https://redsails.org/sartre-reason-falsely/

Jean-Paul Sartre How can one choose to reason falsely? (1944) 3 minutes | English Español Français हिंदी

From Reflections on the Jewish Question (Part I of Antisemite and Jew).

How can one choose to reason falsely? It is because of a longing for impenetrability.

The rational man groans as he gropes for the truth; he knows that his reasoning is no more than tentative, that other considerations may supervene to cast doubt on it. He never sees very clearly where he is going; he is “open”; he may even appear to be hesitant. But there are people who are attracted by the durability of a stone. They wish to be massive and impenetrable; they wish not to change. Where, indeed, would change take them? We have here a basic fear of oneself and of truth. What frightens them is not the content of truth, of which they have no conception, but the form itself of truth, that thing of indefinite approximation. It is as if their own existence were in continual suspension.

But they wish to exist all at once and right away. They do not want any acquired opinions; they want them to be innate. Since they are afraid of reasoning, they wish to lead the kind of life wherein reasoning and research play only a subordinate role, wherein one seeks only what he has already found, wherein one becomes only what he already was. This is nothing but passion. Only a strong emotional bias can give a lightning‐like certainty; it alone can hold reason in leash; it alone can remain impervious to experience and last for a whole lifetime.

The antisemite has chosen hate because hate is a faith; at the outset he has chosen to devaluate words and reasons. How entirely at ease he feels as a result. How futile and frivolous discussions about the rights of the Jew appear to him. He has placed himself on other ground from the beginning. If out of courtesy he consents for a moment to defend his point of view, he lends himself but does not give himself. He tries simply to project his intuitive certainty onto the plane of discourse. I mentioned awhile back some remarks by antisemites, all of them absurd: “I hate Jews because they make servants insubordinate, because a Jewish furrier robbed me, etc.”

Never believe that antisemites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The antisemites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. It is not that they are afraid of being convinced. They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.

If the antisemite is impervious to reason and to experience, it is not because his conviction is strong. Rather, his conviction is strong because he has chosen first of all to be impervious.

I really enjoy hearing/sharing these; since so many people have them but try and repress them.

In my First job out of school - meet guy who started with the company forever ago - finds out he has cancer - company was asking everyone to donate sick time so he could take time off for treatment - guy eventually gets sicker and dies. Radicalizing moral- you’ll work your entire career for a company and at the end of the day they won’t even give you time to go die. Same job - COVID kicked off and in the “financial uncertainty” they expected us to take 75% pay for the same work - was immediately walked back after receiving a ppp loan - but I was already 500000% out the door. And those are just the professional class complaints lol I’ve been in retail and construction too but those are expected so they don’t stand out as much in memory

My anxiety always makes me assume I’m the worst person bothering IT with my issues- but these things remind me I’m on the high end of the tech literacy bell curve (scary!). TYFYS o7

I’ve only lost meaningful work once through lazy backup - that was enough for me! In my work I store files locally and have a backup on an external hard drive as well as on a server. All organized with the same file structure so it’s a simple dragon drop to back things up. The thought of not backing up data or archiving it in any meaningful gives me too much anxiety otherwise lol.

That’s some cool unexpected info to learn. My grandpa had one of these (from Morocco I believe) that my brother and I would screw around with all the time lol. Classic.

I specd catboy instead - in late game you unlock a little pepperoni as a treat- and that’s gonna be nice

Yeah the biggest factor was, no doubt, that I’m in the first generation that just went to college instead. But yeah i kinda assumed that side of the family were Quakers or something with how anti war they are - which is very cool and good considering the alternative

Yeah I’ve done therapy where they explore generational trauma to reflect on things like anger, suppressing emotion, and being unable to connect in relationships; and it’s really shone a light on how fucked up the past was (in terms of family members dying of polio, and generally having kids for the purpose of labor) and why the fight for a better world is so important

A Red Sails post (or something like that- unfortunately can’t recall which) talks a bit about the military/statecraft as being similar to gangs - and that’s made a lot of sense to me. Similar recruitment tactics and preying on the vulnerable, and a similar level of disregard for life for those in it when they stop being useful. And the generational trauma and indoctrination that keeps topping up the ranks with new rubes.

My family have a long line of hillbillies who enlisted at various points or were drafted. And let me tell you - they’re all pretty mentally broken! Either took lives, or saw lots of other people die. Fortunately, my grandpa taught me how ashamed he was to be involved in the Korean invasion and why he opposed violence. And if I didn’t learn from that - my other relatives enlistments resulted in: everyone in their unit dying from an IED but them, family strife resulting in a suicide, spouse leaving them for their CO (that one kinda makes me laugh unfortunately), permanent spine injury, severe asthma from exhaust, and a boatload of anger issues!

Don’t enjoy being the one to break the generational trauma cycle (in terms of therapy efforts) but worth it so no other relatives ever I can tell everyone to never join the military.

Most depressing thing was when I did a mentorship program with an “inner-city” school during trump 1, and they were all joking about how they’d probably get sent to war with china in their lives. Nothing like economic precarity to provide grist for the mill!

Fucking beast that preys on the poor, I tell ya. It’s all bad folks!

Edited to state that no one should join the military- not just my relatives

Edit 2: not 100% sure this was the article but matches somewhat with the Tupac interview portion of it: masses elites and rebels- red sails)

This happens to be essentially what rap legend Tupac Shakur did in a 1995 interview:

(Knowing what you know, what do you think about youth and gang violence in America? Especially in the Black communities and Hispanic communities using gang violence…)

I think… um, I think I’m gonna get a lot of flak for it. I think gangs can be positive. It just has to be organized and has to steer away from being self-destructive to being self-productive. I think this country was built on gangs and, you know, I think this country still is run on gangs. Republicans, Democrats, the police department, the FBI, the CIA… those are gangs, you know what I mean? The correctional officers. I had a correctional officer tell me straight-up “We’re the biggest gang in New York State.” Straight-up, you know what I mean? This whole country is built on gangs, we just have to not be so self-destructive about it. Organized, you know?

(But the violence…)

The violence? But it’s violence in America. What did the USA just do, flying to Bosnia? We ain’t got no business over there, you know what I mean? It’s the same thing. How can they tell us not to have gangs. You know what gang violence is, mostly? And the people don’t want you to hear this. Somebody shoots your family member, so of course you retaliate. You know what I mean? Same thing the U.S. does, except nobody even shot their family members, you know? They see somebody bomb a school and all these people get killed, so the United States is like “Oh, that’s messed up, we’ve got to go show them who’s the real killers.” The same mentality these gangsters get, you know what I mean? So until they stop that mentality we won’t stop. Or they won’t stop, because they watch this country to see what they do. America is the biggest gang in the world, you know what I mean? Look at how they didn’t agree with Cuba, so what did they do? Cut ‘em off. That’s what we’re doing the street: we block things off.

I want to say stop the violence. I want to say the violence ain’t good…

(Why can’t you say that?)

Because that’s not realistic! I know it’s not good. If anybody will speak up against violence, it’ll be the brother that got shot five times. I got shot twice all up in my… trust me, violence ain’t cool. And they know violence ain’t cool! Ain’t nobody out there with a gun saying it’s “cool” to be shooting people. It’s just, you know, in certain situations where there is no way out… But there are situations where we can find the way out. But until we find that way out we can’t say not to live this lifestyle. [33]

If they keep referring to it as “ABHB” they not be well studied. If they call it “rautism” they might be scooby doo.

• just added this joke because others already made my points eloquently

If resources weren’t an issue - id love to have a farm full of liberated cattle that just hang out and are cared for

One bit of childhood whimsy I hold on to is yelling “hi cows” out the window wherever I drive past cows.

Not sure if it’s just my region- but it seems like a lot of others do too

Got this on a mug as a reminder lol

What do you mean- “drive across the lake?”

Feet so big and stinky they call me the Skunk Ape

Kids these days are all “I want to serve c*nt”; well why don’t they try serving “COUNT-RY” for a change!

Thank you for your attention to this matter

Considering every pittance appropriated towards quality of life improvements is far outstripped by funding for murder at home and abroad, I think people are becoming more aware that “how do we pay” is just an empty mantra to prevent them from having good things

The US and Canada need to Balkanize yesterday so the land can be returned to the Indigenous people who will/do already actually take care of it. There really doesn’t need to be a northern border - at the very most it should be laid out by hydrologic boundary rather than nebulous political reasons

Never heard of Contact. I love an outlandish “people vs giant wave” type movie though