Socrates: On Negative Enlightenment and The Negative Buddha

Fresh out the oven, we don’t stress over Nothing

• Flee Lord

Alt title: Hegel: On The Give & Take

Citizen — infinite human cut short by they’re fellow human.

We don’t say that philosophy started with Socrates but that Socrates fundamentally left a print within it that changed the trajectory of Pre-Socratic philosophy towards the journey we’re presumably still on. Notice, however, the negativity. Not necessarily the absence of Socrates in philosophy but how his ever presence is materialized in action indirectly. Namely he’s remembered because of dialectics. Of coming up with theories and disproving them.

Humans conjure up beliefs. The beliefs congregate and take shape. The abstract shapes that eventually become our clear thoughts start off interacting with each other and build towards a form. The form is associated with previous states of being and the association becomes embodied as a singular atom within our psychic reference. In this force of gravity and movement, you see yourself fragmented and beliefs make you whole.

How do you navigate this world? Socrates chose to wander where most people stick to dogma as firm ground. Various studies have shown that this firm ground is mostly psychological, but our psyche is its bitch to herd mentality.

Rather than succumb to the dogma of other philosophers or the nihilism of sophists, Socrates didn’t accept the answers people provided to problems, rather he kept on seeking answers because his purpose was not to settle for answers but to find the Good. He realized that a lot of the accepted answers that people live with came more out of comfort or profit rather than from critical thought. Critical thought being a forceful conjuring up of psychological desire within the constraints of reason. Adorno criticized the dogmatization of philosophy as it became cemented in accepted method. There is no method to philosophy because there is no subject to study. The subject is made as it views itself in the external objective; which is true for all objects.

Remember, the object of Socrates’ dialectic was the citizen. He was always performing the dialectic within communities or through communities. He was gauging the spirit of the time while curiously wondering what his fellow humans thought of life. And through this he realized that, as each answers differed, the answers all revolved around a good; either because the good is present or because it’s absent. Sometimes the good was immediate pleasure or personal wealth. Each citizen has their own objective. For Socrates, the good was the state. Not an abstract national organization, but the organic relationship between citizens and how relationship bared its force on the individual.

If Socrates was studying other humans as objects what made it philosophy and not science was that Socrates saw himself as an equal observer within the exchange. This hard to do nowadays.

Thus Socrates moved through philosophy using dialectic as a way of shaping a path. Within the conversations, truth was found but the truth wasn’t in the answers. To be honest, Socrates’ answers are pointless because we don’t care about dogma either. But the process of being a citizen like Socrates is persistently enigmatic.

I’ve been interested in philosophy for a long time and only recently think I understand dialectic. It’s magic. There’s no explanation for it. It rises within us and just comes out. We can feel and see it in us, when we’re not fervent believers. Sometimes we label them stereotypes. Unfortunately mental ability is relevant. Trauma survivors, for example, may experience a difference in processing experience if the traumatic impact changed the way they could take in and respond to the world around them. But if that’s the case, the citizens would relate to that knowledge through dialectic and the trauma survivor could be taken into consideration as a subject but only taken into consideration as a subject if first they’re considered as an object within dialectic. Socratic dialectic in the search for good between you and the object of your desire reason……

Solidified beliefs becomes hardened with dogma; that is, beliefs become ingrained with certain psychological states. Some beliefs are more pragmatic than others. Although we’ve found that pragmatism is tied to the system the belief is tied to. Regardless, beliefs spring out of us.

Early on, we learn on how to deal with beliefs. This becomes our methodology. As we encounter the world, we express our methodology. Our experience is both the world we encounter (sometimes and frequently, the social world) and the methodology we evidently use (as we see our objective impact on the objects you relate too). At some point, you may learn to autonomously navigate methodology. When you reach this point of analysis, you ask yourself, “What am I?”

An analytical question in total sincerity with no opposition. It’s speechless. At this point, you’re where Descartes was at one point. I mean my man Descartes wasn’t speechless; dude came out with the bullshit on some real shit. We must yet, however, take into consideration everyone after Descartes at this point.

The Story of Copernicus — The calendars based on the Sun revolving around the Earth were becoming outdated and the church asked Copernicus to update the calendars. When Copernicus changed the Earth as revolving around the Sun. Eventually we find out that the Earth is iteratively revolving around a black hole. Did the Earth lose its freedom as it flies through the nether regions of space because it was strapped to a circling black hole? Regardless, eventually a locked Earth allows spacecrafts to exit the atmosphere. Freedom is made within the conditions.

Methodology using self as reference feeds the ego dangerously — the ego needs to work out to stay fit but also grow — its dimensions are unlimited but its actions have consequences. Unlike our physical form that is more limited, certain egotistical pursuits can be infinite but if the ego is replaced with anti-ego so that dogma doesn’t get in the way. Methodology become circular; anti-ego breaks the cycle of dogma.

Our current biological circumstances say that we have some pre-disposed evolutionary appetites that need to be satisfied and after they’re controlled or trivialized, we can dedicate time to non-evolutionary functions that we call just relaxing or hanging out. Our taste is subjective but evolves within society; thus the important to ensure you nourish a healthy state so you can be healthy.

When you talk to your fellow person there’s differences to the beliefs each person has and a resolution brings the people to an understanding. To a medium or bridge. When the discussion stops being towards another fellow person and it’s just to a generic audience or a trivial audience, then the good becomes self-dialectical and insensitive to the shared psychic-moment. Method taints the result. Not just insensitivity to the moment. But it makes us insensitive to the answer;)

Without love, philosophy would just be a study of arguments. Which would be sophistry. Some people go to school and never learn that. Philosophy has a component of love and that component was spiritualized by Socrates in a conceptual sense. He perfected the love of wisdom. Which was an indirect way to love his people and community since he gathered his wisdom talking to fellow citizens. Engaging in a negative entanglement of dialect. Negative in the real sense that positive attributes may change in the exchange and we have to give ourselves up at the moment and be guided by reason to join in agreement. Whatever agreement, it would then structure further dialogue. Negative in this sense refers back to the idea that humans are infinite until cut by fellow human. Sometimes we stop growing because it hurts to be cut but the cuts don’t have to hurt. That’s the point of dialectic. That the cuts are done with love. Love is worked into the process by action.

Believe me, the process has been studied. The physical over the spiritual. The physical takes precedent in terms of making sense out of beliefs but action takes absolute precedence. Thus the action with spirit is dangerous.

The reason Socrates is an example for the citizen and the philosopher is because, within the community, he creates mediums with people based on understanding. Usually the understanding is done through interchange of dialogue.

Everything’s bullshit at first encounter and then it gets normalized and then dogmatized. Why is it normalized? How does normalization happen? Shit’s going down now with Trump and hyper-normalization of a tyrannical state in the US. Why is the state in that condition?

People are good only insofar as they participate in good. There are various states of goodness, perhaps. Why the state?

Socrates love is holistic. Do you love life even if it comes with so many surprises, unknowns, unexpected circumstances, is your reaction to that love? Why or why not? What are you looking at that is not causing you love? and could it be not the object your looking at but the methodology you’re using?

The husband that comes home and finds his husband cheating, if he stops loving his husband then the love was not holistically solid. Because it is nature’s course to bring thing into existence via movement. We capture our thoughts and create holistic ideals that seem to keep the tempo with Reality but sometimes we fall out of rhythm from Reality. To keep the boot on Reality’s back, we turn to dogma for assurance to make sure we don’t lose the beat. But in this act, we doom ourselves as if we had kept thinking Earth was the center of the universe. We adjust our actions and method in our pursuit for the love, against dogmatic mermaids singing you their melodies.

Your reaction within seeing a citizen should be love. Not because of anything else other than for the dialectical. The citizen is feeding off you, too. You two help form a stronger community by understanding each other.

Dialectic can improve love and thus arguments because an argument without passion is the worse for it and an argument fueled by an even stronger love is unstoppable.

Too few societal solution there is because there is no societal dialectic.

All the individuals struggle but to struggle together is to form a state. To what degree do we struggle together? To what degree do we get along?

Science — fellow man replaced by objective understanding and expectations.

Love for Wisdom is a relationship with how we perceive wisdom as an object. So we accept society’s wisdom? Do we accept our own? Do we welcome wisdom or do we search for dogma?

Why are you living if you don’t live for a state you’d die for?

Hegel’s Wise Man — An evaluation of all systems. Observations just have to be true within every interpretation however it’s easily defeated with dogma. More dogma = more bitch? Less dogma = more open minded?

The Anti Ego — Fuck dogmatism to the extreme. Fuck science. Fuck you. Not you the person but your opinions. We should be absolutely compassionate to each other but we should be so regardless of what we think of each other. For the good of the whole. If you’re down with that, fuck you. That’s a quick appraisal from the starting axioms. Not egoistic in the dogmatic sense because the egoism is just determined by the axioms and the axioms are determined by circumstances; NOT preconceived notions.

The Anti Ego provides the perpetual thetical reception towards Nothingness, expecting whatever function may come.

That is, Socrates is impactful and the founder of this whole enterprise because he synthesized Plato. And Plato beget Aristotle. And Aristotle beget Medieval philosophy. The Enlightenment coincided with literally instrumental changes that broke through entirely new metrics for measuring the limits of our experiences. Science started to spread its roots because the environment that could support it was finally established. Thus the climate evolved and a feedback loop shot us to where we are now.

We can call this world post-science. If we’re only considering the audience as people that acknowledge a certain absurd relationship between entities within the universe and our psychological reaction to it.

That is, we realize that as we exist and we associate words with things, there’s a psychological process that creates a temporal narrative that tie all “perceivable elements” into one thing. This process has that weird science thing where if it’s measured it’s an elemental piece, if it’s not measured it’s a wave. Like this.

What I do not know I do not think I know — The Self is not the reference for good. Socrates, the lover of wisdom and the doer of love, recognizes that the good can only be found within the Socratic dialectic.

The Anti Ego works with a society that is growing and still expects a certain standard. We have to move beyond standards towards ideals. That is, as long as we agree on ideology, standard of measurement and conclusions are trivial as they change between person. Although a couple objective notches may help.

That is society is constantly in flux nowadays and we have to change our psychological appraisal but changing the psychological tools we apply to each politically unique instant.

Citizen — infinite human cut short by they’re fellow human.

When you’re walking up to your fellow human, where do you cut them off? Ideologically speaking, how much do you inflate them or expect of them? How do you react to the unknown? There’s superficial niceties. But beyond that. Can you consider your fellow human someone even worth of compassion?

Science, if we’re post it, is a safety net or maybe a mapped minefield. Science points towards seeming loops or necessities that can be taken advantage of and provide nearly universal lessons.

Anti Ego can be something like nationalism or patriotism. An object beyond the self that is as equal or takes precedence over the ego. Obviously we would want something that is not nationalism or patriotism working as the function; ideally something more abstract.

It’s easy to build anti-egoist political systems. The perpetualness of the political systems helps maintain an anti-ego. However, the anti-ego morality is hard. We have Jesus who went all in with that. But Socrates tried to negotiate with eternity. This negotiation followed a pattern of reason but a special reason in pursuit of good. The pursuit is usually left behind by idiots that just focus on reason as a thing in itself leading to a soulless dialogue. That’s the wrong anti ego. By suppressing the ego, you don’t objectify your logic, you just make your logic incompatible with your ego.

You should reason with your ego. Your ego is the source of love. It has to love something more than itself to be free. And it has to try to reach that love with reason. Philosophy.