It's a poor argument, but one of the funniest movie lines ever, said by a pansexual man in love with someone of fluid gender.

I can’t remember why I stopped, but I only read half of Anna Katerina, but liked the half I read

Which half did you read?

Ha ha!


Happy New Year, everybody!

One of my favorite Woody Allen lines (I think from Manhattan): "My wife left me for another woman."

English.

And she's actually Swiss not French but from the French speaking part of Switzerland. I assume mistake but idk.

The part where Tolstoy is narrating the inner monologue of Levin's dog is amazing and what I remember liking most about it.

not gonna lie, you had me in the first half

It is only hypocritical if one has a poor understanding of humanity itself, especially human nature. If one understands human nature, then the hypocrisy makes sense. Interestingly, hundreds of years ago educated cultural elites had much better understanding of human nature (among many other thing), and developed market economies and constitutional democracies; to simultaneously harness the strengths of human nature and protect against its worse excess.

However, our current cultural elites have a very poor understanding of human nature, or at least they pretend to, making much of their actions and outcomes seem hypocritical to their stated intentions.

Postmodernists typically deny the very existence of human nature.

While the past 100 years has seen amazing advances in technology, mankind has regressed in almost all other aspects.

Yes the good ole days of slavery, children up chimneys, mass slums, women unable to own property or vote etc, all justified intellectually by educated cultural elites.

This is an example of whataboutism

like what?

This is an example of completely misapplying whataboutism.

The argument is made that "hundreds of years ago" , educated intellectual elites provided intellectual output that lead to better social/economic outcomes.

So bringing up the examples of the real world social economic conditions of the time (slaverly, mass poverty, child labour, non existent women's rights etc) actually made existent by the intellectual perspectives of the time is not in anyway whataboutism whatso ever.

I didnt even mention countries like the UK going around the world saying this is ours now, and that is the way God wants it.

I am refuting an idea of complete and total nonsense on every conceivable level.

The argument was that cultural elites had a better understanding of human nature, nothing you said addressed that.

Everything I said clearly and totally addresses that.

Wat?

All of the things I mention were justified under the rubric of human nature.

This isnt hard in anyway.

Who do you think alive today understands human nature better than Tolstoy?

Lol if you think Dunyain is referencing religous anarchists.

Huge goalpost shift but whatever.

Tolstoy was a critic of the very elites Dunyain is praising.

I don't think we know which elites Dunyain is praising. He never said, he only said that the cultural elites of yesteryear had a better understanding of human nature.

Given that Tolstoy was definitely a cultural elite and his extreme understanding of human nature has not been disputed, he would seem to be correct.

Who even are our cultural elites now?

Who alive today are people going to be writing about 200 years from now?

Probably none of them precisely because of their vapidity.

Maybe David Foster Wallace or Anne Carson will get a mention.

No he said much more than that, as I said above you are ignoring half his argument:

How much market economy development do you think Tolstoy a religious anarchist did?

Cmon bro, I know you have to desperately back pedal from the clearly false whataboutism claim, but this is a ridiculous goal post shift.

What ever Tolstoy thought, the fact remains that intellectual ideas about human nature from elites hundreds of years ago were core to the concrete social existence of slavery, imperialism, child labour, and the concept of women as property.

That's all fine. I missed that part of his post.

Kazuo Ishiguro
Bob Dylan
Abdulrazak Gurnah
Doris Lessing
V. S. Naipaul
Salman Rushdie
Martin Scorsese
Steven Spielberg
Woody Allen (vomit)
Alan Moore
Paul McCartney
Willie Nelson

Had to check a few lists of prizes, but I think thats a pretty rock solid list give or take.

There's lots of dross about sure, but there always has been

The point still stands of course that cultural elites did have a better understanding of human nature. They basically have to by default. History is too long and it would be extreme hubris to think that we're at our peak there.

I've mentioned that to lozen in the past that just because something is a 'whataboutism' does not mean it is incorrect to use or consider.

It is like the word 'discrimination' which many on the left (mainly) seem to think, if they can just show something is 'discrimination' therefore it is bad, when discrimination can also be necessary and good.

--No that isn't the argument. The argument was cultural elites had a better understanding of human nature, so they seemed less hypocritical. FWIW, I personally believe cultural elites today understand human nature much more than they are letting on, and they are mostly just cynical liars. It didn't get very much buzz in the zeitgeist for obvious reasons when it was released, but for such a short exchange I think SBF hit the nail on the head pretty well:

Kelsey Piper: so the ethics stuff - mostly a front? people will like you if you win and hate you if you lose and that's how it all really works?
Sam Bankman-Fried: yeah
SBF: I mean that's not all of it
SBF: but it's a lot
...
KP: you were really good at talking about ethics, for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers
SBF: ya
SBF: hehe
SBF: I had to be
SBF: it's what reputations are made of, to some extent
SBF: I feel bad for those who get f***** by it
SBF: by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths [sic] and so everyone likes us

--When I read Adam Smith, Voltaire or Rosseau I dont get the impression they were cynical and didn't believe a word of what they were writing. And as a result a lot of wisdom and insight to be had. Most of the cultural elites today come across as cynical and dishonest, with very ittle wisdom or insight. Just one man's opinion.