspired them to write more complex counterpoint. So in the second half of the 18th century Bach was probably the perfect example of your favourite composer's favourite composer.
shamgar
1yr ago
I have also noticed I enjoy less some of the places for online discussion I used to frequent. I have asked myself whether it was the discussions that have changed or my perception of them. A general trend of declining quality does match my experiences I think, but again I cannot tell whether I might be a bit burned out with online discussions or whether the discussions are burning out.
Your sentiment is certainly relatable. However, I don't have any advice for you which you have not already rejected in your post. It does make me think of this little poem:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
shamgar
1yr ago
I also think this is rather tricky and don't know how to deal with it. To complicate matters further I also don't want to err to much in the other direction where you completely disregard everything a certain source has to say because it made a dumb mistake once while it might still have plenty of worthwhile things to say.
shamgar
1yr ago
While I can understand why people think red is the obvious choice, but I really struggle to understand why some people seem to have such a hard time imagining non-cognitively impaired people choosing blue.
You presuppositions which together I reckon are sufficient for choosing blue:
- A strong preference for the outcome where no one dies. For instance because you believe human life has an intrinsic value.
- You assume that some people will pick blue. Even if they might think red is the obvious choice when properly considered, maybe they had a brainfart, maybe they misread the poll, maybe their mouse slipped, etc. That's not even considering the fact that for whatever reason people might consciously choose blue.
There's also a weird meta element where I think both of those presuppositions are pretty normal and hence would expect a lot of people to vote blue and if I expect a lot of people to pick blue, that only makes point 2 more salient.
Again I understand why people might not agree with this reasoning, I don't understand why it seems to be so unimaginable that somebody might genuinely hold this position to some Mottizens.
shamgar
1yr ago
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'esoteric points of high theology', but personally I really enjoy https://mereorthodoxy.com/.
Understandable. For what it's worth, as someone who is mostly a lurker, these threads are one of the things that keep me lurking.
More options
Context Copy link