DocWatts

Just heard that McDonald's is closing down all of its locations throughout Russia, and that Starbucks is doing so as well.

Beat me to it. Yes Russia has legitimate security concerns that are worth taking the time to and effort to understand, but many (though not all) of these security concerns are a self fulfilling prophecy through it's own aggressive actions towards its neighbors. In this way, the self fulfilling nature of its security concerns aren't so different from a country like the United States, whose short sighted foreign policy decisions creates enemies throughout the world.

Vaush (correctly, in my view) calling out a blindspot for some on the Left.

@Carl-Richard I can definitely tell she has some pretty substantial meta-level awareness. I just think she could have articulated the groundwork of her schema better than she did, before hitting the ground running by jumping in to categorizion. Leo spent quite a bit of time laying out this groundwork for Spiral Dynamics and Suzanne Cook Greuter's model, and I feel that it was missing here. Not like people with a construct aware meta-perspective don't have blindspots

Listening to this right now. My impressions so far are that this is someone who's probably familiar with developmental Stage models, but perhaps hasn't embodied an understanding of thier inherent limitations. Models are only useful insofar as they provide a coherent framework for making what is complex or hidden accessible to productive inquiry. Spiral Dynamics does this by grounding its model in a dialectic framework that's tied to shifting survival needs, where there's an explanatory mechanism behind why each Stage is qualitatively distinct from the others. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to provide a good justification for why the model she's using is a useful schema for understanding the complexities of human development. Without grounding her model in an underlying explanatory mechanism, and without articulating why it makes sense to categorize development in the manner she does, the whole thing ends up feeling a bit arbitrary.

The West really dropped the ball after the fall of the Soviet Union by not offering them the equivalent of a Marshal Plan, and helping with the transition to a democracy. Instead, multinationals were given free reign to practice Disaster Capitalism in Russia, and one can't help but see the current situation as a direct consequence of the West's greedy and short sighted behavior.

That's a fair point, it was never my contention that Russia doesn't have legitimate security concerns about NATO expanding eastward. Short of retracting NATO membership from its Easternmost members, I'm not sure what's to be done short of not expanding NATO any further towards Russia's borders. Yet at the same time the attractors in the situation would likely be the same even if NATO's borders were the same as they were 25 years ago, due to the power imbalances at play. Assuming the internal dynamics between Russia and the US still played out the same way in that scenario, the two hegemonic power blocks would still have mutually incompatible long term goals. Hell, Russia's role as a oligarchic petrol state alone would likely cause it to resist efforts to combat climate change, if nothing else.

This dynamic seems less like something NATO went out of its way to cultivate, and far more due to Russia losing its captive satellite states after the USSR broke apart. Back during the Cold War NATO and the Soviet block had somewhat comparable populations (600 million vs 400 million), but that was was only due to compelling half of Europe to join the Soviet Bloc against their will. Whatever semblance of a balance of power that may have existed during the Cold War was lost when Eastern Europe gained its independence. This seems much more a consequence of Russia being in a much weaker strategic position after the USSR broke up, than due to the structure of NATO. It seems that th we dynamics would have been in place even if NATO didn't expand eastward (though I recognize that this exacerbated Russia's security concerns). Is there something I'm missing?

@Leo Gura Any plans to make a video (or a vlog) about current events in Russia?

Brings to mind bad takes I routinely hear for someone like Hitler, where the analysis stops and ends at calling him Evil, without attempting to understand the socio-ideological context that motivated Hitler to do the things that he did. Jordy P had a really bad take along these lines, if I recall. I don't understand why it's so hard to grok that people can (and often do) horrific things for sober, rational reasons. Reasons that are defined by the rules of the 'Game' that they're engaged in, which is really just another way of referencing the banality of evil. To take another example that deserves to be more well known, it explains why someone like King Leopold II of Belgium could sleep soundly at night despite being responsible for 10 million deaths in the Congo. After all he wasn't setting out to commit a genocide bigger than the Holocaust, he just wanted to make boatloads of money under the rules of the game of Capitalism.

What embracing Russia would actually entail would be a greater degree of economic and political integration with Europe. This would almost certainly require some degree of democratization from within Russia as prerequisite, which sadly probably isn't likely in the near future. What's really unfortunate is that the adversarial relationship between US / Western Europe and Russia didn't have to be this way. The US and Western Europe really dropped the ball after the collapse of the Soviet Union, by not doing more to help Russia transition to a democracy. A Marshal Plan style policy to prevent Russia's economy from collapsing in the 90s would have been a wise investment, as it was the chaos and austerity from that period which effectively doomed Russia's chance at democratization. Instead of help, Russia was given a double dose of shock doctrine under disaster Capitalism, with multinational corporations moving in to take advantage of a country in the midst of a crisis.

The greedy, vain, predatory, and short sighted Skeksis from Jim Henson's Dark Crystal feel almost like a perfect fictional analogue of the modern Republican Party.

@Reciprocality I'll admit to having a bit of trouble following what you're trying to say. (You might want to consider using shorter sentences and more direct language to convey your point. For what it's worth, you're in good company at least with the likes of someone like Hegel ). If part of your point is that Reality doesn't consist of discreet objects with fixed boundaries, you'll find no argument from me. I'm well aware that Materialism is ontologically and epistemologically problematic. When you mention epistemology and ontology collapsing in to non-dualism, is your emphasis more that both epistemology and ontology are limited ways of viewing Reality? Or is the emphasis more on the fact that ontology and epistemology are grounded in the same way? Because both seem like reasonable statements. Or is your point more along the lines of : Reality is exactly how it appears? If this is your point, I might disagree, at least to an extent. 'Hard' skepticism seems far less plausible than some version of a shared Reality, even if skepticism can't ultimately be disproven.

I feel the same way. Everything I've seen of Dr.K's work gives me a high degree of confidence that he's acting from genuine intentions. For Mr. Girl, the difference between authentic, provocative self expression and Trolling is hazy line that can be hard to discern. At the very least, it seems to me that he's lacking emotional maturity in some areas, regardless of the fact that behind his abrasiveness can be salient points.

This sort of thing really lares bare the attitude of "Law and Order for thee, not for me", that's implicit to right-wing worldviews. Support "Law and Order" insofar as it doesn't materially impact your life in any way whatsoever, then decry tyranny when your group is treated in a similiar way to marginalized groups that you demonize (such as Black Lives Matter).

Yeah, where Ontology ends and Metaphysics begins can be tricky to pin down. Thinking of Ontology as a study of 'what does and doesn't exist' is a decent rule of thumb, but in practice it can get fuzzy because ontology also deals with the existential character of what things are ( or thier being, to put it another way). In my mind I link Metaphysics to the overall schema of Reality, though even this can get a bit tricky because Reality itself can be treated ontologically (ie what does it mean for something to be a Reality). Unfortunately the field of philosophy hasn't done itself any favors in this regard from spending so much of its history behind the walls of institutions, and not doing more to make itself understandable and relevant to non-specialists.

@Reciprocality Interesting that you bring up those points, since I happen to be reading Being and Time right now, and part of Heidegger's point in that work is that questions of being have largely gone ignored throughout the history of (western) philosophy, treating it as somehow 'self evident' and largely a settled question when it's been anything but. Which is why Heidegger calls the examination of Being the fundamental ontology. You're correct of course that ontology is more encompassing than merely positing what does and doesn't exist. Yet at the same time Being is a more nebulous concept that's far harder to define than the concept of existence (which is far more intuitive). Hell, Heidegger had to deconstruct 2000 years of western philosophy to clearly define it. Describing ontology as what does and doesn't exist is useful for painting a picture of what makes it distinct from other other aspects of metaphysics, even if it's not strictly speaking all there is to ontology. Not the least of which because questions of Existence and questions of Being are intertwined.

@Carl-Richard I'll focus on (1), since I'll admit to not having enough familiarity with the concept of methodological vs ontological reductionism to articulate the distinction. I've read and studied quite a bit of philosophy, and I don't recall that distinction being emphasized much. If I had to venture a guess about methodological reductionism, I might emphasize the differences between logical positivism which tries to separate its methodology from ontological questions, and something like the Vedic system where ontological claims are used to frame and contextualize its methodology. This is just a guess, I could be missing the mark here. As to (1), ontology can be understood as an aspect of metaphysics. Ontology is concerned with what does and does not exist. For example, whether or not karma and reincarnation actually exist is an ontological question. Metaphysics on the other hand, deals more broadly with the overall structure, function, and meaning of Reality. Returning to the examples of karma and reincarnation, Metaphysics would try to articulate why those processes are a necessary part of the overall structure of Reality. As the example of karma should hopefully illustrate, there is of course plenty of overlap between ontology and metaphysics. For broad existential questions (such as whether the being Reality is mental or physical), an exploration will likely involve both metaphysics and ontology. So the boundaries between the two can get a bit fuzzy, and in practice I've seen the two terms used interchangeably at times.

@Carl-Richard I'd pin it down this way; how science proceeds under normal conditions is that the scientific enterprise is grounded in ontological assumptions that must exist prior to any science taking place. What those ontological assumptions are is going to be governed by a paradigm, which lays the ground rules for how the scientific investigation is going to take place. Where ontology ends and science begins can perhaps be better clarified by looking at Newtonian mechanics as an example. Newtonian mechanics tells us that nature behaves as if there's a Universal Law of Gravitation which influences the motion of objects at a distance. But science can't in principle tell us what degree of 'realness' we should afford to theoretical constructs like Force, Gravitation, and Time; which is where ontology comes in. If you want to go a level deeper, time and space are themselves ontological dimensions that had to be conceived of and articulated before the scientific enterprise could get off the ground. To the degree that different metaphysical schemas ground thier knowledge claims in differing epistemological methods, they're going to come up with different answers to whether the physical forces we observe are ontologically 'primary' or whether they're 'second order' phenomena. For example, while a physicalist will claim that the fundamental physical forces are ontologically necessary to make Reality as we experience it possible, an Idealist would be more likely to claim that the fundamental forces are second order phenomena that appear on the 'screen' of perception (which is ontologically prior to any physical forces). For science to proceed in the normal way, it has to be grounded in an ontology that provides a framework for investigation, by providing ground rules for what's considered valid and relevant. To return to Newtonian mechanics, prior to the paradigm Newton helped create action at a distance by invisible forces was seen as ontologically invalid, and thus 'unscientific'. In those days it was conceived that motion had to occur through theoretical abstract enteties called 'corpusuls' bumping in to things, transferring thier momentum (think of pool balls on a billiards table). When Newton's revolution proved itself able to explain phenomena that the 'corpusal' paradigm was unable to account for, the predominant ontology guiding physical science eventually came to be supplanted. Corpuscles came to lose thier ontological validity, replaced by an ontology of ineffible invisible forces acting at a distance.

Apologies if this is comes across as a bit basic, but here is how I would frame how to understand epistemology for a beginner: As a ground for epistemology, it's hugely helpful to have at least some basic grounding in a few of the more important paradigms within philosophy. These would include: Empericism & Rationalism Physicalism & Idealism Dualism & Monism An intro to philosophy book or video series on YouTube worth it's salt should touch upon all of these In addition, it's also helpful to be able to have a working understanding of some basic concepts: Epistemology is an investigation of how we can come to know things Ontology is an investigation of what actually exists Metaphysics is an investigation of the underlying Being of Reality. (As to the last point, it's worth making a clear distinction between metaphysics and science, as the two tend to get confused. The distinction is this: Science asks how Reality behaves, metaphysics asks what Reality is.) The reason why it's helpful to know these things is that they're going to be useful for understanding paradigms. A paradigm is a structured, cohesive schema for looking at particular aspects of the world. The reason that paradigms are important to epistemology is that what is and isn't considered true, valid, and relevant is in almost all cases going to be filtered through the specific set of paradigms that one is viewing the world through. And the reason that this matters is that an understanding of how paradigms function is going to be interlinked with your ability to View the world through different perspectives, and to be able to compare and contrast different perspectives. For a solid specific demonstration of how paradigms work, something like Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a really good resource.

If by religious people you're referring to religion as it's practiced at SD-Blue, then I wouldn't hold out much hope at a mutual understanding of perspectives on any kind of deep level. This is because the epistemic framework that you embody and probably take for granted only works because you've undergone a series of internal transformations to enact that framework. Just accept that they have a certain way of viewing the world which is inextricably linked to what makes life meaningful for them, and try to recognize that this is true for you as well. Note that none of this is meant pejoratively towards religious folks, it's also the reason why you can't just drop a deconstruction of the materialist framework in to the lap of a scientific materialist and expect it to bear fruit. At least that's going to be the case if there's not already some prior groundwork in place, which would allow that individual to critically engage with their worldview. And I'm not exempting myself from this, as I'm in exactly the same boat when I try and fail to grok what it means to have a non-dual mystical experience

Breaking lengthy posts in to reasonably sized paragraphs with line breaks in between is good etiquette in an online forum IMHO.

The temptation to treat Spiral Dynamics as an EXP bar in a video game is one of the main reasons why I think Spiral Dynamics is much better utilized as a dialectical sociological framework than as a personal development hierarchy. I've been thinking about how I would explain SD to someone who'd never heard of it before, and I'd probably frame it as sort of extension of Hegelian dialectics, or as a sociological development theory that deals with how meta-ideologies such as postmodernism form and interact with one another. For personal development, studying and practicing spirituality has done far more for my personal development than a model Spiral Dynamics ever could have. Think about how growth actually occurs. It's not just that you receive a new set of beliefs, but you go through an inner transformation where aspects of your character are cultivated. A scientific model without an associated practice to draw meaning from isn't going to cultivate your character, even if said model does impart knowledge.

Logic is just a cognitive tool for interfacing with the world, and quite a powerful tool at that. The problem comes when we forget that Logic is a cognitive tool, and try to force all of Reality to fit into a single modality. A good analogy would be the ego, in that we need the ego to navigate Reality and meet our Survival Needs. I'd argue that in a modern context the same is true for Logic, in that we need ways to hold to hold ideas and beliefs that motivate decisions up to scrutiny. But this modality also has limitations, and can be misused or applied in ways that obfuscates more than it clarifies.