Bungler on Nostr: npub1vcnse…gpad9 🌲Fæġer Mæġden🌲 The problem goes deeper than that. ...
npub1vcnsepcg4zvqpqnfrf6fr96hezvqr0pz57ql0vydd7nc3y4y2glscgpad9 (npub1vcn…pad9) 🌲Fæġer Mæġden🌲 (npub1g0u…3vfw) The problem goes deeper than that. 'Rationality' is a buzzword, no one can agree on what the hell it means, but ppl act like they do. A thing not agreed on being treated as a thing agree on, is contradictory, but most ppl don't see the contradiction when it's pointed out to them, making it a delusion. But buzzwords are always used as distractions on the part of our wayward elites, to mask what they're really up to.
Consider how 'rationality' is a noun derived from 'rational', itself an adjectival form of 'reason'. 'Reason' in the present-day is a buzzword also, but it comes from the Latin 'ratio', which was one of the words used to translate the Greek 'logos'. But when we look at what the ancients thought of logos, it wasn't this sterile, mechanical thing 'rationality' is today assumed to be. Aristotle starts On Interpretation with a discussion of the meaning of language -- 'logos' -- and says words represent pathemata of the soul, which represent things. Pathemata is an interesting word, it's the plural of pathema, which was a term used either interchangeably with 'pathos', feeling, or else describing a particularly strong feeling. Feeling, as in affection, or what ppl now dismiss with the term 'emotion', but for Aristotle, this was the underpinning of 'logos', the term from which our 'logic' is derived.
Moreover for Aristotle, the pathemata resembled real things via likeness, meaning those feelings they evoked in us held real qualities in common with the things that evoked them. Words, meanwhile, were only assigned to pathemata via convention, & had no real resemblance to things. Now for Aristotle, feelings had 'logos' when they had a harmonious order, that could reflect the order in real things. There was no innate opposition between logos & pathemata as is often claimed of 'reason' & 'emotion' in our day; rather, the two could oppose only if the pathemata were disordered, not properly ordered to represent the reality of things.
But many non-Aristotelians agreed with Aristotle's account here, hence why his "logic" had such popularity. But then Aristotle's "logic" wasn't what we think of logic, a sort of lining up of symbols in the right way on a page. For Aristotle, as for the Platonists & many others, the goal of logos was to help move the mind towards an intuitive grasp of the form & meaning of things. It was the sort of thing that we'd now call -- or perhaps disparage -- as "mystical", but for them, that was just "logic".
Now this was the sense that 'ratio' held in philosophical usage in the Latin west, & so did the English 'reason', & talk of s/t being 'rational' & the like. Well, the Renaissance saw the revival & mainstreaming of magic, whose traditions contained ideas of the world as a machine, & mathematical mysticism, & of dominating nature, & of knowledge of the world being synonymous with having power over it, & of creating what amounts to a technological utopia on Earth. Nowadays we don't think of these things as being particularly "magical", but that's the tradition these ideas came from, historically.
Well to make a long story short, what happened is that, over time, there was pushback against magic, & those ideas from the magical tradition that survived are ones that managed to get rebranded as s/t else, usually "philosophy", & then later "science". "Rationality", too. The real error has been conflating "reason", which ppl now use to refer to a jumble of different mental activities now (& conflate them with one another), with a worldview that holds everything is sterile mechano-mathematical abstraction & promises that more bureaucrats doing more calculations with more statistics & more quantitative analysis with more & more machines will somehow solve all the problems of the world. It hasn't worked out like it was promised.
Well there were ppl pointing out the problems with techno-progressive utopianism hundreds of years ago. But, the techno-progressives were able to seize control of the advancing technology of the era, & then bend it to spreading propaganda for their thought. There are interesting stories abt how that all played out, but not enough space to go into detail here, as I've gone on too long already. But needless to say, everyone is miserable living in the industrial hellscape Adocentyn of the techno-mages, but the techno-mages have used their powers of mass media & education to brainwash most ppl into not being able to understand what it is that's tearing them apart. "Rationality" & other buzzwords are a big part of the brainwashing, as they're associated with good (or bad) feelings, but ultimately are terms inadequate for describing the reality of things, so ppl thinking in terms of them end up trapped in mental loops that bind them to ignorance of the real nature of the systems that are destroying them.
Consider how 'rationality' is a noun derived from 'rational', itself an adjectival form of 'reason'. 'Reason' in the present-day is a buzzword also, but it comes from the Latin 'ratio', which was one of the words used to translate the Greek 'logos'. But when we look at what the ancients thought of logos, it wasn't this sterile, mechanical thing 'rationality' is today assumed to be. Aristotle starts On Interpretation with a discussion of the meaning of language -- 'logos' -- and says words represent pathemata of the soul, which represent things. Pathemata is an interesting word, it's the plural of pathema, which was a term used either interchangeably with 'pathos', feeling, or else describing a particularly strong feeling. Feeling, as in affection, or what ppl now dismiss with the term 'emotion', but for Aristotle, this was the underpinning of 'logos', the term from which our 'logic' is derived.
Moreover for Aristotle, the pathemata resembled real things via likeness, meaning those feelings they evoked in us held real qualities in common with the things that evoked them. Words, meanwhile, were only assigned to pathemata via convention, & had no real resemblance to things. Now for Aristotle, feelings had 'logos' when they had a harmonious order, that could reflect the order in real things. There was no innate opposition between logos & pathemata as is often claimed of 'reason' & 'emotion' in our day; rather, the two could oppose only if the pathemata were disordered, not properly ordered to represent the reality of things.
But many non-Aristotelians agreed with Aristotle's account here, hence why his "logic" had such popularity. But then Aristotle's "logic" wasn't what we think of logic, a sort of lining up of symbols in the right way on a page. For Aristotle, as for the Platonists & many others, the goal of logos was to help move the mind towards an intuitive grasp of the form & meaning of things. It was the sort of thing that we'd now call -- or perhaps disparage -- as "mystical", but for them, that was just "logic".
Now this was the sense that 'ratio' held in philosophical usage in the Latin west, & so did the English 'reason', & talk of s/t being 'rational' & the like. Well, the Renaissance saw the revival & mainstreaming of magic, whose traditions contained ideas of the world as a machine, & mathematical mysticism, & of dominating nature, & of knowledge of the world being synonymous with having power over it, & of creating what amounts to a technological utopia on Earth. Nowadays we don't think of these things as being particularly "magical", but that's the tradition these ideas came from, historically.
Well to make a long story short, what happened is that, over time, there was pushback against magic, & those ideas from the magical tradition that survived are ones that managed to get rebranded as s/t else, usually "philosophy", & then later "science". "Rationality", too. The real error has been conflating "reason", which ppl now use to refer to a jumble of different mental activities now (& conflate them with one another), with a worldview that holds everything is sterile mechano-mathematical abstraction & promises that more bureaucrats doing more calculations with more statistics & more quantitative analysis with more & more machines will somehow solve all the problems of the world. It hasn't worked out like it was promised.
Well there were ppl pointing out the problems with techno-progressive utopianism hundreds of years ago. But, the techno-progressives were able to seize control of the advancing technology of the era, & then bend it to spreading propaganda for their thought. There are interesting stories abt how that all played out, but not enough space to go into detail here, as I've gone on too long already. But needless to say, everyone is miserable living in the industrial hellscape Adocentyn of the techno-mages, but the techno-mages have used their powers of mass media & education to brainwash most ppl into not being able to understand what it is that's tearing them apart. "Rationality" & other buzzwords are a big part of the brainwashing, as they're associated with good (or bad) feelings, but ultimately are terms inadequate for describing the reality of things, so ppl thinking in terms of them end up trapped in mental loops that bind them to ignorance of the real nature of the systems that are destroying them.