How is it, it's obvious to any rational thinking person. We all prosper from peace & cooperation. But our ruling classes in the West have an insane hatred of stability & cooperation. President XI of China is always promoting a win win situation. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with wanting that?
Just watched and commented on your question to President Putin, and now you're talking to Germany - your poor Norwegian students must never get to see you, Professor!
Makes me wonder how hard it would be to join your course, for a British person. :)
In my humble opinion you would do well to review what I’ve included in my “course”. It gets to the root of the problems you’re talking about and offers up solutions.
The answer to the question about why the west has made so many mistakes has largely been answered in the body of work that people like you and John Mearsheimer have produced.
If you put together the insights that you and John have come up with and add the what I’ve come up with it tells the story that needs to be told.
And, unfortunately as you know, the old saying that states that “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” applies…
I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War. Now I find myself cheering on Putin and BRICS. How awful would the U.S. leadership have to become in order for this to happen? The U.S. and its vassals, along with IsraHell, should be tried for War Crimes and Genocide
Now Scholz's government coalition has collapsed in Germany largely because it has surrendered its sovereignty to the US. America is of course fighting to remain (or to restore itself rather) as the world's imperialist hegemon (Lenin was right, Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, as international expansion for exploitation of labor and resources is an immutable part of capitalism and is always executed by the powers who have the capability to do it). The question is why do so many European countries subvert their own sovereignty and blindly follow the US toward mutual disaster? Professor Diesen certainly addresses this confounding core issue as well as anyone I've read.
Dr. Diesen is a consummate scholar with excellent insights. However, I wish he would delve more deeply into what he readily admits is the essential basis for a lack of open discussion in western societies. It is not enough to say, “..in the west we have committed ourselves to the idea that we can socially construct our own reality, that perception is reality...”, then just break off assuming the listener knows that is obviously wrong. In fact, the listener does not know intuitively that the concept is wrong, because it's similar to other ideas about 'think and grow rich', or 'live your dreams', or other such seductive nonsense that's been floating around forever. Further peeling back the layers of this issue is necessary.
Such ideas are wrong because they do not include reality in their paradigm. This means they do not involve any interaction with the facts of reality in order to provide corrective feedback, moving the dreamer out of the dream and into useful forward motion. Reality and real-world facts are deliberately left out of the equation, forever. Such an explanation digs a little deeper, but it requires jettisoning warm fuzzy feelings for intellectual activity to be readily accepted.
Instead, a more rhetorical approach is required... the idea that perception is reality, is quite simply a throwback to the magical thinking of primitive societies. If we just say the proper incantation, while being careful not to say or do or think anything that would reduce the spell's power, we can make the rains come, make the hunt successful, and make our schlongs bigger. Postmodernism/postrealism came along to disguise it with pseudo-intellectual complexity, then woke leftism added a veneer of egalitarian morality, but at its core it's the same primitive mumbo-jumbo. As such, the west is taking a giant step backwards in its philosophical underpinnings. This has to be hammered home to everyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time, not just a few intellectual observers. After that, careful examples can be built up to explain such contemptible phenomena as why our so-called leaders refuse to discuss peace in Ukraine. This approach is absolutely essential, because if the masses don't understand, then they'll never stop acquiescing to nonsense, and our societies will continue to swirl down the civilizational toilet. The masses are the momentum that keeps us hurtling towards the abyss.
Belief does not require evidence. If there is one thing anyone who works with science based on evidence knows, the minute you enter a conversation with someone who simply chooses to believe things in spite of evidence, you hit a brick wall. Mark Twain has brilliant quotes about this frustrating aspect of human nature. Throw religion and culture in there and you see it is amazing humans even invented the wheel.
How is it, it's obvious to any rational thinking person. We all prosper from peace & cooperation. But our ruling classes in the West have an insane hatred of stability & cooperation. President XI of China is always promoting a win win situation. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with wanting that?
Thanks for your work, helping make the world safer.
Just watched and commented on your question to President Putin, and now you're talking to Germany - your poor Norwegian students must never get to see you, Professor!
Makes me wonder how hard it would be to join your course, for a British person. :)
Just get right to the point.... wonderful wham bang thank you ma'am
In my humble opinion you would do well to review what I’ve included in my “course”. It gets to the root of the problems you’re talking about and offers up solutions.
The answer to the question about why the west has made so many mistakes has largely been answered in the body of work that people like you and John Mearsheimer have produced.
If you put together the insights that you and John have come up with and add the what I’ve come up with it tells the story that needs to be told.
And, unfortunately as you know, the old saying that states that “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” applies…
I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War. Now I find myself cheering on Putin and BRICS. How awful would the U.S. leadership have to become in order for this to happen? The U.S. and its vassals, along with IsraHell, should be tried for War Crimes and Genocide
Now Scholz's government coalition has collapsed in Germany largely because it has surrendered its sovereignty to the US. America is of course fighting to remain (or to restore itself rather) as the world's imperialist hegemon (Lenin was right, Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, as international expansion for exploitation of labor and resources is an immutable part of capitalism and is always executed by the powers who have the capability to do it). The question is why do so many European countries subvert their own sovereignty and blindly follow the US toward mutual disaster? Professor Diesen certainly addresses this confounding core issue as well as anyone I've read.
As always, great job! Glad to see you both at that conference.
Dr. Diesen is a consummate scholar with excellent insights. However, I wish he would delve more deeply into what he readily admits is the essential basis for a lack of open discussion in western societies. It is not enough to say, “..in the west we have committed ourselves to the idea that we can socially construct our own reality, that perception is reality...”, then just break off assuming the listener knows that is obviously wrong. In fact, the listener does not know intuitively that the concept is wrong, because it's similar to other ideas about 'think and grow rich', or 'live your dreams', or other such seductive nonsense that's been floating around forever. Further peeling back the layers of this issue is necessary.
Such ideas are wrong because they do not include reality in their paradigm. This means they do not involve any interaction with the facts of reality in order to provide corrective feedback, moving the dreamer out of the dream and into useful forward motion. Reality and real-world facts are deliberately left out of the equation, forever. Such an explanation digs a little deeper, but it requires jettisoning warm fuzzy feelings for intellectual activity to be readily accepted.
Instead, a more rhetorical approach is required... the idea that perception is reality, is quite simply a throwback to the magical thinking of primitive societies. If we just say the proper incantation, while being careful not to say or do or think anything that would reduce the spell's power, we can make the rains come, make the hunt successful, and make our schlongs bigger. Postmodernism/postrealism came along to disguise it with pseudo-intellectual complexity, then woke leftism added a veneer of egalitarian morality, but at its core it's the same primitive mumbo-jumbo. As such, the west is taking a giant step backwards in its philosophical underpinnings. This has to be hammered home to everyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time, not just a few intellectual observers. After that, careful examples can be built up to explain such contemptible phenomena as why our so-called leaders refuse to discuss peace in Ukraine. This approach is absolutely essential, because if the masses don't understand, then they'll never stop acquiescing to nonsense, and our societies will continue to swirl down the civilizational toilet. The masses are the momentum that keeps us hurtling towards the abyss.
Thanks for your great work!
We've shared the link on our daily report.
A Skeptic War Reports
https://askeptic.substack.com/
Do you really think our ruling class believe this delusion?
Or do they just not care about consequences because they never suffer them?
See also Nassim Taleb's "Skin In The Game".
Belief does not require evidence. If there is one thing anyone who works with science based on evidence knows, the minute you enter a conversation with someone who simply chooses to believe things in spite of evidence, you hit a brick wall. Mark Twain has brilliant quotes about this frustrating aspect of human nature. Throw religion and culture in there and you see it is amazing humans even invented the wheel.
Exactly right. Excellent point.