A weedy florilegium

Ralph Nader

In 2000 Al Gore won the political lottery. As luck would have it, the Republicans that year nominated a hideous, half-witted little frat boy named George W. Bush. Casting a vote for Ralph Nader didn’t seem like too much of a gamble in New York - a state that Gore was expected to (and did) win easily. Who would have thought that so huge a segment of the American electorate would actually be foolish enough to vote for a corrupt, mentally unbalanced little piece of shit from Crawford, Texas? Who would have even dreamed in a million years that the Bush Mob would have been able to steal the state of Florida by illegally removing 57,000 African Americans from the list of eligible voters? Who among us could have possibly imagined that so thoughtful and intelligent a man as Al Gore would run one of the dumbest campaigns in American political history?
—Oh, Ralph, you’ve done it again!

But the evidence suggests another possible motive for Nader to run this year — namely, that he hopes to help his longtime ally John McCain, to whom he owes at least one big favor. Nader is already focusing his fire on the Democrats, with his Web site featuring dozens of press releases attacking Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while none voice the slightest criticism of McCain. In his latest round of television appearances, Nader trained his fire directly on Obama.
—Ralph Nader loves John McCain

Barack Obama

Why should we believe Obama has courage to bring about change? He wouldn’t have his picture taken with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom when visiting San Francisco for a fundraiser in his honor because Obama was scared voters might think he supports gay marriage (Newsom acknowledged this to Reuters on January 26, 2007 and former Mayor Willie Brown admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle on February 5, 2008 that Obama told him he wanted to avoid Newsom for that reason.)
—The Obama Craze: Count Me Out

John McCain

In a letter to the Federal Election Commission, the Democratic National Committee said McCain has probably surpassed the roughly $50 million limit he agreed to observe when he applied for public funding last year. McCain, the front-runner for the Republican nomination to contest November’s presidential election should not be allowed to withdraw from the public-funding system now that he no longer needs it, the DNC argued. “He intends to simply ignore and flout the law,” it said. “Senator McCain is not free to do that without the Commission’s approval.”
—Democrats criticize McCain over campaign finance

Hilary Clinton

Do Hillary Clinton and John Edwards think they’re better than the rest of the Democratic candidates for president? Apparently, just after a forum in Detroit yesterday, Fox News microphones picked up the two whispering about how to exclude the less popular candidates from upcoming debates. “We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group,” the mic reportedly caught Edwards saying. Clinton reportedly agreed, replying, “We’ve got to cut the number…they’re not serious.”
—Caught on tape

Chapter II. Of The Mind; The Ethics

D2: I say that to the essence of any thing belonds that which, being given, the thing is [also] necessarily posited and which, being taken away, the thing is necessarily [also] taken away; or that without which the thing can neither be nor be conceived, and which can neither be nor be conceived without the thing. [my emphasis]

D3: By idea I understand a concept of the mind which the mind forms because it is a thinking thing.
Exp.: I say concept rather than perception, because the word perception seems to indicate that the mind is acted on by the object. But concept seems to express an action of the mind.

D7: By singular things I understand things that are finite and have a determinate existence. And if a number of individuals so concur in one action that together they are all the cause of one effect, I consider them all, to that extent, as one singular thing.

Spinoza’s epistemology is eerie, naturalistic, and strictly logical. However, this axiom is difficult to digest without qualms.

A5: We neither feel nor perceive any singular things, except bodies and modes of thinking.

Now, “feeling” and “bodies” are quite easily to conceptually grasp. We experience sensations and the corresponding bodies which exist are necessarily posited given that we do in fact sense something, namely the bodies given. “Perceiving” cannot be said to be only a form of “feeling”, as if just a synonym. Necessarily, for Spinoza, all our perceptions are of substance and its modes, but, under a more Spinozistic definition, what we “perceive” are the “modes of thought.” Therefore, our perceptions are constituted with what we perceive of the modes of thinking.

In Spinoza’s Metaphysical Thoughts, appended to his exposition of Cartesian philosophy, he distinguishes between “modes of reason (or thought)”, “chimaeras”, and “ficticious beings.” The first, modes of thought, are concepts such as love, sorrow, doubt, and so on; chimaeras would be contradictions, such as the proposition “She loves me, and she does not love me” (not that she hates me, because “hate” is but a contrary to “love”—Spinoza admits we can have contraries existing in our minds with the same object as a target of these affects, hate and love); and ficticious beings, or fictions, are propositions we take to believe because those propositions appeal to our finite intellects which constantly battle with our passions.

Yet, given this axiom, by Spinoza’s understanding, fictions and contradictions are never actually and truly perceived or felt. Perhaps, neither of these entities truly exist in Nature. Could we say, at least initially, that we posit the “contradiction”—or the law of noncontradiction—as a cognitive instrument or, even worse, a tendency of our minds? But what of the “fiction”? Can we deny that our states of belief contain meaning? I’m sure we could doubt the claim that belief-states do. Of course, this is all hinged on the assumption that Spinoza maintained his views consistently since the publication of his Metaphysical Thoughts up to the publication of his Ethics. We have no reason to believe he did not, and we should try our best to understand seemingly inconsistent notions from the text for our lack of understand may simply be an attempt of our mind to simply reject the consequences which perturb us. Namely, an argument may be raised which proposes “yes, of course we experience or perceive real, or classical, contradictions” or “people latch onto, after perceiving, fictions all the time!”

Indeed, it is difficult to take Spinoza at face value for a postulate he takes to be an axiom. It is strange that he would consider it as such without any hesitation (by “hesitation”, I refer to something like his disclaimer at P8 of Chapter 1 regarding P7), but, of course, he labored rigorously over the Ethics. So, he must have had good reason to grace the chapter with such an axiom, rather than attempting to demonstrate it as a proposition. That said, I will adhere to the Principle of Sufficient Reason so that I may determine the true nature of this seemingly strangely axiom; it may be a trivial answer or a mere lapse in my recollection of Spinoza’s text, but nevertheless, an answer shall be obtained!

Voting for a third party candidate is largely a symbolic gesture, and one that will not be prominent in this more pragmatic election climate. [my emphasis]

A student at a Daily Cougar staff forum commented with what’s quoted above to the question:

Ralph Nader, an independent candidate, is joining the presidential race - again. Do you think his rapid entry into the campaign will prevent the victory of presidential hopefuls Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., or Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.?

Asking this question presupposes that Nader has ever “prevented the victory” for any “presidential hopeful.” Nader and others argue that he did not, and it’s foolish to even raise the question as if his presence did. It’s disturbing that people still continue to make this sort of proposition: “If [Nader's presence in the previous race cost the Democrats the election], and if [Nader enters the upcoming presidential race], then [his entrance will cost the Democrats this upcoming election].” But that’s exactly what’s at issue: the first antecedent premise. Never mind the consequent!

It’s highly debatable that he did in fact cost the Democrats the previous election. The proposition is illegitimate, and therefore the question is illegitimate. But reason is not a friend of any media outlet. I suppose simply taking the first premise to be true is what the media is all about. We’ve got to ask something! Is this ethical? Is it right to cause the audience to lose sight of valid inquiry into important matters? Historical amnesia keeps the media in business and massive dissent at bay. The exploitation of human nature is sickening.

Anyway, what’s the deal with this “pragmatic climate” claim? First, U.S. citizens are being “pragmatic” about their speculations of a future administration & its political implications? I don’t give the populace that much credit.

Nader and other champions of Democracy, like Gravel, who founded the National Initiative, are advocating what is “pragmatic.” They believe the American people should be more politically involved than they are, asserting their legislative presence. If “pragmatism” involves keeping soldiers in Iraq, then we’ve got issue with weighing human lives in money as opposed to, alternatively speaking, engaging in strict diplomacy (with money). Nader and Gravel are for diplomacy and emphasize exit strategies. To say the least, staying or exiting both hold speculative “pragmatic” outcomes. But I think I get it: “pragmatic” necessarily means “actions (military presence) speak louder than words”. Adages sicken me when they give bleak predictions.

So that is necessarily pragmatic, when folks introduce terms as if uncontested. I say “uncontested” because it appears in the news paper while the public’s awareness, or lack of awareness, of the true term produces obliviousness as to what is actually being discussed (Are these candidates really the only “pragmatic” ones?). Terms become reconfigured within the sphere of the social norm; that is, the language-game of media communication. That said, an uncontested term flows “necessarily” on the wing of its new, modified definition but, perhaps, under the radar of socio-linguistic awareness & criticism. To put it tersely, not everybody’s Socrates! Let the term slide. We know & trust the media wouldn’t err on the usage of a term because we “know” it too!

Pragmatism as Action (military presence for the U.S. in the Middle East)—what a despicable blend of biased ideals! Is the “pragmatic climate” (the majority) seeking to verify any of the goods, the beauty, of “progress” being made in the Middle East? And by whose standard do we determine what constitutes this progress?

Further, what’s pragmatic about these mainstream candidates’ views on national health insurance? If we’re talking pragmatism, we’re talking empirical justification. Look at Canada & Britain, and then see if the claim that the Democrats’ campaigns are consistent with “pragmatism” is a valid one.

I highly doubt Obama’s and Clinton’s popularity has anything to do with pragmatism, unless we define what’s pragmatic as a person’s fancy, as a U.S. citizen’s inclination to bear arms—with all the socio-psychological implications that entails about this country.

I’ve got imperialism in my acculturated veins.

A book like this, a problem like this, is in no hurry; we both, I just as much as my book, are friends of lento. It is not for nothing that I have been a philologist, perhaps I am a philologist still, that is to say, A TEACHER OF SLOW READING:- in the end I also write slowly. Nowadays it is not only my habit, it is also to my taste - a malicious taste, perhaps? - no longer to write anything which does not reduce to despair every sort of man who is ‘in a hurry’. For philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow - it is a goldsmith’s art and connoisseurship of the WORD which has nothing but delicate, cautious work to do and achieves nothing if it does not achieve it lento. But precisely for this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of ‘work’, that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to ‘get everything done’ at once, including every old or new book:- this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read WELL, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers…My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: LEARN to read me well!
—Daybreak; Nietzsche

Learn to read slowly.

Immediately relevant links:
1 Nader running for president
2 Nader to run, but this time he may be run-of-the-mill

Nader links:
1 votenader.org
2 draftnader.org

1 The exposition, or process, of knowledge is reactionary.
1.1 Someone speaks; a quick leap to the standard opinions—”left” or the “norm”—is made.
1.2 Is it in their cognitive end for such leaps? The “end”; the “fault”, the “beginning”, that “for which” the opinion exists.
1.3 Nevertheless,—what is our goal? What is the philosopher’s obligation?
1.31 To understand the contents of their “ends”; therefore, to lead opinions to true understanding in-and-of itself, to introduce the opinion to the scaffold of provisional knowledge.
1.4 Then you—philosopher by trade or in spirit—will have a partner in travel, a stubborn comrade to only exploratory “ends”; these are our ends of progress.
1.5 We must bleed wholly into their opinion; and we do bleed exhaustively, meticulously, into it, for we love them [their opinion & this humanity] resolutely.