Philosophy Corner, Exploring Truth Together

The Emperor's Lounge
#1

Greetings to all,

due to a recent discussion on philosophy I was thinking it would be a good idea to have an open thread where everyone can share the philosophies that changed and shaped their lives.

All people have different backgrounds and philosophies they resonated with, I love philosophy and forming our own based on the great thinkers of the past, philosophies can be the cornerstone of our lives and make us either wise or a fool.

Even the drunkard has a philosophy about why he is drinking… I mean to say, everyone has a philosophy about life, at the end of the day we seek one that is closest to Truth and one that can lead us to ever higher degrees of living and well-being.

Let us start of with “ Is It Better to Be Feared or Loved? A Machiavellian Dilemma”

From Main Disc. Thread - Fire vs. Saint Round 4 [The Battle is On!] - #2073 by Sub.Zero

Everyone is free to share their input, be mindful there will be different camps so remain a sense of decorum and respect among each other!

@JCDenton & @Sub.Zero tagging you guys to start this thread off. Whenever a philosophical debate is about to initiate it can be redirected here to that all the main threads remain on topic.

Here ideas can be shared among each other so that we can become more wise and better our lives through finding the right philosophies.

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Main Disc. Thread - Fire vs. Saint Round 4 [The Battle is On!]
#2

I will start of by quoting two of my two favourite philosophers.

Abraham Lincoln

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

– Lincoln said this in response to critics who thought he was too kind to his political opponents.

Martin Luther King

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”

– From his sermon Loving Your Enemies (1957). King built his entire philosophy of nonviolence around this principle.

Both were murdered for their ideals but they went down with a legacy of greatness and truly honoured for their service to mankind. Both are seen as martyrs for justice and equality.

Machiavelli on the other hand died disgraced and as a failure.

I prefer the former two, as I resonate with transforming enemies into allies. I seek to transform the world into a better place, for every enemy that has been converted the world becomes lighter and more whole.

For me their legacies speak for themselves and which philosophy will lead to what kind of destiny?

I do not think machiavelli was really admired by anyone while both King and Lincoln are remembered with love and respect. One is love-driven leadership that inspires trust, the other fear-driven leadership based enforced through fear.

The power of fear is clearly temporary while love has had an influence that left an impact even long beyond their time as they are both still considered moral icons. There lives is still acting through the hearts of people today.

And to finish this off, personally I’d like to have a peaceful conscience knowing I have done the right thing and been mercilessly killed for it rather than feeling the shame and guilt for realising the wrongs I did at the end of my lifetime. And if you believe in reincarnation both speak for themselves how the next life will be…

I think you always pay a price for everything. While some nasty behaviour gives you temporary strength and power history has shown this is never lasting.

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#3

Even the one human being our Judeo-Christian world view holds to have been “perfect”, for embodying love, was not saved from treachery by loving the world. Indeed, he died a very painful death before the events of overcoming the world.

But despite that, his entire platform was built on the idea that perfect love casts out fear. His idea was not to be fearsome, but to be fearless.

Modern predictive programming from the archons of the world cheapens the idea of fearlessness and often presents it as something not to be desired. There’s the example of Amos in the Expanse, where Alex says to Amos that he wishes he could be like him, without fear, to which Amos responds no… you don’t. Presenting fearlessness as if it is the mind of the serial killer, mad scientist (Cortezar) or skull cracker, someone who can kill without blinking an eyelid. This is a false presentation of true fearlessness.

Similarly, people will cheapen the idea of having so much love for your brethren that you’re willing to die for them, even though this is presented as one of the key ideas of this philosophy. It is not often understood that this is also part of the warrior ethos, that you should not even fear death.

Could there be anything more masculine than being fearless, unafraid of death, a state which automatically makes all the scheming of a Machiavellian irrelevant? The Machiavellian schemes in order to avoid injury to his/her legacy or life, and though they may not appear to fear on the surface due to their egotism, in reality they are only pushing the fear of death deeper down.

One thing I will say about the love based model however is that it only achieves perfect success with singularness of mind, ie if this fearlessness and love state can become a basis for the ground of being, otherwise it is very easy to find yourself fighting yourself.

In reality it is very difficult to achieve that kind of fearlessness through love in a practical sense without a lot of hard work. I still think it stands as one of the best demonstrations of what masculinity is however – this lack of fear to act for the good, even if it causes hardship or death. The question of what this “good” is might vary from culture to culture, but the idea is still the same.

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#4

it heightens a risk of suffering and death so It will never be fully “practical” in every day life. If the goal was to be the most practical in life for an individual, we would be told to use all the tools in our toolkit instead of using the ones that are deemed as greater than others. This seems to be at least to me because every day wellbeing is not the ultimate goal. Afterlife and the quality of character / soul / energy is. To a believer at least. To a non believer, an attempt to reform society to safer and more prosperous one.

not always practical for - daily individual life experience. As you said, it can backfire just like anything else and you can only do so much with limited toolkits. There are multiple “bigger” motivations behind this design.

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#5

I agree, for most people, it will probably not be fully “practical”. I don’t believe this is by design however.

It’s a nuanced subject, and one that is shown to be easily misunderstood, for example you mentioned the idea of believer vs non believer there. That’s because the teachings were codified and turned into a religion, rather than remaining as a set of techniques to empower man to reach his full potential. The techniques themselves are not a matter of belief, but are recipes. However, here we are several thousand years later with many people worshiping someone who wanted to be seen by his disciples as a friend and a teacher. It’s a funny old world we live in.

Matthew 6:22 is the perfect example of a technique for transformation or recipe (along the lines of similar recipes found in the Shiva Sutras, or Patanjali) that ended up being interpreted by most people as just a cryptic or pithy saying. And what it implies, that our lack of empowerment is often simply due to the fragmentation of our own consciousness (even down to the primordial split into conscious and subconscious, imperfectly communicating), is usually lost.

Perhaps it could be said that none of the different toolsets will give perfect results without healing or harmonizing the many fractured parts of our being. The well manicured ego of the narcissist or the moral system of the Stoic, the memory palaces of the mnemonists, all smaller attempts at creating this same coherence, but limited in scope.

In my understanding the love leading to fearlessness is meant to work at creating this wholeness of being, but it doesn’t magically manifest without either the right environment/community and/or the use of other techniques to achieve the same state of non-local coherence. It’s meant to be engineered within communities of similar minded individuals initially, but this is difficult in our current societal framework. So it’s best to understand the principles behind it and work towards engineering conditions that can yield the same result, IMO.

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#6

I have a question

To me philosophies are mostly a web of beliefs and experiences expressed outwardly. I find that it’s less exploration of truth and more jumping into different worlds.

For that reason. Has anyone actually found philosophical teachings practical and helpful in their day to day life? My own personal philosophies in life are constantly changing with growth so in a way I’ve become unattached to the idea that there is some solid unshakeable principles to hold onto. The unnerving feeling of the blurred line between observing reality vs observing my own projected belief system onto reality.

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#7

There is no philosophy that will work for all. Not one answer that or correct every time. Almost everything we could say is but a half truth and a half lie. At least that’s how I understand it right now.

But a person who has encountered and practiced 5 different philosophies and gave them time to prosper within before he moved on is going to be more likely more capable to deal with life than someone who has not done any of that and does not even think all too much at all - their lack of thinking is their weak link. It’s not about finding a perfect philosophy. It’s about growth that you attain. Philosophy just so happens to sometimes be more focused on the topic of growth in a person and how they think. And what we think makes up a huge part of how our life goes on. But you don’t need to choose and you certainly don’t have to hold onto anything. Even great thinkers change their mind all the time. That is the sign of growth.

I think it’s totally fine if something that works for you might not work for you the next 5 years from now on. Or even tomorrow. And people are so diverse too. Everything changes all the time. At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to feel somewhat content. And there is not ultimate guide for it. Too many ever changing variables in the equation if I personally would have to guess. People just love to share ideas in case someone with similar mind might find them useful - which kind of alone is an interesting desire we humans have.

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#8

Yeah you thought about this a lot. A lot
to chew on.

#9

Use your body to think and philosophy becomes useful.

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#11

@Adi - please shift this thread to the Emperor’s Lounge section.

Click on the pencil icon on top of this thread and select Emperor’s Lounge in the drop down menu.

#12

It is already done I see @Lion :slightly_smiling_face::blush:

#13

To your point, I find it very interesting how the image of Jesus Christ has changed from intense revolutionary to “meek and mild,” when He was anything BUT that. He went right into the synagogue and denounced the ruling powers – The Sanhedrin and the Pharisees – right to their faces, called them out for hiding the truth regarding spirit:

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in."

What people fail to understand is the political arrangement that was in place at this time. The Sanhedrin and the Pharisees had absolute control over who they could charge, but the Roman Empire had control over the sentencing. So, if anyone ever wondered why Christ has to be hauled in front of Pontius Pilate, this is why (EDIT: who recognized that the charges were nonsense, hence why he had Christ scourged and brought before the people, who chose to free another revolutionary, Barabbas). Not only that, but they had to frame Christ – Caesar didn’t care about his assertion of being the Son of God, because the Roman Empire did not acknowledge their god. Instead, He was charged with sedition against the Roman Empire for the false allegation of Him saying “the King of the Jews,” which would exalt Him above Caesar.

He knew this and still said some very harsh and biting truths to the rulers, sparking a revolution amongst the people. From running into the temple and beating all the merchants, to repeatedly stating “how long must I put up with this sinful generation,” we are not talking about a “meek and mild” individual but rather a revolutionary.

This “meek and mild” image, in my opinion, is the method of control.

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#14

The true teachings of Jesus are the most suppressed of all, and more than merely suppressed. So many false and diverted streams of Christianity which not even closely resemble what he truly taught and stood for completely overshadow his legacy.

He is misrepresented in more ways than anyone in history and his past has been so deliberately destroyed and covered-up that none can truly say for sure what happened back then during his lifetime.

Perhaps the future will reveal to us the true facts.

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#15

The same applies to the application of lethal force, if required, to ward of threats to their health, life or freedom. (Actual threats ofc, not perceived ones due to a bruised ego/immaturity. Tho that´d give grounds as to where to draw boundaries in the first place).

Applied to scenarios in the physical world, I resonate alot with this approach:

I´ll make my way around to running H:O sooner or later.

Or on your own, embodied to the point where your environment either rises to match, or gets completely replaced by one that can do it.

Easy? I don´t think so. It requires a profound depth of inner mastery/shadow work.

Doable? Absolutely. For those truly willing.

#16

Thank Lao Tzu. That quote came directly from a version of the Tao Te Ching that I read.

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#17

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend”

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#18

I remember seeing snippets of this series “the chosen” and it was for the first time seeing jesus as more of a revolutionary. It instantly made me like the guy more hahaha

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