theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393

”The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.”

I’ve been really interested in this same exact stuff ever since I read a little Baudrillard and Debord, might pick this up.

This the guy from that Adam Curtis doc right?

Yessir

Just seen that book is written by the guy himself, instead of a biography Def gonna peep this

marxists.org/archive/mandel/1967/intromet/index.htm

best book for beginners

plato on my list

been known

he might have been the first volcel he was apparently very charming at dinner parties and made guests laugh with dirty jokes

he really might be the goat of this s***

wait until u read about his anthropology and see what he thinks of non white people

yall dont got that good good dam

i already know about his views there

How do you guys come across reading recommendations - philosophy and in general?

Thank you

reading the republic and i get the corrupting the youth charges against Socrates

So what yall reading?

How's Kant? tried to get into him and hes obviously a smart dude but im not a big fan of systemizers and a priori knowledge just seems linguistic trickery to me most of the time.

How you finding Nietzsche, currently finishing up his bibliog, reading Dawn (Daybreak or whatever translation) and I must say s*** is underrated for real, Im absolutely loving book 4 atm.

Kant is a f***ing genius in every sense of the word. Each time I grasp a portion of his system it’s massively rewarding and completely terraforms my understanding of reality and just perception itself. I understand your take with his system/a priori knowledge being sort of linguistic trickery since he writes in such an opaque and obtuse way, but he definitely makes a captivating case for his flavor of idealism in my opinion from the odds and ends that I can glean from reading it. It’s definitely difficult to read and a chore, I’ve been trying to get into his system properly for a little over 2 years or so at this point

Nietzsche is also a very fascinating writer and I’m very satisfied with how illuminating much of BYGE is, the excerpts I encountered of his stuff beforehand always really moved me and that trend continues as I get through BYGE, my only gripe with him so far is that I find him a little overtly cynical and skeptical at times but I understand that he’s stirring the pot and attempting to get people to examine their conventions and beliefs more critically. I find myself examining the things that I hold dear each time I sit and digest some of his musings, he’s a very sly, pointed thinker.

I also find a lot of direct parallels between Advaita Vedanta/transcendental idealism as well, they’re both two world metaphysics that demarcate the world in between phenomena/thing-in-itself in a way, except for where Kant’s is the noumena, Advaita’s is Brahman the absolute divine reality in which it’s both the substratum of all of existence and simultaneously transcendent of it.

I think even the concept of avidya (ignorance, taking the world of multiplicity as separate from Brahman) in Advaita could possibly qualify as an a priori category since the teleological ends of Advaita involve recognizing one’s true self which is identical to Brahman, however this is something that has to be realized through sadhana (spiritual practice) and viveka (discrimination). We are basically born into thinking of the phenomenal world as wholly existent away from any eternal immutable source and naturally we think of ourselves as distinct from it as well, a product of the ahamkara (the ego) so on and so forth. All of this is meant to be subdued and overcome through spiritual practice

I plan on intertwining the systems as much as I reasonably can, probably need to brush up on my Advaita a bit though because I definitely feel my understanding atrophying a bit ever since I kind of became tired of reading the same things about it from book to book.

Yeah I feel you on Kant, need to really sit down some time and try to grasp his s*** more deeply, but as you said his writing isn’t that exciting to me and kind of a chore to read sometimes. But as you said getting through things like that can be extremely rewarding. Thing with Nietzsche is that his aphoristic style is much easier for me to read through, even if I don’t understand a section at all I can just move on to the next one. And you’re right about Nietzsche sometimes being over cynical lol, especially in BGE where the first book is basically him just going in on other philosophies. It’s also what makes him very entertaining to read for me, but I guess it makes it hard to find out what exactly he does believe in, but the more you read of him the more his vision becomes clear imo, at least it was to me but his work is really interpretable in a lot of different ways and I think his philosophy was intended that way. If you want to read a more structured work of him where he more clearly expresses some of his beliefs definitely check out Geneolagy of Morals, that’s basically 3 long essays of him in a more traditional form.

I’ll head to Genolagy after wrapping up BYGE

I definitely think Nietzsche intended his philosophy to be interpreted in a number of ways as he seems to always tread over himself or even refute general themes you might gather as you read him, I had him pegged as a skeptic initially and then there’s an aphorism where he says skepticism is a framework of a sickly and worrisome temperament

If you want a more streamlined and general overview of Kant and his idealism (and the other thinkers in his sphere) I’d suggest this book:

Their chapter on Kant is a lot more digestible and gives a direct overview of his system away from Kant’s writings, I also think George Berkeley would serve as a good cursory intro to Kant (or idealism in general, really) to an extent since I personally find his idealism somewhat similar to Kant’s but it isn’t as nearly as sophisticated or dense.

mucho texto