HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Angus H Rodgers)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Morally good necessary possible sometimes possible reproductiveness
Date: 22 Dec 92 13:41:04 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London

In <BznoAA.JK0@unix.amherst.edu>
jmfuchs@unix.amherst.edu (JESSE MICHAEL FUCHS) writes:

>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu) wrote:
>> 
>> MZ:
>> >>Of course, everything depends on your definition of
>> >>well-being.  I note in passing that the one homosexual I knew best,
>> >>loathed his not altogether freely chosen lifestyle so much, that he
>> >>drank himself to death.

It is logically possible to feel exactly the same way about a not
altogether freely chosen *heterosexual* lifestyle. (Just ask me.)

It is also logically possible that every gay man would wish not to be
gay, if it were psychologically possible for him not to be. It does not
follow, even then, that he is not making the best of his situation.
Being unfree is not equivalent to being morally evil. (I think it's
implied by it, but does not imply it.) "It doesn't mean you're a bad
person!"

It is, finally, logically possible that every straight man (BTW, what
a great "straight man" MZ makes!) would be bisexual, were it not for
the strength of social pressure against that psychological possibility.
(The origin of this social pressure is a mystery to me -- one which
arguing with MZ might conceivably elucidate -- which is why I'm butting
in like this, not too rudely, I hope.)

It is certain that the only gay man I know well (and I know him very 
well, albeit Platonically, if not Platonistically) is no more morally
evil than anyone else I've met, and less evil than most. -- But he's not
happy in his (celibate!) condition, either; and is drugging himself to
death with amphetamines. Which proves nothing, either way. IMO, he needs
a good man to pull him out of it (and get him away from his mother).

Just my 2p worth; I haven't followed much of this tangled thread
(does anyone have that much time?), so I must apologise for any
unintended irrelevance on my part.
--
Gus Rodgers,  Dept. of Computer Science, |  [Profound thought for 1993]
Queen Mary & Westfield College, Mile End |     "Philishave is about
Road, London, England.   +44 71 975 5241 |      personal choice" 
E-mail (JANET):   arodgers@dcs.qmw.ac.uk |             -- TV advert
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
From: feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld)
Subject: Re: morally good...
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:48:29 GMT

My first impulse, on reading this thread, was to wonder why Zelany has
so much trouble finding someone clever to challenge him.

My next impulse was to respond to the invoking of "Hitler" by writing
a note saying that the other sure sign of a degenerating thread was
the invoking of "Ayn Rand"; then I saw the invocation of Ayn Rand.

Now I'm back to my first impulse: why are all of Mr. Zelany's
antagonists so, well, so...non-clever?
-- 
Michael Feld                  | E-mail: <feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Dept. of Philosophy           | FAX: (204) 261-0021
University of Manitoba        | Voice: (204) 474-9136
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2M8, Canada
From: mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Wisdom Galore!
Date: 3 Jan 93 12:43:20 GMT

Stephen Grossman writes:

>The game is up.  Your Holy Wish is not a moral obligation for other people.
>They have a right to their own lives and happiness despite your self-imposed
>misery.  I can walk past a begger or the starving in Somalia and be happy in
>my own life, knowing that other' misery is not a moral mortgage on my life.

Let us just say that this may show a deep lack of insight on your part.  For
one thing, you lack any sense of "there, but for the grace of God, go I".
Perhaps you do not understand how much of your good fortune is simply that:
fortune.  Or perhaps you do not have sufficient experience of being a victim
of a survivor.

If consciousness is "primary", it is certainly so in the sense that
thoughts, to be seen as such, have to be objects of awareness.  Philosophy
requires consciousness because on must be aware that one is thinking.  How
this figures in the larger scheme of things is a realm of great speculation,
but in any case I don't see that the distinction you make applies.  Moral
principles in particular are indifferent to this distinction.

I've forsaken talk of rights because, for the most part, in this country
that have become no more than justifications for every sort of moral abuse.
No principle is more sacred to the american intellectual, pseudo- or not,
than the right to be an asshole.  Life in a society places obligations of
communal living upon us, and therefore it is nonsense of a sort to talk of
having "the right to [one's] own life and happiness".  Shortly I shall have
a child, and shall, for some 18 years, have given up this "right".  This is
not to say that I am an advocate of some sort of communitarianism; the best
path surely lies somewhere in the middle, where we are beholden to our
obligations and at the same time are not intrusive.

>	Chuang Tzu is a fool. He does not know the causes of things.	

Chuang Tzu is a cagy old bird and runs deeper than you think.  THere is a
lot of plain common sense to be found in the Taoist writers.
-- 
C. Wingate        + "The peace of God, it is no peace,
                  +    but strife closed in the sod.
mangoe@cs.umd.edu +  Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing:
tove!mangoe       +    the marv'lous peace of God."
Xref: sparky talk.philosophy.misc:3097 sci.philosophy.tech:4661 sci.philosophy.meta:2870
From: ag@sics.se (Anders G|ransson)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Philosophy Departments in New England...
Date: 31 Dec 92 10:38:20 GMT
	<C02211.Cwx@umassd.edu>,<1992Dec30.025801.18894@husc3.harvard.edu>
	<C02zvC.70M@umassd.edu>
Organization: GRAMMA

In article <C02zvC.70M@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:

      Our mumble-minded President-elect, Slick Willie,
  was educated at Oxford U, the same joint where Wittgenstein,
  a leading light in contemporary sophistry, 
  earned an international reputation as an intellectual fraud. 
  See Ernst Gellner's _Words and Things_ for an excellent 
  description of W's manipulations and evasions in the classroom. 


Some weeks ago in MTV-Europe, Rebecca deRuvo gave us a
"Wittgenstein special" where it transpired not only that 
he mainly hanged out in Cambridge but also that he was an 
ordinary old fashioned philosopher dealing with the usual
questions of philosophy in a rather conventional way.
Perhaps you have other information from MTV in USA?


--


If you see Saint Annie, please tell her - Thanks a lot.
From: azathoth@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (steven.r.houser)
Subject: Need help with Nietzsche's _The Will to Power_
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 02:42:27 GMT

I'm gearing up to read Nietzsche's _The Will to Power_ in English and
German, side by side.  My problem is with the editions I have.  

My English edition is the standard Vintage edition, edited by Walter 
Kaufmann.  However, my German edition is the one edited by Karl 
Schlechta, which was renamed to _Aus dem Nachlafs [sic] der 
Achtzigerjahre_.  According to Kaufmann, Schlechta reorganized the 
entire book, placing the sections in a different order than the 
original German editors.  Kaufmann's edition follows the order of 
the original German edition.  

Here's my question: has anybody 
ever attempted to cross-reference Schlechta's mixed-around edition 
with the standard edition, so that a reader could find the same 
passage in Schlechta's and the "standard" edition?  Is there an 
index like this in print, or does it exist in anyone's unpublished
scholarship that they would be willing to share with me?

This would make it much easier to read these books in tandem.  Any
help or direction would be greatly appreciated.

Steve

-- 
Steve Houser               | Only the educated are free.           
All opinions expressed are | If you wish to be a writer, write. 
mine, not my employer's.   |                                       -- Epictetus
From: dliebman@terapin.com (David Liebman)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Morally good necessary possible sometimes possible reproductivenes
Date: 22 Dec 92 01:13:31 PST
Organization: BBS

MZ:
>>>Shall we then dismiss popular consensus
>>>as irrelevant, because irrational?
 
RJ:
>>Not at all.  Popular consensus can change over time as a result of
>>ongoing dialogue and access to accurate information.  I am working
>>to bring about just such a change.
 
MZ:
>So far, all you can oppose to my arguments, is your say-so, augmented
>by transparent emotional propaganda.
 
i take it that emotion, along with rationality, sexuality, and
mortality, is also essential to human nature.  your perfunctory
sniffling at such issues thus constitutes an egregious neglect
of your moral reasoning.  while you might in due course conclude
that this consideration is unbalanced by the others you insist
upon, your failure to even attempt an accounting for the emotional
essences of some millions of individuals immediately dulls the
integrity of your argument.  and the discreet suggestion that
the former existence of your erstwhile queer bestest buddy is at
all indicative of the social concerns and emotional constitutions of
homosexuals in general is not only irrational -- it is also absurdly
crude.
 
MZ:
>Since none of these will affect
>the moral basis of the issue, and since at this time I am not at all
>interested in pursuing its political implications, 
 
how very convenient.  by dismissing consideration of social or political
implications, you thereby avoid accounting for possible moral ones,
such as the undue restriction of personal liberties and the taking of
freedom and life by philosophically empowered queer-bashers, that
might follow from the successful wishing-on of your position.
 
what, mikhail, is your position on the _material_, ie. actual,
injunction against homosexual activities that your argument entails?
in what way does a moral imperative grounded against a modal reality
(the damping off of the interminable flow of babies) permit an
actualization of said imperative which involves such tangible (though,
i will assume here, 'modally' justifiable) infrigements upon competing
moral imperatives as mentioned above?
 
and why does modal logic not reject your assumption of an indefinite
compulsion to procreate as an impenetrable moral axiom, on the grounds
that indefinite procreation might eventually (as though it has not
already!) result in reductions in the quality and quantity of human
life due to, for instance, ecological disintegration, or economic
rarefication and ensuing social tensions and famine?  please expound
not only upon the applicability of modal logic, but also upon the
'trashing of Consequentialism' that dismisses such considerations.
 
 
MZ:
>I am not interested
>in continuing this exchange.  However, I suggest that if you really
>wish to effect a change in *moral* attitudes, you had better learn to
>justify your preferences with a *moral* argument.
 
i do hope your ability to parse my tedia has improved enough for you
to observe that i have done so.
 
regards,
dave
From: hilmera@storm.CS.ORST.EDU (Andrew Hilmer)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: The Golden Rule
Date: 29 Dec 92 07:32:00 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department, Oregon State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: storm.cs.orst.edu

In article <Bzz87n.Cz5@ccu.umanitoba.ca> feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld) writes:
>This bit of insight has two implications:
>
>	1) that you think that those of us who disagree with you wish
>-- conciously, deliberately -- to treat people unfairly, wrongfully;
>	2) that you wish no one to escape whipping.
>
>Silly stuff.
>-- 
>Michael Feld                  | E-mail: <feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
>Dept. of Philosophy           | FAX: (204) 261-0021
>University of Manitoba        | Voice: (204) 474-9136
>Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2M8, Canada

Not that I wish to slam myself firmly to one side or other of the
objecto v legito flamwar, but I would like to see some further
developement of your (vaguely stated) ideas. I know that objectos,
especially those who more properly should be called Randians, seem
to have a tendancy toward snide drive-by ad hominem remarks, 
inspiring same from the rest of the philosophical community.

I think that you may have a finger on the root of this difficulty,
and if you could spell it out for us undergrads, I would be
grateful.

andy

-- 
Andrew Hilmer -- The Truth is the Truth even if you choose to ignore it
Solipsism sucks! It's bad, I say, evilevil.
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality,rec.arts.books
From: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman)
Subject: Re: Morally good necessary possible sometimes possible reproductiveness
Reply-To: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU
Organization: UMASS DARTMOUTH, NO. DARTMOUTH, MA.
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 21:28:57 GMT

In article <BzMnzC.At9@umassd.edu>, pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:

>    Assuming I have correctly read the convoluted "arguments" about
>homosexuality correctly, Zeleny's opponents want to guide their actions with
>emotion and Zeleny correctly identifies the resulting contradictions. Human
>nature, with its biological heterosexuality, is missing as the needed context.
>This bio. hetero. is a fact to be considered. Whatever one decides is the rat-
>ional evaluation of BH, it must be, implicitly or explicitly, considered. This
*>does mean that each sex act should be for reproduction.* It means that sex 
>exists only because there is such a fact as BH (with the potential for repro-
>duction. With this as our meta. context, understanding and evaluating homo.
>is now possible.

    I made a radical mistake. I meant: This does NOT mean that each sex act 
should be for reproduction.
    Also, emotions are psychosomatic responses to one's evaluations of one's 
knowledge of some existent. We indirectly choose emotions by the reasoning we
do or avoid. There are no innate emotions since there are no innate ideas. 
Original Sin is false. Homo. should change their reasoning and values and act-
ions and then emotions will change. 
    Heterosexuals perceive their biological sexuality but homo. do not. Hetero.
perceive their own biological sexuality but homo. feel and imagine the lack of
perception of their biological sexuality. Sartre's "hole in being" comes to
mind and his claim that absence is stronger(?) than presence. Not good philo-
sophy but psychopathological. But we live in an irrational culture
which encourages people to guide action by emotions. Emotions are not methods
of knowledge. 
    
    _Psychology of Self-Esteem_--Nathanial Branden
    "Inventing the Homosexual"-Marjorie Rosenberg, _Commentary_, Dec. 1987.
    _Function of Orgasm_-Wilhelm Reich; partially good

    As The Rolling Stones observed, "You're not really someone else."
    I looked at the end of the bar. The possibilities lurked within her.
================================================================================
	"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit
you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and cer-
tainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe."
                                                              AYN RAND
================================================================================
Stephen Grossman <PMSC13SG@UMASS.EDU>
================================================================================
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
From: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman)
Subject: morally good...
Reply-To: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU
Organization: UMASS DARTMOUTH, NO. DARTMOUTH, MA.
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 18:06:08 GMT

    Seeking info on why the insane debate Zeleny rather than me on
homosexuality. Perhaps the insane feel or know they will not be troubled to the
depths of their rotten little souls by Zeleny's relatively narrow understanding
of morality and philosophical psychology. But, hey!, the insane don't have the
intellectual competence or courage to focus what is left of their minds on
reality by means of ideas induced from a consistent, comprehensive, and basic
focus on reality. Homosexuals have adjusted, with much skill and repression, to 
emotions and sensations derived from a lack of contact with our common, human,
biological, heterosexual reality. The insane activists who lobbied the Am.
Psychiatric Assoc. around 1970 were clearly aware of the importance of
destroying knowledge. After all, they wanted scientists to ignore science for
egalitarianism (rule of the losers). Homosexuals have also adjusted to the lack
of rational philosophy by accepting the subjectivist call to regard emotions,
images, and hallucinations as the context for their alleged reasoning. Should
one adjust, for example, to a broken leg or to waiting until the last moment to
put gas in one's car? Or rather, should one see a doctor and gas up when the
tank is 1/4  filled? Should one adjust to reality or to emotions? should one
adjust to a bad habit or break the habit? Should one develop character or
personality as the more important psychological responsibility? Heterosexuals
know, explicitly or implicitly, they are connected to biological reality. This
is the context of their emotions. Homosexuals know they are connected only to
somebody else's emotions. This is the context of their emotions. That's why they
are "gay." It's either that or drug addiction and suicide. It is no accident
that Hitler's first bodyguards, the SA (prior to the SS) were composed
exclusively of Major Ernst Roehm's(?) merry band of homosexual drug addicts.
What did these real Nazis know about homosexuality, Nazism, and their connection
that our gaily liberated fools don't know? I'll bet no homosexual (short of the
consciously depraved, like William Burroughs) wants to let Nazi homosexuality
out of the clost. It would be...politically incorrect.
    I would appreciate the writer of a Dec. 19 e-mail to me posting his
misunderstanding to this group <talk.philosophy.misc> so that it can be
discussed by the group. 
================================================================================
	"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit
you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and cer-
tainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe."
                                                              AYN RAND
================================================================================
Stephen Grossman <PMSC13SG@UMASS.EDU>
================================================================================
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
From: lje@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (lisa.j.elser)
Subject: Re: Arab preservation of "european" thought
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 17:37:10 GMT

In article <1980@spam.ua.oz> jaskew@spam.ua.oz (Joseph Askew) writes:
>
>Another ignorant blunder. Byzantium was in 1000 AD alive and well. It's
>official language which everyone had to speak was Classical Greek. I guess
>you don't count the Greeks as European? What about the Bulgars, Serbs and
>Russians? All of them had scholars/monks using and studying Classical Greek
>
>

No, dear, they spoke Byzantine Greek--about as similar to Classical Greek
as Chaucer to today, or Beowulf to Chaucer.

The Attic philosophers were deemed heretical by the Byzantine Christian
government and were not being studied in any measurable way.  Ever
hear of the Library at Alexander?  'thought not.

sheesh.  I don't expect youngsters to have a good grip on early medieval
culture and history, but I sure don't expect to see marginal knowledge
tossed out as gospel.  (Then what am I doing on Usenet, she wonders :-)

Lisa 
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
From: gus3@ellis.uchicago.edu (Christian Gustafson)
Subject: My Sister and I
Reply-To: gus3@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 05:15:11 GMT

Can anyone offer a second opinion or two regarding whether or not the 
book _My Sister and I_, supposedly by Nietzsche, is a forgery?  I have
a copy of the text, in which the editor, Dr. Oscar Levy, explains how 
Nietzsche allegedly wrote it during his 'retirement' to Jena and sub-
sequently smuggled it out of the institution, and away from his sister,
by way of a friend of his who returned to the world.  W. Kaufmann always
insisted that it was a forgery, and published a few articles in support
of his opinion in the 1950's.  In my edition, printed in 1955, I think,
Levy explains that Kaufmann's attacks on the integrity of the text were
based on a few errors in the footnotes, which he had since acknowledged
and corrected.  Levy continues, saying that a number of other scholars
brought these errors to his attention, but they did not react with the
kind of knee-jerk aggressive polemic that he says he received from 
Kaufmann.

So what is the CW for this text?  I have to admit that, without resorting
to the tedium of checking footnotes, etc., that a few things do seem out
of place in the book.  For example, here 'Nietzsche' offers us some very
specific comments on Karl Marx...

I presume that the debate over this book was solved a few decades ago, but
thanks to the fine used book stores in Chicago (and Evanston!) the question
is likely to resurface a few more times before the ink finally fades from
the pages.  Thanks!
cg
-- 
:::::======  gus3@midway.uchicago.edu  | FCC, FDA, FTC, FAA, EPA, FEMA,    
:::::======                            | IRS, FBI, FDIC, DLC, SEC, TVA,
===========  Paleoconservatives Unite! | and the Fed - STOP scrambling
===========  Re-take America, etc ...  | Conservative BandwiPH$$HDSBOBHJYQ$M@N
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
From: jmfuchs@unix.amherst.edu (JESSE MICHAEL FUCHS)
Subject: Re: Morally good necessary possible sometimes possible reproductiveness
Organization: Amherst College
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 10:36:10 GMT

	Day 4 on the Mickey "Deadbeat question" watch...

--

"There are five billion people in the world.
 I wonder how many of them we can screw over."
		-Skippy
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Wisdom Galore!
Date: 3 Jan 93 13:41:50 GMT
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista

In article <C059KD.1Mr@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman)
 writes:

   >Chuang Tzu is a fool. He does not know the causes of things.	

  This comment might have carried more weight had you not once more blatantly
left open the question of the existence of existence.
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: morally good...
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 24 Dec 92 01:02:11 EST
Organization: The Phallogicentric Cabal

In article <BzqF8u.8KC@ccu.umanitoba.ca> 
feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld) writes:

>My first impulse, on reading this thread, was to wonder why Zelany has
>so much trouble finding someone clever to challenge him.
>
>My next impulse was to respond to the invoking of "Hitler" by writing
>a note saying that the other sure sign of a degenerating thread was
>the invoking of "Ayn Rand"; then I saw the invocation of Ayn Rand.
>
>Now I'm back to my first impulse: why are all of Mr. Zelany's
>antagonists so, well, so...non-clever?

Well, Michael, it is an emotional issue, with my opponents committed to
the onerous task of justifying the moral worth of emotional preferences.
Naturally, they tend to confuse feeling good with being right.

But then even the clever non-antagonistic ones have been known to make
egregious spelling mistakes now and then...

>-- 
>Michael Feld                  | E-mail: <feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
>Dept. of Philosophy           | FAX: (204) 261-0021
>University of Manitoba        | Voice: (204) 474-9136
>Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2M8, Canada

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."