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I find a charge of nihilism with no coherent support rather tedious. At worst this is a bad take. Good heavens, why would a nihilist even bother writing such a

I find a charge of nihilism with no coherent support rather tedious. At worst this is a bad take. Good heavens, why would a nihilist even bother writing such a piece? The author struck me as someone genuinely concerned about a pattern he's seeing in public discourse, a kind of "grand unified theory" of why things feel like they are falling apart. The goal being, I would assume, to remove the people tearing the zeitgeist apart from the public sphere. If anything, the nihilist is you, for disparaging a noble goal.

motohagiography 4y ago
The support is that the author needed to neutralize competence, risk, skin in the game, and the real as a straw man before the rest of his points could be made. That rhetorical neutralization for its own sake, and holding it as equivalent to a positive case is the belief in nothing that I referred to. We can do fancy versions of 'no, you' but the Achillies heel of a lot of critical ideas is that they are in fact, only critics and spectators who don't have any respectable standing for the things they are problematizing, and reconciling that with the actual experience of the man in the arena is the limit on the value of their contribution. My point is, having opinions about the things others actually, physically do, particularly from the perspective of the artifacts of ideology, is arguing from a moral position of weakness. The reason that Breaking Bad meme is so popular is because there is an essential quality to the statement, "we are not the same." The competency of the man in the arena is not something one gets to affect.
- javajosh 4y ago
  You are the second person in a month on HN I've found utterly indecipherable. This despite having sentences that sound like they should have some sort of meaning. Your sentences read like they've been frankensteined together by a philosophy major looking to impress a TA. If you could try to dumb it down, use small words and explain your points simply, it might go better.
  - theartfuldodger 4y ago
    Are you familiar with the vocabulary of rhetoric and logic?
    - javajosh 4y ago
      Hooked up with both a few times but I'm definitely more into logic. Logic is so cold, so...unforgiving. And fair, so fair. Logic is the fairest of them all.

motohagiography 4y ago

The support is that the author needed to neutralize competence, risk, skin in the game, and the real as a straw man before the rest of his points could be made. That rhetorical neutralization for its own sake, and holding it as equivalent to a positive case is the belief in nothing that I referred to. We can do fancy versions of 'no, you' but the Achillies heel of a lot of critical ideas is that they are in fact, only critics and spectators who don't have any respectable standing for the things they are problematizing, and reconciling that with the actual experience of the man in the arena is the limit on the value of their contribution. My point is, having opinions about the things others actually, physically do, particularly from the perspective of the artifacts of ideology, is arguing from a moral position of weakness. The reason that Breaking Bad meme is so popular is because there is an essential quality to the statement, "we are not the same." The competency of the man in the arena is not something one gets to affect.

javajosh 4y ago
You are the second person in a month on HN I've found utterly indecipherable. This despite having sentences that sound like they should have some sort of meaning. Your sentences read like they've been frankensteined together by a philosophy major looking to impress a TA. If you could try to dumb it down, use small words and explain your points simply, it might go better.
- theartfuldodger 4y ago
  Are you familiar with the vocabulary of rhetoric and logic?
  - javajosh 4y ago
    Hooked up with both a few times but I'm definitely more into logic. Logic is so cold, so...unforgiving. And fair, so fair. Logic is the fairest of them all.