I think Art is the Barometer of any society. With the entertainment industry seemingly obsessed with films glorifying human mutilation and dehumanization. Does this indicate a moral storm brewing or do all cultures march toward inevitable decay?

That's what DB said :)

• Report

by Ms.A on February 10th, 2009

So pleasing the masses by insistantly appealing to its purient interest doesn't indicate a downward slide toward the amoral?
I believe horror was far more effective when it was implied, as in the case of Hitchcock. Therefore this "glorification" portrayed as the vivisection of the human form, in every depraved manner these "artists" concoct, is to you nothing more than some perverted affirmation of life? So the producers of this twisted material are trying to help the social conscious by mutilating the Human form?

• Report

by harryseldon on January 31st, 2009

I know this won't sink in with you but things are not whatever you want them to be whenever you want them to be. A is A, a thing can not be A and B at the same time. This is the nature of reality, what you're discribing is insanity and yes I define what is moral, based on objective thought. I define what is the good in my life and do not rely on the whims of expediency nor except what is considered to be moral by those I consider to be moral cannibals. You let others decide?

• Report

by harryseldon on January 31st, 2009

So everyone should and does perceive reality exactly the same way... Wow that's wonderful, please explain to me more how I can perceive reality and your morals exactly like you and I too will be Godlike. Things are constantly changing and moving. To think that you know something with profound certainty is not sane. What is good in your life is not necessarily good in my life, obviously. It sounds like you’re not in agreement with the freedom of speech, if that’s true good luck to you sir and may we never meet. I let others decide for themselves and speak freely.

• Report

by Dick Boyle on February 4th, 2009

Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute—and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? Are the things you see around you real—or are they only an illusion? Do they exist independent of any observer—or are they created by the observer? Are they the object or the subject of man’s consciousness? Are they what they are—or can they be changed by a mere act of your consciousness, such as a wish?
Metaphysics identifies the nature of the universe as a whole.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 4th, 2009

"Reality" exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
"Reason "(the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
Free speech,most certainly, but to withhold reason invites depravity.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 4th, 2009

Well said,harryseldon!

• Report

by Ms.A on February 5th, 2009

I live in a universe that is constantly changing. I perceive things differently on a daily bases, for me there are no absolutes. Reality for me is an inexplicable miracle. Nothingness would be way easier to grasp but since we have consciousness we're able to live this tremendous experience. It sounds like you're a hard-core determinist. I respect your opinion because it's well thought out. I just don't agree with the idea that everything is knowable and absolute. I don't believe there's a point if our choices are predestined, we may as well have not been.

• Report

by Dick Boyle on February 6th, 2009

Are you saying that because we have certain laws of science that we should all perceive events the same way and that because you think today's Horror movies have pushed the envelope too far that we're all doomed as a society? I certainly don't think today's horror films are healthy but we must have freedom of speech. If decay is a product of freedom of speech and we turn into blood sucking cannibals so be it. If enough people believe it will destroy our society it will. If enough people think it's harmless escapism then it is. Labeling is not my bag. If certain people get enjoyment from Horror and aren't being affected by it to an extent of inflicting harm upon others, fine.

• Report

by Dick Boyle on February 6th, 2009

Freedom of speach I don't think results in decay. Maybe a lack of standards or values which allow decay. The problem with establishing standards or values is that there will be those who cry censorship.
When you say there are no absolutes you are stating an absolute and to say you have a consciousness means you must reason that you exist. Not being able to identify the nature of the universe around you means you may have experienced a psychotic break. Reality exist whether we all perceive it the same way or not. Not unknowable just that which is unknown. Good luck with your Break.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 7th, 2009

Are you incapable of posting a comment in the same post? If I had to rely on others and especially you I would be dead. Man must use his mind to survive and his reason as a guide. No one will do it for you.If man does not act in his own rational self interest he will not survive. The moral purpose of a man’s life is the achievement of his own happiness. This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to help others in an emergency. But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others, that he does not sacrifice himself to their needs. Benevolence is a virtue and is practiced by rational mind. Man must define his terms. Otherwise there would be no way in which communication can take place. words mean things A is A. Man can not conceptualise without reason and a clear rational understanding of that which is to be defined

• Report

by harryseldon on February 15th, 2009

There are two moral questions which altruism lumps together into one “package-deal”: (1) What are values? (2) Who should be the beneficiary of values? Altruism substitutes the second for the first; it evades the task of defining a code of moral values, thus leaving man, in fact, without moral guidance.
Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value—and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 15th, 2009

Consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, man knows that he needs a comprehensive view of existence to integrate his values, to choose his goals, to plan his future, to maintain the unity and coherence of his life—and that his metaphysical value-judgments are involved in every moment of his life, in his every choice, decision and action.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 15th, 2009

Metaphysics—the science that deals with the fundamental nature of reality—involves man’s widest abstractions. It includes every concrete he has ever perceived, it involves such a vast sum of knowledge and such a long chain of concepts that no man could hold it all in the focus of his immediate conscious awareness. Yet he needs that sum and that awareness to guide him—he needs the power to summon them into full, conscious focus.
That power is given to him by art.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 15th, 2009

I thought from the start that you were an altruist. Altruism holds death as its ultimate goal and standard of value.Since nature does not provide man with an automatic form of survival, since he has to support his life by his own effort, the doctrine that concern with one’s own interests is evil means that man’s desire to live is evil—that man’s life, as such, is evil. No doctrine could be more evil than that.Yet that is the meaning of altruism. reanswering this question instead of commenting in the original thread is not conducive for a proper discussion.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 13th, 2009

The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality—with the code of self-sacrifice—is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state. Soviet Russia is the ultimate result, the final product, the full, consistent embodiment of the altruist morality in practice; it represents the only way that that morality can ever be practiced.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 13th, 2009

America’s inner contradiction was the altruist-collectivist ethics. Altruism is incompatible with freedom, with capitalism and with individual rights. One cannot combine the pursuit of happiness with the moral status of a sacrificial animal.The advocates of mysticism are motivated not by a quest for truth, but by hatred for man’s mind; . . . the advocates of altruism are motivated not by compassion for suffering, but by hatred for man’s life. I grow weary of your nonsensical statements and disjointed attempt to sound logical. You have Informed those who might read this thread only of your illformed thought processes
and flawed while tortured premise.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 13th, 2009

Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists. Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Reason is man’s tool of knowledge, the faculty that enables him to perceive the facts of reality.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 12th, 2009

http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/schizophrenia/a/schizothink.htm
If you can not except the concept of reality as an irreducible primary then this is futile. schizo behaviour purposes a subjective universe where existence is momentary, as you say above "as it occurs".

• Report

by harryseldon on February 12th, 2009

Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egoist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.
A true egoist accepts the nature of the universe and therefore reality. The egoist does not attempt to obfuscate or deny. that is the realm of the altruist or the brute. Sophistry will not rule when reality is the currency

• Report

by harryseldon on February 12th, 2009

Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 8th, 2009

Reason is man’s only means of grasping reality and of acquiring knowledge—and, therefore, the rejection of reason means that men should act regardless of and/or in contradiction to the facts of reality. Reason is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice. Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. Rejection of reality is an evasion.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 8th, 2009

Reality is a bundle of thoughts. What you perceive as existing does not make it fact. Acceptance of this difference between humans frees us towards the truth. Accepting that even through reason, reality is not always as it seems, definite, is NOT a rejection of reality. Acceptance of change and an evolving reality that accumulates as the present moment in time, again, leads us closer to a truth. Current moments in time maybe the only truth you need to reason with.

• Report

by Dick Boyle on February 10th, 2009

It is obvious by your continued evasions that you are incapable of grasping reality and developing your own consciousness capable of perceiving that which exists. Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness. The act of focusing one’s consciousness is volitional.

• Report

by harryseldon on February 10th, 2009