A Blistering Account of DCP's Scholarship

[_sock puppet]

LOL you guys, Danny boy is going to blow a gasket again and stomp around the trailer park with his litigation hammer - again. It's all he knows how to do anymore.

Yes, Daniel's litigation hammer is about as blunt and inaccurately wielded as his understanding of Camus. Whenever DCP talks of having spoken with a 'lawyer acquaintance' at BYU on a topic--somehow to imply that DCP has from that discussion become a legal expert on the topic--I am reminded of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire.

...no...on second thought, when DCP swings his litigation hammer, I am reminded more of Elliott Garfield's transparent (and humorous) plagiarism of that phrase in Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl.

[_sock puppet]

A million curses upon your head for making this blunder, Dr. Peterson. You clearly will never have anything worth considering ever again. All your work ever done is forever to be considered a pile of garbage. You have hurt millions of people over and your life is a mess. It must be because you don't post on boards like this anymore but you do put out a post on a personal blog but don't allow comment. When you're out cold and starving begging for some sort of subsistence you won't be worth the oldest pair of Drifting's shoes. Your eternal torment is coming.

Dan has taught you well.

Or was it Dan who learned from stem, who may have a long mopologetic history?

[_mikwut]

Hello Stak,

I want to make sure I fully understand your criticism before agreeing or disagreeing. I did read Dan's piece again and your Part I of Misbehaving. If I might start with the first couple Camus' quotes. I am a little confused on what the exact concern is? Is your general idea of "abuse" (or the start of it here) a feeling that DCP misrepresents Camus because Camus' existentialism (if we are allowed to call him that for practical purposes here) does indeed offer a subjective hope and meaning which Dan seems to ignore? That Dan only quotes the despair? Sincere question.

Dan seems to be saying (to me) that he can understand an honest get your hands dirty atheism, if it is true so be it. But he doesn't understand a celebratory one. So far (this isn't to exonerate the whole piece just this beginning couple quotes) - I have no problem. We always have to understand that with the existentialists (or the existentialists and Camus for this point) without God there is indeed no meaning and life is indeed absurd even after subjective meaning is asserted or affirmed it remains so. There is also something anxiety ridden, even sickening to really come to grips with, there is no God and life is absurd, celebrating that fact is indeed misguided. This seems to me Dan's point - and I find it confusing why Dan would have to point out, elaborate or even care that Camus develops an idea that Camus and Sisyphus say Screw you to the Gods after that sickening fact has come to grips?

The quote that you expand further from the Rebel doesn't seem to me important. The key phrase to me is the next paragraph after Dan's quote "We shall then decide not to act at all, which amounts to at least accepting the murder of others". This is classic from existentialist writing. They aren't nihilists. The act of our will that creates meaning follows the fact of meaninglessness and absurdity but it never denies it. This to me is why Christian apologists make similar arguments. They are in agreement with the objective reality of no God and meaninglessness. It is almost glib or a joke to ask an existentialist is life without meaning and receive the answer yes and no. I find it hard to believe someone who has a bachelor's degree in philosophy and is as well read as we all agree Dan is somehow doesn't understand the creation of meaning and authenticity that follows in existentialist writing.

No devil's advocate just attempting to really understand the exact criticisms?

mikwut

[_sock puppet]

mikwut, I think your point boils down to what is to be celebrated by concluding god does not exist. The question each of us faces each day is, what do I do with the rest of my life? We do not know if there is anything beyond death. We cannot change the past. We can enjoy or begrudgingly endure the present. We can take steps to shape the future, the future to the day we die.

So with the present and the limited, known future, what do I do with them?

If I conclude atheism, then I am freed from the notions that I should live life to seek some hoped for reward in an afterlife. Should I not celebrate my liberation from notions which restricted me (but for which there is no evidence)?

We are all simply agnostics or apathetic. The ace that religionists hold in their hand over agnostics is that eternity is a damn long time. It never ends. Since we don't know, none of us knows, what do you do with the time you know you have left, until death?

Those who celebrate their liberty from the delusion of atheism are drinking that Kool-Aid just as much as those who celebrate their redemption from hell from the delusion of theism (and a savior). I think it ironic either cannot appreciate the celebration of the other.

For me, since I cannot know either way (theism or atheism), I hope to achieve complete apathy. I know many who act consistent with the apathy at which I aim. Therein lies something to celebrate, and not give a s*** what the theist believes or his hallelujahs or what an atheist thinks or celebrates. It is simply live and let live.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Hi Mikwut,

I want to make sure I fully understand your criticism before agreeing or disagreeing.

Sure, no problem.

I did read Dan's piece again and your Part I of Misbehaving. If I might start with the first couple Camus' quotes. I am a little confused on what the exact concern is? Is your general idea of "abuse" (or the start of it here) a feeling that DCP misrepresents Camus because Camus' existentialism (if we are allowed to call him that for practical purposes here) does indeed offer a subjective hope and meaning which Dan seems to ignore? That Dan only quotes the despair? Sincere question.

That is the general idea of it, but it gets more specific. Let’s take citation #46 for example, Dan says this:

Perhaps, on second thought, though, I can understand those who might see it as a liberation. "If there is no God," says Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov, "that means everything is permitted." Why? Because nothing matters at all. Everything is meaningless. However, this liberation comes at a very, very high price. "If we believe in nothing," said the great French writer and Nobel laureate Albert Camus...

And then quotes this:

If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance. There is no pro or con: the murderer is neither right nor wrong. We are free to stoke the crematory fires or to devote ourselves to the care of lepers. Evil and virtue are mere chance or caprice.

But immediately after this, Camus starts a new paragraph that adds:

We shall then decide not to act at all, which amounts to at least accepting the murder of others, with perhaps certain mild reservations about the imperfection of the human race. Again we may decide to substitute tragic dilettantism for action, and in this case human lives become counters in a game. Finally, we may propose to embark on some course of action which is not entirely gratuitous. In the latter case, in that we have no higher values to guide our behavior, our aim will be immediate efficacy. Since nothing is either true or false, good or bad, our guiding principle will be to demonstrate that we are the most efficient-in other words, the strongest. Then the world will no longer be divided into the just and the unjust, but into masters and slaves. Thus, whichever way we turn, in our abyss of negation and nihilism, murder has its privileged position.

This comes from Camus’ introduction to The Rebel, and is Camus explaining in just a few words how one can’t really be nihilist, because even if you embrace that title, murder still takes a privileged position.

So Dan quotes a portion of Camus who is setting nihilism up for failure, but isolates a passage that takes the important context of how an absurdist view of life sweeps away nihilism and tosses it aside, to focus on Camus’ characterization of nihilism.

Let’s say a Christian who is summarizing an atheist viewpoint before explaining where that viewpoint falls into error:

If God’s blessings is conditional to how one behaves, which is the main lesson we learn in Deuteronomy, doesn’t this turn God into some kind of Santa Claus who rewards the nice with presents and the naughty with coal? When we grow up, don’t we stop believing in Santa Claus? If there are people who are virtuous but lack blessings, this gives us strong evidence that God does not exist.

Of course such ideas show a profound lack of context of the biblical canon as a whole, the conditional theology we find in Deuteronomy is just one strands in an entire web of complex and interrelated ideas, the atheist merely wishes to build a straw man for him to skewer.

Now lets say I’m speaking at reason rally, and I choose to read a prepared essay, where I mention Christian Author by name and say, “ Even those Christians who do know what the Bible says know the silliness of their position, as award winning Christian Author clearly and poetically states…‘If God’s blessings is conditional to how one behaves, which is the main lesson we learn in Deuteronomy, doesn’t this turn God into some kind of Santa Claus who rewards the nice with presents and the naughty with coal? When we grow up, don’t we stop believing in Santa Claus? If there are people who are virtuous but lack blessings, this gives us strong evidence that God does not exist.’”

I’m taking Christian Author’s words out of context, because Christian Author is just setting up his opponent’s viewpoint before addressing it, but I fail to mention that in my speech.

Dan essentially did the same thing with Camus.

We always have to understand that with the existentialists (or the existentialists and Camus for this point) without God there is indeed no meaning and life is indeed absurd even after subjective meaning is asserted or affirmed it remains so.

But the problem is, this doesn’t accurately reflect any atheist who falls into the Existentialist canon, and it surely does not begin to represent Camus. I’m pretty confident Camus would say that the absurdist rebellion is as objective as you can get,

There is also something anxiety ridden, even sickening to really come to grips with, there is no God and life is absurd, celebrating that fact is indeed misguided.

Again, Camus would strenuously disagree with that:

In the eyes of the rebel, what is missing from the misery of the world, as well as from its moments of happiness, is some principle by which they can be explained. The insurrection against evil is, above all, a demand for unity. The rebel obstinately confronts a world condemned to death and the impenetrable obscurity of the human condition with his demand for life and absolute clarity. He is seeking, without knowing it, a moral philosophy, or a religion. Rebellion, even though it is blinf, is a form of asceticism. Therefore, if we rebel blasphemes, it is in the hope of finding a new god. He staggers under the shock of the first and most profound of all religious experiences, but it is a disenchanted religious experience. It is not a rebellion itself that is noble, but its aims, even though its achievements are at times ignoble.

While there may be anxiety and a sickness for some people, Camus sees it as something that is profound and important, something that is worthy of being celebrated.

This seems to me Dan's point - and I find it confusing why Dan would have to point out, elaborate or even care that Camus develops an idea that Camus and Sisyphus say f*** you to the Gods after that sickening fact has come to grips?

If Dan wants to be intellectually honest and use Camus as a foil, he needs to accurately represent Camus’ beliefs. He doesn’t. He knows better.

The quote that you expand further from the Rebel doesn't seem to me important. The key phrase to me is the next paragraph after Dan's quote "We shall then decide not to act at all, which amounts to at least accepting the murder of others". This is classic from existentialist writing.

No! That would be the anti-thesis to Camus, he wants to act, he wants an objective reason to act in the absurd world. What you described isn’t classic existential writing, it is a classic mischaracterization of it that is wildly popular.

I find it hard to believe someone who has a bachelor's degree in philosophy and is as well read as we all agree Dan is somehow doesn't understand the creation of meaning and authenticity that follows in existentialist writing.

I find it very easy to believe, I consider Dan to be philosophically naïve and profoundly shallow when it comes to reading literature and philosophy.

No devil's advocate just attempting to really understand the exact criticisms?

Well, I hope I was able to clear some things up.

[_MsJack]

I would not be surprised to learn someday that stemelbow is one of DarthJ's sock puppets, a parody of the stupidest TBM one could ever imagine.

See my sig line. If I recall correctly, I first made that sig as a result of an earlier stemelbow thread. Biggest. Idiot. Ever.

I've had my differences with stemelbow, but I don't think he's an idiot.

I do agree with Poe's law, but folks like ldsfaqs and spamLDS (he comments on blogs sometimes) are more of the kind of personalities I think of as being indistinguishable from parodies.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Speaking of Absurdism...

Rather than exemplify the sanctity and sheer uniqueness of this life, the one and only existence we'll ever know, Mr. Peterson uses Camus' own words to support the notion that this life isn't that special, and then segues to the hope that a metaphysical reality is the only way to truly appreciate this life. It's double irony. 1) That Mr. Peterson would quote Camus to support the former's belief that life is meaningless without an assigned meaning. 2) Mr. Peterson admits life is meaningless, but the reality is too disheartening to him, so he uses an Absurdist's own words to legitimize the absurd.

Jesus Christ.

Frankly, I'm not sure Mr. Peterson understands Camus, existentialism, or Absurdism. If he did, he simply wouldn't have attempted to link Mormo-metaphysical nonsense with Absurdism. In fact, I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. I think I'll go look at kittens on Reddit...

- VRDRC

[_Chap]

I would not be surprised to learn someday that stemelbow is one of DarthJ's sock puppets, a parody of the stupidest TBM one could ever imagine.

See my sig line. If I recall correctly, I first made that sig as a result of an earlier stemelbow thread. Biggest. Idiot. Ever.

I've had my differences with stemelbow, but I don't think he's an idiot.

....

I think there is a choice to be made about stemelbow. Either:

(a) He is a nice guy, but not the sharpest chisel in the box, with a rather poor ability to follow an argument that extends over more than a couple of sentences, and a lack of capacity to distinguish between such statements as "A has made a statement that he knows to be incorrect" and "I hate A".

(b) He is not a nice guy at all, but is in fact a TBM troll who uses a faux-naif act to derail threads by multiple 'distractor' posts along the lines of "Why so much hate? You guys!" and so on, when the issue at stake is a matter of fact or logic, rather than of emotional attitude.

I used to be definitely on the side of (a), but recent stemelbow appearances are making me reconsider.

[_stemelbow]

I would not be surprised to learn someday that stemelbow is one of DarthJ's sock puppets, a parody of the stupidest TBM one could ever imagine.

See my sig line. If I recall correctly, I first made that sig as a result of an earlier stemelbow thread. Biggest. Idiot. Ever.

I was thinking I had a kindred spirit in your Carton. this is too bad. Anyway, don't worry if you were a believing LDS that questioned their tactics, particularly as they often mirror the tactics the intend to critique, they'd demonize the garbage out of you too.

But I can't argue, I beat out every single person who ever existed, in the idiot category.

Shut up, lesser idiot. I win

[_mikwut]

Hi Stak,

Thanks for the response.

Here is where I remain a bit confused but certainly understanding better where your coming from:

So Dan quotes a portion of Camus who is setting nihilism up for failure, but isolates a passage that takes the important context of how an absurdist view of life sweeps away nihilism and tosses it aside, to focus on Camus’ characterization of nihilism.

I am not sure if nihilism is essential but I get where your coming from. Dan is referring to atheism. Here is Dan's quote:

I confess that I find those who rejoice in [i]atheism baffling.[/i] It is not merely the thought of the atheist's funeral: "all dressed up with nowhere to go." I think of Beethoven, hiding down in the basement with pillows to his ears, desperately trying to save his fading sense of hearing as he was working on his majestic "Emperor" Concerto. Or, a little later, conducting the magnificent Ninth Symphony, which he never heard, having to be turned around by the concertmaster because he did not know that the audience was applauding him. I think of Mozart, feverishly trying to finish his own Requiem—dead at thirty-five and thrown into an unmarked pauper's grave. So many lives have been cut short, leaving so many poems unwritten, so many symphonies uncomposed, so many scientific discoveries unmade.

In fact, it is hard to think of anyone who has achieved his or her full potential in this life. Tragic foreshortenings do not only happen to geniuses. A neighbor and friend was stricken with multiple sclerosis in her midtwenties and now, in her thirties, lies bedridden in a rest home. Barring some incredible medical breakthrough, this is her life. Absent hope for a life to come, this is all she will ever have to look forward to. My own father, for the last six years of his life, blind from an utterly unforeseen stroke suffered during routine and relatively minor surgery, was incapable of any of the activities in which he had once found satisfaction and pathetically asked me, every few weeks, whether he would ever see again. What comfort would there be in saying, "No, Dad. This is it. Nothing good is coming. And then you'll die."

Of course, something may be unpalatable and unpleasant yet accurate. I can certainly understand coming to the sad conclusion that this is in fact the truth about the human condition: That we live briefly, then we die and we rot. That so, too, do our children and our grandchildren. And that so, also, does everything we create—our music, our buildings, our literature, our inventions. That "all we are is dust in the wind."[44]

But I cannot understand those who regard this as glorious good news.

Perhaps, on second thought, though, I can understand those who might see it as a liberation. "If there is no God," says Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov, "that means everything is permitted."[45] Why? Because nothing matters at all. Everything is meaningless. However, this liberation comes at a very, very high price. "If we believe in nothing," said the great French writer and Nobel laureate Albert Camus,

if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance. There is no pro or con: the murderer is neither right nor wrong. We are free to stoke the crematory fires or to devote ourselves to the care of lepers. Evil and virtue are mere chance or caprice.[46]

At the point where it is no longer possible to say what is black and what is white, the light is extinguished and freedom becomes a voluntary prison.[47]
Consider, too, this supremely complacent remark, offered by a vocal atheist critic of Mormonism during a 2001 Internet discussion: "If there were a God," he reflected, "I think (s)he'd enjoy hanging out with me—perhaps sipping on a fine Merlot under the night sky while devising a grand unified theory." Only someone very comfortably situated could be so marinated in smugness about the question of the reality of God.

On the parts I bolded and italicized Camus certainly believed in unfulfilled potential that Dan mentions, his Nuptials clearly present that. As well as this is it then you'll die. I concede that "nothing good is coming could be argued" but Camus in the Nuptials clearly elaborates that fully and completely living in the present is how to fully appreciate life. Camus believed the reality of our condition is we live briefly, we die and then rot. He was more concerned on how we then live in this condition. Camus's thought is we should embrace the frustration and ambivalence that humans cannot escape. There is no meaning at least prescribed or fundamental in existence.

Camus's Absurdity was that we are forever cursed or blessed whatever your fancy with a unavoidable paradox. We long or strive to answer questions of what is the meaning in life yet whether it be science, religion, metaphysics, etc... no answer is available. Yet we try to answer, no answer available... like Sisyphus. His main concern is in what ways of living our lives make them worth living despite the fact that their meaningless.

To Dan's statement that he is baffled in the celebratory aspect of atheism and he gives a messageboard members statement as an example - he is still well within Camus' thought. Camus gave clear references to Sartre's Nausea to help describe the sense of anxiety and nausea that one experiences when they begin to awaken to absurdity - going to work and coming home, repeat, repeat - this process leads to a consciousness of the absurd not a glib hoorah! which Dan is speaking to. Camus takes that too seriously to be thought of as a frat party because existence ultimately has no meaning. On page 18 of the Myth of Sisyphus he says, “We must despair of ever reconstructing the familiar, calm surface which would give us peace of heart”.

It has been argued and debated regarding Camus seeming shift when he wrote the Rebel. He seems to jump or just shift from skepticism about any truth and nihilism about any meaning to promoting a view that life can be judged to be better or worse. But this is a trick to accept tragedy isn't his philosophy but rather his art. I believe that is Dan's quote, Camus is still insisting on his earlier skepticism when he makes this shift. You have to remember Camus is in full political activist hat with the Rebel and has moved from I to we as society, he has already articulated that a rebel finds his cause and then persuades others.

He doesn't accept as celebratory that the horizon has been eliminated by God's non-existence. He assumes this as the mood of the times and then he writes in regards to given that fact what should we do?

I understand your Deut. example from a Christian author. I don't think it is spot on because Camus did believe life to be meaningless and that fact was found in the umbrella of absurdity. He never repudiated the M of S or the Nuptials.

regards, mikwut