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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Jochen wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202505091702.549H2FYl002449@ame4.swcp.com">
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<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Please
excuse me if I have accidentally set off an eternal loop of
thought from which there is no escape (although what if
consciousness is such an eternal, strange loop for which there
is no solution? </span></p>
</blockquote>
At a certain level/dimension of abstraction, how could it be
otherwise?<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202505091702.549H2FYl002449@ame4.swcp.com">
<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Gilbert
Ryle says in "The concept of mind" that the "self" belongs to
the things which remain confusing no matter how you look at
it: "Should I, or should I not, put my knowing self down on my
list of the sorts of things that I can have knowledge of? If I
say no, it seems to reduce my knowing self to a theoretically
infertile mystery, yet if I say yes, it seems to reduce the
fishing-net to one of the fishes which it itself catches")</span></p>
</blockquote>
Perhaps Deacon's "absential"... or/and the remainder/residue in the
long-division of fractional representation of an irrational number?
Always some cud left to chew.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202505091702.549H2FYl002449@ame4.swcp.com"><br
dir="auto">
<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I
was trying similar to Victor Klemperer to understand the evil
that haunts us. At the core evil is selfishness, but why are
people so easily deceived by it? As you know Klemperer was a
German linguist who tried to understand the Nazis by examining
their language (in his LTI book) and their actions (in his
diaries). He used the tool which he knew best, which was
language.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_%E2%80%93_Lingua_Tertii_Imperii">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_%E2%80%93_Lingua_Tertii_Imperii</a></span></p>
</blockquote>
I've read the diaries, thanks for this additional reference. It
provides much-needed/appreciated parallax on how he processed his
multi-year ordeal from the onset of open anti-semitism to the
recovery after the allied invasion.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202505091702.549H2FYl002449@ame4.swcp.com"><br
dir="auto">
<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If
there is a (wannabe) dictator at the top who is deceiving us,
how he is doing it, is the deception somehow visible in his
language, and what role do emotions play in the bigger picture
as a mechanism of deception and control?</span></p>
<br dir="auto">
<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Donald
Trump for example seems to judge everything if it is good or
bad for him personally. Everything is always about him. He
seems to be unable to discuss things in an objective way, and
his speeches are full of subjective descriptions, from simple
judgements to heavy insults. Things around him are either
terrific or terrible, tremendous or tedious, awesome or awful,
great or ghastly, huge or tiny, etc.</span></p>
</blockquote>
And this may be key to his appeal to the many whose own
conception/perception of the big world is equally (if more naively
and less consequentially) narcissistic? I do think that a
fundamental risk/flaw to both Democracy and Capitalism is the
narcissistic POV... something the West and much of the rest of the
world (who follows/apes/mimics/envies) the bountiful concentrations
that such egocentric pursuits can yield (temporarily)<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202505091702.549H2FYl002449@ame4.swcp.com">
<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/how-to-talk-trump/550934/">https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/how-to-talk-trump/550934/</a></span></p>
</blockquote>
thanks for the reference.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202505091702.549H2FYl002449@ame4.swcp.com"><br
dir="auto">
<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">As
you you know Hitler was full of emotions in his speeches too.
In his speeches he talked himself regularly into a rage.
Demagogues almost embody negative emotions. The rage and hate
towards the perceived opponent, and the shame of the own
situation soon to be replaced by pride, as Arlie Russell
Hochschild describes in her latest book "Stolen Pride: Loss,
Shame, and the Rise of the Right"</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://speakoutsocialists.org/book-review-stolen-pride-loss-shame-and-the-rise-of-the-right/">https://speakoutsocialists.org/book-review-stolen-pride-loss-shame-and-the-rise-of-the-right/</a></span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.0pt;margin-bottom:0.0pt;" dir="ltr"><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br>
</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Great riff/perspective,</p>
<p> Thanks!<br>
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