Posted on 11/28/2006 6:48:55 AM PST by shrinkermd
...If so, we are all crazy now. There is something about the Web that brings out the ego monster in everybody. It's not just the well-established tendency to be nasty. When you write for the Web, you open yourself up to breathtakingly vicious vitriol. People wish things on your mother, simply for bearing you, that you wouldn't wish on Hitler.
But even in their quieter modes, denizens of the Web seem to lug around huge egos and deeply questionable assumptions about how interesting they and their lives might be to others.
This is strange. Anonymity, for better or for worse, is supposed to be one of the signature qualities of the Web...
...But anonymity does not actually seem to interest many of the Web's most devoted users. They are the ones who start their own sites or sign up for MySpace or submit videos to YouTube. Indeed, the most successful Web sites seem to be those where people can abandon anonymity and use the Internet to stake their claims as unique individuals. Here is a list of my friends. Here are all the CDs in my collection. Here is a picture of my dog. On the Internet, not only does everybody know that you're a dog, everybody knows what kind of dog, how old, your taste in collars, your favorite dog food recipe and so on.
Social networking sites such as MySpace (for which Rupert Murdoch paid $580 million last year) are vast celebrations of solipsism. "My interests are music, girls, sports, clothes, cars and oo did i forget to mention girls," writes Lex... Or is this blond...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
See ya in a few!! ;-)
You beat me to it. Nevertheless, navel-gazing seems to be rampant on the web.
Solipsism follows necessarily from atheism. Most atheists don't do the legwork though, and are generally content with selective fits of solipsism.
When a relativist is cheating on his taxes or fooling around with someone else's wife, morality becomes a product of his imagination. But when the IRS short-changes him, or when his wife cheats on him, he becomes very angry about these very real injustices.
This is why great sinners (i.e., Nietsche, Marx) make very bad philosphers. Philosophy becomes one long exercise in rationalization.
Funny that you mention atheism relative to my post. This professor is also an avowed atheist. Now it all makes sense.
Cute column.
8-)
Nominalism, Realism and Conceptualism.
This essay directly addresses the error of Nominalism, the great error of modern philosophy. It's brief, considering the subject matter, a bit technical, but worth spending some time with.
You'll see from this article that the decline of the West began with William of Occam's proto-nominalism of the 14th century.
Bookmarked for later reading.
Oh I don't know. The Democrats have spent the last 6 years being all out nasty right out in Public. Seems once again an example of the Democrat Party as the Hive of Hypocrise. How dare we Right wingers shoot back! Don't we know we are just supposed to take what ever our betters like Mikey dish out?
This statement is SO VERY TRUE - you'd be aghast at the number of big fish in little ponds who become shrieking harpies ready to tear your heart out because you didnt give them proper obesience, yet will turn around and take privately shared information that you entrusted them with and spread it around to mock you and use against you in vicious verbal attacks. Yes, I say this as someone who has been the subject of such vitriol. And you'd be amazed at how PROUD they are of their 'cutting edge' work.
Having said that, I am rather amused that this author's real intent is so predictable. Who are the vicious people he's talking about? All those paeons who have the audacity to set up their own little tent in the marketplace of journalism and news and information sharing and SUCCEED. He just sounds like hes mad because he opted for the Old Media...the Old, Worn Out, Proven Hypocrisy of the Old Media.
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