Ie, a short-range, out-of-context, Pragmatist lie to hide ones ideals
> why not define a new term so you avoid the resistance
Definitions are the product of a mind focused onto reality, not arbitrary and conventional expressions. Eventually your audience will recognize that your new term hides their old enemy.
>Don't you think that it would be very difficult for someone in academia or other elite circles to publicly endorse the statement that feminism is bad?
If you want to live, the nihilism that dominates modern culture must be explicitly identified and explicitly condemned and an alternative must be explicitly advocated. There is no short-cut to cultural change,especially basic cultural change. One neednt accept Marxism to agree w/Gramsci that cultural change requires a "march thru the institutions." If cultural and intellectual leaders lack the honesty and courage to rejecrt a destructive culture, it will continue. There is no substitute for new ideas, explicitly advocated.
"The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher. The intellectual carries the application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor. He sets a society’s course by transmitting ideas from the “ivory tower” of the philosopher to the university professor—to the writer—to the artist—to the newspaperman—to the politician—to the movie maker—to the night-club singer—to the man in the street. The intellectual’s specific professions are in the field of the sciences that study man, the so-called “humanities,” but for that very reason his influence extends to all other professions. Those who deal with the sciences studying nature have to rely on the intellectual for philosophical guidance and information: for moral values, for social theories, for political premises, for psychological tenets and, above all, for the principles of epistemology, that crucial branch of philosophy which studies man’s means of knowledge and makes all other sciences possible. The intellectual is the eyes, ears and voice of a free society: it is his job to observe the events of the world, to evaluate their meaning and to inform the men in all the other fields."
-Ayn Rand
"The foundation of any culture, the source responsible for all of its manifestations, is its philosophy. What does modern philosophy offer us? Virtually the only point of agreement among today’s leading philosophers is that there is no such thing as philosophy—and that this knowledge constitutes their claim to the title of philosophers. With a hysterical virulence, strange in advocates of skepticism, they insist that there can be no valid philosophical systems (i.e., there can be no integrated, consistent, comprehensive view of existence)—that there are no answers to fundamental questions—there is no such thing as truth—there is no such thing as reason, and the battle is only over what should replace it: “linguistic games” or unbridled feelings?"
> Defrauding people into ideas increases contempt for them
Would you mind unpacking this more? I'd like to understand this better.
>Just as a tactical matter
Ie, a short-range, out-of-context, Pragmatist lie to hide ones ideals
> why not define a new term so you avoid the resistance
Definitions are the product of a mind focused onto reality, not arbitrary and conventional expressions. Eventually your audience will recognize that your new term hides their old enemy.
>Don't you think that it would be very difficult for someone in academia or other elite circles to publicly endorse the statement that feminism is bad?
If you want to live, the nihilism that dominates modern culture must be explicitly identified and explicitly condemned and an alternative must be explicitly advocated. There is no short-cut to cultural change,especially basic cultural change. One neednt accept Marxism to agree w/Gramsci that cultural change requires a "march thru the institutions." If cultural and intellectual leaders lack the honesty and courage to rejecrt a destructive culture, it will continue. There is no substitute for new ideas, explicitly advocated.
"The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher. The intellectual carries the application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor. He sets a society’s course by transmitting ideas from the “ivory tower” of the philosopher to the university professor—to the writer—to the artist—to the newspaperman—to the politician—to the movie maker—to the night-club singer—to the man in the street. The intellectual’s specific professions are in the field of the sciences that study man, the so-called “humanities,” but for that very reason his influence extends to all other professions. Those who deal with the sciences studying nature have to rely on the intellectual for philosophical guidance and information: for moral values, for social theories, for political premises, for psychological tenets and, above all, for the principles of epistemology, that crucial branch of philosophy which studies man’s means of knowledge and makes all other sciences possible. The intellectual is the eyes, ears and voice of a free society: it is his job to observe the events of the world, to evaluate their meaning and to inform the men in all the other fields."
-Ayn Rand
"The foundation of any culture, the source responsible for all of its manifestations, is its philosophy. What does modern philosophy offer us? Virtually the only point of agreement among today’s leading philosophers is that there is no such thing as philosophy—and that this knowledge constitutes their claim to the title of philosophers. With a hysterical virulence, strange in advocates of skepticism, they insist that there can be no valid philosophical systems (i.e., there can be no integrated, consistent, comprehensive view of existence)—that there are no answers to fundamental questions—there is no such thing as truth—there is no such thing as reason, and the battle is only over what should replace it: “linguistic games” or unbridled feelings?"
-Ayn Rand