Could be a compliment. Smart people know better than to boast about being intellectual to strangers, and his response indicated he was smart enough not to.
this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
442 points (96.4% liked)
Greentext
4482 readers
2272 users here now
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
- Anon is often crazy.
- Anon is often depressed.
- Anon frequently shares thoughts that are immature, offensive, or incomprehensible.
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Nah they're calling him out for his entry level babbies first philosopher. Bodied that anon good and proper
I would love to give my niece (3 year old) a children's book with classical philosophers / philosophies explained in suitable level of complexity.
Something for my sister to read loud at bedtime :) Would need to be in Swedish though
That guy's skin colour really has no relevance to the story. It's like saying "tall woman next to me..."
Writing would be extremely boring without ever using adjectives.
I also find it amusing you find gender has relevance to the story.
load more comments
(7 replies)
Usually I'd agree with you, but in a forum full of vile racism, a racial non sequitur is kinda fun.
It helps to paint a more complete picture of the situation. The color of the man’s skin says nothing more than the color of his skin. However, now I know that the man that came to him is black. Since people generally don’t mention the color of someone’s skin if they are the same color. I also can assume that OP is not black.
I was a very successful manager for a retail company at one point. I was so successful that I was flown to the company headquarters with a few other managers from all over the US for 2 weeks. I got a free hotel room, and per diem money. All I had to do was go to a couple of classes everyday.
The one class that has always stuck in my mind was a race relations class. The teacher was a very tall thin black man, and he started by calling on students and asking “what is one way that you and I are different?”.
This line of questioning went on for 7 or 8 students. He got answers like “You’re bald, and I have hair”, and “you wear glasses, and I don’t”. Finally someone said “you’re black and I’m white”. The teacher goes “AHHH HAAA! Finally! Now, why is that so hard to say? It shouldn’t be. After all I am black and you are white. We are different in this way, and as long as that difference isn’t being said as a negative then there isn’t a problem with it”.
Also, as someone who grew up in a city where the population majority is black, and currently lives in a city that is majority black. People have to make that distinction all the time, and it goes both ways.
TLDR it’s ok to describe someone using their skin color as long as it’s not being used to disparage someone. While I understand the context of where we are. I don’t find anything about OP’s post racist.
I also grew up in a city that was majority black, in Georgia. I never thought anything of it. My family and I ended up moving away when I was in middle school but I visited friends occasionally after that. Many years later, I told my new girlfriend that I thought I might want to retire there. I love the nature there, the endless rolling hills, all kinds of different dirt and clay, oaks and pines for days. And they have amazing food, and some of the best (and sometimes the worst) people I've ever met. She said she had never been there, lived in Florida her whole life, so we visited and she decided that she liked it too but needed to spend more time there to really know if that would be a good long term future for her.
She told her parents about all this and the first thing her dad said was "did you know it's full of black people?" I lived there for many years and never once thought that there were too many or too few people nearby of any certain skin color, but the first thing this guy thinks about when he hears "Georgia" is lots of black people, and on top of that, that it's a bad thing. Honestly, kinda speechless, there was nothing to say but "yeah, and...?" And we try to avoid spending time with him as much as possible now.
I think that presenter you had was doing a good job of pointing to what so many people feel so awkward about. Acknowledging differences in race is not inherently bad. People just don't know how to handle it because too often, we remain isolated from each other. More interaction with people who are different than you will lead to greater understanding and normalization.
I feel your comment so much. I grew up in Bessemer, Al. I currently live in Birmingham, Al. I always assumed that the mix of people I grew up around was representative of how it was everywhere in the US. That is until I got older.
The rolling hills sounds like my home. The Appalachians come down into Georgia and then west and pretty much end at Birmingham. I live in the shadow of red mountain.
I imagine that you and I had very similar experiences.
Sending my love, Appalachian friend. May we find peace, happiness, love, and tolerance on our journey.
I don't think mentioning it is inherently racist(y'know, without the added context that it's fucking 4chan), it's just that it's irrelevant, and therefore kind of weird. As they mentioned, if the person were notably tall, that also wouldn't have any relevance, so unless you're just specifically calling attention to it because it's strange to you, which would be racist if used when describing someone's race, it's very strange to just suddenly say that they are that adjective without it being necessary for the story.
That reminds me of this skit: https://youtu.be/GS10Rp8zLE0?si=Yq_zs-GmdJZZxD9v&t=10
load more comments
(2 replies)
You would want to steal this man's identity away from him? Pretty privileged of you.
I'm out of the loop, what's wrong with plato?
My interpretation was “Plato is read by people still on their way” and anon didn’t take their meaning. People aren’t always clear. I know I’m not.
Ah, to understand this joke, you must first read Plato. Then you are on your way to understand the true essence of shitposts. Must there be a post so shit as to compare all shitposts to?
load more comments
(1 replies)
Couldn't tell a man from a plucked chicken.
Youd think a man as smart as people think he is would be able to tell the difference, but no. Makes me think he isn't all he's cracked up to be.
My read is basically the quote "the only thing I know is that I know nothing"
Wasn't that Socrates though, not Plato? Socrates is the one who had that those kinds of words of wisdom. His other good one was "like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."
There's not really any 'Plato.'
It's all allegedly Socrates in his dialogues.
But a lot of that content is credited to Plato instead, and in many cases it probably is his own stuff being put into the mouth of his more famous teacher at the time.
(In particular, I tend to get the sense the parts that end up as long monologues that are unequivocally being agreed with by the other person tend to be Plato's own stuff, as Socrates seemed to like nothing better than disagreement and in the genuine strong parts will even be his own devil's advocate if no one else stepped up.)
There’s not really any ‘Plato.’
It’s all allegedly Socrates in his dialogues.
Unless it was actually really all Plato. And Socrates was just made up.
Then Xenophon, who also wrote Socratic dialogues including an account of his trial and execution, had to be in on it too.
Those Greeks were devious, I wouldn't be surprised.
So-crates!
We know Socrates from Plato's writings, as he himself prefered to just talk to people. The way I understand it early works of Plato are Socrates, late works are Plato's own philosophies, and there's a mix in between. But we don't know for sure where Socrates ends and Plato begins.
You are correct, although Plato wasn't the only source on Socrates. Another student named Xenophon also featured Socrates in a few of his works. That dude had quite a different style than Plato. Instead of going all in on philosophy, he commanded a few armies.
His other good one was "like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."
No, I'm pretty sure that's from a TV show my mom used to watch. /s
Wisdom comes in many different forms, across many different media.
load more comments
(1 replies)
He's a bit of a fascist who managed to not carry forward his teacher's most valuable and allegedly highly regarded lesson of knowing the limits to one's own knowledge.
It gets even worse with his student Aristotle, but Plato kind of sucks compared to the more likely original aspects of his teacher.
It's a bit dizzying even, going from Socrates saying something like "all that I know is that I know nothing" or attacking his own assertion immediately after getting the other person to agree with it in some dialogues, to these long winded monologues that go on nearly forever making wildly illogical claims that go unchallenged by the other parties who instead agree wholeheartedly "certainly that must be the case that we should limit what information children can be raised with and get rid of music we don't approve of" or "some people say the universe wasn't intelligently designed but we won't even consider that because it'd be impious" (when the person allegedly saying this was executed for the charge of impiety).
Plato fascist
Wake up babe, new ancient Greek metapolitical lore just dropped
Not so new. For example, see Acton, The Alleged Fascism of Plato (1938).
Frankly, claiming that Plato is fascist is pure nonsense. It's ignoring the history of political thought (including, notably, Plato) and the economical and societal background that led to fascism.
You can argue that he inspired fascism or that he was a kind of proto-fascist. That would be weird (since it would exclude all the modern causes and influences for fascism), but arguable. But calling him a fascist is just an anachronism.
That's why I called him "a bit of a fascist."
You edited my comment to remove the "bit of a."
The Republic is well known and cited by pretty much every burgeoning autocrat throughout history.
The Republic is cited by everyone.
The Republic is undoubtedly influential in Western philosophy, but you won't find many contemporary political scientists or philosophers referencing it directly without a very heavy dose of qualification. In this context it's most often used as a primary historical work more than a philosophical one.
Pretty much the only time you will see someone engaging with it as a work of authoritative or relevant philosophy (and really, just, a handful of notable passages) is in the context of anti-liberal rhetoric which is intentionally exploiting the assumption that the reader does not have a broad background in contemporary politics, but might know the name "Plato."
It's kind of like the difference between quoting Newton in the context of general relativity, versus quoting Newton in support of the luminiferous aether.
load more comments
(1 replies)
What does fascist mean any more? How the hell did this word lose all meaning so fast. Everything is a fash now. Everything. This word means nothing at this point.
From Merriam Webster:
political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
Where in the sam-fuck did plato coalesce national and racial discourse into an authoritarian political regime that nationalized the means of production?
In The Republic where he exalted the Hellenes over the barbarian races and suggested a nation state run by Guardians who would oversee and control every facet of society from education to production including controlling domestic partnerships.
It was literally used as a blueprint to develop and justify fascism:
The cover of Hildebrandt's book left no room for doubt regarding the political sympathies of the author: it bore a swastika. In that very same year, Hildebrandt also published a translation of Plato's Republic in which he explicitly associated Plato and Hitler, presenting the latter as the philosopher guide of the dialogue. As a matter of fact, Hildebrandt's interpretation underlined many of the themes that were going to play a prominent role in subsequent Nazi propaganda and their appropriation of Plato, including an emphasis on Fuhrertum, racism, and, more specifically, eugenics.
Oh shit. For once that is actually a lil fashy. My bad.
I think this passage From Umberto Eco's Ur Fascism gets at the heart of your question and the essay itself is a fantastic read. The issue is that fascism is an inconsistent and contradictory political ideology.
Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.
But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
If I were that black man and I'd said that, it would've just been because it sounded funny in my head.
Maybe there is nothing to comeback to. Maybe they were just saying that Plato is what leads you to be an intellectual.
Wholesome man gives anom a compliment on the subway
view more: next ›