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Below are the 17 most recent journal entries recorded in
waking_dreams82's LiveJournal:
| Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 | | 3:01 am |
| | Thursday, November 17th, 2005 | | 6:44 pm |
Rough Week "Let's now consider whether Hume's account of the judicious spectator and its epistemological role includes a conception of practical reason, or whether it is instead an account of the psychological processes whereby our moral judgments are expressed. In Hume's mind, I believe, it is a psychological account. There are, however, passages that suggest how this account might become, if pressed, a conception of practical reasoning. Here are two such ways of pressing it." -John Rawls So if I completely drop a class and take it again later, I can barely pass this semester. I still don't feel like I belong here or like I even want to. I don't know if I should come again next semester. Roleplaying is getting frustrating beyond words. Today someone...I don't know. I feel like there's a lot I should say but I don't know how to get it down. I don't want to just whine. Current Mood:  depressed | | Tuesday, October 11th, 2005 | | 3:16 pm |
Finally "And he read, saying: Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations! Yea, and many things did my father read concerning Jerusalem -- that it should be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof; many should perish by the sword, and many should be carried away captive into Babylon." (1 Nephi 1:13) The part of the Book of Mormon where they're still in Judea reads a little odd. I can't quite put my finger on it. It just doesn't have quite the same mood as the Old Testament when Jerusalem and Israel keep being destroyed and restored and then destroyed again. The intensity is less. I guess that's probably part of the point. Jerusalem is being left. The people of God are leaving for other shores. It does strike me as odd that the Book of Mormon is not the story of the Mormons, but of other people who they believe were here in North America before them. Again, there's this strange sense of detachment. The narrative doesn't seem intense of prophetic. One doesn't feel pressured to submit on the basis of the apparent evidence of the writer's spirit alone as one does with most holy books, including the Marxist books. It's a little known fact but Communism is very much a religion. Anyone who's been a Communist, as I was for a few years, can tell you as much. Anyone who still is one will vehemently deny it. Whatever the case, this verse doesn't effect me all that much. I have nothing to relate to it in my life at Chapel Hill. For the record, if any of you don't know, I have moved to Chapel Hill and am now in my first semester of the Masters program in Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Current Mood:  cranky | | Thursday, July 28th, 2005 | | 6:27 am |
Bleh!
I never feel I have anything to say or that there's that much point to this. I did promise Jess I'd update. So I am. I'm about to fall over. I haven't been up to anything since I got back from the movie festival. I haven't posted on NS. I haven't been on DM. I did start particracy. I play the Enlightenment Party. Yay Rawls! I love Andrew! Anyway, that's that. I kept my promise. Now I'm going to sleep. | | Monday, June 20th, 2005 | | 3:32 am |
I Suck
I promised Sarah I'd post last night. I didn't. Though we are supposed to hang out tomorrow. I know I should post more but there's nothing to post. Every post would read like the following:
Looked unsucessfully for a job. Looked unsucessfully for an apartment. Still single. Still have about two or three friends in this whole city. Nothing else happened. | | Tuesday, May 17th, 2005 | | 12:02 am |
Nostalgia I think I'm going to miss this place. It's been my life for four years. I have friends here, some of whom might stay in touch but most of whom I'll never see again after Sunday. It's just familiar. It's where I live. But it's not this place I'm really going to miss. After this summer, I'll probably never live at home again. If I do, it'll be because I've failed in life or at least come upon hard times. Part of me is very excited about that. There's a way in which college lets you put off being an adult another four years. After high school, a cushion of a few more years of dependency is a big relief. By the end of college, one can't bear the thought of not moving out. At 22, I have too much pride to want to stay dependent. Still, I'm nervous about this and not just because I'm not sure if I can manage things. I've lived with my family my whole life. I can't imagine not living with them. My primary social group until now has been my parents, my sister, and myself. Next year, it won't be. It'll be me as an independent unit. Some years down the road, it might be my wife, my kids, and myself. Of course, that involves getting into a relationship at some point but I'm thinking far future here. I don't know. This is one of those journal entries where I'm trying to convey something of my inner life but don't seem able to say it right. Current Mood:  nostalgic | | Wednesday, May 11th, 2005 | | 7:58 pm |
Quote "While FAIR offers carefully documented critiques of both mainstream and conservative media, it is disadvantaged in competition with its right-wing counterparts. A simple statistical calculation that is among the right's favorite techniques for measuring bias easily proves the point, and explodes the right-wing myth about the media." -Joe Conason That quote mostly makes it's own point but the point isn't exactly what I'm interested in. My question, and this isn't a jibe framed as a question, it's a serious question that I want any conservative readers of my journal to answer...My question is where all the scholarly, intelligent, well argued and well documented conservative books are. I know these people aren't dumb. People like William Kristol and other serious conservatives write all kinds of intelligent arguments and make all kinds of intelligent speeches. So where are the good books? I keep trying find some but, when I get whatever book all my friends on the right are raving about, it's always something like Bias by Bernard Goldberg which, no offense to anyone, I can only describe as dumb. Anyone have a good reading list? Current Mood: contemplative | | Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 | | 11:27 pm |
Quote "Like many of you who are reading this book, I've been logging onto the internet and using e-mail for nearly a decade now. I've found it to be an enormously useful tool, especially since I travel so frequently. It's helped me keep up with Senate business, with my staff, with my constituents, and with the wider world of ideas and debate that it's sometimes easy to miss in Washington. I read newspapers and magazines online more than otherwise, and the Internet makes it much more likely that I will be exposed to opinions different from my own." -John Kerry I guess I agree with most of that. I've never understood people who prefer to read on-line though. When given a choice, I always prefer to use a book. I never use on-line sources for papers or anything unless it's absolutely required by the assignment. Current Mood: contemplative | | Saturday, April 30th, 2005 | | 10:41 pm |
Self-Improvement To-Do List 1. Finish papers on time 2. Start going to Church 3. Become involved in the community 4. Develop better eating habits 5. Start excercising 6. Take care of grad school applications 7. Get a job 8. Learn more about different religions 9. Finish reading everything Kant ever wrote over and over again 10. Become more sociable Current Mood:  anxious | | Sunday, April 24th, 2005 | | 6:07 pm |
"The goods and services produced by business firms, which are not resold as intermediate goods to other firms or consumers during the current period, qualify by our rule as final product. But the business firm does not consume them. Final goods that business firms keep for themselves are called private investment or private capital formation. These goods add to the nation's stock of income-yielding assets. Private investment consists of inventory investment and fixed investment." -Robert J. Gordon There's really just one thing I don't understand about the above quote. If a company gets a machine and wears that machine down manufacturing products, why isn't the company considered to be consuming that machinery in manufacturing other machinery? They are disposing of a good in its intended purpose, after all. Current Mood:  curious | | Thursday, April 14th, 2005 | | 7:06 pm |
I'm More Southern Than Jess!
Your Linguistic Profile:
|
60% General American English |
30% Dixie |
10% Yankee |
0% Midwestern |
0% Upper Midwestern | |
Current Mood:  content | | Sunday, April 10th, 2005 | | 2:19 am |
Marxism and Morals "The premise of dialectical materialism is, we recall: 'It is not men's consciousness that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness.' Only in the context sketched above can this premise point beyond mere theory and become a question of praxis. Only when the core of existence stands revealed as a social process can existence be seen as the product, albeit the hitherto unconscious product, of human activity. This activity will be seen in its turn as the element crucial for the transformation of existence. Man finds himself confronted by purely natural relations or social forms mystified into natural relations. They appear to be fixed, complete and immutable entities which can be manipulated and even comprehended, but never overthrown. But also this situation creates the possibility of praxis in the individual consciousness. Praxis becomes the form of action appropriate to the isolated individual, it becomes his ethics. Feuerbach's attempt to supersede Hegel foundered on this reef: like the German idealists, and to a much greater extent than Hegel, he stopped short at the isolated individual of 'civil society'." -Georg Lukacs This, then, is where Marxism definitely and absolutely parts ways with a moral way of thinking, in the essential denial of free will as such. That, though not only that, is what is meant by Lukacs's basic premises of dialectical materialism, and Lukacs is quite correct in assigning this as the basic premise of Marxism. Morality is based on free will, at least any morality that can even be called morality is. I could write pages and pages about the exact relationship between ontological and apparent freedom of the will and morality. In fact, I have on numerous occasions. At the same time, the dependence of the one on the other seems so obvious to me as to easily go without explanation. If a person cannot choose his actions, he is not responsible for them. If no responsibility can be assigned to the agent, then he cannot be said to have acted in a morally praiseworthy or blameworthy way. Perhaps he cannot be said to have acted at all. So what does Lukacs put in place of morality? Praxis! Praxis is to be the new morality in this brave new world. One might ask the untold millions of murdered people in Russia and Chine and Cambodia and Vietnam and a dozen other countries what they think of this glorious praxis. For Marx and Lukacs, as for Thrasymachus and Rand, Hitler and Franco, justice is nothing but interest. Somehow the interest of one's class is somehow nobler than the selfishness of the individual or the genocidal barbarism of the race. I don't see a fundamental philosophical distinction between pseudo-moralities, replacements for real morality. What's more, it is the first of the aforementioned ideologies which produced by far the highest body count. Current Mood:  energetic | | Thursday, April 7th, 2005 | | 6:38 pm |
Activity
"It may be agreeable for certain people to live a retired life in a quiet place away from noise and disturbance. But it is certainly more praiseworthy and courageous to practice Buddhism living among your fellow beings, helping them and being of service to them. It may perhaps be useful in some cases for a man to live in retirement for a time in order to improve his mind and character, as preliminary moral, spiritual and intellectual training, to be strong enough to come out later and help others. But if a man lives all his life in solitude, thinking only of his own happiness and 'salvation', without caring for his fellows, this surely is not in keeping with the Buddha's teaching which is based on love, compassion, and service to others."
-Walpola Rahula
I read this quote and I see in it a certain criticism of how I've been living the last few months. Back when I had no concept of real morality, I would constantly involve myself in nearly every cause that came and called for support. Yet, now that I have rational knowledge of moral law, now that I've studied and embraced Kant, I don't really do anything. I'm a lot like the reclusive monk in the quote.
Still, I am still refining my thoughts, personality, and ideals, much like the second monk. I'm not sure what my life will hold. Thinking about things around here, I can't really think of much I can do besides to act morally in situations that come up. Then there is my duty to ensure my own long-tern happiness over short term pleasures, i.e. to work seriously during this last stretch of school and get prepared for what's going to come after. I have a paper and a thesis coming up. My thesis needs to be radically reworked, which will take a lot of time and work.
Future plans are somewhat on hold as I wait to hear from the grad schools. I'm not sure what is going on with that. I don't want to be a librarian but, if I get in, it might be better to go and then transfer instead of trying to get in again. If not, I might try teaching high school at the lateral entry level and continuing my education while doing it. Either way, I definitely need a full time job this summer. | | Wednesday, April 6th, 2005 | | 10:18 pm |
School Headaches So I'm trying to catch up at school. I've allowed myself to fall too far behind. I have to finish my Reason and Domination paper tonight (it's going to suck) and to write a Foreign Policy paper tommorrow. Foreign Policy is an extra credit paper that only has to be three pages but I can't get at one of the resources I'm supposed to use. I'm kind of freaking out about class but I have a plan for the next week which makes things a little better. I have another Foreign Policy paper due on Wednesday and then it's all thesis until my thesis is due. I'm just anxious. I'm worried nothing will be ready on time. Current Mood: anxious | | 5:26 am |
Late Paper So I'm massively behind on my paper for Reason and Domination. It was due on Friday. I'm finishing it up now. Which means I probably should be doing that instead of playing around on LJ. Nonetheless, here I am. I do think I got a schedule worked out. It bugs me that it took so long. Sorry if this entry is a little jerky in writing style. It is past five in the morning now. Current Mood: cranky | | Tuesday, April 5th, 2005 | | 12:37 pm |
Scheduling I've been having trouble scheduling my free time. I feel the need for a very definitive order in the day. I'm working one out now. I half want to write it down here but I also realize that would look pretty lame. I really need seven things so I can start on a different part of the pattern every day of the week. That's how I did it last year. I've been off pattern most of this semester. I almost feel like I've missed the semester or let it drift by unorganized. Life seems to decline each semester, less organized, less energy, fewer friends, less involvement on campus. I know all of this is within my control yet it doesn't feel like it. I just feel exhausted. Freshman year I had the energy and the desire to do everything. Now...I don't know. Current Mood:  tired | | Friday, March 18th, 2005 | | 10:12 am |
First Entry
I never know what to say in first entries. Just going straight into what happened or what's on my mind always seemed like skipping the beginning. After all, the journal starts in the middle of my life but it still should start with...well, a start. Maybe a little background information?
I'm 22 years old. I'm currently a college senior with a major in philosophy. I'm worried about a lot of the decisions that are coming up in my life. I love roleplaying in almost all its forms. I'm majorly into philosophy and a little into politics as well.
Current Mood: dorky |
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