Comments by "Andrew Bowen" (@andrewbowen2837) on "The Big Lie - How to Enslave the World" video.

@Alex-hu5eg is your goal now to attack my credentials instead of my argument? Where I'm from has no bearing on anything. And I never claimed to support totalitarianism. My sole purpose is to challenge what is said in this video, and particularly the echo chamber it causes in the comment section, so-called free thinkers who all think alike.
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Modernity.
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Have you seen videos or read any on Dostoevsky? Perhaps your dogmatism to reason, rationality, and science blinds you to why such a movement exists in the first place
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@Alex-hu5eg if this channel is not telling you the truth, and you do not think in the same manner as this channel, why else would you call it a "bastion for truth?"
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@Alex-hu5eg it's telling you what you want to hear instead of getting you to ask questions. You obviously do not question the truth of this channel, ergo, you are not thinking. Thus, you are in agreement with this channel that "totalitarian bad, capitalism good" and support its message, as evident from your original comment. As such, the channel is telling you what to think, and you are gobbling it up
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@callmelegendawight8298 hedonism existed long before capitalism. Fulfilling biological and psychological needs/desires existed long before capitalism. But you act as if I cannot place anything above myself, which is simply not the case. People often put their children, community, and spirituality above themselves. Totalitarianism (particularly fascism) is just another form of this, where the nation is seen as a large community to be placed above the self. If what you say is entirely true, then these regimes would never get off the ground in the first place. They obviously have some appeal
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@ickster23 there is much that goes into it, such as what you said, bias of the observer and audience, relativism, etc. But what I was getting at was the idea that people are not "piano keys" or "organ stops," whichever wording you prefer. We are not machines, and thus can never be truly 100% rational unless we become physical machines. I hate to emphasize Hume, but it ultimately falls back on the idea that the passions guide our reason
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Based lol
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@Alex-hu5eg shallow in terms of thinking you say? Is shallow thinking to study opposing views and seeing why they came to be and what appeal they had, what philosophical basis they had? Shallow thinking is saying "my way or the highway," which is what appears to be the case here. But I'm sure from your ethnocentric view from the outside that these other places do look bad, and in some instances they are bad. But what place isn't bad in some regard? Democracy features perhaps the strongest tyranny known to man: that of the majority. Does it mean I should defect somewhere else if I think it's being done wrong?
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@callmelegendawight8298 I'm interested in where you got all those ideas from in my statement, because absolutely none of it applies. If you can quote where I said anything about politicians being better and more sin-free than the average man, or where I endorsed totalitarianism, we can discuss further. I merely stated why fascism was appealing to people, people who were disillusioned with liberalism. Mussolini's own writings explain these things
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@joeltunnah "it's not real capitalism"
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Half truths maybe
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@seansmith3058 I think things will balance out because people will find the two extremes to be infeasible. We have experienced the one extreme for the past few centuries in the form of pure rationality, and in reaction to that, we will likely have a little while of pure emotion (I can't estimate how long though). However, I think people will find that neither by themselves can properly explain everything about humanity and phenomenology, leading to a reconciliation where both rationality and irrationality are used simultaneously. At least, I hope this is the case, because I think both extremes can be disastrous for us. I find evidence for this stance in examining the history of political movements. Where there is an era of progressivism, it is followed by an era of traditionalism, and vice versa. I am unsure, though, if there is a balance between those two extremes, so we may just be in an endless cycle of that. If there is a golden mean, it will require a revolutionary country to set the standard for everyone else to follow on a global scale. But I digress; to summarize, I think there has been some dialectical aspect to history. Things have been like a metronome or seesaw, back and forth at different extremes. You are probably asking how this leads me to thinking a balance can be made, since this evidence tends to show the opposite. With the ancients, Reason/philosophy reigned, then with the medievals, irrationality/theology reigned (I hesitate to say "irrational" here because they did use philosophy to argue for their religions - Aquinas, Averroes, Erasmus, Calvin, were all philosophic - but they all stopped their questioning at a certain point). Now we have seen rationality/science reign, to be replaced by irrationality/post-truth. Doesn't this seem to imply that there will be no balance, and everything continues to follow the reactionary, dialectical model? Yes, it does, up to our moment and the near future. However, I cannot comprehend where the next stage will be, after Post-Truth, if it continues on this model. Perhaps this is an issue on my end then; and I would be unable to deny that possibility. What I think, though, is that we will have seen the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, that reason is too powerful a tool not to use and that irrational intuitions serve their purposes as well, and decide that we cannot return to any of the ways of the past in their entirety, as a whole extreme by itself. We will not be able to embrace philosophy alone once again, nor religion alone. That leaves two options then: forge a new way of understanding beyond rationality and irrationality, or to combine the two. I cannot think of what the former might be, so the latter seems the only real solution. There are a whole lot of thoughts I have on the "hows" of this approach. One is the structuring of the psyche, like in Plato's Republic, except a Venn diagram perhaps, and a reintroduction of telos and teleology. One is using Nietzsche's approach and making each man master of himself (which could be post-truth to an extent too. I also have a very big hang up with this approach, but that's another topic). But I think the most fitting would be something from Dostoevsky: to be able to combine impulse or instinct with prudence, solving the existential, intellectual, and free-choice anxiety that the Underground Man suffers. In other words, to make each person both a man of thought and a man of action.
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@bungus87 the main thing is from Notes from Underground, just the first section/part (about half of the work). It's a monologue from an intelligent man who cannot act because he always contemplates, and has become bitter about it. He describes how mathematically and rationally oriented lifestyles tend to turn towards irrationality out of spite, where they choose 2 times 2 is 5 just because they can, out of boredom, spite, and the desire for free will. He claims men aren't piano keys. Another instance, albeit less explicit, is with The Brothers Karamazov and the contradistinction between the Grand Inquisitor, the embodiment of reason, and Jesus Christ, the embodiment of freedom and love. I won't spoil that for you though, but it's something to keep in mind when you read it. The movement I was in reference to is "Post-Truth," as defined by the original poster. I think people have become disillusioned with the project of Modernity to establish the hegemony of science and reason, and thus have turned to emotions more. It is reactionary at the current state, but I think we will eventually balance out in a way similar to ancient Greece and find Sophrosyne
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@seansmith3058 perhaps you're right that psychology could explain why people tend to have irrational behavior, but do you think there is a solution or "fix" to it? Or that there should even be an attempt to resolve irrationality?
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@Uncle Flotsam I'm not wasting my time on the wilfully ignorant
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@ickster23 I don't mean any sort of animosity by asking further questions, but to simply challenge your values. Why is being more emotional necessarily a bad thing? Can we look at the product of reasoning and rationality (at the expense of emotion) and claim that it has been unequivocally good?
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@davidhall9273 communes and totalitarianism are antithetical. The constitution originally had constraints to limit the threat of totalitarianism from the only source it could come from in America, but then the 17th amendment was passed. The fact of the matter is that American society has been tyrannical since it has been united as one nation. What is the tyranny I'm in reference to? That of the majority. It's the topic that James Madison spent the most time addressing in the Federalist Papers, and it's something the average person (you) does not think about. You have never been free. Alexis de Tocqueville provides an excellent explanation on how majority tyranny destroys the soul of any free thinking person, making it worse than any dictatorship that merely harms the physical body. Your thinking is too narrow. You've zoomed in to focus on Red vs. Blue and not the bigger picture. It's laughable that you try to claim that I "can't see what others can," but I would gladly take my position outside of the herd, outside of the cave, if it means I have a better perspective on how things really are
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@davidhall9273 your conception of totalitarianism is heavily favoring only one ideology and not its full breadth. You're attacking "Bernie Bros" and what you've been told of Marxism from the Cold War era propaganda. I've been talking about fascism, which is completely different in every regard. But I can address this topic as well if you would like.
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This is such a large and deep topic, and I should've guessed you would narrow it down and thin it out to where it only applies to the "enemies" of democracy. Every civilization, every state, every nation is built upon lies. This is something known since Plato's Republic, shown both in the allegory of the cave and the concept of a noble lie. This is why philosophers can never be kings, and why they distance themselves from the rest of society. All politics, even democracy, is built upon lies. You and the people in the comments do not see the whole picture and think yourselves immune, to be living in the greatest era of the greatest freedom. It simply is not the case. You all do not turn the mirror to yourselves and your society to question what lies we live and accept: inalienable, universal human rights; that all men are created equal; that democracy is the best regime; that freedom and equality can coexist. If you take this approach, you will come to the conclusion that anarchism is the only form of politics that may not be built upon any lies.
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In a similar manner, all systems of justice are built upon injustice. This is knowledge known at least since Machiavelli's The Prince. It takes injustice to have the desire for justice, and it takes injustice to establish and institute a form of justice. What, then, should be done about the legitimacy of such systems?
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So if you have to defend others' freedoms, is that a freedom you had in the first place? Your two choices are to defend others, or submit. Neither one sounds free to me
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@Shootskas freedom is to have choice. If we don't have a choice in the matter, or if we have some half-choice like you proposed, is it really freedom?
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@Shootskas when have I once said individual rights should be suppressed?
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@Uncle Flotsam sorry that you can't understand basic English. It's not my fault though
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@Shootskas let me paint you a scenario: Someone puts a gun to your head and states "you must either choose A or B." Would you call that freedom? The choice doesn't matter, but the fact that you are forced into choosing, and are only given two options when there is a whole alphabet, does not seem like any kind of "freedom" I would want
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@Shootskas it's reflective of your original comment. You gave me only two options, so if that is a dumb approach to you, you can only blame yourself for supplying it
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@Shootskas the "don't defend" option encompasses several different options. For example, removing oneself from any coercive ditution, or one could endorse the coercion even. But a third option entirely is that there is no coercion - it has either never threatened to exist, it was prevented from existing, or it was stopped after existing - in this hypothetical instance. My goal is to reiterate a point made by Jacques Ellul: if your "choices" are between living or perishing, it isn't really a choice, especially a free one, since you really only have one option. Nowhere have I endorsed anything else.
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@Shootskas your intentions were binary yes and no, as you've made clear. You left options off the table that aren't clearly one way or the other. Since this video is concerning lies and truth, have you ever considered that your "liberties" are such lies? Are you willing to accept them because they offer some perceived benefit, while you perceive others as not?
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@Shootskas freedom and liberty are not the same thing. Also, you straw man and put words in my mouth I never said or typed. And here I thought this comment section was full of intellectuals...
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@Uncle Flotsam I'm not even going to address anything you said because no thought was put into any of it, it's completely wrong, and unrelated
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@Alex-hu5eg is this channel not telling you what to think?
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@darthdadt yeah, I have become "one who knows" because one-sided YouTube channels provide me with the truth! Not that pesky, liberal education!
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@darthdadt of course, one such as yourself can't be indoctrinated because you watch YouTube videos! It's not the same things you learn in college at all. Of course, you must know exactly what every college is like, since you've been right?
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So small picture, even you who claim to be wise don't see the whole landscape
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Baaa
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